R. Morris - A Razor Wrapped in Silk

The box was heavier than he had expected, so much so that it almost slipped through his fingers as the professor released his hold. How heavy could a boy’s head be ? flashed through his mind.

‘Be careful with it,’ warned Professor Bubnov. He scuttled down the steps to share the load, or rather to hover his hands in a precautionary manner close to the box as Virginsky carried it. ‘On the table, please.’

Virginsky slid it into the centre of the table. It gave a protesting screech. Professor Bubnov lifted the lid, which was only loosely in place. Virginsky peered in. To his disappointment, all he could see was tightly packed crushed ice. He felt a tap on his arm. Porfiry signalled for him to move back, inclining his head at the same time towards Maria Petrovna. Virginsky remembered himself with a grimace; his head hung as he backed off.

Professor Bubnov laid the lid upside down on the table, revealing that it too was backed with lead. He began to transfer ice from the crate to the lid. Virginsky wanted to look inside to see what was being uncovered, but it was not his place to do so. At last, the professor nodded to Maria Petrovna. She stepped forward and stooped over the open crate, as if somehow she was readying herself to dive into it. Indeed, at one point, she seemed about to fall forward. She was forced to take hold of the sides of the crate to steady herself, giving the impression that she was drinking up whatever was contained in that bland cube.

Now, now was the time to look into her face. He might tell himself that it was his official duty to look there, simply for confirmation of the boy’s identity. But he knew that he was looking there because he was guilty of every charge he had laid against Porfiry Petrovich — of a kind of emotional sadism, in fact.

Even so, that self-realisation did not prevent him from looking.

Maria Petrovna closed her eyes, squeezing them tight over the terrible sight within the box. A sob broke from her. Her head nodded forwards once. This movement set in train a spasm of nodding. ‘Yes, yes,’ she gasped. ‘It’s Mitka.’

It was Porfiry who took hold of her, gently, with infinite delicacy, and guided her by the elbows away from the table.

Virginsky stepped into her place.

The boy was looking up at him, his head surrounded by a halo of ice fragments. His face was tinged with blue, eyes almost the same blue, wide open, in boyish wonder and excitement. His lips were parted, in a lung-bursting gasp.

‘Shall I put it back?’ asked Professor Bubnov.

‘No, thank you,’ said Porfiry. ‘Please leave it on the table. I will need to examine it more closely in due course. You may replace the lid, however — for now, that is.’ Porfiry turned his attention to Maria: ‘How are you, my dear? Do you wish to sit down? Pavel Pavlovich, that chair, please.’

Virginsky fetched the chair from the desk. Maria sank into it gratefully. She covered her face with one hand, fingers spread as if to catch her pain and squeeze it into nothing.

‘There are other children missing.’ Porfiry’s voice was low, a husky whisper, awed at its own temerity.

Maria nodded.

‘They may be here.’

A wince as though of acute physical pain contorted Maria’s face.

‘Would you be willing to look at the other children here, to try to identify them too?’

‘Porfiry Petrovich!’ cried Virginsky.

Porfiry was ready for his protest. ‘Surely it is better to face it now, once and for all, and never to have to return to this room?’

‘Porfiry … Petrovich …’ Her voice, though faltering, compelled their attention. ‘ … is right.’

Porfiry nodded decisively to Professor Bubnov, who mounted the steps again.

Five more crates were handed down, with Virginsky and Porfiry taking it in turns to receive them. They placed them side by side on the table. Then Professor Bubnov climbed down the steps to remove the lids. Still wearing the black rubber gloves, he began to scoop ice out of the first of the crates. His hands plunging into the ice made a brittle hawking sound.

There was something hypnotic about his execution of the task. His slow methodical movements seemed to create a haven in time, which would serve to postpone indefinitely the dreadful spectacle to come.

He moved along the row of crates, clearing ice. Each time he worked with the same unhurried persistence.

Eventually, he came to the end of the last crate. He straightened himself above it and turned to Porfiry with a grim dip of his head. Porfiry reached out a hand to Maria Petrovna. Her face was stricken, nauseous. She was shivering, her teeth clattering violently.

She said nothing. Virginsky watched as Porfiry took her hand. He imagined the cold frailty of that hand. All her vulnerability and courage seemed to be concentrated in it. He wanted to be the one who was enclosing it in his own firm hands.

Maria rose shakily from her seat.

She stood over the first of the crates. An inarticulate cry, a gurgle of horror and grief, vibrated in her throat. ‘Lana!’ she cried. ‘That is Lana!’

Porfiry steered her on to the second crate. Maria shook her head, as she did over the third and fourth crates. The fifth crate, however, produced a gasp and a name.

‘Artur.’ She looked up, first into Porfiry’s face, then into Virginsky’s. Her gaze was searching. He felt her trying to look beyond his face, beyond his humanity even, for some explanation of what she had been shown. ‘They were my children,’ she said at last. ‘They came to my school.’ Her eyes narrowed as she processed a difficult thought. ‘Is that why they are dead?’

Virginsky and Porfiry exchanged a brief, almost guilty, glance, but neither answered her question.

At Porfiry’s instruction, the three heads were taken out of their crates and laid side by side on the table. Additional lanterns were fetched, their light reflecting garishly back off the livid flesh, lending it the illusion of animation as each lantern was swung into place.

Porfiry looked down at the children. Mitka, Svetlana and Artur. He tried to imagine that they were lying in a big bed, asleep. But their eyes were open, and that horrific emptiness beneath their necks mocked any attempt to take refuge in a sentimental fantasy. Their faces were united by death and childhood, but Porfiry made an effort to appreciate them as individuals before he hardened himself to the task of assessing their remains as evidence. Mitka’s features were elfin, his head coming to a delicate point at the chin. Svetlana, pale and blonde, appeared younger; her features less mature, her nose a mere button, her chin hardly there at all. Artur was the oldest. His features had begun to coarsen, his nose outgrowing the rest of his face. His hair was dark and wiry, and the faint smudge of his first moustache shadowed his upper lip.

Porfiry heard the door close behind him. He half-turned to acknowledge Virginsky’s entrance.

‘How is she?’ Porfiry asked, stooping again over the children.

‘How do you think?’

Porfiry twisted his head in Virginsky’s direction, then quickly faced back towards the table. ‘My dear Pavel Pavlovich, I cannot help remarking a strange, strained tension in your demeanour towards me. One might even call it resentment. May I ask what I have done to cause offence?’

Virginsky seemed to weigh up his options before replying. He gestured towards the heads. ‘You would have sprung this on her, as you once sprung a similar shock on me.’

Porfiry stood up to face Virginsky. ‘I did not want to warn her at the school, that’s true. I saw little point. I wanted to spare her the anguish of imagining this, at least for the duration of our journey here. However, I would have told her before bringing her into this room.’