The Birds Fall Down (22 page)

“When Stankovitch said that, I saw my duty clear before me. I’d been wrong to doubt Gorin’s efficiency. He’d long suspected what I had just found out. Had he been available I’d have asked him what the next step should be, but he wasn’t and I didn’t think he would be for some time. He wasn’t in Lausanne and he wasn’t in Paris, and I suspected that either he had gone back to Russia on one of his periodic trips or had gone to London or Glasgow to look into the
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situation. So there was no help for it. I myself would have to kill Berr. This wasn’t easy for me. Not in any sense. I love humanity, therefore I can’t wish to shed human blood. I also have insufficient preparation for the performance of such a deed. It isn’t that I can’t shoot, you know I can. But as I’ve told you, though I’m associated with the terrorist group within our organization, it’s only as a theoretician and an archivist. I don’t know how to set about such things.

“But I hadn’t the slightest doubt that that was my duty. Berr is a traitor to our movement, who had just betrayed Korolenko, Primar, and Damatov, and God knows how many of our comrades before that. As for the future, I didn’t believe that Berr could yet know of our plan to take over the
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and use it as a stage for the supremely desirable purge, the extirpation of the Tsar, but in view of his known resourcefulness I was afraid that once he had the three young men’s papers in his hands, he might report to his superiors some deductions which would lead them fairly near to the truth. I also wished, for once, to take some of the guilt from the shoulders of my beloved friend Gorin. Not that I thought the guilt of eliminating Berr was heavy, if, indeed, it existed at all. I would probably pay for Berr’s life with my own. I believe in Kant’s Law of Nature and it follows that I have a right to kill only if I am willing to give my own life in expiation. I am aware that there are philosophical difficulties in this position, but I think I could justify it, though perhaps this is not the most suitable time and place for such a discussion.

“Also I was drawn to this deed because it centred round you, Nikolai Nikolaievitch. For many years I’ve had dreams which I always felt were important, though I didn’t know what they meant, and they were inherently absurd. In these dreams I see something familiar, something rooted in my infancy and my childhood, mixed up with things quite unrelated to them. You remember that little lake in front of my father’s country house—it wasn’t a lake, really, just a large pond. In the middle of it was an island covered with birch trees, and coarse yellow grasses, an island which is round, quite round, as if it were drawn with compasses. Well, I dream that someone has set down on that little island a merry-go-round, the kind you see at fairs, with swing-boats like dragons painted scarlet and gold, or I dream of our conservatory, and it’s got a printing-press set down among all the delicate stove-plants my mother loved to cultivate, and that’s funny too, the press is rose-pink. Now I’m having a waking dream of that kind. There you are, whom I’ve known all my life, my father’s dearest friend, who far more than my father was the image of the man I hoped to be, for you were stronger than he was. You taught me to shoot, game-birds and red deer and the wild boar, because you were a better shot than my father, and though you are not a patient man you were more patient with my sickliness, too. I can still shoot, you know. Every now and then I take out my revolver again and go to a range and practise, because—that’s what I pretend to myself—it’s the most useful small arm for our movement. But it’s also because you always said that good revolver shots were very rare, and I was one of them. Now I’m going to use my revolver to protect you, the giant. I’m protecting you from your Judas. I know that it’s absurd to think of me protecting you, but that’s what I’m doing.”

“For God’s sake,” said Nikolai, wiping the sweat from his brow, “did you kill this poor devil, Berr?” “Wait, wait,” said Chubinov.

“Or did another of you hyenas get him? But probably not. Since so far as I can remember the man never existed.”

“You’ll wish that it were so. I had to take the train to get to Berr’s home, and I found myself in one of those very ugly suburbs of Paris where the town suddenly stops, leaving a raw selvage which isn’t Paris and isn’t countryside. There’s a jumble of factories and small houses and tenements along the high road, and then a large new factory. Just beyond it a track leaves the high road and runs a couple of hundred yards up a hill to two blocks of tenements, which, I learned at the station, had been put up for the workers in the new factory. They’re the kind of hideous buildings which capitalists think fit for the dispossessed. I realized how unpleasant a character Berr must have, for he must be a materialist, or he would not be a Tsarist spy, yet he is indifferent to material beauty, or he would not live in such a drab place. I followed the track, which ends in a big square pavement, with some flower beds set into it, extending all round the two blocks. I identified the block in which Berr lived, according to the address in the telephone book. The track started again on the other side of the square and led up a slope covered with vegetable gardens divided into allotments. There were several benches on this paved square, and I sat down on one facing the door from which Berr must come out.

