The Gentle Axe Paperback (21 page)

Porfiry opened his cigarette case. He took one out and put it in his mouth. There were eight left. These he gave to Dmitri.

P
ORFIRY SAW PRINCE BYKOV
before Prince Bykov saw him.

The young nobleman was sitting on one of the chairs outside Porfiry’s chambers. His expression was pained but patient, self-consciously stoical. With one hand he fondled his fur-covered top hat as if it were a lapdog.

Why is
he
here?
thought Porfiry. But the desperate neediness in the prince’s eyes was clear, even from a distance. He came to the police station because he was compelled to. It was the last link he had with his vanished friend.

Porfiry experienced a mild spasm of guilt, the kind that comes when one is reminded of a duty deliberately ignored. But there was a kind of arrogance to his presence too, an aristocratic failure of imagination. Such a man was evidently incapable of understanding that Porfiry had anything better to do than investigate the causes of his unhappiness.

Porfiry was about to turn on his heels when he heard his name called out.

The clerk Zamyotov had seen him. At his loud, piercing “Porfiry Petrovich!” Prince Bykov looked up.

Porfiry blinked several times and squeezed his lips into a smile.

The prince rose to his feet, his hat in one hand, the other extended vaguely as if to grasp something.

“My dear prince,” said Porfiry, walking briskly over to him as if he could not be more delighted to see the prince. “How opportune it is that you should present yourself here! There is an important question I must ask you.”

Prince Bykov tossed his head so that the dark tight curls at his collar shook. Confusion, and the effort of thinking it through, gave his face an antagonistic edge.

“Please.” Porfiry held open the door to his chambers for the prince. “We have been pursuing a very significant lead.”

“You have found Ratazyayev?” Now Prince Bykov’s expression shone with trusting expectation.

Not for the first time, the young man’s emotional openness embarrassed Porfiry. He gestured for the prince to sit down. “No,” he said, taking his own seat behind the desk. He averted his eyes, so as not to have to witness the disappointment that would inevitably cloud the prince’s features. “But we have tracked down Konstantin Kirillovich Govorov. Do you remember that I asked you about him?”

Prince Bykov frowned at the name. “Has he told you what happened to Ratazyayev?”

“Ah. The fact is, we haven’t actually spoken to him yet. But we know where he lives. We are hoping to speak to him very soon. The yardkeeper at his apartment is very cooperative. He will inform us the moment Govorov returns.”

“What if he doesn’t return?”

“Let us hope that he does,” said Porfiry with a strained smile. He leaned back in his seat to light a cigarette.

Prince Bykov watched him disapprovingly. “You said you wanted to ask me a question.”

Porfiry closed his eyes. “The student Virginsky described both Govorov and Ratazyayev as actors. Please think back to the circumstances in which you heard the name Govorov. I believe you once told me that you had heard the name. Is it possible that it was in connection with Ratazyayev’s acting career?”

“I really don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

“You will have to do better than that,” said Porfiry sharply. In truth, he was weary. “For instance, can you tell me the last professional production in which Ratazyayev performed?”

Prince Bykov seemed hurt rather than offended by Porfiry’s harsh tone. He composed himself and considered his answer. “It was hard for him to come by roles in recent years. His friends, or rather former friends, had turned against him.”

“Why was that?”

“He was thought to be unreliable. But it was…not fair. There had really only ever been one incident.”

“What incident was this?”

“But surely you know?”

Porfiry shook his head, his mouth turned down.

“He got drunk once. Very drunk. During a production. He went on stage drunk and—oh, I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the time the famous Ratazyayev…” Prince Bykov placed a pale hand over his eyes. “They have never forgiven him for it.”

“What did he do?”

“Must I say it?”

“It may be significant. It may very well be significant.”

“He relieved himself into the orchestra pit during the performance.”

“I see.”

“And then he fell off the stage. It caused a scandal. He…ran away. He was not seen or heard of for a year.”

“So he has disappeared before?”

“Yes, but this was a long time ago. Before I met him. Of course, I had heard the story—who has not?”

“I had not, until now. But tell me, what was the production in which this unfortunate incident occurred?”

“It was a revival of
The Government Inspector,
at the original Mariinsky Theater.”

Porfiry was silent for a moment. “In ’fifty-six?” he asked distractedly.

“So you do remember it?”

Porfiry didn’t answer the question. “That was a long time ago. Ten years. How has he managed to earn a living since then, if not through acting?”

“He has relied, to a large extent, on the goodwill of his friends. He still has friends.”

“Govorov?”

A wrinkled anguish disfigured Prince Bykov’s face. “I see, sir, that you are determined to force me to speak about that individual. Let me say first that I have never met him, that I will not meet him. I do not approve of him. I will say that he has been loyal to Ratazyayev. However, I also believe that his is a loyalty Ratazyayev would have been better off without. The loyalty of a viper is poisonous.”

“You admit that he is a friend from Ratazyayev’s acting days?”

“He was to blame! It was he who got Ratazyayev drunk! More than that, he goaded him on.”

“I see. And recently?”

Prince Bykov closed his eyes on a shudder. “Through Govorov, he became involved in certain…vile activities.”

Porfiry opened a drawer in his desk and produced the photographs Salytov had taken from the innkeeper. He spread them out and pushed those that featured male participants toward Prince Bykov.

The prince compressed his lips in disgust and nodded. “Yes. That is Ratazyayev. It is Ratazyayev in them all.”

Porfiry gathered the photographs up.

