R. Morris - A Razor Wrapped in Silk

Porfiry put his ear to the steel door but heard nothing. He nodded to Nobel to open up.

‘Porfiry Petrovich, are you sure this is wise?’

‘Don’t be afraid, Pavel Pavlovich. We must find a way to talk to him. We will achieve nothing, if not.’

The door slid open heavily on its runners. The smell of gunpowder rushed out as if in flight.

‘Tell me, Ludwig Immanuelevich, just so that I might be prepared … I have heard of your brother Alfred’s experiments. Are there any of the substances he has invented stored in here?’

Ludwig Nobel shrugged his shoulders. ‘Alfred has returned to Stockholm. It is eight years since he successfully tested the explosive potential of nitroglycerine in the Neva. However, I cannot say for certain that he took all his toys with him.’

A glimmer of light was visible at the rear of the storeroom, shining up from behind dim shapes.

‘He has taken a light in there!’ Nobel’s face rippled with incredulity. ‘One spark from that could take the whole building up.’

‘Apollon Mikhailovich!’ called Porfiry through the open doorway. ‘Come out. You are placing yourself and others in grave danger.’

There was a scuffle of movement, footsteps scraping. Tense hissed whispers echoed between the looming racks of massed ammunitions.

‘What does this achieve?’ continued Porfiry. ‘Your self-destruction will not bring about a more just society. We need you alive, Apollon Mikhailovich, to help shape the future. Russia will be nothing without its great men!’

‘There can be no future,’ came an answering cry. ‘Until we have swept away the present.’

A stifled sob broke out.

‘Maria Petrovna? Let her go, Apollon Mikhailovich. I will come in in her place, and we can talk about how we can bring about the changes you desire.’

‘ Destroy everything! ’

Porfiry flashed alarm towards Virginsky. ‘I’m coming in,’ he called back to Perkhotin. ‘I only want to talk. I am alone. Unarmed. I wish to learn from you. To be your disciple.’

Porfiry held up a hand to deter Virginsky from following him. ‘Close the door behind me and see to it that the area is cleared.’ With a nod of resolve to Ludwig Nobel, he stepped inside.

The light expanded as Porfiry walked towards it, picking his way around blocks of darkness. As he progressed, the objects around him became more clearly discernible. He saw stacks of metallic canisters and towers of crates. As his hand groped about him, it strayed onto a bulging column of wooden barrels, which swayed slightly at his touch. A forest of similar columns receded into the darkness. These were the barrels of gunpowder he presumed. Alongside them were metal drums, racked on their sides. Beyond the drums, he saw a pyramid of cannonballs, smaller than he had expected, each one about the size of a clenched fist. Porfiry reached a hand out towards the apex of the pyramid and clasped the black sphere resting there. He hefted it swiftly behind his back in his right hand.

Rounding a corner of the maze of deadly goods, he saw the source of light directly ahead of him. Perkhotin held an oil lantern over the black circular abyss at the neck of an opened barrel of gunpowder.

Maria Petrovna was seated hunched on the floor, huddled into a large, heavy shawl with a plaid pattern. Next to her was a man in labourer’s clothes whom Porfiry took to be the foreman, Fedya Vasilevich.

‘You see how things are, magistrate.’

Maria looked up at Perkhotin’s words and met Porfiry’s gaze with a look of mute pleading.

‘Make any sudden movement and I will let go of the lantern.’

‘Teach me,’ said Porfiry. ‘Teach me what you would achieve by that. I have come to learn from you.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘You left a clue for me, did you not? Out of the eater, the eaten . I presumed you meant to be found, leaving such an easy clue.’

‘I congratulate you. The riddle was a test. You have passed. You will be rewarded. You will be here to witness the cataclysm.’

‘You will tear apart the lion of the imperial state.’

‘Yes.’

‘And bring forth the honey of a new social order.’

‘Yes.’

‘You will send out three hundred flaming foxes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Only one thing concerns me, Apollon Mikhailovich. How will the people be able to interpret these wonders? How will they know that the revolution has begun, that the time to rise up is here? I know this corrupt regime. I know how it works. They will merely say that there has been an accident at the Nobel Plant. They will deny your act its revolutionary aspect.’

In the lamp glow, Perkhotin’s great shovel-beard was a dark spread of negativity eating away half his face. Above it, his expression clouded as he took in what Porfiry had said.

‘You need a witness,’ went on Porfiry. ‘Someone who will be believed. Someone the Tsar dare not silence. Let her go. Her father is a senior officer in the Third Section. She is untouchable. And think what power her testimony would have.’

‘No. She must stay. You may go. They will believe you. But she must stay. She must be made to understand.’

‘At least let Fedya go. He has served his purpose by admitting you here. You do not need him any more.’

‘His death is necessary. All our deaths are necessary. I have no choice in this. Revolution is an inevitable process. A force of nature. The innocent will die. Blood will flow. The blood of martyrs as well as of our enemies. But the process will triumph. I must not shrink from this.’

‘But you have never killed anyone, Apollon Mikhailovich! You didn’t kill any of the children, did you? That is not the role you play in this. You are the leader. The great thinker, originator of the masterplan. It is for others to execute it. Your disciples. You must have your disciples. Like Aglaia Filippovna. She was your instrument, your weapon. You aimed, primed and fired her. But she was not perfect. She was too wild, uncontrollable. She reduced everything to a sordid personal drama. There was no understanding, no true sense of mission. She simply killed to appease her bloodlust. A useful tool, but not a sophisticated one. How did it work? You picked out the children for her to kill?’

‘No. It was not like that. At first, I wanted just to show her how the poor live under this criminal regime. To open her eyes. Her sister Yelena had a carriage, provided by that banker. She refused to set foot in it, but she let Aglaia use it. We would go driving around the worst slums and I would show her everything. One day, I recognised one of the children from the school, Svetlana, and called her over. She climbed into the carriage and sat between us. Before I could stop her, Aglaia Filippovna had strangled the girl. She said she did it out of mercy. That it was an act of kindness to kill the girl. I dismissed the driver, gave him some money and deposited him near a tavern. He knew nothing of what had happened, so quickly and quietly had Aglaia Filippovna committed the crime. I drove the carriage myself across the city, looking for somewhere to deposit the body.’

‘Why did you not go to the police? I only ask because I wish to understand.’

‘The police ?’ Perkhotin spat the word back dismissively. ‘One cannot undo what is done. Besides, I saw that a greater purpose could be served. I had noticed the ring around Aglaia’s thumb. She was in the habit of borrowing her sister’s jewellery as well as her carriage. I realised I could not prevent her from killing, so I decided to take a utilitarian approach to her murderous instincts. To use them for the benefit of society.’

‘And thereafter you took her out in the carriage yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘But when she killed Yelena, she went too far. That was never part of the plan, was it, Apollon Mikhailovich?’