“I opened a newspaper and pretended to read it, but I had no real need to keep up this pretence, for there was nobody about except some children playing together in a sandpit on the edge of the square, near an open washhouse where their mothers were working. So I was able to look about me, and I soon saw the hut in which I would have to confront the traitor Berr. There were many bits of home-made carpentering standing among the vegetable plots, but they were all simply tool-sheds. This one alone looked as if it had been made by a builder and planned as a summer-house, with a wide casement-window. I recognized the peculiar character of Berr in the perversity with which the window had been set on the side which had no view but looked back at the two hideous tenements. It was troublesome that it was not far away from them, but I counted on being able to induce him to take a walk with me, and I had a silencer on my revolver.

“I wondered how long I’d have to wait. But the morning, which had been cloudy, suddenly cleared, and as soon as the sun was shining the Berrs came out of the block opposite me and made their way to the hut. They answered exactly to the descriptions I had been given. Berr had an arrogant appearance which was peculiarly objectionable because he was so mediocre that he should have felt obliged to be humble. His pride was generalized, it even made him walk stiffly and slowly, but it had not given him the geniality which sometimes accompanies self-satisfaction. His expression was like barbed wire. As for his wife, she was the very prototype of the bullied wife. She was a stout, short woman with a round face and flat nose, like millions of our Russian peasant women, and she had about her a goodness that can often be remarked in her kind. She had to hurry, hurry, hurry to keep up with her striding, scowling husband. When they came to the iron gate into the vegetable gardens she ran ahead and opened the heavy catch for him with a willingness which could only be described as pretty. But he stood back and let her do it, without a flicker of gratitude on his pompous face. She was talking all the time and he did not answer, and this was very touching, for it was clear that she was talking sensibly, she wasn’t babbling, and she was speaking playfully and kindly. I could imagine she was using all those endearing diminutives in which our language is so rich. I thought Berr must have a heart of stone to remain mute and unsmiling.

“I watched them go up the slope, keeping to a strip of grass that ran beside the vegetable plots. Her arm had been in his, but as might have been expected he soon disengaged it and fell a pace behind her. For that coldness, however, he showed some remorse, for he put out his hand and rested his finger-tips on her shoulder, in a way which would have seemed inexpressive enough in an ordinary person, but which no doubt counted almost as a caress from him. When they got to the hut he stood aside while she opened the door, flung wide the windows, and shook some cushions out into the sunlight. He did not offer to help her, but when she had finished he went in and sat down. She made as if she were at once going to return to the tenements, but before she’d gone a few steps she looked down on the ground, halted, dropped awkwardly on her knees, picked a sprig of some plant, held it to her nose, then struggled to her feet again, flapping her arms like a hen, and went back to the hut and handed the sprig to him. My heart began to beat very fast. I wished I was not under the necessity of bringing pain to this excellent creature.

“There was now no reason why I shouldn’t carry out my plan. But my legs refused to raise me from the bench, and I began to wonder whether my whole life was not a pretence and an evasion, whether I had not adopted intellectual pursuits simply to cover up an inaptitude for action. But I turned my mind back to Kant and Hegel and received their benediction. Fitting my hand round the revolver in my pocket, I went through the iron gate. I found myself walking more and more slowly as I drew nearer the hut. I decided I wouldn’t try to get Berr to take a walk with me, I would satisfy myself of his guilt in the hut and shoot him down there, and take my chance of being caught. If fate was against me, so much better for the Law of Nature. But when I came to the hut and looked through the window I did not see the man I had come to find. True, there was a man in there, sitting in a cushioned chair and holding a sprig of green leaves to his nostrils, but he looked as humble and patient as a saint on an icon. And he took no more notice of me than if he were a saint on an icon. Though I had come as close to the hut as I could without treading on the flowers growing round the walls, and though I was darkening his window, he did not raise his head.

“I gripped the window-sill and leaned right into the room. Immediately the man’s expression changed, and he assumed again his air of arrogance. He lifted his head and asked, in French, ‘Is someone there?’ He was looking straight at me, but not at my face, at a point somewhere below my collarbone. I remained quite still, and after some seconds his proud mask melted, he again appeared gentle and abstracted, though he continued to stare in my direction. I was incredulous and leaned farther into the hut. I took my revolver out of my pocket and then, without releasing the safety catch, I pointed it straight at him. Knitting his brows doubtfully, summoning back part of his insolence, he asked again, ‘Is someone there?’ And then I knew that he was not our spy, he was not a Tsarist spy, and that if a million men told me so, they would all be perjurers. For he was blind.

