The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  I lifted my head. Machine-guns sounded from the old quarter, near the bazaar. Two armoured-cars roared along the Boulevard, their sirens honking like geese. I heard one small explosion, then two larger ones. Smoke and flames began to rise behind the Cathedral. There were shouts. I rose to my feet, looking questioningly at Mr Thompson who said, it’s just the usual trouble.’

  Batoum was no longer a sanctuary. She had become a sinister trap; one of those beautiful gardens in medieval Romance designed by a sorceress to lure unwary knights. My instinctive terror of the East returned. It had been folly to believe the illusion. Where I had admired the domes of churches I now saw, in rainy twilight, the sinister outlines of Saracen mosques. Where I had been comforted by the smart discipline of British Tommies. I detected armed and turbaned figures hiding in every shadow. Shouts came from the quayside. A large covered navy truck began to pull up beside our little barricade. I thought it was the police. I left the saloon and was halfway down the gangplank when an electric torch flashed suddenly in my eyes. Blinded for a moment, I stumbled and almost fell through the ropes. As I recovered I saw figures standing near the truck, is there any news?’

  ‘Blimey,’ said a familiar voice, ‘it’s Ivan.’

  Mrs Cornelius seemed hurt. She was supported by two officers. I rushed up to her. ‘Are you wounded? Was it the tribesmen?’

  ‘Tribesmen? Do wot? Natives, yer mean?’ She was baffled. I realised at last that she was drunk. ‘Sorry, Ive. Lorst track o’ ther time, didn’t I. Jack woz good enough ter. . .’

  A dishevelled Jack Bragg stood behind her staring glumly at me. ‘Spot of bother, Mr Pyatnitski, with some Georgian irregulars who took a fancy to your missus. The upshot was they carried us off. I was drugged, I think. Mrs Pyatnitski was drugged, too, weren’t you Mrs Pyatnitski.’

  ‘Drugged blind,’ she agreed.

  Jack Bragg’s face was almost a parody of embarrassment and anxiety. ‘We managed to escape this morning. But we got lost up-country.’ He made a vague gesture towards the wooded hills. ‘A patrol found us and brought us back. Luckily. We’re a bit wet.’

  ‘He has been frantic.’ We all looked up at the ship. It was the Baroness. I had not known she spoke such clear English. She leaned forward on the rail, into the lamplight. She was a picture by Mucha, a Slavic angel. ‘Poor Mr Pyatnitski has spent the entire day trying to trace you.’

  ‘I think you’d better get aboard in a hurry, Bragg.’ An invisible Captain Monier-Williams spoke from the bridge. He sounded more than a little angry.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Bragg turned to Mrs Cornelius. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Right as rain,’ she said. ‘But could do wiv a dryin’ orf!’ Absently, she reached into her décolletage and removed a large black glove. ‘Where the ‘ell did that come from?’

  Jack Bragg ran up the gangplank to make his peace with the captain. I felt sorry for him. He had suffered in a noble cause. Mrs Cornelius kissed the two young officers on their cheeks, wished them a cheerful goodnight, and leaning heavily on me began to climb the plank. ‘Nick o’ time as usual, eh, Ivan?’

  I put her to bed where she fell immediately asleep. As I looked down at her breasts rising and falling in the glow of the hurricane lamp I thought her a true earth-spirit. I envied the unselfconscious spontaneity with which she lived each moment to the full. Sadly, it was impossible for me to emulate her. I myself must live for the future. I had to consider the next fifty years. My life, as a result, was hardly my own.

  I went forward to placate Leda. The tanker was still burning in the distance, aground on the sand-bar; flames sent a shudder of shadows across the fo’c’sle. She stood looking at the town and her expression was sad. I guessed she was thinking of her husband. Then I realised she was mourning the worthless Hernikof. ‘You should not grieve so much.’ I put my hand on hers where it gripped the samson post. ‘You hardly knew him.’ She glanced down at the water. ‘He was so miserable without his family.’ Her huge blue eyes were full of tears. I took her in my arms, careless if we were seen. ‘At least he is with them now.’ I could not approve of the manner in which Hernikof had met his end, yet it was a relief no longer to be pursued by him. I sometimes think back to my time in the shtetl, when I had been in a fever. Had I said something so terrible to the Jews there that they had placed a curse upon me? Would I forever be followed by some snivelling, mealy-mouthed nemesis? It is foolish to be so superstitious. It is ridiculous to assume that they slip pieces of metal in a person’s womb. I hold with none of that rubbish. Hernikof had not been popular on the ship. It was even possible he had brought about his own death if he had gone deliberately where he should not have gone, or seen those he had no business seeing. It is a form of suicide we have all witnessed at one time or another. I said nothing of this, of course. I was sensitive to her grief. I let her weep a little. I cared for her.

