Around them the machines idled like predatory beasts feeding. It would not be long before their hunger for production was re-awakened.
‘Was Mitka your friend?’
The same shrug jerked Pasha’s shoulders and Virginsky realised that there was another aspect to it that he had not acknowledged: it was a way of expressing things for which the child had no words, that perhaps would always remain beyond words. But it was capable of nuances even so, almost as much as any verbal language.
‘Did you go to the school with him? You know that Mitka went to school?’
Pasha shook his head fiercely. ‘Granny Kvasova told us that Satan would get us if we went to that school.’
‘I can assure you that that’s not true.’
‘She says the lady teacher is a witch who consorts with the devil.’
‘Does she indeed? Well, I know the lady teacher and I can tell you she’s not a witch.’
Pasha looked unconvinced. ‘Did Satan get Mitka? Granny Kvasova says he did. She says the lady teacher lay with Mitka and then fed him to Satan, her husband.’
‘That really is the most outrageous lie!’ cried Virginsky. ‘You don’t believe her, do you?’
The shrug now had a different meaning. It seemed steeped in wilful ignorance and left Virginsky depressed.
*
The apprentice house was a low, brick-built outhouse, on the other side of the yard but still within the precincts of the factory and beneath its sprawling shadow.
So this had been Mitka’s home, thought Virginsky as he crossed the threshold. They entered through the canteen, a large open room arrayed with benches, the air thick with the vinegary smell of cabbage soup. The floor was bare, the boards gaping and grubby, soft wood crumbling away; walls of whitewashed brick.
Pasha’s face fell immediately. The other children, about fifty in number, of varying ages, were already seated, clustered around a series of communal bowls from which they spooned their meagre nourishment with competitive haste. He dashed away from Virginsky and forced his way into a circle of backs. His intrusion was not resisted, merely met with distracted resentment. Virginsky knew he had lost him.
A settled stupor possessed the diners, though whether of exhaustion or hunger — or both — Virginsky could not say. No one spoke. The clatter of cutlery was eloquent enough. There was none of the wheeling liveliness and laughter that is usually found when children congregate. They spooned the soup into their mouths with determined concentration, the same kind of concentration they applied to their tasks in the factory.
None of the children paid him any attention, though his presence was noted by the one adult in the room, a bonneted woman with the scrawny head of a turkey, who stood guard over the children. She wiped her palms combatatively on a filthy apron and began to move in his direction.
Virginsky gave a distant bow and stepped forward to meet her halfway. ‘You must be Granny Kvasova. Pasha told me all about you.’
The woman gave him a sharp look that set her dewlap trembling. ‘And who might you be?’ Her voice was high and piercing.
‘I am Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky. A magistrate. I am investigating the disappearance of a boy who was until recently employed at the factory, and indeed may still be considered an employee. Dmitri Krasotkin. I presume you know him?’
‘You had better speak to Oleg Sergeevich about him. Mitka worked for Oleg Sergeevich.’
‘Yes, I am aware of that. I have already interviewed that gentleman. I wish to speak to you now. Mitka lived here at the apprentice house?’
Granny Kvasova’s head twitched in what may have been a nod of assent.
‘Under your care?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s a lot of children for one person to look after.’
‘I have help. But they ain’t too bad. They’re good children. Always behave themselves.’
Virginsky glanced around. ‘They seem too exhausted to do otherwise. Were you not concerned when Mitka went missing?’
‘He always was a wilful one.’
‘Did you report his disappearance to the factory management?’
‘I told Oleg Sergeevich.’
‘And the police?’
‘The police have better things to do than chase runaways.’
‘Runaways? The boy was not a slave here, I hope. He was free to leave.’
‘Exactly. He was free to leave. And he did.’
‘Were you not afraid for his safety?’
‘I dare say he can look after himself.’
‘Why did you spread malicious rumours about the young gentlewoman who runs the school Mitka attended?’
‘Malicious? Who says they’re malicious?’
‘You called her a witch, I believe.’
‘She came round here, poking her nose where it wasn’t wanted. I could see right through her. Godless and depraved, she is. That’s why she was after Mitka. She likes them young.’
‘Are you aware there are laws to protect people from such slander?’
‘Slander, is it?’ The woman’s voice rose to a pitch at the limit of human hearing. ‘I saw the way she looked at the children. Licking her lips. I sent her packing, I can tell you.’
‘I advise you to curtail such vile allegations or you may find yourself in deep trouble.’
Granny Kvasova’s face contracted in distaste. However, she seemed to take in Virginsky’s threat. She calmed down enough for her voice to drop several tones to a more comfortable register. ‘A friend of hers, are you?’
Virginsky noted the malice in her cold eyes. ‘I am here as a magistrate, on official business.’ He looked about him dismissively. ‘This place … what kind of a home life do you provide the children here?’
‘It’s a roof over their heads, warm grub in their bellies. A bed to sleep in.’
‘Where do they sleep?’
‘You want to see their beds, do you?’ There was something unspeakably disgusting about the intonation with which she managed to invest the question.
Virginsky looked away from the woman, suppressing an impulse to strike her. The children were beginning to rise from their hurried meal. ‘I repeat, I am a magistrate. I am investigating the disappearance of a child who was in your care. The more I can learn about his life before he went missing, the better our chances of finding him.’
‘I don’t see how looking at his bed will help.’
‘I have not come here to discuss my methods with you, old woman. Show me where he slept, before I haul you in and charge you with obstructing a magistrate in the execution of his duties.’
‘There’s nothing much to see, I tell you,’ said Granny Kvasova, undaunted.
‘Nevertheless,’ insisted Virginsky.
The children were now filing out to return to work, each one enclosed in his or her own morose silence. They were not like children, but like shrunken adults, already worn down and defeated by the treadmill of their existence. What was most shocking to Virginsky was the blankness of their expressions. He saw no trace of the outrage or horror that they should by rights have displayed at the prospect of the afternoon ahead of them. In one or two, perhaps, there was a look of puzzled awe, as if they were struggling to comprehend the mystery of their lives. But that may simply have been the expression their faces naturally fell into when they were exhausted.
‘You will show me the sleeping quarters. Now.’
Granny Kvasova clicked her tongue and took her time. She led Virginsky through a door in the side wall of the canteen, directly into a dormitory. The beds, such as they were, consisted of a series of long wooden platforms, subdivided by partitions. Each of the sleeping booths created by this arrangement was numbered, and furnished with a coarse grey blanket. As there was no space separating each ‘bed’ from its neighbour, the children had nowhere to put any personal belongings. Indeed, it seemed doubtful that they possessed any. Worse still, there was no space for them to simply be. No chairs to sit in. No floor to play on. The room was severely purposed. You came into it, found your booth, and fell into it to sleep the sleep of the physically exhausted.