“I put my revolver back into my pocket, and I answered, speaking French as he did, ‘Yes, I’m here.’

“He then demanded pompously, ‘And who are you?’

“I gave him my right name. I was astonished that I did so, I had not meant to. ‘I am Vassili Iulievitch Chubinov,’ I said, and I couldn’t go on.

“‘What, a Russian!’ he exclaimed, breaking into our language. ‘I’m a Russian too, I’m Porfirio Ilyitch Berr. What brings you here, friend?’

“I spoke quite strangely to him. ‘I’m in trouble, in great trouble.’

“‘That makes you like a whole lot of other people,’ he answered, smiling. ‘We’re all in trouble, all the sons of men are in trouble. But what sort of trouble are you in?’

“To my own amazement I burst into tears. I wished I could tell him the whole story, but of course it was impossible. I found myself blurting out, just as I had blurted out my real name, ‘I’ve lost a friend.’

“‘What do you mean, lost a friend?’ asked Berr. ‘Has he died, or has he done something wicked to you?’

“I didn’t know how to carry on this conversation, for I couldn’t be honest, and I hated to deceive this man, partly because he was blind, and partly because he was so pleasant, so unexpectedly pleasant. I’d have liked to turn round and rush away, but I knew it was my duty to my comrades to clear up this mystery which, during the last few minutes, had become so much more obscure and menacing. Also I wanted to stay with him. I can’t tell you how enjoyable it was, just being there with him. But all the same I didn’t know what to say next, for of course I hadn’t lost a friend, the words had just come into my head. So I determined to speak about you, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, who are at the core of this mystery, and who are a fixed point in my life. I said, ‘Well, my trouble’s a long story, and I won’t burden you with it now, but my friend, he isn’t dead, and he hasn’t done anything wicked’—this of course is not true, as a Minister of the Tsar you are sunk in wickedness—’ but I’ve lost him, I can’t get at him, and I believe you know where he is, and as he’s the one person in the world who can help me, I wish you’d tell me how to find him, for I believe you know him. I speak of Nikolai Nikolaievitch Diakonov.’

“He threw out his arms, he laughed, he shouted your address aloud, as if he were cheering at a game. ‘That’s where he is! You’re lucky to have such a friend. Unlucky to have thought you’d lost him! Go and find him. It’s no distance from the Arc de Triomphe, it won’t even cost you much to get there. You’ve come to the right place to get news of him. For my wife, did you see her a minute ago, you should have met her on the way up, my little Emilia, we owe all we have to Nikolai Nikolaievitch and his wife Sofia Andreievna, who though she is still alive may be counted among the saints, and we visit their home at least once a week. For, listen, some years ago the Evil One afflicted my wife and me with the most unimaginable stream of misfortunes. I used to be a janitor in the Law Courts at Moscow, but a rich grain merchant who had noticed me when he was bringing a case asked me and my wife to come and be caretakers in his apartment house here in Paris, and as I wanted to see the world and as our niece, whom we brought up as our own, had married a Frenchman who had a little restaurant here by Les Halles, I took the job. Well, the grain merchant died one day from a heart attack and his heirs sold the house without ever leaving Russia, and just at that moment I—’ he paused, and his face became sullen and aggressive, as it had been when I first saw him—’ just at that moment I lost my sight. You can’t think, my friend, what it was like for me to become blind and helpless, because though I am nobody I was a little bit of a somebody in my way, I was not only head of the janitors’ corps at the Law Courts, I was the best billiards player among our sort of people in St. Petersburg; and as for family responsibilities, I’d always been the one who was leaned on, not the one who leaned. And my niece’s husband had made a terrible mess of his little restaurant, and there were three children by then, he would have helped, but I couldn’t let him. I thought we’d come down to begging in the streets, if somebody at the Russian Church hadn’t told the Countess Diakonova about us, and ever since then she and her husband have been our mother and our father. They got my niece’s husband a job in the canteen in the big new factory down the road, which belongs to the family of the Count’s sister-in-law, and they put us into this flat, where we all live together and are very happy, and they never tire of thinking of this and that which make this horrible affliction easier for me.’