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  A Razor Wrapped in Silk

  ( Porfiry Petrovich - 3 )

  R. N. Morris

  R. N. Morris

  A Razor Wrapped in Silk

  ‘I am convinced that hidden in his drawer is a razor, wrapped in silk, like that murderer in Moscow; he too lived

  in the same house with his mother and had wrapped a razor in silk to cut a throat with.’

  From The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (translation by Henry Carlisle and Olga Andreyev Carlisle)

  September, 1870

  1 The spinner’s boy

  Mitka looked up. He saw the high ceiling of the spinning-shop through a haze of cotton dust scored with countless lines of yarn. The dust was white, like snow but finer. It hung in the hot air, beneath the turning shafts that spanned the workshop and drove the machines. Incessantly moving, yet going nowhere, they held him entranced with a vision of infinity, presented as unrelenting monotony.

  He could always taste the dust, always feel it, on him and in him, smothering him. Even in his parched dreams, even in the best of them, when he dreamt of her, and the great feeling took him over — even then, she came to him through a shifting white mist and fed him sweetmeats that tasted of cotton. And in those dreams, the throbbing noise that drowned out her tender words was the chiming clatter of the machines.

  Was he dreaming now? The thought frightened him into a state of strained alertness.

  He was crouched within the great jaws of the spinning mule. The mule itself, the movable frame which carried over a thousand spindles, or so Mr Ustyantsev claimed, was edging away from the fixed part of the machine. It drew the unspun rovings of cotton from the creel and stretched the fibres into the finest of prison bars. It was Mitka’s job to watch for broken threads and tie up the ends, conspiring in his own imprisonment. Once the mule had completed its outward carriage, it would begin its return, walked home by Mr Ustyantsev as it wound in the threads it had spun. Mitka knew of children who, in falling asleep, had been caught in its inexorable bite, unseen by the machine operator. If they were lucky they’d lose a finger, ripped off in the blink of an eye. The hobgoblins and ogres of fairytales were nothing compared to the lurking terrors of the factory. His heart raced, like the bobbins on a double-speeder. He thought of Anya, the girl who had fallen into the driving belt. It had carried her round three times before they had managed to get her out, her screams mingling with the routine screech of metal. In the English foreman’s arms, her body hung as limp as a sack of rags. Word got round later that every bone in her body had been broken. Mitka could never forgive Beck for the look on his face as he held her: a look devoid of pity or grief, showing only the contempt of an inconvenienced man. Anya had been ten years old, the same age as Mitka, and a foundling like him. This had been enough to bind them together, like two weak and ragged threads. Their friendship had not developed much beyond silent sympathetic glances and the occasional stolen word. But her eyes had always been the first he sought in the sting of any injustice.

  Mitka craned his neck back to scan the taut threads over his head. Every muscle was tense and aching. He winced sharply as a spasm of cramp gripped his right calf. He longed to stand and straighten the leg, but couldn’t, not yet at least. He closed his eyes over the pain. It could only have been for a moment, but it was a moment in which he allowed himself to luxuriate in the dangerous dream of lying stretched out on the hard floor beneath the cotton canopy.

  He opened his eyes in panic. To his relief, he was still locked in his tight little squat. A thread had snapped while he had dozed. The loose ends trailed on the floor, one drawn away from him by the moving mule, the other gathering into a loose spiral as the rollers spewed more thread. Mitka moved quickly, tying the ends with dextrous fingers, taking secret pride in the speed with which he accomplished the task.

  There was a clank as the mule reached the end of its track, followed by a whirring and grinding of gears as the machine adjusted to the next phase of the operation. Mitka grabbed the hand brush and swept the floor ahead of him as he retreated.

  Out in the open, in the seemingly limitless expanse of the spinning-shop, there was just time to stand and stretch, to roll his shoulders and kick the cramp out of his leg, before he had to run round and duck into the now opening jaws of the machine opposite.

  Bent into position once more, Mitka looked up at the haze of cotton dust scored with countless lines.

