EF06 - The State Counsellor (27 page)

He led the horse out of the shed and threw the sacks into the sleigh, casually tossing a piece of sackcloth over them, and set off across the fresh snow of the vacant lot, towards the dark goods sheds.

Now Green had to wait.

He sat motionless by the window, counting the beats of his heart and feeling the needle-pricks as his torn flesh mended, the broken bone knitted and the cells of new skin drew together.

At half past seven the lineman Matvei, the little hut's usual inhabitant, came out into the yard. He had given his only room to his guests and gone to sleep in the hayloft. He was a morose, taciturn man, the kind that Green liked. He hadn't asked a single question. If people had been sent by the party, then they ought to be here. If they didn't explain why, then they weren't supposed to. Matvei scooped up some snow, rubbed his face with it and set off with a waddling stride towards the depot, swinging his knapsack of tools.

Bullfinch woke up shortly after ten.

He didn't leap up, blithe and cheerful, as he usually did, he got up slowly and glanced at Green, but didn't say a single word. He went to get washed.

There was nothing to be done. The boy was gone now, but the Combat Group had a new member. Bullfinch's colour had changed subtly since the previous day: it was no longer a tender peach tone, it was denser and sterner.

By midday the problem had been solved.

Emelya himself had watched as the money was loaded into a wagon full of sacks of dye for Lobastov's factory in St Petersburg and the door was sealed. A small shunting locomotive had tugged the wagon off to Sortirovochnaya Station, where it would be coupled on to a goods train, and at three o'clock that afternoon the train would leave Moscow, moving slowly. Julie would take care of all the rest.

His heart was pumping regularly, one beat a second. His body was restoring its strength. Everything was all right.

CHAPTER
9

in which a lot is said about the destiny of Russia

Erast Petrovich spent the rest of that sleepless, agitated and confused night at Nikolaevsky Station, trying to piece together a picture of what had happened and pick up the perpetrators' trail. Although there were numerous witnesses, both blue-coated gendarmes and private individuals, they failed to make things any clearer. They all talked about some officer who had supposedly thrown the bomb, but it turned out that no one had actually seen him. The attention of the uniformed and plainclothes police had naturally been focused on departing passengers, and no one had been watching the windows of the station building. In the presence of dozens of men professionally trained to be observant, someone had blown up their senior commander, and no one had a clue about how it had happened. The sheer ineptitude of the police could only be explained by the incredible daring of the attack.

It was not even clear where the bomb had been thrown from. Most probably from the corridor, because no one had heard the sound of breaking glass before the explosion. And yet a piece of paper with the letters 'CG' on it had been found under the window, on the platform side. Perhaps the device had been thrown in through the small upper window?

Of the four people who were in the duty office at the time of the explosion, Lieutenant Smolyaninov was the only one who had survived, and only because just at that moment he happened to drop his glove on the floor and clamber under the table to get it. The sturdy oak had shielded the adjutant from most of the shrapnel and he had only caught one piece of metal in his arm, but he had proved to be a poor witness. He could not even remember if the small window had been open. Sverchinsky and an unidentified lady had been killed on the spot. A schoolboy had been taken away in an ambulance carriage, but he was unconscious and obviously not destined to live.

At the station Pozharsky was in charge, havingbeen appointed to take over the dead man's position on a temporary basis in a telegram from the Minister. Erast Petrovich felt like an idle onlooker. Many people cast glances of disapproval at his formal tailcoat, so inappropriate for the circumstances.

Shortly after seven in the morning, having realised that he could not clarify anything at the station, the State Counsellor agreed to meet Pozharsky later in the Office of Gendarmes and went home in a state of intense thoughtfulness. His intentions were as follows: to sleep for two hours, then do his gymnastic exercises and clear his head by meditating. Events were developing so rapidly that his rational mind could not keep up with them - the intervention of the soul's deeper powers was required. It has been said:
Among those who run, halt; among those who shout, he silent.

But his plan was not to be realised.

