R. Morris - A Razor Wrapped in Silk

‘What’s your name, son?’

‘Pasha.’

‘I am Pasha too! Pleased to meet you, Pasha.’ Virginsky shook hands with the boy. He flashed a glance towards Ustyantsev, who was watching them with a sullen glower. ‘He treats you pretty roughly, that fellow.’

‘Mr Ustyantsev’s a good boss.’

‘Good?’

‘There’s worse.’

‘I dare say, but …’

The boy looked up, his eyes wide with questions. Then a weight of disappointment settled on him, bowing his head back down. He had looked for something in Virginsky and not found it.

‘Do you know Mitka? The boy who used to work here?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘Yes, I know. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

The boy shrugged and shifted his feet unhappily. ‘Please, sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘I have to go now. I’ll miss my lunch.’

‘Can I come with you?’

Puzzlement rippled across the boy’s face.

‘I wouldn’t want you to miss your lunch.’

‘There won’t be none for you.’

‘That’s all right. I … don’t want to eat anything. I just want to talk to you, and perhaps some of the other children.’

‘I only have half an hour.’

‘We’d better go then.’

The boy’s eyes widened in alarm, as his confusion spiked into fear. He looked Virginsky up and down uneasily.

‘There’s no need to be afraid. I’m a magistrate. Do you know what a magistrate is?’

The boy shook his head forlornly.

‘It’s a gentleman who looks into things. At this present moment I am looking into why Mitka disappeared and where he might have gone. I need you to help me.’

‘I shall have to ask Granny Kvasova.’

‘Who is Granny Kvasova?’

‘She looks after us at the ’prentice house.’

‘Well, that’s very good of her. She sounds like an excellent woman. May I meet her?’

The boy nodded, the twist of a smile at last flickering onto his lips. ‘She gives us our lunch.’

‘Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way, my friend.’

The boy’s shrug took Virginsky back to his childhood. He had seen precisely such a shrug animate the shoulders of his school friends when he was Pasha’s age, and had felt its jounce in his own. It was a shrug of fellowship and good humour, a shrug of acceptance and understanding. It was the way you met a world you little understood and were powerless to control, not so much a gesture of indifference or resignation, as a recognition of kinship. He smiled as he followed Pasha through the factory.

Around them the machines idled like predatory beasts feeding. It would not be long before their hunger for production was re-awakened.

‘Was Mitka your friend?’

The same shrug jerked Pasha’s shoulders and Virginsky realised that there was another aspect to it that he had not acknowledged: it was a way of expressing things for which the child had no words, that perhaps would always remain beyond words. But it was capable of nuances even so, almost as much as any verbal language.

‘Did you go to the school with him? You know that Mitka went to school?’

Pasha shook his head fiercely. ‘Granny Kvasova told us that Satan would get us if we went to that school.’

‘I can assure you that that’s not true.’

‘She says the lady teacher is a witch who consorts with the devil.’

‘Does she indeed? Well, I know the lady teacher and I can tell you she’s not a witch.’

Pasha looked unconvinced. ‘Did Satan get Mitka? Granny Kvasova says he did. She says the lady teacher lay with Mitka and then fed him to Satan, her husband.’

‘That really is the most outrageous lie!’ cried Virginsky. ‘You don’t believe her, do you?’

The shrug now had a different meaning. It seemed steeped in wilful ignorance and left Virginsky depressed.

*

The apprentice house was a low, brick-built outhouse, on the other side of the yard but still within the precincts of the factory and beneath its sprawling shadow.

So this had been Mitka’s home , thought Virginsky as he crossed the threshold. They entered through the canteen, a large open room arrayed with benches, the air thick with the vinegary smell of cabbage soup. The floor was bare, the boards gaping and grubby, soft wood crumbling away; walls of whitewashed brick.

Pasha’s face fell immediately. The other children, about fifty in number, of varying ages, were already seated, clustered around a series of communal bowls from which they spooned their meagre nourishment with competitive haste. He dashed away from Virginsky and forced his way into a circle of backs. His intrusion was not resisted, merely met with distracted resentment. Virginsky knew he had lost him.

A settled stupor possessed the diners, though whether of exhaustion or hunger — or both — Virginsky could not say. No one spoke. The clatter of cutlery was eloquent enough. There was none of the wheeling liveliness and laughter that is usually found when children congregate. They spooned the soup into their mouths with determined concentration, the same kind of concentration they applied to their tasks in the factory.

None of the children paid him any attention, though his presence was noted by the one adult in the room, a bonneted woman with the scrawny head of a turkey, who stood guard over the children. She wiped her palms combatatively on a filthy apron and began to move in his direction.

Virginsky gave a distant bow and stepped forward to meet her halfway. ‘You must be Granny Kvasova. Pasha told me all about you.’

The woman gave him a sharp look that set her dewlap trembling. ‘And who might you be?’ Her voice was high and piercing.

‘I am Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky. A magistrate. I am investigating the disappearance of a boy who was until recently employed at the factory, and indeed may still be considered an employee. Dmitri Krasotkin. I presume you know him?’

‘You had better speak to Oleg Sergeevich about him. Mitka worked for Oleg Sergeevich.’

‘Yes, I am aware of that. I have already interviewed that gentleman. I wish to speak to you now. Mitka lived here at the apprentice house?’

Granny Kvasova’s head twitched in what may have been a nod of assent.

‘Under your care?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s a lot of children for one person to look after.’

‘I have help. But they ain’t too bad. They’re good children. Always behave themselves.’

Virginsky glanced around. ‘They seem too exhausted to do otherwise. Were you not concerned when Mitka went missing?’

‘He always was a wilful one.’

‘Did you report his disappearance to the factory management?’

‘I told Oleg Sergeevich.’

‘And the police?’

‘The police have better things to do than chase runaways.’

‘Runaways? The boy was not a slave here, I hope. He was free to leave.’

‘Exactly. He was free to leave. And he did.’

‘Were you not afraid for his safety?’

‘I dare say he can look after himself.’

‘Why did you spread malicious rumours about the young gentlewoman who runs the school Mitka attended?’

‘Malicious? Who says they’re malicious?’

‘You called her a witch, I believe.’

‘She came round here, poking her nose where it wasn’t wanted. I could see right through her. Godless and depraved, she is. That’s why she was after Mitka. She likes them young.’

‘Are you aware there are laws to protect people from such slander?’

‘Slander, is it?’ The woman’s voice rose to a pitch at the limit of human hearing. ‘I saw the way she looked at the children. Licking her lips. I sent her packing, I can tell you.’

‘I advise you to curtail such vile allegations or you may find yourself in deep trouble.’