The Birds Fall Down (61 page)

“It wouldn’t be anybody of that sort. I would put him down as a criminal whose efforts had been crowned with considerable success. A jewel thief. Or a bank robber. Or a share swindler.”

Still she lingered. “How dreadful that we don’t know his name. I’ll have a prayer offered up for him by the priest at our evening service. And think, we’ll have to pray for him as a man, just a man, an unknown person. Imagine destroying one’s own identity as that poor creature did! Every day throwing away one’s past. Annihilating one’s self. What strange, strange things people do with their lives!”

Her soft gaze passed from face to face of the strangers, asking each if he could explain to her how this might be; and all gently shook their heads. The unlucky policeman, still leaning against the wall, impatiently shifted his position. His angry eyes said to Laura, “You and your buffoon of a friend know all about this job, and the poor lady’s in the dark.” Laura jerked her head high, enraged by the false accusation. But then she remembered that it was not false.

XVI

When Laura and Chubinov were alone, she said, “Now tell me what really happened.”

“First take a glass of vodka. You look so white.”

“We’re not allowed to drink in our family till we’re twenty-one. But hurry up. Tell me. I want to know exactly what it is we’ve done.”

“Well, it began, you know how it is, with all my sense of time going to pieces. I left my hotel near Les Halles, with my gun in my pocket, and the seam of my overcoat properly slit, at what seemed to me the right hour. ‘Now you must go,’ I said imperatively to myself, ‘you haven’t a moment to spare.’ But when I got off the bus at the Étoile I looked at my watch and it was an hour and a half too early. So I walked down the Avenue Victor-Hugo and across by the Avenue Malakoff and up to the Place d’Iéna, and I had three lemonades at different cafés, and the day was empty of everything but dust and warmth and glare, and what I had to do drained out of my mind, leaving nothing but the intention to do it. No more than my gun did I visualize the deed. Then I saw that the hour really had come, and at a quarter to four I went along the Rue Belloy towards the Avenue Kléber. I meant to go up to the avenue till I came to this house, and then take out my notebook and fumble in its leaves, as if I were verifying an address, and every now and then stare in a foolish way at the neighbouring houses, keeping my face turned away from the entrance, and looking at a little mirror held in the palm of my hand to see who was approaching it. But I didn’t really care if Gorin did catch sight of me. He could hardly prevent me from accompanying him into the courtyard and after that I could shoot him as he got into the elevator and sent it up to the top floor, so that I could get well away before anybody knew for sure there was a corpse in it.

“But almost as soon as I got into the Rue Belloy I found myself walking beside him. He was marching along as if he hadn’t a care in the world, carrying these white roses. I can’t remember ever having seen him look so happy. It’s wonderful to witness a really very intelligent man in a moment of real blissfulness. Always when I walked with him I had to shorten my stride, my legs being so much longer than his, and I followed this habit, though it was the last thing I should have done just then. I should have dropped back and followed him. But with an insane rashness, I kept up with him, because I was almost sure I had recognized the way the white roses were wrapped; and so I had. There’s a florist in the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, whose wife comes from the Crimea, and she has a distinctive way of preparing bouquets for gentlemen to present to ladies. She puts them in a cone of thick white shiny paper, cutting holes in it with a pair of scissors to make a pretty pattern, and scalloping the edges. It’s a craft peculiar to her native town. I was right, that’s how those white roses were wrapped. It seemed so unlikely that he would be taking such a bouquet to a house of mourning, that I imagined he might not be coming to your house at all, and I feared I might have to alter my plan radically.”

“No,” said Laura. “Those roses were for me. He asked me at Grissaint what flowers he could bring me when we got back to Paris, and said they must be white. White flowers for the dead. He was being funny in a horrible way.”

“How incredibly cruel. Anyway I was so puzzled by this bouquet that we went on walking side by side, in step, just as if we were out on one of our friendly strolls, say at Clarens. Then suddenly he turned his head and exclaimed ‘Vassili’ quite loudly. Not at all in a conspiratorial way. Then he repeated my name very softly, and we continued at our easy, comradely pace. ‘You’re not in England. I thought you were in England. There must be an explanation.’”

“That means he’d grasped that I’d lied to him when I said I’d seen you get into the Calais train at Grissaint,” said Laura. “I’d have had no chance at all, if he’d ever got into this house.”