Quietly opening the door with his key, Erast Petrovich saw Masa sleeping in the hallway, slumped against the wall with his legs folded up under him. That was already unusual in itself. He must have been waiting for his master, wanting to tell him something, but been overcome by fatigue.

Fandorin did not wake his incorrigibly curious valet, in order to avoid unnecessary explanations. Stepping silently, he crept through into the bedroom, and there it became clear what Masa had wanted to warn him about.

Esfir was stretched out across the bed, with her arms thrown up over her head, her little mouth slightly open and her scarlet dress hopelessly creased. She had obviously come straight there from the reception, after Erast Petrovich had excused himself and left for the scene of the tragic event.

Fandorin backed away, intending to retreat into the study, where he could make himself very comfortable in a spacious armchair, but his shoulder brushed against the jamb of the door.

Esfir immediately opened her eyes, sat up on the bed and exclaimed in a clear, ringing voice, as if she hadn't been sleeping at all: 'There you are at last! Well, have you said your tearful goodbye to your gendarme?'

After his difficult and fruitless night, the State Counsellor's nerves were on edge, and his reply was untypically abrupt: 'In order to kill one lieutenant colonel of gendarmes, who will be replaced tomorrow by another, at the same time the revolutionary heroes shattered an entirely innocent woman's head and tore a young boy's legs off. A fiendish abomination - that's what your revolution is.'

Ah, so the revolution's an abomination?' Esfir jumped to her feet and set her hands on her hips belligerently. And your empire - isn't that an abomination? The terrorists spill other people's blood, but they don't spare their own either. They sacrifice their own lives, and therefore they have the right to demand sacrifices from others. They kill a few for the well-being of millions! But the people you serve, those toads with cold, dead blood, smother and trample millions of people for the well-being of a tiny group of parasites!'

' "Smother and trample" - what sort of cheap rhetoric is that?' Fandorin rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, already regretting his outburst.

'Rhetoric? Rhetoric?' Esfir cried, choking on her indignation. 'Just... Just you listen to this.' She picked up a newspaper that was lying on the bed. 'Look, it's the
Moscow Gazette.
I was reading it while I waited for you. In the same edition, on facing pages. First the servile, sickening, pap: "The Moscow Municipal Duma has voted to present a memorial cup from the happy citizens to the aide-de-camp Prince Beloselsky-Belozersky for procuring the Most-Merciful missive from God's Anointed to Muscovites on the occasion of the most devoted address that was presented to His Imperial Majesty in commemoration of the forthcoming tenth anniversary of the present blessed reign ..." Phoo, it turns your stomach. And here, right beside it, how do you like this: "At long last the Ministry of Education has called for the rigorous observance of the rule forbidding the admission to university of individuals of the Jewish faith who do not possess a permit to reside outside the pale, and in any event for no exceptions to the established percentage norm. The Jews in Russia are the most oppressive heritage left to us by the now defunct Kingdom of Poland. There are four million Jews in the Empire, only four per cent of the population, but the poisonous stench of the vile vapours emanating from this weeping ulcer is choking us ..." Shall I go on? Are you enjoying it? Or how about this? "The measures taken to counter famine in the four districts of the Province of Saratov are not yet producing the desired effect. It is anticipated that during the spring months the affliction will spread to the adjacent provinces. The Most Reverend Aloizii, Archbishop of Saratov and Samara, has given instructions for special services of prayer for the defeat of the scourge to be held in the churches." Services of prayer! And our pancakes don't stick in our throats!'

Erast Petrovich listened with a pained grimace, and was on the point of reminding the denouncer of iniquity that only yesterday she herself had not disdained Dolgorukoi's pancakes, but he didn't, because it was petty, and also because, on the whole, she was right.

