Master of Petersburg Read online

  He is waiting for her to come to what is surely the heart of the matter: that Matryona is aware of what is passing between her mother and himself and is in a frenzy of possessive jealousy. But that, it seems, she is not yet prepared to bring into the open.

  ‘I am sorry about the confusion, sorry about everything. It was impossible for me to leave tonight as I had planned – I won’t go into the reasons, they are not important. I will be here for another day or two at most, till my friends help me with money. Then I will pay what I owe and be gone.’

  ‘To Dresden?’

  ‘To Dresden or to other lodgings – I can’t say yet.’

  ‘Very well, Fyodor Mikhailovich. But as for money, let us wipe the slate clean between the two of us right now. I don’t want to belong to a long list of people you are in debt to.’

  There is something about her anger he does not understand. She has never spoken so woundingly before.

  He sits down at once to write to Maykov. ‘You will be surprised to hear, dear Apollon Grigorevich, that I am still in Petersburg. This is the last time, I hope, that I will need to appeal to your kindness. The fact is, I find myself in such straits that, short of pawning my coat, I have no means of paying for my lodging, to say nothing of returning to my family. Two hundred roubles will see me through.’

  To his wife he writes: ‘I stupidly allowed a friend of Pavel’s to prevail on me for a loan. Maykov will again have to come to the rescue. As soon as my obligations are settled I will telegraph.’

  So the blame is shifted again to Fedya’s generous heart. But the truth is, Fedya’s heart is not generous. Fedya’s heart –

  There is a loud knocking at the door of the apartment. Before Anna Sergeyevna can open it, he is at her side. ‘It must be the police,’ he whispers, ‘only they would come at this hour. Let me try to deal with them. Stay with Matryona. It is best that they do not question her.’

  He opens the door. Before him stands the Finnish girl, flanked by two blue-uniformed policemen, one of them an officer.

  ‘Is this the man?’ the officer asks.

  The girl nods.

  He stands aside and they enter, pushing the girl before them. He is shocked by the change in her appearance. Her face is a pasty white, she moves like a doll whose limbs are pulled by strings.

  ‘Can we go to my room?’ he says. ‘There is a sick child here who shouldn’t be disturbed.’

  The officer strides across the room and whips open the curtain. Anna Sergeyevna is revealed, bending protectively over her daughter. She whirls around, eyes blazing. ‘Leave us alone!’ she hisses. Slowly he draws the curtain to.

  He ushers them into his own room. There is something familiar about the way the Finn shuffles. Then he sees: her ankles are shackled.

  The officer inspects the shrine and the photograph. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My son.’

  There is something wrong, something has changed about the shrine. His blood runs cold when he recognizes what it is.

  The questioning begins.

  ‘Has a man named Sergei Gennadevich Nechaev been here today?’

  ‘A person whom I suspect to be Nechaev, but who does not go under that name, has been here, yes.’

  ‘What name does he go under?’

  ‘Under a woman’s name. He was disguised as a woman. He was wearing a dark coat over a dark-blue dress.’

  ‘And why did this person call on you?’

  ‘To ask for money.’

  ‘For no other reason?’

  ‘For no other reason that I am aware of. I am no friend of his.’

  ‘Did you give him money?’

  ‘I refused. However, he took what I had, and I did not stop him.’

  ‘You are saying that he robbed you?’

  ‘He took the money against my wishes. I did not think it prudent to try to recover it. Call that robbery if you wish.’

  ‘How much was it?’

  ‘About thirty roubles.’

  ‘What else happened?’

  He risks a glance at the Finn. Her lips quiver soundlessly. Whatever they have done to her in the time she has been in their hands has changed her demeanour entirely. She stands like a beast in the slaughterhouse waiting for the axe to fall.

  ‘We spoke about my son. Nechaev was a friend of my son’s, of a kind. That is how he came to know this house. My son used to lodge here. Otherwise he would not have come.’

  ‘What do you mean – “otherwise he would not have come”? Are you saying he expected to see your son?’