“None. For listen to my story. I said to him, ‘Gorin, I know everything. You’ve handed over many, many of our people to the Secret Police.’ I didn’t speak of your grandfather. I didn’t want to defile him. Gorin didn’t reply. We just walked on, by now maniacally careful to keep step, you’d have thought it was a trick for avoiding arrest. Presently Gorin said, ‘You’ve been meddling, Vassili. Tchk, tchk. You’ve been meddling.’ And, do you know, I felt guilty. But I said, ‘It’s as well that I have.’ He made another chiding noise, and told me, patiently, ‘Vassili, it’s true that I’ve been obliged from time to time to do some very strange things. But what I’ve done for the revolutionary cause outweighs by far what I’ve done for the Secret Police.’ I simply replied, ‘Korolenko, Primar, Damatov.’ I was shaking. I remembered that on occasions I had used the same cake of soap as Gorin.”

“Yes, and he used the knives and forks and spoons, drank out of the same cups and glasses as we did, here.”

“When I had got over my nausea I said, ‘Judas.’ Then he stopped and faced me. Not only was I looking directly at him, we were in front of a pharmacy which behind the wares in its windows had panels of mirror-glass, and in these I saw reflections of him from various angles. All of them showed a man of integrity, perhaps a little too stolid, a little too obviously moral. Fondly, as if speaking to a stupid but beloved son, he said, ‘But you can’t compare what I’ve done for the Secret Police with what I’ve done for our revolutionary cause. Work it out for yourself, my poor Vassili.’ He spread out his arms. ‘I organized the assassination of many great men, such as Sipyagin, the Governor of Ufa, Plehve, and the Grand Duke Serge. And whom did I hand over to the Secret Police, I ask you? Korolenko, Primar, Damatov.’ I found it hard to interpret the gesture he was making, for he was still holding the white roses in one hand. But he repeated it, and the second time I couldn’t mistake his meaning. When he spoke of Sipyagin, the Governor of Ufa, Plehve, the Grand Duke Serge, his hand went down and down. When he named Korolenko, Primar, and Damatov, his left hand and the roses went up and up, and wavered. His hands were scales in which he was weighing the one set of his victims against the other; and for him the weight of his martyred comrades was so insignificant that the scale that held them would fly up. My mind was numbed but my skin thought for me. My disgust was said in sweat. My pores opened all over my body. Now you will not believe what he said. Surely with real kindness, with unaffected concern, he said, ‘You look quite ill, Vassili.’ I answered, ‘I am perfectly well,’ as if it were a curse. The hatred in my voice must have reached him. He said uneasily, ‘Also, I was working out a new principle.’ Think of that. A new principle!”

“He told me about that,” said Laura. “It was something he got out of a book.”

“What book, I wonder?”

“Hegel.”

“Oh, no, it can’t have been that. You must have been mistaken. Not Hegel.”

“It’s what he said.” “And that was natural,” she thought, “Hegel’s your lot’s
Old Moore’s Almanac.
”

“Strange. Well, there we stood, and suddenly he looked over his shoulder towards the avenue, and said, ‘But I can’t wait. I have an appointment to keep.’ He ran his eyes over me, and I think it passed through his mind that I might be armed and could shoot him through my overcoat. But an expression of contemptuous trust came over him, he might have been a clever thief and I a toothless old watch-dog. ‘Good dog,’ he might have said. But then again, he frowned and shook his head, as if he didn’t want to part from me like this, leaving me with a poor opinion of him. Reproachfully he said, ‘Oh, Vassili, Vassili, you have prevented me from offering the movement a farewell gift which would have been my greatest contribution to the cause. I was about to arrange for the disposal of him.’ Solemnly he repeated the word ‘him.’ Miss Laura, you’ve been speaking as if the responsibility for his death was partly yours. You needn’t feel a shadow of guilt. For the reason which made me shoot him when I did had nothing to do with you. It depended on what he did after he said the word ‘him.’”

“Don’t be silly, you’re only trying to be kind. I told you he’d be coming here at four, and that’s how you cornered him.”

“Miss Laura, you’re not regarding the matter from a proper philosophic standpoint—”

“You asked me when he’d be here so that you could shoot him and I told you he’d be here at four, and you came and you shot him. That’s enough for me. Now go on.”

