The Master of Petersburg

There is a loud knocking at the door of the apartment. Before Anna Sergeyevna can open it, he is at her side. 'It must be the police,' he whispers, 'only they would come at this hour. Let me try to deal with them. Stay with Matryona. It is best that they do not question her.'

He opens the door. Before him stands the Finnish girl, flanked by two blue-uniformed policemen, one of them an officer.

'Is this the man?' the officer asks.

The girl nods.

He stands aside and they enter, pushing the girl before them. He is shocked by the change in her appearance. Her face is a pasty white, she moves like a doll whose limbs are pulled by strings.

'Can we go to my room?' he says. 'There is a sick child here who shouldn't be disturbed.'

The officer strides across the room and whips open the curtain. Anna Sergeyevna is revealed, bending protectively over her daughter. She whirls around, eyes blazing. 'Leave us alone!' she hisses. Slowly he draws the curtain to.

He ushers them into his own room. There is something familiar about the way the Finn shuffles. Then he sees: her ankles are shackled.

The officer inspects the shrine and the photograph. 'Who is this?'

'My son.'

There is something wrong, something has changed about the shrine. His blood runs cold when he recognizes what it is.

The questioning begins.

'Has a man named Sergei Gennadevich Nechaev been here today?'

'A person whom I suspect to be Nechaev, but who does not go under that name, has been here, yes.'

'What name does he go under?'

'Under a woman's name. He was disguised as a woman. He was wearing a dark coat over a dark-blue dress.'

'And why did this person call on you?'

'To ask for money.'

'For no other reason?'

'For no other reason that I am aware of. I am no friend of his.'

'Did you give him money?'

'I refused. However, he took what I had, and I did not stop him.'

'You are saying that he robbed you?'

'He took the money against my wishes. I did not think it prudent to try to recover it. Call that robbery if you wish.'

'How much was it?'

'About thirty roubles.'

'What else happened?'

He risks a glance at the Finn. Her lips quiver soundlessly. Whatever they have done to her in the time she has been in their hands has changed her demeanour entirely. She stands like a beast in the slaughterhouse waiting for the axe to fall.

'We spoke about my son. Nechaev was a friend of my son's, of a kind. That is how he came to know this house.

My son used to lodge here. Otherwise he would not have come.'

'What do you mean – "otherwise he would not have come"? Are you saying he expected to see your son?'

'No. None of my son's friends expects to see him again. I mean that Nechaev came not because he expected sympathy from me but because of that past friendship.'

'Yes, we know all about your son's culpable associations.'

He shrugs. 'Perhaps not culpable. Perhaps not associations – perhaps only friendships. But let it rest there. It is a question that will never come to trial.'

'Do you know where Nechaev went from here?'

'I have no idea.'

'Show me your papers.'

He hands over his passport – his own, not Isaev's. The officer pockets it and puts on his cap. 'You will report to the station on Sadovaya Street tomorrow morning to make a full declaration. You will report to the same station each day before noon, seven days a week, until further notice. You will not leave Petersburg. Is that clear?'

'And at whose expense am I to remain here?'

'That is not my concern.'

He signals to his companion to remove their prisoner. But at the front door the Finn, who has up to this point not uttered a word, balks. 'I'm hungry!' she says plaintively, and when her guard grasps her and tries to force her out, plants her feet and holds on to the door-jamb: 'I'm hungry, I want something to eat!'

There is something wailing and desperate about her cry. Though Anna Sergeyevna is nearer to her, it is an appeal unmistakably addressed to the child, who has quietly crept out of bed and, thumb in mouth, stands watching.

'Let me!' says Matryona, and in a flash has darted to the cupboard. She returns with a wedge of rye bread and a cucumber; she has brought her little purse too. 'You can have all of it!' she says excitedly, and thrusts food and money together into the Finn's hands. Then she takes a step back and, bobbing her head, drops an odd, old-fashioned curtsy.

'No money!' the guard objects fiercely, and makes her take the purse back.

Not a word of thanks from the Finn, who after her moment's rebellion has relapsed into passivity. As though, he thinks, the spark has been beaten out of her. Have they indeed been beating her – or worse? And does Matryona somehow know it? Is that the source of her pity? Yet how can a child know such things?

As soon as they are gone he returns to his room, blows out the candle, sets icon, pictures, candle on the floor, and removes the three-barred flag that has been spread over the dressing-table. Then he returns to the apartment. Anna Sergeyevna is sitting at Matryona's bedside, sewing. He tosses the flag on to the bed. 'If I speak to your daughter I am sure to lose my temper again,' he says, 'so perhaps you can ask on my behalf how this comes to be in my room.'

'What are you talking about? What is this?'

'Ask her.'

'It's a flag,' says Matryona sullenly.

Anna Sergeyevna spreads the flag out on the bed. It is over a metre in length and evidently well-used, for the colours – white, red, black in equal vertical bars – are weathered and faded. Where can they have been flying it – from the roof of Madame la Fay's establishment?

'Who does this belong to?' asks Anna Sergeyevna.

He waits for the child to answer.

'The people. It's the people's flag,' she says at last, reluctantly.

'That's enough,' says Anna Sergeyevna. She gives her daughter a kiss on the forehead. 'Time to sleep.' She draws the curtain shut.

Five minutes later she is in his room, bringing with her the flag, folded small. 'Explain yourself,' she says.

'What you have there is the flag of the People's Vengeance. It is the flag of insurrection. If you want me to tell you what the colours stand for, I will tell you. Or ask Matryona herself, I'm sure she knows. I can think of no act more provocative and more incriminating than to display it. Matryona spread it out in my room in my absence, where the police could see it. I don't understand what has got into her. Has she gone mad?'

'Don't use that word about her! She had no idea the police were coming. As for this flag, if it causes so much trouble I will take it away at once and burn it.'

'Burn it?' He stands astonished. How simple! Why did he not burn the blue dress?

'But let me tell you,' she adds, 'that is to be the end of the matter, the absolute end. You are drawing Matryona into affairs that are no concern of a child's.'

'I could not agree with you more. But it is not I who am drawing her in. It is Nechaev.'

'That makes no difference. If you were not here there would be no Nechaev.'

15. The cellar

It has snowed heavily during the night. Emerging into the open, he is dazzled by the sudden whiteness. He halts and crouches, overtaken by a sensation of spinning not from left to right but from above to below. If he tries to move, he feels, he will pitch forward and tumble.

This can only be the prelude to a fit. In spells of dizziness and palpitations of the heart, in exhaustion and irritability, a fit has been announcing itself for days without arriving. Unless the entire state in which he lives can be called a fit.

Standing at the entrance to No. 63, preoccupied with what is happening inside him, he hears nothing till his arm is gripped tight. With a start he opens his eyes. He is face to face with Nechaev.

Nechaev grins, showing his teeth. His carbuncles are livid from the cold. He tries to tug himself free, but his captor only holds him closer.