The interior of the building was divided by flimsy partitions and lit here and there by oil lamps. Doors hung open or were lacking altogether. Families lived side by side and almost on top of one another, every room divided and sublet to meet the rent. From one side of a curtain came the cries and cracks of a beating, from the other the frenzied thump of copulation. Everywhere in the background could be heard a gentle snagging sound, as regular and constant as the lapping of the sea, an anonymous, muffled weeping.
Porfiry, still carrying the bundle of books in one hand, stood at the threshold of an endless twilit maze. He took off his fur hat and breathed in a damp atmosphere that was heavy with the smell of waste. Clotheslines were strung across the corridors. Ragged, shrieking children ran beneath them, without any sense of the invisible boundaries of so many abutting lives. Somewhere, out of sight, a card game was in progress. Porfiry could hear the laughter and abuse, the slap of the cards, the jangle of coins.
As he sought vainly for the source of these sounds, he saw a figure emerge from one of the crisscrossing corridors. It was a girl. He couldn’t be sure because she was moving briskly with her face angled down and swallowed by gloom, but he felt that he knew her.
He called out. His cry drew her gaze. But when she saw him, a look of panic came over her face. She turned and ran, disappearing from his sight. Porfiry cradled the books to his chest and gave chase. In the moment that her face had been lifted toward him, he recognized her. It was Lilya, the young prostitute who had been brought in to the bureau.
He followed the heel of her shoe and the hem of her swaying skirt, which was all of her he ever saw as she vanished around succeeding corners and even through vaguely partitioned rooms. His pursuit invaded privacy after privacy but without provoking a single complaint. It was almost as if he were invisible. The only time his presence was commented upon was when he stumbled into the table of card players, who swore at him for upsetting their piles of coins. His apologies delayed him long enough for the trail to go cold. When he peered around the next corner, there was no sight of any part of her, however fleeting, just her scent in the air.
He returned to the card players.
“Gentlemen, if I may interrupt your game for a moment.” A collective growl arose from the table. But no one looked up. They were too intent on their cards. There was a grumbled joke and a crackle of harsh laughter at Porfiry’s expense, but essentially this was a grim endeavor for them all. He had the sense that his use of the word game had been ill judged. “The young lady who just passed through here,” he pressed. “Did any of you happen to see…?”
But they were ignoring him now, not even bothering to make him the butt of their jokes. There was a nearly empty bottle of vodka on the table, and most of the men smoked pipes. Nothing outside the absorbing tobacco fug had meaning for them.
Porfiry pulled over a rickety chair and joined the table, placing the books on his lap. He waited for the game to play itself out, then said, “I’m looking for Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky.”
A significant look was passed around the table and settled on one of the players, a stubble-jowled man with silky black hair, a greasy frock coat, and dirty nails. He was the only one not dressed in workmen’s overalls. His sharp, calculating eyes assessed Porfiry for a good minute. “Do you know Schtoss?” said this man, at last.
“Schtoss? Who is Schtoss?”
Loud, unrestrained laughter erupted around the table. Some even banged their fists. The hilarity died down. They watched the man in the frock coat with nervous expectation.
“Schtoss, my friend, is not a man. Schtoss is a game.”
“I don’t know it,” said Porfiry. “I’m not much of a card player.”
“No matter,” said the other. “Schtoss is a game of luck. There is nothing to it but luck.”
“I see. How do you play it?”
“It’s very simple. Alexei, give the gentleman the pack.” A young painter, to judge by the specks of color on his overalls, handed Porfiry the cards. “You have that pack,” said the man in the frock coat, “and I will have this one.” He withdrew a second pack from one of his pockets. “First we must agree on the stake. The game is between you and me. If you win, I will tell you where you can find Virginsky.”
“And if I lose?”
“If you lose, you will swap your fur shuba for my frock coat.” There were murmurs of amused dissent. The feeling seemed to be that the man had gone too far.
“That is hardly fair,” said Porfiry. “This is fairer. If I win, you tell me where I can find Virginsky. If I lose, I send out for a second bottle of vodka to be shared among you all.” Porfiry’s view was that even if he lost the bet, he would win over the company. One of the others, looking favorably on his generosity, would be sure to tell him what he needed to know. The proposal was met with such a cheer that Porfiry’s opponent was forced to bow his agreement.
“Very well. We will play. Pick any card you like from your pack, and place it facedown on the table without letting me see it. Very good. Now then, this is my pack. Here, I want you to cut my pack for me. You know what it means to cut the cards, I take it?”
Porfiry nodded and obeyed.
“Thank you.” The other man put the two halves of the pack together. “In this game, the game of Schtoss, I turn over the first two cards from my pack. The first card goes on the right, the second on the left. Like so.” He dealt up the nine of hearts followed by the three of spades. “If the number of your card matches the first of my cards-that is to say, if it is a nine of any suit-then you lose. If it matches the second-the card on the left-then you win. If neither matches, we deal again, a third and fourth card, and so on until we encounter a match. Are you willing to play?”
“Yes.”
“Then, please, be so good as to turn over your card.”
Porfiry turned over the queen of spades.
“No match,” said his opponent. “No matter. We keep going.”
He dealt two more cards, the six of diamonds followed by the ten of diamonds. Again Porfiry’s card, the jack of clubs, failed to produce a match.
The man in the frock coat nodded grimly and dealt two more cards, neither of which was matched by Porfiry’s.
The two players stared unflinchingly into each other’s eyes, as if this would have a bearing on the cards they dealt. Porfiry’s hands shook. His palms began to sweat. And yet he did not want the game to end. In each turning of a card, he felt the heavy hammering of his heart, reminding him with renewed insistence that he was alive. Whatever the outcome of the game, he knew he would miss this feeling.
It was about ten deals later when Porfiry turned over a seven of clubs, matching the seven of hearts on top of the left-hand pile of cards.
“I win, I believe,” said Porfiry. It was as he had expected. His delight at winning was tempered by regret that the game was over. He wanted to play again.
The other man nodded, admitting defeat. “To the left, over there, past that woman with the cough. There is a door. It leads to the annex. Virginsky lodges in there, on the ground floor, with the cabinetmaker Kezel.”
After the tension of the confrontation, the mood returned to the earlier one of brash amusement. The laughter now, however, was at the expense of the man in the frock coat, who took in good humor their jibes at his failure to secure them a fresh bottle of vodka.