“Well, by ‘him,’ of course, he meant the Tsar. And I realized he was telling the truth. He had put into motion a plan for killing the Tsar, which would be completed if he were to live. My helper and I had found in one of his rooms a telegram from a man called Sartrin, a leather merchant in St. Petersburg, which acknowledged the receipt of an order for so many hides, and saying that these were ready for dispatch whenever required. That is a phrase which among our people means that all preparations have been made to carry out an operation as soon as the signal is given. Sartrin is an activist member of our organization, who, among other duties, is our contact with a member who is a groom in the imperial stables. As this member is very young, and as any attempt he might make on the life of the Tsar must certainly result in his death, we have as yet hesitated to exploit the advantages of his position. I was about to stammer out some question about the regularity of the proceedings, whether the Battle Organization had in fact been fully informed regarding this important operation, when Gorin backed away from me and again spread out his arms in that revolting gesture. He repeated the word ‘him’ a third time, and his left hand and the roses jigged high in the air, but his right hand went down and down and down, far lower than before. This was his supreme act of treachery. He was not merely conveying that the execution of the Tsar would be of great service to our cause. He was acquiescing in the system of values we had spent our lives repudiating. He was claiming that the Tsar is all-precious, and outweighs all other human life, being a particle of human substance transmuted to the superhuman by its function, just as would be believed by the most bigoted priest and illiterate peasant. What was still more horrible, it was Gorin’s recognition of the supreme value of the Tsar which made him resolve to murder him. There was a huge solemn snobbery about him. He had the air of a vulgarian who asks one to dinner, though you do not know him very well, and holds out as bait that among the guests there will be a Countess. But the solemnity was real. He believed in the holiness of what he was about to kill.”

Yes, Kamensky believed in the holiness of the Tsar. And also he did not believe it. But she could not explain this to Chubinov now, or perhaps ever. It was too silly.

Chubinov poured himself out a glass of vodka. “I found myself performing the routine I’d often practised with the others. I turned on my heel, walked several paces away from him, gripped my revolver firmly in the depths of my pocket and braced my arm against my hip, spun round, squeezed the trigger three times, spun round again, and went on my way as if nothing had happened. I found myself passing the pharmacy again, and I went in and bought a tin of toothpowder, calmly enough, I think, for the pharmacist seemed to notice nothing unusual about me. Every minute I expected to hear a clamour in the street outside, and the sounds of shouts and running feet coming nearer and nearer, until, if my luck had gone against me, the shop-door would be burst open. But the afternoon was like any other. I concluded my purchase and to gain time to think what could have happened, I chatted to the pharmacist for a minute or two about his little dog, which was snuffing about my ankles. Suddenly it occurred to me that I might have grossly overestimated my prowess as a revolver shot, and missed Gorin. Immediately I went out into the street, and was humiliated to find that this was the truth. For he was standing stock-still on the corner of the avenue, just where I had left him, and nothing seemed odd about him except that he was clutching the roses to him very tightly, as if he feared someone might take them away from him. But then he moved off, too slowly, and as he entered the avenue, he reeled. I saw I hadn’t missed him. And I was in agony.”

“Why should you be in agony because you’d hurt this abominable man?”

“It wasn’t quite like that. My agony went deep. It went back to my boyhood. When your grandfather taught me to shoot, he told me it was a sin, a real sin, he would have had it included, if he could, among the sins one has to confess and wipe out by penance, to shoot something and wound it without killing it. ‘Think of what it must be,’ he used to say, ‘to be a bird with a shot in its breast, unable to fly, unable to get to water, unable to fight off the hawk or the carrion crow, think of what that must mean for a deer, and the bear, who have nervous systems like our own and can suffer as we do. If we kill these creatures outright, they die as we would like to die, but if we wound them and leave them to a lingering death, then we torture them, and torturers are savages.’ Now, I was torturing Gorin in this way. I followed him up the avenue, and as he staggered on and I saw the blood he left on the pavement, he became innocent as a wounded pigeon, a pheasant, a deer, a bear. As for the staggering—that’s not the right word. His body jerked about as if it were trying to evict his soul, and the soul wouldn’t consent to be evicted, seemed to be angry with the body, to be feebly bludgeoning it from within. Perhaps that’s why it’s such a sin to wound and not to kill, perhaps there are such struggles between soul and body when there’s no muting of the sense by disease. Then the man in the light suit went to his aid, and I felt jealous of him, I ran forward to share the precious burden, and then Gorin whirled round, still clutching those roses, and exclaimed, ‘I must get there, I must get there.’ You know how sweet his voice was. Sometimes it was particularly so, with a hungry sweetness, though hungry is the wrong word, for he was eager not to take but to give. That’s how it sounded then. Only it was more melting, more pathetic, more like the sound of a harp, than I have ever heard it. Then he cried out in Russian, ‘There must be an explanation,’ just as he’d done when he’d showed surprise I wasn’t in England. After that his body and his soul wrestled for another second, and then he slid down into the arms of the man in the light suit, and through them on the pavement, landing softly, like a sack with hardly anything in it, and he lay stretched on the stones, quite easy, quite untroubled. Only his hands struggled to the last and they were convulsed among the flowers, so that he died with them covering his face. I walked slowly towards him, praying that he was not dead and would sit up, or that at least someone would uncover his face, so that I could look on him for the last time. But there was only the neat suit and the roses and the blood.”