  *

  The steam whistle’s blast announced the end of the shift. Mitka scurried out of his daily prison, as fast as a venting of pressure.

  He came out into a choking fog that seemed, in the first shock, to be an extension of the cotton haze he had just escaped. But the air was cooler here, and the particles it bore, black and hard-grained. In the spinning-shop they kept the air hot as well as humid, for the sake of the cotton. The change of temperature set his teeth chattering. He had on a cap but no coat; was still dressed only in the clothes he worked in, the ragged cotton shirt, and drill trousers tucked into his boots.

  Night was coming on and the lamps in the yard were lit. The dark, soot-laden fog absorbed any light it could and held it in a stifled glow.

  It was unusually quiet for the end of a shift: disembodied footsteps, but no voices, apart from an occasional murmur or exhausted sigh. It was as if the fog sealed each individual worker off in a wad of solitude.

  But the fog served Mitka’s purposes. It would make it easier to slip past Granny Kvasova, who was even now waiting to shepherd the foundling children into the apprentice house. The thought of a place by the stove and a share of the communal bowl tempted him. But once inside the house there would be no escape. The door was locked on the children as soon as they stepped through it. He would miss that evening’s class. He would not see her.

  He called her Mother. All the children called her Mother, even the ones who had mothers of their own. Even the adult workers who attended the Free School called her Little Mother. She was the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful mother any of them could imagine.

  She fed them dreams and hope, food for their souls not their bellies. He would gladly forego Granny Kvasova’s cabbage soup for a smile from his Nourishing Mother. It was her image that sustained him beneath the immense veil of threads each day; the thought that he would see her, sit at her feet with the others as she told them the story of The Dead Princess and the Seven Knights, or taught them the words to Kalinka.

  Mitka felt the towering presence of the Nevsky Cotton-Spinning Factory behind him. He did not look back. In the fog, its gigantic mass would be transformed into a vague, premonitory shadow of itself. But he knew that the blackened bricks were there, the filthy chimneys, the grimy windows, and he could not bear to turn his face in their direction, to acknowledge their hold over him with even a glance. Hated as it was, it pulled at him, like a weight of sorrow to which he was chained. He wanted to run from it.

  Suddenly a soft orb of light appeared ahead of him, swaying high in the air. Someone had raised a lantern on a pole. He could see the flattened, drained form of Granny Kvasova and hear her croaking shout: ‘Children, this way! Children! Granny’s here!’ In his exhaustion, he almost walked towards the summoning, drawn by habit, like a mechanised part returning to its housing. But now the fog was on his side. It gave him time to think, or at least to remember the Mother waiting for him in the schoolroom.

  He gave the lantern a wide berth and left the old woman’s cries behind.

  A whiff of pipe smoke conjured forth the image of Uncle Pyotr, the gatekeeper. Portly and sly, he pretended to be a friend to the children, bestowing winks as if they were sugar crystals. But there was something about his eyes that Mitka never trusted, a cold watchfulness that belied his empty jov
iality. He had them call him uncle, though he was no more their uncle than the old Kvasova woman was their granny. The man’s wheezing cough and high, almost falsetto voice sounded startlingly close, signalling both the way out and a final trap. If Uncle Pyotr caught him he was bound to hand him over to Granny Kvasova. Mitka would then have to plead to be allowed to go to school. She would inevitably deny him, while Uncle Pyotr chuckled as if it was all a joke. No doubt she would use the fog as an excuse, but the real reason would be because she sensed how much he wanted it. He had heard her arguments before, the same ones, more or less, retailed by Mr Ustyantsev: ‘It will do you no good, filling your head with geography and nonsense. All you need to learn, young lad, is your place.’

  But Mitka knew the place assigned for him only too well: between the yawning jaws of the spinning mule, beneath the cotton strands.

  The gatekeeper appeared isolated by the choking blanket of grey. His bulky form came and went, like a figure in a nightmare, an embodiment of fear, partially glimpsed. Uncle Pyotr was warming his hands over a brazier, his greatcoat buttoned up against the raw air. He was sharing a joke with some of the men.

