The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  ‘As punch,’ said Mrs Cornelius. ‘Though I can’t say this ‘asn’t bin a nice trip.’

  The captain picked up his knife and fork, staring purposefully at his dinner. ‘Only a few more days, then. After that, it’s home and Blighty!’ He ended this conversation by placing a large piece of grey meat into his mouth and chewing slowly. He dearly wished to be back in Dorset where he had lately bought a small house for his retirement, but had gone through the whole war as a volunteer troopship commander. All his male relatives had served either in the Royal Navy or the Merchant Marine and he spoke frequently of sons and nephews who had sailed with this ship or that. He was luckier than most, he told us, and had lost only two. He knew of whole family names which had been extinguished between 1914 and 1918.

  As he ate I said to him, ‘I agree with Mrs Cornelius. This has been, all things considered, a wonderful voyage. The Russian people will forever be grateful to you. There are some aboard who already think you little short of a saint.’

  This brought a response. He swallowed his food and smiled. ‘I’m doing my duty, Mr Pyatnitski. It’s the British taxpayer they should canonise.’

  ‘For my part, that debt shall be settled soon, sir. I suspect that when the Reds have reduced my country to total chaos a reasonable government will be called back. Only at that time shall I consider going home. By then I shall have passed on one or two ideas to your people which I’m sure they’ll find useful. There’s a strong chance I shall be a member of the future Russian government. In that case, England shall have a friend in me.’

  He shook his head at this. ‘If it happens I’ll be the first to cheer. But my experience, old chap, is once a country embarks on a course of bloody uprisings and counter-coups there’s no restoring possible. Look how China is fragmenting. The pattern’s already set.’

  ‘Russia is not China, captain. Nor is she Indo-China, ruled over by a dozen contentious rajahs.’ I was gentle but direct. ‘She is a great imperial nation. Order must eventually prevail. The Russian people already cry out for a new Tsar.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll get one,’ he said. ‘Of some sort.’ And he remarked on the excellent suet in his mouth.

  At that time I was upset by his apparent cynicism, but he was over sixty years old and I not yet twenty. His prediction proved, of course, to be completely accurate. I could not have afforded to believe it then, however, and retained my sanity.

  Meanwhile, Mrs Cornelius took no interest in our conversation. She remained discreetly silent while Captain Monier-Williams discussed the characters of Trotski and Lenin as if he knew them personally. She had, of course, indeed known Trotski intimately and Lenin pretty well, and sometimes I detected amusement in her glance when the captain or one of his officers spoke authoritatively about Trotski’s motives.

  Jack Bragg, being something of a Red sympathiser, professed admiration for the Russian people. He admitted respect for Kerenski. At this I could not keep my peace. ‘Lenin might be the chief villain now,’ I said, ‘but Kerenski’s irresponsible and euphoric liberalism led to the present crisis. If Kerenski had been stronger he would have kept Russia in the War and we should have won. Constantinople would now be unequivocally Russian, as has always been agreed with the Allies. Rather than losing territory almost daily to our former subjects, we’d be reaping the benefits of victory. Kerenski sold us to Lenin and Lenin sold us to the Germans and the Jews. Soon Russia will have no more of a “homeland” than the Ottomans now possess. She will merely be Muscovy again. A shrunken Muscovy at that. As a result, every Western border will be overrun. Can’t you see? We have held back the barbarian from Europe for a thousand years. Now Tatars will reclaim their old Empire. They will league with Turkey to establish the most powerful Moslem domain the world has seen! The Allies must remain firm and destroy Lenin. Russia must have more help, or civilisation itself will die. Christianity will be crushed.’ I addressed this last remark directly to Captain Monier-Williams who shook his head. ‘I can’t see it, old man. I suppose you can hope a more moderate leader will emerge, but God knows what “moderate” means in this context.’

  I could scarcely keep from weeping. His boyish features red with embarrassment. Jack Bragg put an understanding hand on my arm. ‘You’ll be back before you know it, Mr Pyatnitski. The Allies are bound to send more help. Then all this beastliness will be over.’

