‘I thought I would become free.’
‘Yes, and that is what makes it all the harder to endure.’
‘I would feel better if I could wear some different clothes. Safer.’ After a moment, Virginsky added, ‘These are the clothes I was wearing when I shot him.’
Virginsky’s voice had taken on a distant quality, half wistful, half appalled. He seemed chastened. This proved decisive to Varvara Alexeevna. ‘You may help yourself to my husband’s clothes.’ She looked him up and down, her gaze softly scrutinising. ‘You are about the same size, you and he.’
‘But he is not a workman,’ objected Virginsky. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna said I was to be given a workman’s clothes.’
‘No, he is not a workman. He is a skilled engineer.’ Varvara Alexeevna’s head tilted sharply with pride. ‘Tatyana Ruslanovna also said you were to grow a beard. How are you getting on with that?’ Varvara Alexeevna’s tone was gently mocking.
‘I intend to devote all my energies to it.’ Virginsky smiled. ‘I fear I will have little else to do.’
Varvara Alexeevna’s expression suddenly darkened. ‘You are a cold-blooded man,’ she said. ‘You frighten me more than the others. They have no experience of the things they dream about. But you. . you raised a gun at one of your colleagues and fired. And here you are, a day later, calmly sitting down to breakfast and arguing about a suit of clothes. Are you really not afraid that he might die, and that the sin of his murder will be on your soul?’
Virginsky thought for a long time before replying: ‘I do not believe in the soul.’
Varvara Alexeevna shuddered and quickly put on her shawl. ‘Yes, of course. None of us believes in the soul, these days. Or at least that is what we profess. To be able to act on such a profession, however — that is a different matter.’ Varvara Alexeevna stared at the floor for a moment before continuing. ‘I must go out.’
‘I hope I am not driving you from your own apartment?’
The look she gave him was not reassuring. ‘There is tea in the samovar if you need it. I believe you will find some bread for lunch. I trust we shall see you later.’
She closed the door behind her with unseemly alacrity. It shocked Virginsky to realise that she was afraid to be in the apartment alone with him. He frowned as he listened to the sound of her locking him in.
New people
If her look had made him feel like a murderer, to be left alone in the apartment made him feel like a thief. Her invitation for him to help himself to her husband’s clothes did not help.
The couple’s bedroom adjoined the sitting room. It was a dark, sag-draped space, clogged with furniture and ornaments. Varvara Alexeevna’s taste for frivolous possessions seemed to emanate from here, spilling out into the rest of the apartment in the centrifugal scatter of a storm.
There was a hook on the inside of the bedroom door which fitted into a metal loop on the frame, to form a rudimentary lock. For some reason he could not explain, knowing he was alone in the apartment, he pushed the hook into its eye.
Tatyana Ruslanovna had warned him to stay away from the windows. But the angular projections of light that were distributed about the apartment like so much celestial bunting were more compelling than her injunction. He stood to the side of the frame and looked down at the courtyard. A solitary figure, a man in artisan’s clothes, could just be made out, lurking by the entrance. It could have been Virginsky’s imagination, but he felt sure that the man was looking up at the apartment. This was precisely what he expected. In fact, it comforted him to see the man there. Everything was as it should be, as far as that was possible. He moved slowly back from the window.
He had not expected Kirill Kirillovich to be the owner of an extensive wardrobe. In addition to the work suit he was wearing that day, Virginsky had counted on finding an additional suit for best, although he was not sure that a committed revolutionist would succumb to such conventionalities. However, Virginsky had not reckoned on the fact that a resourceful revolutionist might find it expedient to accumulate a range of clothes, which might be termed outfits, or even disguises. He could think of no other reason why Kirill Kirillovich would possess a number of different coloured peasant smocks, as well as a merchant’s kaftan, and a tailored European suit with a swallow-tailed jacket. He was not altogether surprised to find a priest’s robe hanging in the wardrobe. He chose a pair of loose workman’s trousers and a rough red smock. He then searched the bottom of the wardrobe and found a pair of felt boots, which he tucked the trousers into. Finally, he put on a leather belt to cinch the smock.
It was strange to stand before a mirror in another man’s clothes. He was surprised how unlike himself he looked. He wondered whether that was the result of the change of clothes, or of a greater change that had taken place inside him. But in St Petersburg, a city of costumes and uniforms, the power of appearance could not be underestimated. It was never a question of mere appearance. A man could make himself whatever he wanted to be, simply by appearing to be it.
He was startled out of his self-absorption by a knock at the apartment door. His heart picked up the sharp rhythm and echoed it internally. He froze. The silence after the knocking ceased throbbed with catastrophe. The knocking was repeated. Virginsky thought he recognised the complicated pattern of the entry code. He relaxed minutely, though his heart still kept up its percussive chorus.
He let himself out of the bedroom and moved noiselessly to the apartment door. He sensed the presence of the other in the silence. He laid a hand flat on the door, as if to reach out to whoever was there. He withdrew the hand as the knocking was repeated, the same pattern, more urgently.
A voice, Dolgoruky’s, hissed: ‘Magistrate! Open up. It’s me, Dolgoruky.’
‘I can’t. She’s locked me in.’
There was laughter from the other side. ‘She’s not taking any chances, that one.’
‘What do you want?’
To Virginsky’s astonishment, he heard a key fit into the lock. A moment later the door was open. The Prince’s gaze swept over him hungrily. ‘My, my, magistrate, what have you done?’
Virginsky closed the door quickly. ‘You have a key?’
‘Of course. This is my apartment. That is to say, it was. I put it at the disposal of the central committee and they handed it over to Kirill Kirillovich and Varvara Alexeevna. I must have forgotten to surrender all the keys.’
‘But you live in that squalid room? With all those others.’
‘One must make sacrifices for the revolution.’
The look Virginsky bestowed on Dolgoruky was almost one of admiration. There were many questions he could have asked. He settled for, ‘Why did you knock, if you had a key?’
‘It’s hardly polite, is it, to go barging in uninvited.’ Dolgoruky’s sheepish expression suggested another motive.
Only now did Virginsky think of the question he should have asked in the first place: ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Everyone knows you are here. That is to say, all our people do, at least.’
‘Which means that the authorities will by now. Tatyana Ruslanovna believes there is an agent in our midst.’
‘Oh, it is never as simple as that, in my experience. Do you not agree?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘And so you shot him!’ cried Dolgoruky abruptly. ‘You really shot him, that horrible little man. I must say, I couldn’t be more pleased.’
‘I didn’t do it to please you.’
Dolgoruky seemed surprised by this. ‘Why did you do it?’
The question seemed to throw Virginsky. ‘I would have thought that was obvious. To strike at the heart of the administration. . The central committee called for an act of singular daring. .’