  ‘No. None of my son’s friends expects to see him again. I mean that Nechaev came not because he expected sympathy from me but because of that past friendship.’

  ‘Yes, we know all about your son’s culpable associations.’

  He shrugs. ‘Perhaps not culpable. Perhaps not associations – perhaps only friendships. But let it rest there. It is a question that will never come to trial.’

  ‘Do you know where Nechaev went from here?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Show me your papers.’

  He hands over his passport – his own, not Isaev’s. The officer pockets it and puts on his cap. ‘You will report to the station on Sadovaya Street tomorrow morning to make a full declaration. You will report to the same station each day before noon, seven days a week, until further notice. You will not leave Petersburg. Is that clear?’

  ‘And at whose expense am I to remain here?’

  ‘That is not my concern.’

  He signals to his companion to remove their prisoner. But at the front door the Finn, who has up to this point not uttered a word, balks. ‘I’m hungry!’ she says plaintively, and when her guard grasps her and tries to force her out, plants her feet and holds on to the door-jamb: ‘I’m hungry, I want something to eat!’

  There is something wailing and desperate about her cry. Though Anna Sergeyevna is nearer to her, it is an appeal unmistakably addressed to the child, who has quietly crept out of bed and, thumb in mouth, stands watching.

  ‘Let me!’ says Matryona, and in a flash has darted to the cupboard. She returns with a wedge of rye bread and a cucumber; she has brought her little purse too. ‘You can have all of it!’ she says excitedly, and thrusts food and money together into the Finn’s hands. Then she takes a step back and, bobbing her head, drops an odd, old-fashioned curtsy.

  ‘No money!’ the guard objects fiercely, and makes her take the purse back.

  Not a word of thanks from the Finn, who after her moment’s rebellion has relapsed into passivity. As though, he thinks, the spark has been beaten out of her. Have they indeed been beating her – or worse? And does Matryona somehow know it? Is that the source of her pity? Yet how can a child know such things?

  As soon as they are gone he returns to his room, blows out the candle, sets icon, pictures, candle on the floor, and removes the three-barred flag that has been spread over the dressing-table. Then he returns to the apartment. Anna Sergeyevna is sitting at Matryona’s bedside, sewing. He tosses the flag on to the bed. ‘If I speak to your daughter I am sure to lose my temper again,’ he says, ‘so perhaps you can ask on my behalf how this comes to be in my room.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What is this?’

  ‘Ask her.’

  ‘It’s a flag,’ says Matryona sullenly.

  Anna Sergeyevna spreads the flag out on the bed. It is over a metre in length and evidently well-used, for the colours – white, red, black in equal vertical bars – are weathered and faded. Where can they have been flying it – from the roof of Madame la Fay’s establishment?

  ‘Who does this belong to?’ asks Anna Sergeyevna.

  He waits for the child to answer.

  ‘The people. It’s the people’s flag,’ she says at last, reluctantly.

  ‘That’s enough,’ says Anna Sergeyevna. She gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead. ‘Time to sleep.’ She draws the curtain shut.

  Five minutes later she is in his room, bringing wit
h her the flag, folded small. ‘Explain yourself,’ she says.

  ‘What you have there is the flag of the People’s Vengeance. It is the flag of insurrection. If you want me to tell you what the colours stand for, I will tell you. Or ask Matryona herself, I’m sure she knows. I can think of no act more provocative and more incriminating than to display it. Matryona spread it out in my room in my absence, where the police could see it. I don’t understand what has got into her. Has she gone mad?’

  ‘Don’t use that word about her! She had no idea the police were coming. As for this flag, if it causes so much trouble I will take it away at once and burn it.’

  ‘Burn it?’ He stands astonished. How simple! Why did he not burn the blue dress?

  ‘But let me tell you,’ she adds, ‘that is to be the end of the matter, the absolute end. You are drawing Matryona into affairs that are no concern of a child’s.’

  ‘I could not agree with you more. But it is not I who am drawing her in. It is Nechaev.’

