“Goryanchikov!” he called after her.
She was halfway up the stairs when she stopped to face him. Looking up, he saw her haloed by a streetlamp. “What of him?” she demanded.
Virginsky did not know what he was going to say next. He wanted to tell her that he had seen Goryanchikov’s head floating in a jar. Instead he said: “He was one of them, wasn’t he? I saw it in your eyes when you were together. The look of fear that he would betray you. And in his eyes, something else, something nasty and possessive.”
“All that has nothing to do with you.”
“You’re right. None of this has anything to do with me. I have no right to interrogate you in this way. I’m surprised you allow it. It’s up to you what you do with your body, who you sleep with, for what reasons. It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Very well then.” But she stood for a moment without turning from him.
“Lilya.”
“What?”
“He’s dead. Goryanchikov is dead. That’s what I came to tell you.”
He couldn’t see the details of her face as she took this in. “I have to go” was all she said. The tread of her galoshes set off a muted ringing.
Virginsky hid his face in his hands.
Beneath the Milliner’s Shop Again
Porfiry Petrovich lit a cigarette. He was appreciative of the opportunity the flaring match gave him to take in his surroundings. The paneled door that briefly appeared was unexpectedly impressive. He shook the match out before it burned his fingers. The details of the door faded. Porfiry blinked, as if testing the darkness with his eyelashes. He coughed once as he waited for the unheard bell to be answered. He felt that he need not have coughed, or that the cough had a psychological rather than strictly physiological origin. The truth was, even in the impenetrable blackness of this night, he felt himself spied upon. And whenever he experienced this sensation, all his actions struck him as false.
At last a small panel in the door opened. Light fled the interior as if scandalized.
“Yes, mein Herr?”
“Fräulein Keller?”
“Do I know you?”
“I would like to make your acquaintance.”
Her laughter revealed the indecency as well as the absurdity of his idea. “I always like to make new friends, especially when they are a handsome gentleman like you.” She held the door open for him, treating him to a smile that was more ironical than coquettish. Even so, and despite her age (he judged her to be past the midpoint of her fifth decade), that smile set his heart thumping. It was not that he found it attractive. But there was knowledge in it, and experience. Her face was wearied by habits he could only guess at. Perhaps the most wearisome of alclass="underline" this habit of opening the door to strangers, of assessing their predilections and facilitating fulfillment. Her smile stripped him bare but did not even show her teeth.
There was nothing of the bawd or the courtesan about her appearance. Her dress was fashionable and tasteful, even demure. All that it revealed was that she had kept her figure. He sensed a certain affectation in the way she carried herself, but was almost reassured by that. It seemed only human and certainly was to be expected. If he slapped her once, very hard, she would perhaps be cured of it. But he knew that he would, on balance, regret its loss.
Porfiry was admitted to a corridor decorated with more propriety than he had anticipated. He had expected crimson plush. The walls were in fact painted pale green, which struck an oddly prim note, as did the framed prints of racehorses. Only the narrowness of the corridor seemed indecent, due to the physical proximity it forced on those who passed in it.
Fräulein Keller held out her arms for his shuba. Porfiry was shocked by the gesture. To take off one’s coat in such an establishment was not an innocent activity. It expressed a certain intention. Besides, the coat seemed to afford some protection, not least from that smile. It was strange too how he felt the need to escape from this place as soon as he had entered it. No, he would keep his coat on; he had a perfect right to, after all.
He saw his tortured mental processes mirrored and mocked in her smile.
“Fräulein Keller, I am an investigating magistrate.”
“And so you cannot take off your coat. I understand.”
“No, no. The point is I’m here on official business.”
“A bird may be known by its flight. Is that not what you say?” Fräulein Keller laughed at her own cleverness, then, catching that Porfiry did not share her amusement, became serious: “But we are all legal. There is nothing to investigate here.” As if to prove her point, Fräulein Keller opened one of the doors from the corridor, seemingly at random. She showed Porfiry into a parlor paneled in highly varnished yellow wood. There was a hint of excess in the style of some of the furnishings. Porfiry was oppressed by the number of mirrors in elaborate frames. A fire was blazing, suggesting that someone other than the fleeting reflections on the walls had just occupied the room. “You will be too hot if you insist on keeping your furs on.”
“I am looking for a girl.”
“Of course.”
“In connection with an investigation.”
“Ja, ja, I understand.”
“Her name is Lilya Ivanovna Semenova. I believe she works here.”
“No longer. She has retired from the business.”
“I see.”
“It happens. The girls find themselves a rich patron. They settle for a while, but it never lasts. Soon they come back, knocking on my door. ‘Fräulein Keller! Fräulein Keller! He has thrown me over! He has taken up with a dancer! Fräulein Keller, please! Let me in!’ They cannot escape the life. It is in their blood. They are born whores.”
“When was the last time you saw Lilya?”
“Today. She came back for her galoshes, the little fool. Does she not realize her new friend will buy her all the galoshes she desires?”
“She told you of this…patron?”
“She didn’t need to. It’s obvious. How else could she afford to retire?”
“Perhaps she has found other employment.”
Fräulein Keller laughed cynically. “It is a wonder you catch any criminals, you are so innocent.”
“The girls who work for you-they live here in the brothel?”
“And now you say dirty words to prove how worldly you are.”
“Where is Lilya now, do you know?”
“It is not my concern.”
“She had a child, didn’t she? Who looked after the child when she was working?”
“I know nothing about these things. Perhaps it would profit you more to talk to one of the girls. I can arrange for you to be introduced. It would be my pleasure. You may pick one to examine more closely, in private. And that will be your pleasure, I am sure.”
Fräulein Keller once again held out her arms for Porfiry’s shuba.
“What if I wished to talk to them all?”
“That would be very greedy of you, mein Herr.”
As if this answer decided him, he finally began to take off his fur coat.
Even though the heat from the fire had dried his throat, Porfiry declined the champagne.
“So the Widow Cliquot is not to your taste?” asked Fräulein Keller archly.
Porfiry also refused the brocade-upholstered chair, with its ornately carved “Second Rococo” frame, ignoring the care with which Fräulein Keller had positioned it.
“I will stand,” he said curtly.
Four “girls” filed in through a second door in the parlor and stood in front of him. He did not step back or flinch under the force of their underdressed presence, but he wished he had accepted both the drink and the seat. His own breath seemed intoxicating to him. It accelerated and enlarged his pulse. A kind of heavy sickness seemed to have entered his being, as if his soul were solidifying. The cause of this strange excitement was the sudden knowledge of what he was capable of.