The Master of Petersburg Read online

  Is it possible that at this moment, in the shadowed doorway of No. 63, someone is lurking, watching him? Of the body of the watcher he cannot be sure; even the patch of lighter gloom that he thinks of as the face could be no more than a fleck on the wall. But the longer he stares at it, the more intently a face seems to be staring back at him. A real face? His imagination is full of bearded men with glittering eyes who hide in dark passages. Nevertheless, as he passes into the pitch darkness of the entryway, the sense of another presence becomes so acute that a chill runs down his back. He halts, holds his breath, listens. Then he strikes a match.

  In a corner crouches a man, blinking against the light. Though he has a woollen scarf wound around his head and mouth and a blanket over his shoulders, he recognizes the beggar he confronted in the church portico.

  ‘Who are you?’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘Can’t you leave me alone?’

  The match goes out. He strikes another.

  The man shakes his head firmly. A hand emerges from under the blanket and pushes the scarf aside. ‘You can’t order me,’ he says. There is a smell of putrid fish in the air.

  The match goes out. He starts to climb the stairs. But tediously the paradox comes back: Expect the one you do not expect. Very well; but must every beggar then be treated as a prodigal son, embraced, welcomed into the home, feasted? Yes, that is what Pascal would say: bet on everyone, every beggar, every mangy dog; only thus will you be sure that the One, the true son, the thief in the night, will not slip through the net. And Herod would agree: make sure – slay all the children without exception.

  Betting on all the numbers – is that still gambling? Without the risk, without subjecting oneself to the voice speaking from elsewhere in the fall of the dice, what is left that is divine? Surely God knows that, and will have mercy on the gambler-at-heart! And surely the wife who, when her husband kneels before her and confesses he has gambled away their last rouble and beats his breast and kisses the hem of her dress – the wife who raises him and wipes away his tears and without a word departs to pawn her wedding-ring and returns with money (‘Here!’) so that he can go back to the gaming-room for the one last bet that will redeem all – surely such a woman is touched with the divine, a woman who stakes on the man who has nothing left, a woman who, when even the wedding-ring is pawned and lost, goes out a second time into the night and comes back with the money for another stake!

  Does the woman upstairs, the woman whose name he seems for the moment to have forgotten, whom he even confuses with that Gnädige Frau his landlady in Dresden, have the touch of this divinity upon her? He does not know the first thing about her, only the last and most secret thing: how she gives herself. From how a woman gives herself can a man guess how she will give herself to the god of chance? Is such a woman marked by abandon, an abandon that does not care where it leads, to pleasure or to pain, that uses the sensual body only as a vehicle, and only because we cannot live disembodied? Is there a form of lovemaking she stands for in which bodies press against and into and through each other into a darkness in which nothing can be heard but the flapping of bedsheets like wings?

  Memories of his nights with her flood back with sudden fullness, and everything that was tangled in him grows straight, pointing like an arrow to her. Desire in all its luxuriousness overwhelms him. She, he thinks: she is the one, it is she whom I want. Therefore . . .

  Therefore, smiling to himself, he hurries back down the stairs and gropes his way to the corner where the man, the hireling, the spy, has made his nest. ‘Come,’ he says, speaking into the dark, ‘I have a bed for you.’

  ‘This is my post, I must stay at my post,’ replies the man pawkily.

  But nothing can impair his good spirits now. ‘The one for whom you are waiting will come, even to the third floor, I assure you. He will knock at the door and wait with patience and refuse to go away.’

  There is a long scuffling and a rustling of paper. ‘You don’t have another light, do you?’ says the man.

  He strikes a match. Hastily the man stuffs things into a bag and stands up.

  Stumbling in the dark like two drunkards, they climb the stairs. At the door of his room he whispers to the man to be quiet and takes his hand to guide him. The hand is unpleasantly pudgy.

  Inside, he lights the lamp. It is hard to judge the stranger’s age. His eyes are youthful; but in his thin ginger hair and freckled scalp there is something tired and old, and his way of holding himself is that of someone worn down by years and by disgrace.