Prince Bykov looked away, trembling. “He also occasionally acted as a distribution agent for a publishing company. This was through Govorov also.”

“Athene?” The name escaped without conscious thought. Porfiry did not know why he made the assumption.

“No.” Prince Bykov was definite. “I have heard of
them,
” he added thoughtfully. “But this was not a respectable house.”

“Priapos.” It was not offered as a question.

The prince dropped his eyelids in confirmation.

L
EONID SEMENOVICH TOLKACHENKO
felt the turmoil of too many pickled cucumbers eaten too hastily.

He was sitting in his armchair reading
The Northern Bee.
He had to hold the candle close to the newspaper. There was no light from the window. It was past three in the afternoon. Soon he would have to go outside and attend to his duties.

Tolkachenko lived alone in a small apartment at 3 Spassky Lane, the building where he worked as yardkeeper. He had never married. Once, many years ago, when he was still a young man, he had come close to declaring his feelings for the daughter of Devushkin. This Devushkin was a clerk in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where Tolkachenko worked at the time as a courier. Tolkachencko had also lodged with the family, sub-renting a room hardly bigger than a cupboard in their tiny apartment. The girl, Mariya Alexeyevna, was sixteen when it started. He left gifts for her that he could ill afford and feigned an interest in literature. But despite the family’s poverty and the father’s alcoholism, her parents were proud. They talked frequently and loudly of a very important personage from whom they imminently expected a proposal. Tolkachenko grew discouraged, even though the proposal from the important personage was not forthcoming. He stopped buying bonbons and lace. He went back to reading
The Northern Bee.
Mariya Alexeyevna ceased to be sixteen. In his eyes, she ceased to be many things. Her father lost his position. Her mother died, it was said, from disappointment. Mariya Alexeyevna began to look at Leonid Semenovich with big pleading eyes. Now she left gifts for him, books that he never read. She suggested a walk along the Fontanka in one of the city’s white summer nights. But he had remembered, with a mixture of shame and revulsion, the estrangement from himself that he had suffered at the height of his passion. Perhaps he had wished to punish her for that. Perhaps he had been afraid of experiencing such feelings again or, even worse, of not experiencing them. Or perhaps he had simply awakened from a strange dream. He did not meet her at the appointed time. Instead he put his few belongings into a carpetbag and walked away from the Fontanka. He did not look up once into the brilliant night sky. Nor did he ever make inquiries to find out what became of her.

Thirty years on Leonid Semenovich Tolkachenko sat alone in the dark, reading
The Northern Bee
by candlelight. Since the policeman’s visit, he felt a more direct connection with the news accounts. Until now the wives beaten to death, the trampled drunks, the fathers murdered by their sons had existed at one remove, contained within the surface of the newspaper as if behind a looking glass. Now such dangers and terrors were spilling out into the world he occupied. He could vouch personally for their reality. Reading the paper was no longer a comfortable sensation; the anxieties it inspired, with its fulminating editorials against the new law courts, were no longer vicarious.

A murder investigation, that was what the policeman had said.

“Dangerous” was the word he had used.

In other words, Govorov was a murderer.

Tolkachenko swallowed back a dyspeptic, vinegary belch and read:

Tolkachenko heard the street door click. He sat up with a jolt and strained to listen. Footsteps reverberated on the stairs. The old boards shrieked and cracked like fireworks. Tolkachenko’s senses tingled unpleasantly. He was used to listening to the comings and goings of the residents. He could recognize them each by their step. But this time it was difficult. Footfalls overlapped. He narrowed his eyes and discerned two separate step patterns. Was one of them Govorov’s? It was hard to tell. He imagined, in fact, two Govorovs climbing the stairs.

Tolkachenko’s arms began to ache from holding the paper still. He knew the footsteps were heading away from him. Even so, he was afraid of making the slightest sound. It could be a trick. Somehow the beat of his heart had fallen in rhythm with the steps. Every time there was a pause in the sounds of climbing, his heart seemed to stop beating. He imagined the two Govorovs turning around and coming back for him.

At last, a door above closed.

It was some time before Tolkachenko stirred. He folded the newspaper carefully and leaned forward to place it noiselessly on the floor. The throb of his pulse echoed in his head. His knees creaked as he rose from the seat. Partially digested pickled cucumbers gurgled in his stomach. He winced as if these minute interior noises were in danger of reaching the apartment above.

Tolkachenko moved slowly, lowering his feet with tense precision. He waited, listening, after each step. Then stood, listening, at his own door before grasping the handle with a grip that tightened the whole of his arm. He pushed his shoulder into the door as he eased it open.

Even in the dark he knew where to place his feet so that he could climb the stairs without setting off too many alarms from the floorboards. As he ascended, the low rumble of voices grew louder.

A light showed under Govorov’s door. The voices he had heard were coming from inside. Tolkachenko couldn’t make out what was being said, but he recognized Govorov’s booming theatrical bass. There was one other man in there, he judged, whose voice was higher and lighter. They seemed to be arguing, but there was something detached, almost disjointed, about their exchange. It had not reached the point where both parties were shouting over each other.

Without questioning what he was doing, Tolkachenko took the heavy ring of keys from his pocket and fumbled for the key to Govorov’s door. The metallic jangling prompted a break in the discussion within. But Tolkachenko moved quickly. He thrust the key into the lock and turned it. Then he slipped it off the chained ring and stepped back. He turned the key in the door so that it was at a slight angle to the keyhole. He heard footsteps hurry toward him. The door shook in the frame.