‘Come, come. As for the former, what makes you so certain it was a question of my seducing her? We were both adults, and she was in a relationship which, in theory at least, allowed her absolute freedom as far as the dictates of her heart were concerned. Neither of us did what we did in order to hurt Demyan Antonovich. We did it rather to please ourselves than to hurt another. And as for the latter point, his death was approved by the central committee. It was not a question of my ordering it.’
Blindfolded as he was, Virginsky had the sense that all that Tatiscev’s words contained was being trampled and churned in the ceaseless rotation of hooves. ‘What happened to her?’
Tatiscev hesitated a moment before answering: ‘She died. Her death seemed to unhinge Kozodavlev. He became unreliable. I felt — the central committee felt — that he was becoming a liability. His hatred towards me was getting out of hand. It seemed he held me responsible for her death, and for all manner of other evils. He had come to believe the propaganda he had written.’
‘And were you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Responsible for her death?’
‘Not at all,’ Tatiscev answered calmly, as though it were a perfectly reasonable question, and perfectly reasonable that he might have been. ‘She died of consumption. We were no longer in contact. I had not seen her for many years. It was Kozodavlev who informed me of her death. I had moved on from my relationship with her; Demyan Antonovich had been unable to do so, it seemed.’
‘A sad story.’
‘Yes.’
‘But his death was in no way connected to your affair with his wife,’ stated Virginsky, as if to reassure himself on that point. He continued: ‘In this case, your reasons were political rather than psychological.’
Tatiscev seemed to take offence at Virginsky’s need to clarify this. ‘Of course. How could it be otherwise?’ A note of icy restraint entered his voice.
‘Well, it’s just that he must have embarrassed you, as cuckolds embarrass us all. And his enduring love for the woman you had taken from him and then callously abandoned. . Perhaps you saw it as a reproach? One that you could not bear.’
‘You’re a young man. Stupidly romantic. The fact of the matter is more prosaic. He had become unreliable. The central committee makes these decisions. Not I.’
‘Tell me, who set the fire? It was not Botkin. Or you?’
‘Of course not. We used an escaped convict called Rodya, a semi-literate and easily manipulated fellow. He had got hold of certain of our manifestos and believed that he was helping to initiate the revolution every time he shat inside a church. He was not averse to committing murder on our behalf, and did not need a very compelling reason to do so. A few roubles usually did the trick. Surprisingly few.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘We have had neither sight nor sound of him since the fire. Perhaps, considering the deaths of the children, he considered it wise to go to ground.’
Virginsky felt that the supposed death of Porfiry Petrovich gave him licence to ask anything. ‘What is your attitude to their deaths?’
‘Regrettable. But unavoidable.’
‘I wonder, is there any point in regretting that which is unavoidable?’ Virginsky was perhaps a little carried away by the idea of Porfiry’s death.
‘You sound like Botkin! I can see how you were able to shoot your colleague. Didn’t that cause you some regret?’
‘I take no particular pleasure from Porfiry Petrovich’s death.’ It was a statement Virginsky could only make believing Porfiry Petrovich to be still alive. ‘However, an act such as this was necessary to initiate the next stage of our great task.’
‘Ah yes, the next stage. Rest assured that everything is in place to capitalise on your singular deed.’
‘You intend to perpetrate an atrocity?’
‘I am not in a position to share details with you. In the meantime, the central committee has decided that it would be best if you were moved.’
‘I see.’
‘Now that the magistrate has died, there will be a renewed effort to track you down. Your presence in a married couple’s apartment can only attract suspicion. We have found a new apartment for you. You will live there with Tatyana Ruslanovna as man and wife. You will be provided with forged papers. I trust that will be agreeable to you?’
‘It will be a satisfactory arrangement.’
‘You are to have no further communication with the other grouping. Do you understand? You are ours now. We are claiming you as one of our people.’
‘You will not talk to them at all?’ Virginsky’s heart pounded. It was a dangerous gambit, considering the grouping did not in fact exist.
‘There is only one central committee. Ours. These people you were mixed up in, it is best that you forget them.’
‘Very well.’
The carriage slowed and stopped. Virginsky heard the door open and felt the bounce of the springs as Tatiscev got out. The door slammed shut once more. But he sensed that he was not alone. ‘May I take off my blindfold now?’
There was no answer. He raised his hands to the blindfold. No other hands restrained him. When he slipped the blindfold off, he saw Tatyana Ruslanovna sitting opposite him, her smile sealed with secret irony. ‘A satisfactory arrangement?’ Her words were charged with mock outrage.
‘You were there?’
‘All the time.’
‘You lied to me.’
Her eyebrows bobbed upwards. Better get used to it, the gesture seemed to indicate.
Husband and wife
He had never seen the city so empty. Yes, there were people about, but they moved like ghosts, solitary and without substance, sealed off from one another, their faces drained of emotion and hope. They seemed to breathe desolation; it was the element in which they moved. For the first time, he realised that everything in this city was too big: vast squares and avenues of vertiginous breadth that could never be filled except with countless regiments of parading soldiers, as if the whole point of raising an army was to ward off this terrible sense of desolation. Even the sprawling palaces and tenements could not fill the emptiness, but simply section it. They stood like aspirations, shell-like structures that overwhelmed the merely human, that were in fact hostile to it. Virginsky was reminded that it was a city that had been built on nothing, or almost nothing — on marshland. It had been dreamt into existence, an act of will, one man’s vision which could only demoralise those who came to live in it, as it had destroyed so many of those who had built it. The premeditation of the place sapped the life from its inhabitants. One was presented everywhere with straight lines and purpose, universal direction imposed by the city’s first planner, still dictating their lives even after his death. It was no wonder that most people chose to keep off the streets. Virginsky imagined them cowering in basements, huddled together as far as possible from the excessive scale and expanse outside. But he could not be sure of their presence even there, so great was the sense of abandonment he felt.
He looked across at the woman facing him in the moving carriage. The space that had opened up between them was equal in vastness to any outside. And he was as alone here as he was anywhere in St Petersburg.
*
The driver must have been paid in advance, or was perhaps one of ‘our people.’ At any rate, he didn’t ask for money, and none was offered. The carriage pulled away with a disconsolate lurch. Virginsky looked around to get his bearings but did not recognise the deserted lane they had been left in. The district was poor, and his sense was that it was far from the centre. He had been too distracted to follow consciously the route they had taken. A strange reticence prevented him from looking at Tatyana Ruslanovna, though she was the cause of his distraction. Tongue-tied, he waited for her to take the lead.
But it seemed that she was affected by an equal shyness. When at last he dared to glance at her, he saw that she had her eyes fixed on the ground. He tried to think of something to say to set her at her ease. But all that came to mind was, ‘Where do we go?’ Even to his own ear his voice sounded harsh and unforgiving.