The Gentle Axe pp-1 Read online

  The Gentle Axe

  ( Porfiry Petrovich - 1 )

  R. N. Morris

  R. N. Morris

  The Gentle Axe

  “You are a gentleman!” they said. “You shouldn’t have gone to work with an axe; it’s not at all the thing for a gentleman.”

  — Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, translation, Jessie Coulson

  December 1866

  The events described below take place approximately a year and a half after the famous case of Raskolnikov the student, in which the investigator Porfiry Petrovich played such a crucial role.

  In Petrovsky Park

  It was well into the morning when the darkness began to fade.

  Zoya Nikolaevna Petrova moved through Petrovsky Park with unthinking determination, as fat and dark in her bundled layers as a beetle. The paths, which in the summer were filled with strollers, were now hidden under snow. But she had no use for them anyway. Zoya Nikolaevna trod her own path. She was heading north, away from the frozen boating lake. Her steps were slow and uneven. Every shift in her squat frame sent a fresh stab of rheumatism shooting through the joints of her hips. Whenever she had to stoop to add a stick to her basket of firewood, it was with some effort and pain that she straightened up. But she thought of the little one shivering at home, and of the sacrifices Lilya had had to make; and was able to stoop again and straighten again and continue her steps.

  The things a woman must do. It had never been easy, though some would have accused her of choosing the easy way once. But what did they know of the cost to her soul, or of the tears she had shed over the years? Tears at the start of it, when she had first felt a stranger’s gaze possessing her. She had always found it harder to endure their eyes on her than their hands. And tears at the end of it, when the mirror showed her looks creased by age and a figure absurdly fat and ugly; and she felt herself worn out to the bones. Yes, tears when even that recourse was closed to her. Why should there not have been tears? That life, that way of living was all she had known, and there had been some comfort in it.

  Tears came again now. But they were simply moisture drawn by the stinging cold. She felt no sadness and no nostalgia for the life she had lost, no grief for the countless miscarriages, not even for those that were accidental. Her nose ran, and she let it. It was one of the small freedoms of solitude.

  She was not lonely. Not while she had the thought of the little one at home and of Lilya, who called her mother and allowed herself in turn to be called daughter by Zoya.

  Who would have thought that the way out of her troubles would be to take on more troubles?

  Zoya felt the land dip. Her gaze was fixed on the ground ahead of her, scanning for firewood. She had left the little one sleeping and so was anxious to get back. She couldn’t bear the thought of the child waking alone. Ah, but little Vera could sleep for hours in this cold. Sometimes Zoya thought she would never wake.

  She told herself not to worry. She must gather all the wood she could carry. What they didn’t use themselves, she could sell. It would be a crime to go home without a mountain of fagots strapped to her back and a full basket. It would be better for them all if she took as long as she needed.

  But Lilya had not come home last night, which worried her too, if she thought about it. The girl must have had a busy night. That was it. If so, she should rejoice. There would be something good to eat today. Lilya was a generous soul, and touchingly grateful. She never forgot that it was Zoya who had taught her the things she needed to know to keep from starving.

  Zoya stooped to grab a scrawny twig. Nothing was allowed to escape her hunt for fuel. She felt the earth pull her overburdened torso down and braced herself to take a stand against the tyranny of gravity, forcing a clenched knuckle into her aching spine. She stood and straightened, swooning in the intense and nearly blissful shifts of pain.

  And then she saw him, there ahead of her, his shoulders hunched forward, head skewed. He seemed to be waiting for her. He was a big man, tall and burly, with a massy beard that confidently matched the bulk of his person. He was dressed in an old army greatcoat. The flaps of a sheepskin cap covered his ears. He had the bloated face of a vodka drinker and cunning pinpoint eyes. His feet were plunged into tarred boots, the toes of which floated barely an inch above the white ground, a comic dancer frozen in the execution of a pirouette.

  The birch trunk that bore him was bent like an archer’s bow. A sudden howl of wind set the tree vibrating. A flurry of snowflakes danced as though magnetized. The hanging man spun around.

  On the ground near his feet she saw something brown half-buried in the snow.

  Zoya crossed herself with two fingers and hesitated. Drifting flakes thickened and massed, then rushed her face. The hanging man scared her. But her instincts sensed the promise of something more valuable than firewood.

  She lowered her gaze and resumed her slow, shuffling step toward him.

  Her foot kicked against the object in the snow. It was hard and unyielding. Risking pain, she bent to clear the snow from it with a sweep of her arm. It was a large leather suitcase.

  The case was too heavy for Zoya to lift. She dragged it away from the body on the tree, leaving a broad trail.

  Her fingers worked the catches, which were stiff but not locked. The lid of the case sprang upward a little, as if recoiling from what was contained within. Zoya lifted it open.

  He was curled like a fetus in the womb waiting to be born. The falling snow was quick to welcome him, broad flakes laying themselves with the delicacy of a caul over a jutting shoulder.

  His head, she noticed, was split open, hair roughly parted on either side of a dark glistening secret. It struck her, this head, as strangely large.

  He was on his side. His left eye rebuked her. She made the sign of the cross for a second time.