But Esfir still didn't calm down, she carried on reading: Just you listen, listen: "The patriots of Russia are absolutely outraged by the Latvianisation of the public schools in the Province of Liefland. The children there are now obliged to learn the native dialect, for which purpose the number of classes devoted to Scriptural Studies has been reduced, as these are supposedly not necessary for the non-Orthodox." Or this from Warsaw, from the trial of the cornet Bartashov: "The court declined to hear Psemyslska's testimony, since she would not agree to speak in Russian, claiming that she did not know it well enough." And that's in a Polish court!'

This final extract reminded Fandorin of one of the investigation's snapped threads - the dead terrorist Arsenii Zimin, whose father was defending the unfortunate cornet in Warsaw. The vexatious memory reduced Erast Petrovich to a state of total wretchedness.

'Yes, there are many scoundrels and fools in the state apparatus,' he said reluctantly.

'All of them, or almost all. And all, or almost all, of the revolutionaries are noble and heroic,' Esfir snapped and asked sarcastically, 'Doesn't that circumstance suggest any idea to you?'

The State Counsellor replied sadly: 'Russia's eternal misfortune. Everything in it is topsy-turvy. Good is defended by fools and scoundrels, evil is served by martyrs and heroes.'

It was evidently just that kind of day - they were talking about Russia in the Office of Gendarmes too.

Pozharsky had occupied the newly vacant office of the deceased Stanislav Filippovich, which had thus naturally become the headquarters of the investigation. Lieutenant Smolyaninov, paler than usual and with one arm in an impressive black sling, was standing in the reception room beside the telephone that never stopped ringing. He smiled at Fandorin over the receiver and pointed to the boss's door as if to say:
Please go through.

The prince had a visitor sitting in his office - Sergei Vitalievich Zubtsov, who looked very agitated and red in the face.

'A-ha, Erast Petrovich,' said Pozharsky, getting to his feet. 'I can see from the blue circles under your eyes that you didn't get to bed. And here I am, sitting around doing nothing. The police and the gendarmes are prowling the streets, the police agents are snooping around the alleyways and rubbish tips, and I've just settled in here, like some huge spider, to wait until my net twitches. Why don't we wait together? Sergei Vitalievich here has just dropped in and he's propounding some remarkably interesting views on the workers' movement. Carry on, dear fellow. Mr Fandorin will find it interesting too.'

The thin, handsome face of Titular Counsellor Zubtsov blossomed into pink spots, either from pleasure or some other feeling.

'I was saying, Erast Petrovich, that it would be much easier to defeat the revolutionary movement in Russia with reforms, rather than with police methods. In fact, it's probably quite impossible to defeat it with police methods, because violence engenders a violent and even more intransigent response, and it just keeps on building up and up until society explodes. We need to pay some attention to the estate of artisans. Without the support of the workers, the revolutionaries can never achieve anything: our peasant class is too passive and disunited.'

Smolyaninov came in quietly. He sat down at the secretary's table, held down a sheet of paper awkwardly with his bandaged arm and started making a note of something, holding his head on one side, like a schoolboy.

'How can the revolutionaries be deprived of the support of the workers?' the State Counsellor asked, trying to understand the significance of those pink spots.

'Very simply' Zubtsov was evidently talking about something he had thought through a long time ago, something that had been on his mind, and he was apparently hoping to interest the important visitor from St Petersburg in his ideas. 'If a man has a tolerable life, he won't go to the barricades. If all the artisans lived as they do at Timofei Grigorievich Lobastov's factories -with a nine-hour working day, decent pay, a free hospital and holidays - the Greens of Russia would be left with nothing to do.'

'But how well the workers live depends on the factory owners,' Pozharsky observed, gazing at the young man in amusement. 'You can't just order them to pay a certain amount and set up free hospitals.'

That is exactly what we, the state, are here for,' said Zubtsov, tossing his head of light-brown hair,'- to give orders. This is an autocratic monarchy, thank God. We need to explain to the richest and most intelligent where their own best interest lies and then act from above: pass a law establishing firm terms for the employment of workers. If you can't observe the law - close down your factory. I assure you that if matters went that way, the Tsar would have no more devoted servants than the workers. It would reinvigorate the entire monarchy!'