  I made a small gesture of thanks. As he turned away I noticed a tear or two in his own honest blue eyes. He seemed so young, yet he was probably two or three years older than I. His was genuine sympathy, however, for he had known the horrors of sea-warfare and better than most was able to imagine my ordeal. A little in my cups by now, I spoke of all I had lost: the mellow glories of Kiev, the wide steppe, the rich mingling of cultures in old Odessa, the cool beauty of Petersburg, the comradeship of my fellow students, the charm of Kolya and his bohemian friends. Sometimes I could feel almost nostalgic for my months with the anarchist Makhno! I spoke of Yermeloff the Cossack who, in his way, had befriended me and had been killed as a result. But it was a mistake to resurrect such memories, for next I began to speak of Esmé. I checked myself and left the company as soon as dinner was over. Passing a small table near the door, where four passengers sat, I saw with some distaste that Hernikof had somehow managed to place himself opposite my Baroness and actually had his hand on Kitty’s arm! In further confusion I went directly out on deck, into a cold wind, a curtain of drizzle.

  Leda joined me almost at once. I said nothing about Hernikof, for I knew what her answer would be. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. She began to guide me into the darkness, avoiding the ship’s lights and stopping at last in the shadow of the afterdeck. I listened to the screw turning through the water. I heard the movement of our pistons. I knew our machinery almost as well as Mr Thompson. I recovered myself and kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘These English people mean well,’ I said, ‘but they occasionally revive memories which are best left to die.’

  She understood. She stroked my face with her soft, loving hand. ‘That is why we learn the habit of never asking questions,’ she said. ‘Of waiting until we are told.’

  I looked at her a little sharply, wondering if there were anything more in what she said. But she seemed sincere. She did not have quite the same ability as Mrs Cornelius to make me relax, but she was calming me now. I sighed and from its case took one of my last papyrussa. Using a brass ‘everlasting match’ which someone had given me as part payment for passport work, I lit the cigarette with care. She leaned against me. chiefly to shelter herself from the cold wind which blew now from the North East. ‘It is so hard to imagine the future,’ she said.

  ‘You mean in your personal life?’

  She smiled. ‘You, of course, have a very good idea of what the future should be like, even if your dream never comes true. That must give your life the momentum which mine, for instance, lacks. All I have is Kitty. She’s my only reason for going to Berlin, where I may find some security, a good school. Yet I’m dependent on the kindness of distant relatives. My destiny is in their hands.’

  ‘It was once the same for me.’ I drew carefully on the papyrussa. The tobacco was too dry and the whole thing threatened to fall from its paper tube, ‘It’s terrible to be made a child again. And all for the sake of a real child, too. Is there no work you could do?’

  She held out her hand to take the cigarette from me. She puffed at it once or twice, then gave it back. ‘I was trained to be the wife of an eminent industrialist. Nothing else. The likes of me, my dear, are a glut on the market. There are thousands of us all over the world and only a handful of eminent industrialists! Some of us try to poach from those who have one; others become lost in a kind of mental haze. I even heard of one or two who took up with completely unsuitable young men.’ Though she joked I became again suspicious. Did she now have it in mind to turn me into the creature she would best like to marry?

  ‘You are intelligent and personable,’ I told her. ‘You have a li
ttle capital in Germany, eh? You should think of going into business. Become an eminent industrialist in your own right! Go to Paris. All the best Russians are in Paris. Found a Fashion Salon. Or a secretarial agency.’ My imagination failed me.

  ‘I would rather,’ she teased, ‘become an international adventuress and bring down kings and emperors.’

  ‘But this is the age of republics and democracies. It is so much harder to seduce and ruin a committee.’

  She laughed at this. ‘Maxim Arturovitch, you are insufficiently romantic tonight. It’s my function to be the realist, yours to be the dreamer. Would you rob me of my only portion?’

  I forced myself to dismiss my suspicions. ‘Very well, I shall continue to dream for you. And you may continue to be a sceptic. But I assure you the future I plan is very practical. A scientist makes it his business to know how things work, to be aware of the proper place of every nut and bolt.’