  She avoided the staring eye and took in the rest of him.

  Oh but he is tiny! she realized. Tiny arms and tiny legs, and how did he fit all that he needed-a heart, lungs, kidney, liver-into that tiny little body? But he was a man and not a child. A dark beard was trimmed to a point on his chin.

  He was dressed in a threadbare suit, the sleeves and trouser legs severely cut off and hemmed.

  Without knowing she was going to do it, Zoya searched his pockets. She averted her eyes as her hands went about their business. The things a woman must do.

  Her fingers closed on something hard and compact. She retrieved a pack of playing cards, still in its cardboard box. She thumbed out the first few cards. It was one of those pornographic packs, with naked girls for queens, horny satyrs for kings, and hermaphrodites taking the place of jacks. The wind snapped up a small slip of paper that had been tucked away among them. Zoya let it go. The cards were old and well used, but she didn’t doubt she could sell them to some fool. She conjured them away.

  The tips of her fingers probed the seams of his every pocket but came up with nothing. She was no longer aware of her fear. Something more urgent than fear compelled her.

  She bustled across to the other one. She was racing against the falling snow. And she was afraid that someone might discover her. But there was something else too. A grim eagerness.

  She pulled open the frozen greatcoat and gave a high squeal of horror. There, tucked into the belt of his trousers, was a short-handled axe. The blade seemed to leer at her. It was like a tongue licking the blood that stained it.

  She looked up into the hanging man’s face. Such a big brute. What a bully, to have killed that poor little fellow in the case. No wonder he had taken his own life. It was the shame of it.

  She carried on investigating the clothing of the corpse. She thought of all the men she had undressed. They had picked her bones, and now the boot was on th
e other foot. She giggled. She was having the last laugh now. One hand delved into the pocket of his breeches. She felt something metallic. It was small and irregularly shaped and turned out to be a key. In itself it had no value. But who knew what treasures it would unlock? It joined the pack of cards in the secret compartments of her dress.

  Her hand now burrowed into the inside breast pocket of his greatcoat and straightaway felt the contents. Two things, she judged, about the same size, one soft and papery, the other hard. She pulled out the first, a bulging envelope. It was pale lilac, unaddressed and unsealed.

  Inside the envelope was a bundle of banknotes.

  She darted quick glances in every direction, certain now that someone would disturb her. She took out the money, a rainbow of color in the bleached landscape, and counted the notes.

  Zoya’s hands trembled but not from the cold. The lilac envelope fell. She raised her face to the falling snow. Six thousand rubles! Tears now, real tears of emotion, mingled with the flakes thawing on her cheeks. She folded the cash away inside the layers of her extended being and went on her way laughing.

  “Everything Is in Order”

  Porfiry Petrovich transferred the cigarette from fingers to lips, a moment of intense anticipation. It was not pleasure so much that he anticipated as clarity. Porfiry always insisted that he smoked for rational-he would even say professional-reasons.

  He closed the brightly colored enamel cigarette case with a soft click and returned it to the inside pocket of his jacket.

  A copy of The Periodical was open on the desk in front of him. Porfiry flattened the pages, seeming to stroke the words in preparation to reading them. It was an article entitled “Why Do They Do It?” An introductory line promised: “A discussion of the motivation of educated, titled, and talented perpetrators of crime and injustice.” The author was given as “R.”

  Porfiry struck a match and leaned forward to meet its flame. As he inhaled, his blood quickened, and he felt both absorbed by and in control of his mental and perceptual processes.

  The elegant syntax of the article revealed its secrets to him. He experienced it as a dance of ideas, inevitable and inexorable. He frowned, not because he was confused but for the pleasure of frowning. He was acutely self-conscious.

  Something began to impinge on his reverie.

  Salytov.

  He felt the catalyst of cigarette smoke lose its power. His entire being was no longer focused onto the pages of the journal. He was aware now of the green leather surface of the writing desk upon which it rested. And now the rest of the room came back to him, with its government-issue furniture, the imitation leather-covered sofa, the chairs, the escritoire and bookcase, all made from the same tawny wood. But more than anything he felt the looming presence of the doors.

  Salytov was shouting. Again.

  Two doors led off from Porfiry Petrovich’s “chambers,” as this modest room in the Department of the Investigation of Criminal Causes was rather grandly known. One was the door to his private apartments, provided for him, like everything else, by the government. The other was the door to the Haymarket District Police Bureau in Stolyarny Lane.

  The doors symbolized Porfiry’s dilemma. Either he could take his journal and his cigarette and retreat into his inner sanctuary (although it was well past the hour when he was required to make himself available for his official duties as an investigator); or he could step out into the chaos of the receiving area of the police station and confront his colleague Ilya Petrovich Salytov.

  Porfiry ground the stub of his cigarette into a crystal ashtray.

  MY DEAR ILYA PETROVICH-”

  “Everything is under control, Porfiry Petrovich. There is no need for your interference.” Salytov jerked his arms as he shouted, as if Porfiry were a fly he was trying to swat away. His face was red. The veins on his temples bulged. He moved constantly but without purpose. He was starting to sweat and pulled at his collar.