  Mitka held back, so as not to be seen. But then he heard the heavy clomp of bark shoes, coming up behind him. Stepping to one side, he peered through the fog as a new group of men came into view. Judging by their grubby peasant shirts and kaftans, not to mention their wild beards and crude haircuts, they were unskilled workers, not long up from the country. There was a burst of sharp, unpleasant laughter as they drew level with the huddle at the gate. Mitka followed in their wake and ducked behind them, clearing the factory yard.

  He could hear Uncle Pyotr teasing the country bumpkins: ‘Careful you don’t fall in the river, you lads. Mind, with those boats on your feet, you’ll probably walk to the other side!’

  His cronies provided a chorus of appreciative braying. Their smart, almost dandified city clothes, glimpsed by Mitka as he dashed past, marked them out as spinners.

  The bleat of a barge’s foghorn sounded from the nearby Bolshaia Neva. Mitka could smell the river and hear its lapping water, but not see it. It would be straight ahead of him. With Uncle Pyotr’s facetious warning in mind, he turned sharply to the right.

  He saw the glow of a street lamp ahead of him.

  The boy experienced a giddy sense of liberation as he walked.It was as if the fog had not merely masked but obliterated the factory. Softly, silently, and with infinite stealth, it had conjured away the great evil that loomed so high over his life, and weighed so heavily upon it.

  But the fog also contained within it the promise of another life, the life he was walking towards, street lamp by street lamp.

  In the fog, anything seemed possible; everything was equally real and unreal. An idea, a vision, a hope, had as much substance as a factory wall. And a voice, like the voice suddenly heard now, owed its existence to no one, to nothing but the fog. The voice of the fog was singing to him. His heart tripped as he recognised its song: Kalinka!

  Her song, the one she sang to the children.

  Kalinka, kalinka, kalinka maya …

  The street lamps led him towards it.

  Under the pine, under the green pine,

  Lay me down to sleep …

  The ghostly shapes of two feathered horses stood in the beam of a carriage lamp. Mitka couldn’t see a driver behind the glaring light. The carriage itself glowed feebly from within, as if lit by the warmth of the voice that came from it.

  Aida, Lyuli, Lyuli, aida, Lyuli, Lyuli,

  Lay me down to sleep!

  As Mitka approached, the door to the carriage swung open. The steps were already down.

  Something new escaped with the voice. A scent — her scent? — of cleanliness and flowers. Now that he could hear it more distinctly, he began to believe it was her voice, and that his Mother had come ahead to fetch him.

  Beautiful maid, dear maid,

  Please fall in love with me …

  He climbed into the song and into the scent. The carriage hardly registered his presence as the door clicked shut behind him. The voice of the fog gave a final muted chorus of Kalinka, Kalinka, Kalinka maya, then ceased.

  2 An encounter with a gendarme

  An ear-piercing shriek jolted Porfiry Petrovich from his reverie: the squeal of metal grinding on metal as the locomotive’s brakes were applied. The train juddered to a halt. Porfiry looked out of the window of his third-class compartment through the slanting rain. They had pulled up alongside a cemetery. The sight of the damp headstones and moss-covered monuments was so in keeping with the melancholic cast of his thoughts that it seemed he had summoned them. However, he recognised it as the Volkovksy Lutheran Cemetery, just south of St Petersburg. He was nearing the end of his journey.

  For the first time since he had boarded the train he regretted his economy. Lifting his head to scan the graveyard, he felt a sharp twinge in his neck, and then a second duller, longer ache in the lower right of his back. He realised that he had been holding the same position since leaving Tver, a good ten hours ago.

  He closed his eyes on the grey, rain-soaked scene. The image of Zakhar’s face came back to him. He remembered how it had seemed like the sculpture of a face, carved out of cork and covered with a waxy sheen. Strangely, in recollection, it seemed more real, more alive. He saw it just at the moment that his old servant had opened his eyes for the last time, showing whites tarnished with veins, a wan cloud dimming each iris. The eyes had swum with a desperate vitality, as the old man strained to lean forward to address a stream of inarticulate grunts to his former master.