  We parted at her cabin door. ‘Until tomorrow,’ she said, and then: ‘We shall be able to be together in Constantinople at least for a while I hope.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  She said hastily. ‘Batoum is safe. Couldn’t we go ashore there?’

  I agreed to consider the idea, which had not occurred to me. While I would be glad to break the journey I remained wary of our intimacy deepening, particularly at an earlier stage than I had planned. I returned to my cabin. As usual when Mrs Cornelius was absent, I indulged myself in a larger than usual sniff of cocaine for, by all accounts, Constantinople had become the capital of the drug world and I would be in no danger of running out of that particular means of moral support. I have never been addicted to anything in my life. I smoke and drink and take cocaine from choice; they give me pleasure. The mild effects of deprivation from cigarettes or from ‘neige’ are hardly noticeable when I am busy. Anyway, I would not buy what today’s hairy children call ‘cocaine’. It is no more than a mixture of household powders touched up with a taste or two of quinine or procaine to numb the lips and a dash of amphetamine to simulate the euphoric effect. One might as well mix ginger beer with dish-washing liquid and call it champagne!

  They think they are so modern and daring with their ‘narcotics’. They soften their brains with marijuana and sleeping pills to the point where they cannot tell one drug from another. I despise them, in their leather jackets; they look the same as those barbarians who swaggered through the Winter Palace in 1917, thinking they knew everything when all they had was a monumental arrogance born of stupidity. I see them every day, across the street, in Finch’s pub. They whisper together and pass little paper packets back and forth and every so often the police come, bored and irritable, to perform some ritual search and take one or two of them away. They toady to negroes. The police merely restore the belief of these louts in their ‘outlaw pride’. There is nothing different about them. No wonder the use of cocaine is frowned upon these days. In my youth it was the drug of the aristocrat, the artist, the scientist, the doctor. Ask anyone. Even Freud. And I have made no secret of my dislike for his views. (The Triumvirate which destroyed our civilisation is Marx, Freud, Einstein. It will be remembered in a million years as the greatest enemy of mankind. Marx attacked the basic foundations of Christian society. Freud attacked our minds so we doubted every opinion. Einstein attacked the very substance of the universe. And they say Goebbels was a Master of Lies! He was an ingénu. How that Triumvirate must laugh as it pushes down fragile walls and monuments, tramples the ikons, stands, with hands on hips, amongst the rubble of the world’s greatness while rivers of blood wash its feet and Hope and Humanity are defeated, dying in flames whose light casts a monstrous shadow over the world; the shadow of the Beast, the three-headed symbol of Death.)

  Freud himself helped ruin the reputation of cocaine. But they have no need to consider my arrest. I will not use that adulteration of talc and scouring powder they try to sell me.

  Quietly enjoying my isolation, I lay down on my bunk to consider Leda’s suggestion. It would be pleasant to go ashore in Batoum. By all accounts it was a handsome enough town, though full of Moslems. We would probably find a hotel without much difficulty and spend a night or two together. This would be both a holiday and an amiable way of easing our inevitable parting. Yet if she saw this as a sign of our enjoying a longer liaison it could cause embarrassment in the future. For all my caution lust once again triumphed and I decided to ask the captain what he thought of some of us going ashore. I would not, though, put the question at dinner for fear of hurting Mrs Cornelius’s feelings, so I would seek the Old Man out next day and have a word with him alone.

  I was asleep by the time Mrs Cornelius returned. I awoke to hear whispering on the other side of the door and realised Jack Bragg was with her. I heard her giggle. There was a scuffle. It was obvious that he had also temporarily lost control of himself. In order to save them both embarrassment, I called, as if startled, ‘Who’s there?’

  The whispering subsided. I believe she kissed him and murmured goodnight. When she closed the door behind her she asked if I would mind her turning up the lamp. I said it was all right. She was dishevelled and tipsy, but her usual happy self. She waved her fingers at me. ‘Orl alone, Ive?’