  ‘Ivanov, Pyotr Alexandrovich,’ says the man, drawing his heels together, making a little bow. ‘Civil servant, retired.’

  He gestures toward the bed. ‘Take it.’

  ‘You must be wondering,’ says the man, testing the bed, ‘how someone of my background comes to be a watcher (that is what we call it in our line: watching).’ He lies down, stretches out.

  He has a disagreeable presentiment that he has tangled himself with one of those beggars who, unable to juggle or play the violin, feel they must repay alms with the story of their life. ‘Please keep your voice down,’ he says. ‘And take off your shoes.’

  ‘You are the man whose son was killed, aren’t you? My deepest condolences. I know some of what you are feeling. Not all, but some. I have lost two children myself. Swept away. Meningetic fever, that is the medical term. My wife has never recovered from the blow. They could have been saved if we had had the money to pay for good doctors. A tragedy; but who cares? Tragedy is all around us nowadays. Tragedy has become the way of the world.’ He sits up. ‘If you will heed my advice, Fyodor Mikhailovich (you don’t mind, do you?), if you will take a word of advice from someone who has been, so to speak, through the mill, you will give in to your grief. Cry like a woman. That is the great secret of womankind, that gives them the advantage over fellows like us. They know when to let go and cry. We don’t, you and I. We bottle it up inside us till it becomes like the very devil! And then we go and do something stupid, just to be rid of it for an hour or two. Yes, we do something stupid that we regret forever afterwards. Women aren’t like that because women have the secret of tears. We must learn from the fair sex, Fyodor Mikhailovich, we must learn to cry! See, I’m not ashamed to cry: three years, next month, since tragedy struck, and I’m not ashamed to cry!’

  And indeed, tears are rolling down his cheeks. He wipes them away with his cuff, but more flow. He seems to have no trouble in talking while he cries. In fact, he seems quite cheerful. ‘I believe I will grieve for my lost babies for the rest of my days,’ he says.

  As Ivanov prattles on about his ‘babies,’ his attention wanders. Is it simply because he is known to be a writer that people tell him their stories? Do they think he has no stories of his own? He is exhausted, the headache has not gone away. Sitting on the only chair, with birds already beginning to chirp outside, he is desperate to sleep – desperate, in fact, for the bed he has given up. ‘We can talk later,’ he interrupts testily. ‘Go to sleep now, otherwise what is the point of this . . .’ He hesitates.

  ‘Of this charity?’ fills in Ivanov slyly. ‘Is that what you wanted to say?’

  He does not reply.

  ‘Because, let me assure you, you need not be ashamed of charity,’ the fellow continues softly, ‘indeed not. Just as you need not be ashamed of grief. Generous impulses, both of them. They seem to bring us low, these generous impulses of ours, but in truth they exalt us. And He sees them and records each one of them, He who sees into the crevices of our hearts.’

  With a struggle he opens his eyelids. Ivanov is sitting in the middle of the bed, cross-legged, like an idol. Charlatan! he thinks. He closes his eyes. When he wakes, Ivanov is still there, sprawled across the bed, his hands folded under his cheek, asleep. His mouth is open; from his lips, small and pink as a baby’s, comes a delicate snore.

  Till late in the morning he stays with Ivanov. Ivanov, the beginning of the unexpected, he thinks: let us see now where the unexpected takes us!


  Never before has time passed so sluggishly, never has the air been so blank of revelation.

  At last, bored, he rouses the man. ‘Time to leave, your shift is over,’ he says.

  Ivanov seems oblivious of the irony. He is fresh, cheerful, well-rested. ‘Ouf!’ he yawns. ‘I must pay a visit to the toilet!’ And then, when he comes back: ‘You don’t have a scrap of breakfast to share, do you?’