  It had been left to Porfiry to close his eyes. At the still warm touch of Zakhar’s skin he had felt something steely enter him, like a shot of fortifying liquor.

  He had picked up a bedbug from the dead man’s wrist, crushing it between his nails in a small explosion of blood. Was this humiliating incident the only memory of his faithful servant that he would retain?

  He remembered the words he had said to the ancient woman who was Zakhar’s sister. ‘He was a good man. I shall miss him.’ But he had been thinking of another man as he said them, one long dead. For a moment he had once again been a grieving son, standing in need of consolation. Did that make the words a lie, the sentiment insincere? Or could the words apply to both Zakhar and his father?

  Porfiry felt the train begin to move, but kept his eyes closed. He tasted again the smoke that had filled the tumble-down hut. He felt it tease the tears from his eyes, which he was forced to unclench.

  The Lutheran church rang out the hour, its bell unexpectedly loud and resonant. Porfiry turned away and met the sympathetic and half-expectant gaze of a young man in a Swiss travelling cloak opposite.

  ‘It’s good to be home,’ said Porfiry, knuckling away his tears.

  The young man’s face lit up. ‘Oh yes!’ he agreed, with an intense enthusiasm that seemed disproportionate to the platitude that Porfiry had uttered. ‘That’s precisely how I feel!’

  There was something so sincere, and so open-hearted, about the young man’s response that despite its naivety, it could not fail to cheer Porfiry.

  *

  The black bulk of the Putilov locomotive, idling after its exertions, continued to hiss and vent steam. The surplus vapour curled along the platform, as if seeking out individuals to enshroud and obscure, before rising to disperse beneath the girder-meshed vault of the Nikolaevsky station.

  Porfiry Petrovich, laden with valise, stepped down from the train with the awkward skip of a man discovering himself to be heavier and more unwieldy than he had imagined. He screwed up his face at the itchy scent of machine oil. He then blew out his cheeks in a pantomime of surprise and scanned the platform with a distracted air. He pretended not to notice the unusual number of gendarmes, officers of the notorious Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Chancellery, their bright blue uniforms lightly spotted with rain. They confronted the detraining passengers with scowls of importance beneath their kepis.
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  Some instinct drove Porfiry to stride into a shifting cloud. He enjoyed his brief concealment, although he had no reason to hide from them. It was a game without purpose.

  When the steam cleared, he found himself face to face with an officer of the gendarmes — a very senior officer, judging by the sprawl of braid over his uniform. Porfiry noticed the oval badge of the Alexandrovskaya Military Academy of Jurisprudence on the right breast of his tunic. His heavily waxed moustaches stood out impressively beneath unexpectedly pink cheeks. There was a good humoured curve to his mouth, a wry, almost complicit smile. And yet his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he stared into Porfiry’s.

  ‘I know you.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Porfiry. ‘It’s perfectly possible. I am an investigating magistrate.’

  ‘Porfiry Petrovich.’ The officer smiled with self-satisfaction. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t remember your family name.’

  ‘Most people simply know me as Porfiry Petrovich.’

  ‘But you must have a family name?’

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it, too!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I had. It is hardly ever referred to. Certainly not in polite circles.’

  ‘You are very droll. I remember now, you are known for that.’ The gendarme pretended to be suddenly alarmed. ‘But there must be other Porfiry Petroviches!’

  ‘I am unlikely to be confused with any other Porfiry Petrovich. I am Porfiry Petrovich, the Magistrate. It suffices.’

  ‘Porfiry Petrovich, the Magistrate. I will remember that, I’m sure.’

  ‘And your name?’ said Porfiry.

  The gendarme held out a recriminatory finger, immaculately white-gloved. ‘Oh, you don’t get my name, if I don’t get yours! You’re not the only one who can play games, Porfiry Petrovich.’