Another door, labelled “Private Room” opens. A young woman appears, wearing a towel that barely covers her long legs. She’s giggling girlishly, but when she sees us, she goes silent, and avoids our gaze. Then behind her, wrapped only in a small towel like a loincloth, we see the chest and limbs of a man. He steps forward. A long, dark beard and a swirled mass of hair surround a gnarled face. His eyes glow like hot coals. I pull my towel tightly around me, and the other women do the same.
The man struts along the other side of the colonnade, as if he owns the place. He doen’t look across to us. But he’s aware that every female eye is following him. The women’s gaze is wary and tinged with fear. Yet I sense suppressed excitement among them, like a forbidden thrill. Then the girl and the man disappear through another door. I look at the women, and they answer my unsaid question.
“Of course, these rooms are strictly for ladies only. But that man goes wherever he likes.”
“I’m sorry – it’s time for me to leave. But thank you for making me feel so welcome. It means a lot to me.”
I feel like a boiled lobster: I take a cold shower before returning to my cubicle. I dress, then open the cubicle door to see the professor sitting with Rasputin, who is now wearing in a long white robe. The dark hair flows over his shoulders, and the deep-set eyes burn at me. But the professor’s voice is business-like.
“Mr Rasputin. This is Miss Agnes Frocester, who assists me during Hypnotic-Forensic sessions. Where would you like me to conduct the hypnosis? I suggest somewhere private, where we won’t be disturbed.”
“The staff office here is available to me, any time I wish to use it.”
The voice is a heavy monotone, but all the time, those eyes are fixed on me. Axelson replies. “May we go to the office now?”
Rasputin smiles slowly, as if humoring a child’s request. “Yes. I’m happy to do that.” But he waits thirty seconds before standing. His presence fills the room; his tall figure stands over the professor, and he continues to gaze at me. Then he raises his hand above the professor’s head. “Let us go, then.” For all the world he looks like a puppet-master, lifting the strings to move us, like marionettes.
Rasputin leads us back into the foyer, then into a small side chamber. After the splendor of the public areas, this room is cramped and dingy. The only furniture is a desk, a chair and a bench. We sit, and Rasputin suddenly begins to talk. His voice sounds loud in the tiny space.
“Your Swedish newspapers. They are full of lies about me. They insinuate that I am a murderer.”
“Only one thing can combat lies, Mr Rasputin: the truth. I am here to find the truth about what happened to Miss Håkansson.”
“But it is wrong to slander an innocent man. I am the most innocent man to walk this earth since the Bible was written. But then, all the Prophets were slandered, and John the Baptist, and Jesus himself. Every hand was raised against the Savior, but he was innocent of sin. If you hypnotize me, then you can go back to Sweden, and tell everyone what I tell you – the absolute truth. I am innocent of that woman’s blood.”
“Do you think you are innocent of all sin, Mr Rasputin?”
“No-one is free of all sin. You know that, don’t you, Miss Frocester?”
He raises one eyebrow at me. I can telclass="underline" he recognises me. Somehow, he noticed me in the massage room. But then he looks away, as if I am of no interest to him, and holds Axelson in his gaze.
“Professor, there are many kinds of sin. Pride is the worst sin of all. The Tsarina is the great mother of Mother Russia – but she is a humble woman. Yet the fine ladies of St Petersburg – pride riddles them. They pretend they are virtuous and pure. I liberate women from their pride.”
The professor looks quizzically at the monk, who carries on. “When I touch a woman, she cannot resist the urges of the flesh. Her body sins with burning lust for me. But her soul is humbled, and redeemed.”
Rasputin has been speaking only to the professor, but he shoots another glance at me, as if suddenly remembering I’m here. This time his staring eyes are deathly cold; I almost shiver. “It’s all just an act” I say to myself, and try to return his gaze. The professor, though, asks an odd question.
“Have you used the ladies’ bathing pool here at Neva Bath House?”
“I use whatever I like. Nowhere, nothing and no-one is forbidden to me. I have true freedom. Whereas you, Professor Axelson, are not free, not at all. You are held in Russia against your will. You dream every night of escape, of a ship to take you back to your beloved Sweden.”
Rasputin fixes the professor in an unblinking stare. One of the rumors I heard is that he can dilate his pupils at wilclass="underline" I look into his eyes to see if it will happen. Moments pass in a strange, suspended silence. I watch the two men. I’m not sure who is the hypnotist, who the hypnotized.
After a few minutes, Axelson speaks, his voice slow and measured. “So, you have used the bathing pool. What do you see, when you are in the pool?”
“Women. Among the pillars, all around the walls of the room.”
“Are you swimming, or just standing in the water?”
“I’m swimming. Swimming is better.”
“Swimming is better, yes. Could there be any true son of Russia who cannot swim? Russia is a land of rivers.”
Rasputin is nodding, as if in time to the cadences of the professor’s voice.
“Your own name: Ras-putin. It means the place where two rivers meet; where waters mingle. But tell me, Rasputin, about the water in the ladies’ pool, here at the Neva Bath House. How does it feel on your skin?”
“Warm.”
Rasputin’s voice has softened. His eyes, too, look more gentle; they are still wide open, but look dreamily into an unseen distance. And strangely, the lines in his face look less prominent; he appears younger. The professor’s voice continues.
“Warm water. As a boy, growing up in a village by a river, did you ever swim? Did you ever dream of swimming in warm water?”
“That would be heaven. To feel, all over my body, water that is warm. Like I had fallen, not into a river, but into Paradise.”
“You are looking down, at deep water. It’s the river near your village. And someone is holding your hand, aren’t they?”
“Yes. My mother holds my hand, tightly. We are standing on the river bank in the village, looking down into the cold, swirling waters.”
“Is she saying anything? What is she telling you?”
“”She is saying that I am not a lonely, only child – that I do have brothers and sisters, but that God took them away. She tells me about two of them – Dmitri and Maria. I have never known them, my brother and sister, yet I can see them now. A little boy and a little girl. Their faces – they are looking up at us, from the water. Dmitri and Maria are in the river… and the current, cold as ice, carries them away from us.
My mother holds my hand, she says Grigor, Grigor, hold on tight. Your brother and sister are gone, into the river. You must hold onto me, stay with me. You are all I have left.”
The professor’s voice takes up Rasputin’s story. “The river, and your village, are beautiful. The woods, stretching right across Siberia. The hills and valleys of the Ural Mountains. Yet you dream of going far away when you grow up. You are a boy who is full of restless dreams.”
“Yes.”
“You dream of going all the way to Yekatarinburg, the big town. Or even further, to Moscow or St Petersburg. You dream of riding into Moscow, on a horse. You will look so splendid, riding the horse. Crowds of people will look at you.”
Rasputin nods. His wide eyes have a boyish eagerness; his cheeks and forehead look fresher and more youthful. Axelson’s voice goes on.