I find you likeable. What can I tell you to amuse you?
Sorme said gruffly: Nothing, thanks.
Let me see. Weren't you interested in Jack the Ripper?
Sorme was unable to conceal his surprise. He said:
I suppose so. Why?
I knew it. I know a great deal about you…
Sorme wondered if Carlotte had mentioned the subject. He determined not to be drawn out any further. He said:
I'm not particularly interested.
No? All the same, I think I can tell you one or two things that would interest you. How old would you say I am?
He stared at Sorme so persistently that he found it difficult to ignore the question. He said finally:
Seventy, maybe.
The old man's eyes glittered with delight. He reached for the beer bottle.
Wrong again. I'm eighty-nine.
Sorme said unbelievingly: Yes?
I can show you my birth certificate to prove it. I have it somewhere…
He clapped a hand to his coat over his heart, then said:
I thought I had it. It must be in the drawer. But this is beside the point. I'm assuming you disbelieve me, whereas, in fact, I am sure you don't. Is that not so?
Yes, Sorme said.
Thank you, sir. A man prefers to be trusted. Well, there you are. Eighty-nine. Born on the twenty-third of August, eighteen sixty-seven. I may add that my father was in diplomatic service in Cracow, where he knew Zeromski. My mother was Polish. Well… the gentleman who is known to the Press as Jack the Ripper was a close friend of my father's. His name was Sergei Pedachenko, and he came from the same village as Grigory Efimovitch Rasputin. In fact, he was a relative by law of Grigory Efimovitch. Together they grew up in Pokrovskoe in Tobolsk, although Sergei Fyodorovitch was several years his senior…
As he reclined in the armchair, gesturing with his left hand as he talked, the old man made Sorme think of an actor in some Turgenev play. The words flowed out like a speech learned by heart. When the old man paused to empty his glass, Sorme found himself wanting him to go on. The old man talked as he refilled the glass:
Well, Grigory Efimovitch and Sergei Fyodorovitch belonged to one of the raskolniki, that is to say, a heretical sect, known as the Khlysty. And the Khlysty believed in salvation through sin. You understand? A fine theological point, as you will recognise. The more one sins, the more one can repent. A verbal sophistry, you say? Not at all. Consider that many a man who is inclined to saintliness suffers from boredom, a sense of futility. Consider that it is better to feel yourself a sinner than to feel as if you have no identity. This is admittedly a human weakness, that a man has to dramatise himself into an identity or suffer stagnation. You and I, sir, know that man is a god. And yet he can do nothing to make himself into a god unless circumstances are kind enough to give him an opportunity to behave like one.
Sorme found himself listening with increasing amazement; a sense of unreality came over him. A fantasy shaped itself in his head, that the old man was really an angel in disguise, sent to bring home to him a sense of his own immaturity. The old man could evidently see the effect he was creating; something like a smirk formed in his eyes as he talked. He raised his finger in admonition:
This is the paradox of our nature, the result of original sin. A tree can be itself by standing still. A man becomes himself only by making a bonfire of his potentialities. In the light of action, he sees his reality as it disappears in a new persona. And…
He paused to take a long drink, then said vaguely:
Where were we?
Jack the Ripper.
Ah yes. My friend Pedachenko. Well, to make it brief, Sergei Fyodorovitch came to London to sin his way to salvation. He had read a book by Dostoevsky describing it as the most sordid capital in Europe. At the time, I was a boy of eighteen. He and I travelled together from Odessa. He brought with him an Austrian tailoress named Limberg, a woman of distinctly sadistic tendencies. They took rooms in Leman Street, and my friend embarked on his career of disembowelling. His mistress was always somewhere near carrying a cloak. When he had committed his crime, she would hand him the cloak: he would cover his bloodstained suit — he bought innumerable suits in the Petticoat Lane market — and together they would walk home arm in arm, like a respectable man and wife returning from a late evening with friends. On three occasions they were stopped by police when a mere glimpse of my friend's trousers would have given him to the hangman. On each occasion, they posed as a married couple and were allowed to proceed immediately. After his last murder, he sailed for America, where he became the proprietor of a brothel in New Orleans.
The old man emptied his second glass, and carefully filled it to the brim again, emptying the bottle.
Naturally, he was made very welcome on his return to Russia. He was appointed Archimandrite of the sect, and was generally regarded as something of a saint. He then began his career of repentance. His mistress Limberg had no taste for repentance and left Russia with another young man who hoped to emulate Sergei Fyodorovitch. My friend Pedachenko accompanied Grigory Efimovitch to St Petersburg, where he shared his extraordinary success for a number of years. They died within a year of one another — Rasputin in nineteen-sixteen, murdered by the bandit Yussupov, and Pedachenko in nineteen-seventeen, shot in the back by one of Kerensky's men.
The old man took a sip from the full glass, then stood up, holding it carefully. He said politely:
I shall now leave you, borrowing, if I may, your glass.
Sorme stared at him, unable to find words. The old man bowed slightly, saying gravely:
Goodnight.
He took the empty bottle, and went to the door. Sorme heard the bottle clink into the straw bag. A moment later, the old man returned, still holding the full glass. He said:
You are still certain you can't lend me eight and ninepence?
Sorme fumbled in his back pocket, and produced a crumpled ten-shilling note. He handed it to the old man without speaking. The old man bowed; he said formally:
Sir, you have saved my life. A thousand thanks.
He kissed the note, then backed out of the door. Sorme found his voice to say: Goodnight, as the door closed. The old man did not reply. He heard him mounting the next flight of stairs, the bottles clinking.
The tiredness had gone; he stood by the window, wondering what to do. A few minutes later, he heard the old man come downstairs again and go out of the house. After a moment's uncertainty, he went downstairs and rang Nunne's flat again. There was still no reply. He went and stood in the front doorway for a while, then returned to his room. It was too late to go back to Miss Quincey's and Caroline was on the other side of London. There was nothing for it but to go to bed.
He lay awake for two hours, thinking about the old man and about Austin. When he slept, the old man hovered in his dreams. Towards 2 am he went downstairs to the bathroom, and washed his hands and face in hot water. After that, he slept. There was no sound coming from the old man's room.
He woke again in the cold dawn, dreaming that Gertrude Quincey lay pressed against him. While he kept his eyes closed, he could feel her body against his relaxed limbs, her arms round his neck. She stopped being there when he woke up fully, but the memory was as clear as a physical experience. He stared at the paleing sky; in the clear light of speculation, the desire disappeared; it was possible only through the blurred outlines of sleep.
The sense of wellbeing expanded in him, a knowledge of increasing power; for a moment he felt glad of the world and the existence of everything in it. Then he fell asleep thinking about Caroline.
CHAPTER FIVE
He was dreaming that Nunne had been condemned to death, and he was telling Stein that it was a monstrous stupidity, that Nunne was a man of genius, an irreplaceable loss to literature. But as he said it, he did