  “Of course, of course…But, you know, I don’t seek to interfere, merely to offer my assistance.”

  “I am grateful to you. However…” Salytov had been a lieutenant in the army. Perhaps he had learned to bluster then. But Porfiry found it hard to believe he had ever commanded the respect of his men. He had a weak mouth. The bristles of his well-trimmed sandy mustache couldn’t compensate for this.

  “How you scared us last time, Ilya Petrovich! We, your friends in the department, we were most concerned for your health. I’ve never seen such a shade of puce in nature before. And when you fainted.”

  “That was in the summer. It was a fearful hot day, and the smell from the Ditch was overpowering.”

  “But the doctor was clear that your temper had contributed to the attack.”

  “It wasn’t an attack!”

  “Were you not commanded-for your own good, of course, but commanded all the same-to avoid such excesses of passion by no less than Nikodim Fomich? Think what would happen if he were to come upon you now.”

  “I’m not afraid of Nikodim Fomich.”

  “I’m not suggesting you should be afraid of any man, Ilya Petrovich. Not even our esteemed chief superintendent. However, were you to be deprived of your position-”

  “He can’t do that to me!”

  “A transfer, it would be called, no doubt. A move into a less stressful position. For health reasons. I know how these things work. Believe me, Ilya Petrovich, I’m on your side. I will do all I can. But surely the best course of action is to avoid his attention in the first place. Isn’t there some way we can resolve this matter without all the, uh…” Porfiry smiled and whispered, “Shouting?”

  Salytov gave his reluctant assent with a flinch.

  “What is the situation here?” Porfiry’s gently amused tone mollified the demand.

  “This young hussy-a prostitute, mind…” Salytov indicated a small, tired-looking girl. She was handcuffed to the black-uniformed polizyeisky, who maintained exemplary side whiskers and an outraged expression. The girl’s exact age was hard to say, but she was young. Her face was thickly made up, in the usual fashion of a streetwalker. Somehow this only made her seem more naïve. It was as if someone had explained the economic advantage of heavy cosmetics, and she had applied it in good faith. And she had donned the requisite costume too, by the looks of it handed down to her through the generations. In the glare of the police station, her red silk dress, so old and worn it was practically falling apart, appeared like a badge of poverty rather than vice. The oversize bustle and sodden filthy train invited ridicule, as did her frayed straw hat and tattered parasol. Pathetically at odds with all this, and undermining whatever effect she was aiming at, was the homely woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her build was slight. Both Salytov and the polizyeisky loomed over her, though Porfiry was closer to her height. The chief clerk, a pale superior type with high cheekbones, was also in attendance, seated on a stool behind the reception desk. It was clear that the girl was exhausted. Her blue eyes stared wide open in the effort to keep awake. But her shoulders continually sagged. Once or twice she leaned forward onto the desk, causing the clerk to bang down the great admissions book. She would then shoot bolt upright, betraying neither ill will nor complaisance. Necessity drove her, that was all. Every now and then a convulsion of shivering gripped her frail form, each attack more extended than the one before.

  Porfiry took her in with a glance as he finished his cigarette. “She carries the yellow ticket?” he asked Salytov.

  “Yes.”

  “And it is in order?”

  “That’s not the issue.”

  “But it is in order?”

  “Yes.” Salytov almost spat out the word. His face became the battleground for contesting emotions: hatred and anger on one side, the desire not to be shown a fool on the other. It was always the same when he had dealings with Porfiry Petrovich. “She stands accused of stealing one hundred rubles from a gentleman. A search by the arresting constable discovered a banknote to that denomination on
her person.”

  “I see. And where did this alleged crime take place?”

  “Alleged! Really, Porfiry Petrovich!”

  “But where?”

  “On Sadovaya Street.”

  “I see. And when?”

  “In the early hours of the morning.”

  “Do we not know the precise time?”

  “It was about four A.M., sir,” put in the uniformed officer.

  “I see. Is there a reason why it has taken so long to process the incident?”

  “The gentleman making the charge went missing,” the head clerk supplied, his tone sarcastic and amused, making clear that it was nothing to do with him.

  “How unfortunate. Has he turned up now?”

  “We are still looking for him,” said Salytov quickly, flashing hatred at the clerk.

  “Do we know his name?”

  “She”-Salytov signaled the prostitute with a terse nod-“claims he was one Konstantin Kirillovich.”

  Porfiry turned his attention to the girl. “So this man was known to you?”

  “I had met him once before, your honor.” Her voice was that of a child. It was also polite-the voice of a well-brought-up child.

  “Under what circumstances?”

  The girl blushed and stared at Porfiry’s feet. Then she escaped into another of her shivering fits.

  “He was a client of yours?”

  The convulsion calmed. She met his gaze. “No. Not that.”

  “A pimp then?”

  The girl shook her head but would say no more.

  “Do you know where he lives, this Konstantin Kirillovich?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And how did you come to have the hundred rubles that were found on you?”

  “He gave them to me.”

  “He gave you a hundred rubles? Why?”

  “I didn’t want to take it, sir. He forced it on me.”