Porfiry gazed steadily into Gorshkov’s frightened eyes. That’s all it is, he thought, his madness — fear. ‘Take one,’ he said. ‘It’s all right.’ Porfiry lit the cigarette as it quivered between the other man’s lips. ‘My dear fellow, let us sit down.’
Gorshkov sat down first and the bed hardly seemed to dip under his weight. His dressing gown fell open, revealing damp and grubby linen. Porfiry mimed for him to close it. In some confusion, he obeyed.
‘Who are you?’ asked Gorshkov in wonder, as Porfiry sat on the bed next to him. His voice had startling depth.
‘I am a magistrate. I have come to ask you some questions.’
‘They have asked me questions. “What day is it? What year is it? What is the Tsar’s name? What is your name?” And I told them, “I care nothing for such questions.” The Tsar? Who is the Tsar to me? As for the day, let it be any day you like, so long as it is the day I die. That’s all I ask.’ Gorshkov drew on his cigarette hungrily, as if it renewed the energy he had lost through speaking.
‘Do you know of a man called Ferfichkin?’
‘Ferfichkin! Ferfichkin sent you?’ Gorshkov drew away from Porfiry in fear. The chain at his ankle rattled angrily.
Porfiry reached out a hand to calm Gorshkov. ‘Ferfichkin did not send me. Ferfichkin is dead.’
Gorshkov put a hand to his mouth, covering something like a smile that had broken out in his face. ‘What’s that you say? The miser is dead?’
‘Yes.’
Sounds like laughter, tentative, bewildered blasts, came from Gorshkov. His body began to convulse, setting the bed rattling. But the laughter was so hard-won and wrenched from so deep within him that it did not remain laughter for long. The tears streamed his face. His mouth was stretched in an anguished gape. ‘I curse him. I curse his mean miserable soul. May he rot in Hell! I pray to God that he will know the pain that he has inflicted on others. I implore God to show him no mercy in death as he showed no mercy in life. Dead! Can it really be true? Dead, you say?’
‘It is true.’
‘Have you seen him? Did you set eyes on his cold corpse?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did he die?’
‘He was murdered. Stabbed through the heart.’
‘Miracle!’
‘It is known that you argued with Ferfichkin, over the money for your daughter’s funeral.’
‘Nastya!’ The sorrow crashed over him like a wave.
‘You were heard to threaten his life.’
‘Yes!’
‘Did you kill him, Filya? You need not be afraid to tell me.’
‘Kill him?’ Gorshkov held out his hands in front of him and seemed to tighten them around an invisible neck. ‘Of course I killed him. I strangled the life out of him with my own hands.’
‘But as I have already said, Ferfichkin was stabbed to death.’
‘Yes!’ Gorshkov’s eyes widened gleefully. ‘After I had strangled him, I stabbed him. I took the kitchen knife and stuck it through his neck. I twisted the knife till the blade snapped off.’ He mimed this action too.
‘He was stabbed in the heart, Filya. I have told you that already too.’
‘In the heart, yes! That’s what I said!’
‘You said the neck.’
‘Are you trying to trick me? Perhaps you’ll tell me now that Ferfichkin isn’t dead at all, when I killed him with my own hands.’
‘Ferfichkin is dead. He was stabbed through the heart with a poniard. If you really killed him, you should be able to describe the weapon to me.’
‘A poniard, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was a short dagger with a flat blade. The handle was made. . of ivory. . carved in the shape of entwined serpents.’
‘You didn’t kill Ferfichkin, did you, Filya?’
A weight of disappointment seemed to settle on him. ‘I would have done, had someone else not beaten me to it.’ His mood changed again, to one of intense excitement. ‘What a man! I would like to shake him by the hand! Was it you?’
‘No, it wasn’t me.’
‘Of course not. You are a magistrate. Magistrates do not commit murder.’
‘It is hoped not.’ Porfiry smiled. His tone then became serious. ‘Filya, do you remember receiving a letter, an anonymous letter about Ferfichkin?’
‘A letter, you say?’
Porfiry nodded.
‘What does it say?’
‘No, Filya. I want to know if you ever received such a letter.’
‘There were letters.’
‘About Ferfichkin?’
Gorshkov shrugged. ‘There was no one to read them. We used to get Andrei Petrovich to read the letters. But he died. Of the cholera.’
‘What happened to the letters, do you know?’
‘We have no use for letters.’ He stared fierce-eyed at Porfiry. ‘You cannot eat letters.’ He made this statement with surprised force, in the manner of one revealing a profound, but only recently discovered, truth. Almost immediately, he became morose, his expression disappointed, his gaze sealed off.
‘Filya?’
Gorshkov’s eyes darted briefly to the top of Porfiry’s head. ‘Where is your hat?’ he asked sullenly, as if this was a source of great bitterness to him.
‘I don’t have a hat. Not today.’
Gorshkov sighed heavily. ‘You’re a gentleman. You should wear a hat.’
Porfiry smiled gently. ‘Filya, why did you take the knife to your own throat?’
Gorshkov’s gaze locked on to Porfiry’s. ‘I needed more pain.’ After a moment he added: ‘They will not let me have a knife now.’
‘No. That is perhaps wise.’
‘Why? What difference does it make to them?’
Porfiry looked at Dr Zverkov, who was watching the interview with interest. ‘Perhaps none. Although I am sure the doctors here do not wish you to suffer any more than can be helped.’
‘I want to suffer!’ cried Gorshkov. ‘I have suffered all my life! I have nothing if they take away my pain.’
‘I must leave you now, Filya.’
‘Let him come back.’
‘Who?’
‘The one who beat me. I want him to come back. I will foul myself again so that he beats me.’
‘Oh, Filya.’
Gorshkov jumped up from the bed again. ‘I must go to work. They cannot keep me here. They are expecting me at the factory. The foreman is a brute.’
‘You don’t have to go to work any more, Filya. You may rest now.’
Gorshkov’s eyes grew large with panic. He sank back on to the bed. For a moment he continued to stare at Porfiry, then his gaze drifted off to an unknowable place. His hands began to move, seemingly with precision and purpose, as if he were miming some task. He brought them together, then drew them apart. Next, he held his left hand still as he described a straight line past it with his right, which was clenched as if holding something. Further lines and arcs were drawn in the air. Then the hands came together and rose sharply, as an imaginary thing was lifted. Without pause, he began repeating the same actions exactly, like a clockwork automaton.
Porfiry rose from the bed and indicated his readiness to go with a sharp and yet evasive bow.
6
‘Porfiry Petrovich?’ Virginsky said the name quietly, though with breathless urgency and a questioning intonation. He looked over the edge of his desk at Porfiry, who was stooping beneath the window in front of him, his attention focused on a saucer he was holding in both hands. The saucer contained a viscous golden liquid.
At that moment, Nikodim Fomich came into the room. He took in the situation with an ironic smile, winking at Virginsky. ‘I say, what have you there, Porfiry Petrovich?’
Porfiry met his good-natured enquiry with a preoccupied scowl. ‘Honey.’ He rose to his feet and stood over the saucer, watching it with fixed determination.
‘Honey?’
‘For the flies.’
‘You’re feeding the flies? I should have thought they are flourishing well enough without your encouragement.’