  She sat on the edge of her bunk to remove her shoes. She was wearing another frock, a pink and silver one. She had managed to bring a large, up-to-date wardrobe in several trunks. Mrs Cornelius always was fastidious about her clothes, at least when she could afford it. In later years poverty conquered both of us and we were forced to lower our standards considerably. ‘Phew!’ she said. ‘It’s a party ev’ry night aboard this bloody boat, innit!’

  ‘Your energy is boundless.’ I was admiring. ‘It would exhaust me.’

  ‘I’m sorta makin’ up fer lorst time. That Leon was such a bleedin’ pill. Fergot ‘ow ter enjoy ‘imself. They’re orl ther bloody same.’ Her view of the Bolshevik leaders was contemptuous and universally dismissive: they were a bunch of pious hypocrites, repressed middle-class intellectuals. If they had let their hair down a bit they might have been much happier and caused a lot less trouble. Not one of them, she would occasionally tell me in confidence, was any good as a lover. ‘And some of ‘em ‘re downright odd!’ She had a soft spot for loonies. ‘I’ll prob’bly orlways end up wiv blokes ‘oo’re a bit potty. They’re more int’restin’, at least at first.’

  With her usual skill she got into her nightclothes, smoked a cigarette, read a page or two of one of her ‘books’ - old popular magazines someone had found for her on the ship - and turned the lamp down. ‘Night-night, Ivan.’ Again I was left with only her snores which, in the darkness, could still be mistaken for the pantings and exhalations of lust. And as usual I sought consolation in masturbation and fantasy, recalling my lovely Slav only a hundred yards from where I lay. I was now determined to spend all the time I could with her in Batoum.

  I was up early, having decided I might best consider my plans in the fresh air. Our cabin was always extremely stuffy by morning. We had the choice of taking the rags and newspapers from the louvres of the door and freezing, or being virtually unable to breathe. As I dressed, Mrs Cornelius shifted in her bunk. Sleepily she said: ‘You watch yer don’ get in too deep, Ivan. Yore a clever littel bleeder, but yer got no sense . . .’Then her eyes closed and she was snoring. She had said nothing new. She believed me headstrong, my own worst enemy. She would tell me so through all the years to come, almost to her dying day (though I was kept from the deathbed by jealous relatives). I have been praised and condemned by great leaders, famous artists and intellectuals, but only her opinion was worth anything to me. Everyone remembers her; she became a legend. Novels were written about her, just as novels were written about Makhno. She could wrap politicians and generals around her fingers. She never lied to me.

  ‘They should’ve given yer the Nobel Prize, Ivan,’ she said one night in The Elgin. ‘If only fer tryin’.’It was just before closing time on a Saturday night. The pub was a favourite with gypsies from
the Westway camp; it was full of rowdy fiddles and accordions. They were the same seedy kind who had infested Odessa and Budapest and Paris fifty years before. It was almost impossible to stand up without being pushed over. Mrs Cornelius was rarely given to betraying strong feelings, but five pints of mild-and-bitter had relaxed her tongue. She felt sorry for me: it was not long after my last trouble with the Courts. I had also been insulted by a cloth-capped junk man, reeking of urine and motor-oil, when I tried to get to the bar. She was trying to show she at least still recognised my gifts. From Mrs Cornelius it was worth more than a knighthood. I am glad she was able to speak before she died, confirming her faith in me. That memory alone sustains me. I have suffered injustice for too long. Now there is no hope.

  I helped her through the sweating singers in their collarless shirts and greasy coats, into the dark rain of Ladbroke Grove where the buses and lorries splashed and grumbled. I took her in my arms. She felt sick, she said. She bent over the gutter outside her flat in Blenheim Crescent, but nothing came up. Even then it was apparent she was very ill. She was dying. There was no need for her to lie. We were always honest with each other. She had a nose for genius, even if it were sometimes corrupt. Trotski, Mussolini, Goering: she had known them all. She shook her head. ‘They never give ya yore due, Ivan.’ It was true. She alone could testify that, but for the Bolsheviks, every Russian honour would today be mine. I would be a world name.