R. Morris - The Gentle Axe

“Go on.”

The boy’s lips rippled uncomfortably. Another spasm of a shrug shook him.

“Tell me more about these photographs. What were they of?”

“Stupid.”

“What is so stupid about them?”

“Just…stupid.”

“You are the stupid here, boy. Tell me exactly what you saw when you looked at the photographs.”

“Girls.”

“Girls? What is so stupid about that? Don’t you like to look at photographs of girls?”

“They had no clothes on.”

Salytov let out a great “Ha!” of amusement. “What’s wrong with you? That’s not stupid, that’s…” The word eluded Salytov. “Do you have any of these photographs?”

Kesha frowned and shook his head. “I didn’t like to look at them.”

“Come, come! A boy of your age! Listen, I will not arrest you for looking at a few smutty photographs. Tell the truth now, Kesha.” The boy was startled to hear his name from Salytov. “What did you do with the photographs?”

“I wouldn’t take them! I wouldn’t look at them!” insisted Kesha hotly.

“Why ever not? Are you a skopsy ? Have you cut off your balls and dick, is that it? Or are you-” A look of horrified disgust came over Salytov.

“It’s nothing like that. It was their faces. They looked afraid.”

“They’re just whores.”

“They were-some of them-they were just little girls. I have a little sister. It’s not right.”

“They are born whores, girls like that. Why else do you think they do it?”

“I didn’t like to look at them.”

“You have a saint here, cleaning your pots,” Salytov joked to the landlord.

“He is a good boy, Kesha is.”

“He is a liar. I know boys. He is a liar, or worse.” Salytov looked at Kesha distastefully. “Tell me, skopsy, did he show these photographs to anyone else?”

“He was always showing them to people. He would sell them to whoever would buy them, and-” There was a warning look from the landlord. Kesha broke off.

The fire returned to Salytov’s complexion. “Damn you! What’s this?”

“I remember the man myself, now,” put in the landlord quickly. “Once he tried to pay for his kvas with some of these pictures.”

“Strange how your memory returns. Did you accept the pornography as payment?”

“He told me he was an artist. They are what he called artistic poses. Nobody said anything about pornography.”

“Get them.”

The landlord moved slowly, reluctance thickening his torpor. His eyes were the last part of him to turn.

“Hurry it up!” barked Salytov. He smirked at the landlord’s waddling gait as he hurried into the back room.

Approximately the size of playing cards, the photographs were no worse than many he had seen. True, the faces had a certain bewildered quality, but he found that only added to the piquancy. He shuffled through them briskly, ruthlessly, careful not to dwell on any one image or to betray an interest other than professional. And yet the luminous pallor of the flesh, the crisp darknesses of exposed and in some cases immature genitalia, drew his eye and hardened his pulse. He recognized, in among the stilted pageant, the young prostitute who had been brought into the station, accused of stealing a hundred rubles. In the instant that her photograph flashed before him, he assessed the fullness of her breasts.

There were men in some of the photographs. Their faces were always turned away, cropped off or blurred by movement: never shown. Unlike the women, the men were clothed, although in some cases their sexual organs, in varying states of rigidity, were exposed. In one instance, the male subject had been captured at the moment of his self-induced ejaculation. The beads of his semen hung in the air; their trajectory seemed to be toward the female model’s abdomen. She viewed their approach without enthusiasm.

Salytov turned the photographs over and shuffled through them again. An address was written on the reverse of one.

“This. What is this?” said Salytov, laying it down on the counter.

“Three Spassky Lane,” read the landlord.

“Is this Govorov’s address?”

“I suppose it must be. I never noticed it before now.” The landlord avoided Salytov’s eye.

“I find that hard to believe. It’s more likely that he wrote it for you deliberately. So that you would know where to go if you wanted more of the same.”

“Well, I don’t remember. Besides, I don’t spend much time looking at the backs of photographs.”

“This is police evidence now,” said Salytov with a provocative grin. He pocketed the photographs. The landlord didn’t offer a protest, unless a slight hunching of the shoulders could be read as such. “If you see either of these men again, Ratazyayev or Govorov, send Kesha to the police bureau on Stolyarny Lane. Detain them until we get here. Is that understood?”

Salytov didn’t wait for an answer. He delivered a warning nod with the precision of a hammer blow. The concertina player started up again. Salytov had the fanciful idea that her playing was not just mournful but diseased. In his mind, tuberculosis floated in the ragged notes. He turned suddenly and fled. The sense of contamination pursued him, even as he took the steps two at a time.

Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five …

Virginsky counted his steps. But no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t put any distance between himself and his humiliation. It was always there with him, staring him in the face, in the form of the boots Porfiry Petrovich had given him. So it had come to this: he was a charity case. And to accept charity from such a man! Virginsky had not forgotten how they came for him in the night, nor the words with which the magistrate pointed him out: “That is the man. That is Virginsky.” And then this same Judas had the nerve to argue that he should relinquish his freedom voluntarily!

That man is the devil, he said to himself. To think I nearly went along with it.

He realized that he had lost count of his steps. It was difficult to count and think at the same time. That was the point, of course-the point of the counting. If he could only concentrate on his counting, he wouldn’t have to think about his humiliation. He picked up from the last number he could remember, not knowing how many steps he had missed.

Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight…

He was walking along the side of the solidified Yekaterininsky Canal, toward the Nevsky Prospect. It was not a day to be out unless you had good reason. The cold wind assaulted his face and mocked his tattered overcoat. The ice cut into him and spread along his nerve fibers with greedy, destructive haste. There was a bend in the canal. The towpath kinked sharply northward. On his right was the Imperial Bank, turning its curved back on him jealously. You shall not have any of this, it seemed to say. On the other side, across the canal, loomed the massive bulk of the Foundling Hospital. It struck him as an ironic juxtaposition.

Virginsky stopped to consider the significance of it. He felt weak, unable to think. And yet it was suddenly pressingly important to him to work out what it meant to be standing between the Imperial Bank and the Foundling Hospital.

As he stood there, a man even more destitute than he shuffled past, his meager jacket and trousers padded with straw and newspaper. The tramp seemed to have come from nowhere, his footsteps almost silent. There were many such individuals in Petersburg, anonymous and interchangeable. As one died, another would appear. Virginsky did not attempt to meet his eye, though he did look at his feet. The man wore an old, disintegrating pair of felt boots, soaked and filthy.