  ‘That makes no difference. If you were not here there would be no Nechaev.’

  15

  The cellar

  It has snowed heavily during the night. Emerging into the open, he is dazzled by the sudden whiteness. He halts and crouches, overtaken by a sensation of spinning not from left to right but from above to below. If he tries to move, he feels, he will pitch forward and tumble.

  This can only be the prelude to a fit. In spells of dizziness and palpitations of the heart, in exhaustion and irritability, a fit has been announcing itself for days without arriving. Unless the entire state in which he lives can be called a fit.

  Standing at the entrance to No. 63, preoccupied with what is happening inside him, he hears nothing till his arm is gripped tight. With a start he opens his eyes. He is face to face with Nechaev.

  Nechaev grins, showing his teeth. His carbuncles are livid from the cold. He tries to tug himself free, but his captor only holds him closer.

  ‘This is foolhardy,’ he says. ‘You should have left Petersburg while you could. You will certainly be caught.’

  With one hand gripping his upper arm and the other his wrist, Nechaev turns him. Side by side, like a reluctant dog and its master, they walk down Svechnoi Street.

  ‘But perhaps what you secretly want is to be caught.’

  Nechaev wears a black cap whose flaps shake as he shakes his head. He speaks in a patient, sing-song tone. ‘You are always attributing perverse motives to people, Fyodor Mikhailovich. People are not like that. Think about it: why should I want to be caught and locked away? Besides, who is going to look twice at a couple like us, father and son out for a walk?’ And he turns upon him a distinctly good-humoured smile.

  They have reached the end of Svechnoi; with a light pressure Nechaev guides him to the right.

  ‘Have you any idea what your friend is going through?’

  ‘My friend? You mean the Finnish girl? She will not break, I have confidence in her.’

  ‘You would not say so if you had seen her.’

  ‘You have seen her?’

  ‘The police brought her to the apartment to point me out.’

  ‘Never mind, I have no fear for her, she is brave, she will do her duty. Did she have a chance to speak to your landlady’s little girl?’

  ‘To Matryona? Why should she?’

  ‘No reason, no reason. She likes children. She is a child herself: very simple, very straight.’

  ‘I was questioned by the police. I will be questioned again. I concealed nothing. I will conceal nothing. I am warning you, you cannot use Pavel against me.’

  ‘I don’t need to use Pavel against you. I can use you against yourself.’

  They are in Sadovaya Street, in the heart of the Haymarket. He digs in his heels and stops. ‘You gave Pavel a list of people you wanted killed,’ he says.

  ‘We have talked about the list already – don’t you remember? It was one of many lists. Many copies of many lists.’

  ‘That is not my question. I want to know –’

  Nechaev throws back his head and laughs. A gust of vapour leaves his mouth. ‘You want to know whether you are included!’

  ‘I want to know whether that was why Pavel fell out with you – because he saw I was marked down, and refused.’

  ‘What a preposterous idea, Fyodor Mikhailovich! Of course you are not on any list! You are much too valuable a person. Anyhow, between ourselves, it makes no difference what names go on the lists. What matters is that they should know reprisals are on their way, and quake in their boots. The people understand something like that, and approve. The people aren’t interested in individual cases. From time immemorial the people have suffered; now the people demand that they should have a turn to suffer. So don’t worry. Your time hasn’t come. In fact, we would be happy to have the collaboration of persons like yourself.’

  ‘Persons like me? What persons are like me? Do you expect me to write pamphlets for you?’

  ‘Of course not. Your talent is not for pamphlets, you are too sincere for that. Come, let us walk. I want to take you somewhere. I want to sink a seed in your soul.’

  Nechaev takes his arm, and they resume their walk down Sadovaya Street. Two officers in the olive-green greatcoats of the Dragoons approach. Nechaev yields the way, cheerfully raising a hand in salute. The officers nod.