  He conducts Ivanov into the apartment. His breakfast is set out on the table, but he has no appetite. ‘Yours,’ he says curtly. Ivanov’s eyes gleam, a dribble of saliva runs down his chin. Yet he eats decorously, and sips his tea with his little finger cocked in the air. When he is finished he sits back and sighs contentedly. ‘How glad I am that our paths have crossed!’ he remarks. ‘The world can be a cold place, Fyodor Mikhailovich, as I am sure you know! I do not complain, mark you. We get what we deserve, in a higher sense. Nevertheless I sometimes wonder, do we not also deserve, each of us, a refuge, a haven, where justice will for a while relent and pity be taken on us? I pose that as a question, a philosophical question. Even if it isn’t in Scripture, would it not be in the spirit of Scripture: that we deserve what we do not deserve? What do you think?’

  ‘No doubt. This is unfortunately not my apartment. And now it is time for you to be leaving.’

  ‘In a moment. Let me make one last observation. It was not just idle chatter, you know, what I said last night about God seeing into the crevices of our hearts. I may not be a proper holy simpleton, but that does not disqualify me from speaking the truth. Truth can come, you know, in winding and mysterious ways.’ He taps his forehead meaningfully. ‘You never dreamed – did you? – when you first clapped eyes on me, that one day we would be sitting down together, the two of us, and drinking tea in a civilized fashion. Yet here we are!’

  ‘I am sorry, but I do not follow you, my mind is elsewhere. You really must leave now.’

  ‘Yes, I must leave, I have my duties too.’ He rises, tosses the blanket over his shoulders like a cape, holds out a hand. ‘Goodbye. It has been a pleasure to converse with a man of culture.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  It is a relief to be rid of him. But a frowzy, fishy smell lingers in his room. Despite the cold, he has to open the window.

  Half an hour later there is a knock at the apartment door. Not that man again! he thinks, and opens the door with an angry frown.

  Before him stands a child, a fat girl dressed in a dark smock such as novice nuns wear. Her face is round and unexpressive, her cheekbones so high that the little eyes are almost hidden, her hair drawn back tightly and gathered in a brief queue.

  ‘Are you Pavel Isaev’s stepfather?’ she asks in a surprisingly deep voice.

  He nods.

  She steps inside, closing the door behind her. ‘I was a friend of Pavel’s,’ she announces. He expects condolences to follow. But they do not come. Instead she takes up position squarely before him with her arms at her sides, measuring him, giving off an air of stolid, watchful calm, the calm of a wrestler waiting for the bout to begin. Her bosom rises and falls evenly.

  ‘Can I see what he left behind?’ she says at last.

  ‘He left very little. May I know your name?’

  ‘Katri. Even if there is very little, can I see it? This is the third time I have called. The first two times that stupid landlady of his wouldn’t let me in. I hope you won’t be the same.’

  Katri. A Finnish name. She looks like a Finn too.

  ‘I am sure she has her reasons. Did you know my son well?’

  She does not answer the question. ‘You realize that the police killed your stepson,’ she says matter-of-factly.

  Time stands still. He can hear his heart beating.

  ‘They killed him and put out a story about suicide. Don’t you believe me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he says in a dry whisper.

  ‘Why? Because it’s true. Why else?’

  It is not just that she is belligerent: she is beginning to grow restless too. She has begun to rock rhythmically from foot to foot, her arms swinging in time. Despite her squat frame she gives an impression of limberness. No wonder Anna Sergeyevna wanted nothing to do with her!

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘What my son left behind is a private matter, a family matter. Kindly explain the point of your visit.’

  ‘Are there any papers?’

  ‘There were papers but they aren’t here any more. Why do you ask?’ And then: ‘Are you one of Nechaev’s people?’

  The question does not disconcert her. On the contrary, she smiles, raising her eyebrows, baring her eyes for the first time, glaring, triumphant. Of course she is one of Nechaev’s! A warrior-woman, and her swaying the beginnings of a war-dance, the dance of someone itching to go to war.

  ‘If I were, would I tell you?’ she replies, laughing.

  ‘Do you know that the police are keeping watch on this house?’

  She stares intently, swaying on her toes, as though willing him to see something in her gaze.

  ‘There is a man downstairs this very minute,’ he persists.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You didn’t notice him but you can be sure he noticed you. He pretends to be a beggar.’