  ‘I have read your book Crime and Punishment,’ he resumes. ‘It was that that gave me the idea. It is an excellent book. I have never read anything like it. There were times when it frightened me. Raskolnikov’s illness and so forth. You must have heard it praised by many people. Still, I am telling you –’ He claps a hand to his breast, then, as though tearing out his heart, flings the hand forward. The oddity of his own gesture seems to strike him, for he blushes.

  It is the first uncalculated act he has seen from Nechaev, and it surprises him. A virgin heart, he thinks, bewildering itself in its stirrings. Like that creature of Doctor Frankenstein’s, coming to life. He feels a first touch of pity for this stiff, unprepossessing young man.

  They are deep in the Haymarket now. Through narrow streets jammed with hucksters’ tables and barrows, through a throng of smelly humanity, Nechaev conducts him.

  In a doorway they halt. From his pocket Nechaev draws a blue woollen scarf. ‘I must ask you to submit to being blindfolded,’ he says.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘There is something I want to show you.’

  ‘But where are you taking me?’

  ‘To where I at present live, among the people. It will be easier for both of us. You will be able to report in good conscience that you do not know where to find me.’

  With the blindfold on, he is able to fall back into the luxury of dizziness. Nechaev leads him; he is knocked and jostled by passers-by; once he loses his footing and has to be helped up.

  They turn off the street into a courtyard. From a tavern comes singing, the tinkling of a guitar, shouts of merriment. There is a smell of drains and fish-offal.

  His hand is guided to a rail. ‘Mind your step,’ says Nechaev’s voice. ‘It’s so dark here, it wouldn’t help to take the blindfold off anyway.’

  He shuffles down the steps like an old man. The air is dank and still. From somewhere comes the slow drip of water. It is like going into a cave.

  ‘Here,’ says Nechaev. ‘Mind your head.’

  They halt. He removes the blindfold. They are at the foot of an unlit wooden staircase. Before them is a closed door. Nechaev raps four times, then three. They wait. There is no sound but the dripping of water. Nechaev repeats the code. No response. ‘We’ll have to wait,’ he says. ‘Come.’

  He taps on the door at the other side of the staircase, pushes it open, and stands aside.

  They are in a cellar room so low that he has to stoop, lit only by a small papered window at head-height. The floor is of bare stone; even as he stands he can feel the cold creeping through his boots. Pipes run along the angle of the floor. There i
s a smell of damp plaster, damp brick. Though it cannot be so, sheets of water seem to be descending the walls.

  Across the far end of the cellar a rope has been spanned, over which hangs washing as damp and grey as the room itself. Under the clothesline is a bed, on which sit three children in identical postures, their backs to the wall, their knees drawn up to their chins, their arms clasped around their knees. Their feet are bare; they wear linen smocks. The eldest is a girl. Her hair is greasy and unkempt; mucus covers her upper lip, which she licks at languidly. Of the others, one is a mere toddler. There is no movement, no sound from any of them. Through rheumy, incurious eyes they gaze back at the intruders.

  Nechaev lights a candle and sets it in a niche in the wall.

  ‘This is where you live?’

  ‘No. But that is not important.’ He begins to pace back and forth. Again he has the impression of caged energy. He imagines Pavel side by side with him. Pavel was not driven like this. It is no longer so hard to see why Pavel accepted him as his leader.

  ‘Let me tell you why I have brought you here, Fyodor Mikhailovich,’ Nechaev begins. ‘In the room next door we have a printing press – a hand press. Illegal, of course. The idiot who has the key is unfortunately out, though he promised to be here. I am offering you the use of this press before you leave Petersburg. Whatever you choose to say we can distribute in a matter of hours, in thousands of copies. At a time like this, when we are on the brink of great things, a contribution from you can have an enormous effect. Yours is a respected name, particularly among the students. If you are prepared to write, under your own name, the story of how your stepson lost his life, the students will be bound to come out in the streets in just outrage.’ He ceases his pacing and faces him squarely. ‘I am sorry Pavel Isaev is dead. He was a good comrade. But we cannot look only to the past. We must use his death to light a flame. He would agree with me. He would urge you to put your anger to good use.’