  Her smile broadens into true amusement. ‘Do you think a police spy would be clever enough to spot me?’ she says. And she does a surprising thing. Twitching the hem of her dress aside, she gives two little skips, revealing simple black shoes and white cotton stockings.

  She is right, he thinks: one could take her for a child; but a child in the grip of a devil nevertheless. The devil inside her twitching, skipping, unable to keep still.

  ‘Stop that!’ he says coldly. ‘My son didn’t leave anything for you.’

  ‘Your son! He wasn’t your son!’

  ‘He is my son and will always be. Now please go. I have had enough of this conversation.’

  He opens the door and motions her out. As she leaves, she deliberately knocks against him. It is like being bumped by a pig.

  There is no sign of Ivanov when he goes out later in the afternoon, nor when he returns. Should he care? If it is Ivanov’s task to see without being seen, why should it be his task to see Ivanov? Even if, in the present charade, Ivanov is the one playing the part of God’s angel – an angel only by virtue of being no angel at all – why should it be his role to seek out the angel? Let the angel come knocking at my door, he tells himself, and I will not fail, I will give him shelter: that is enough for the bargain to hold. Yet even as he says so he is aware that he is lying to himself, that it is in his power to deliver Ivanov wholly and absolutely from his cold watchpost.

  So he frets and frets till at last there is nothing for it but to go downstairs and search for the man. But the man is not downstairs, is not in the street, is nowhere to be found. He sighs with relief. I have done what I can, he thinks.

  But he knows in his heart he has not. There is more he could do, much more.

  9

  Nechaev

  He is in the streets of the Haymarket the next day when ahead of him he glimpses the plump, almost spherical figure of the same Finnish girl. She is not alone. By her side is a woman, tall and slim, walking so fast that the Finn has to skip to keep up with her.

  He quickens his pace. Though for moments he loses sight of them in the crowd, he is not far behind when they enter a shop. As she enters, the tall woman casts a glance up the street. He is struck by the blue of her eyes, the pallor of her skin. Her glance passes over him without settling.

  He crosses the street and dawdles, waiting for them to emerge. Five minutes pass, ten minutes. He is getting cold.

  The brass plate advertises Atelier La Fay or La Fée, Milliner. He pushes open the door; a bell tinkles. In a narrow, well-lit room, girls in uniform grey smocks sit at two long sewing-tables. A woman of middle age bustles forward to greet him.

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘An acquaintance of mine
came in a few minutes ago – a young lady. I thought – ‘He glances around the shop, dismayed: there is no sign of either the Finn or the other woman. ‘I am sorry, I must have made a mistake.’

  The two young seamstresses nearest by are giggling at his embarrassment. As for Madame la Fay, she has lost interest. ‘It must be students you are thinking of,’ she says dismissively. ‘We have nothing to do with the students.’

  He apologizes again and begins to leave.

  ‘There!’ says a voice behind him.

  He turns. One of the girls is pointing to a small door on his left. ‘Through there!’

  He passes into an alleyway walled off from the street. An iron staircase leads to the floor above. He hesitates, then ascends.

  He finds himself in a dark passage smelling of cooking. From an upper floor comes the sound of a scratchy violin playing a gypsy tune. He follows the music up two more flights to a half-open garret door, and knocks. The Finnish girl comes to the door. Her stolid face shows no sign of surprise.

  ‘May I speak to you?’ he says.

  She stands aside.

  The violin is being played by a young man in black. Seeing the stranger, he stops in mid-phrase, casts a quick glance toward the tall woman, then picks up his cap and, without a word, leaves.

  He addresses the Finn. ‘I caught sight of you in the street and followed. Could we speak in private?’

  She sits down on the couch but does not invite him to sit. Her feet barely reach the floor. ‘Speak,’ she says.

  ‘You made a remark yesterday about the death of my son. I would like to know more. Not in any spirit of vengefulness. I am inquiring for my own relief. I mean, in order to relieve myself.’

  She regards him quizzically. ‘To relieve yourself?’

  ‘I mean I did not come to Petersburg to involve myself in detection,’ he continues doggedly; ‘but now that you have said what you said about the manner of his death, I cannot ignore it, I cannot push it away.’