  When eventually I made my way back to our cabin, Mrs Cornelius had recovered consciousness and had undressed herself. She was tying her hair in pieces of paper. ‘I ‘ope I didn’t put yer art, Ivan. ‘Course the story we tol’ woz a bit of a fib, but I didn’t wanna git Jack inter trouble.’

  ‘You lied!’ I was momentarily hurt; I knew a flash of suspicion.

  ‘There wasn’t no Georgians, really. We got put in clink by ther Russian coppers. Drunk.’ She looked back at me. ‘An’ more’n a bit disorderly, ho, ho. It woz Jack got us art, wiv a bribe. An’ give false names.’

  My suspicion vanished. She had all my sympathy. I know what it is to live in prison. It is humiliating. Those who pointed the finger at me in Kiev never knew what I suffered. One’s whole identity is stolen. They can blame me, but I do not blame myself. To name a few names is nothing if they are already on a list. It was a formality when the Varta released me. I betrayed nothing. The Reds call me a profiteer and trump up charges. They always will. It is jealousy. There is no such thing as friendship between them, it must have been dreadful.’ I said.

  ‘It could’ve bin worse. We still ‘ad their bleedin’ vodka!’ She laughed. I admired her courage. It was as great as my own. ‘But not a word ter nobody else.’ She put a finger to her delicious lips. ‘Jack’d get ther sack.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I will thank him for what he did,’ I said.

  ‘If yer like.’

  I left her to finish her toilet and returned to the saloon to buy Mr Thompson a nightcap. He could see I was greatly relieved. We stood by the bar listening to the strains of the Kamarinskaya played by one of the loyalist soldiers on his accordion. A few children still made attempts to dance while their mournful parents murmured of death and torture, of injustice, destruction of their hopes for the future. ‘Will Jack Bragg be all right?’ I asked.

  ‘The old man’s pretty peeved with him. But no great harm’s been done. The captain’s hated this run since we began. He’s more sympathetic if a chap steps over the line a bit. A tongue-lashing and double-duty for a night or two won’t do Jack any harm.’

  We wandered out onto the deck. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. The distant flames had died down. ‘The weather should improve on our way back to Varna,’ said Mr Thompson. He saluted me. ‘Well, goodnight, old man.’

  I was left alone. I walked once round the deck, then returned to the cabin, got into my bunk, smoked a cigarette and listened to Mrs Cornelius as she sighed and twisted. I knew she was dreaming what she liked to call her ‘nice dreams’. For once I was not much disturbed by her and was soon asleep.

  I met Jack Bragg on deck next morning as I took my usual exercise. The hadacka with the green face was dealing her cards. She had evidently found a new pack. She was laying out the full deck as I passed. The Russian ship had left in the night and there was a two-masted schooner in her place. The sun was bright. Batoum seemed cheerful again. I moved to the rail and looked down at the schooner. Her ragamuffin crew were still asleep on deck. Armenians, Turks, Russians, Greeks, Georgians, they looked like pirates from a nineteenth-century storybook. They ha
d pistols and knives all over their bodies and were dressed in a crazy mixture of uniforms, of Western and Asian clothing. They reminded me a little of Makhno’s anarchists. Jack and I paused on the poop. He had been on his watch duty since midnight. His eyes were red, his chin slightly unshaven. ‘Mrs Pyatnitski told me the truth last night,’ I said. He showed some alarm until he saw I was not angry. ‘About your getting them out of prison,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’ His voice was hoarse, it was nothing. A few English sovereigns work wonders these days.’ Even as he spoke he began to look more ghastly than ever. ‘You must think me an awful blighter, leading your wife astray like that.’

  I was able to smile. ‘Nonsense. If I know her, she did the leading! How did the captain take it?’

  ‘Not too badly, really. I say, do you think those chaps are smugglers?’ He indicated the schooner.

  ‘Very likely. They’re from all over the place, aren’t they? Doubtless they’re taking advantage of the present situation while they can.’

  ‘These waters are still supposed to have corsairs in them, you know.’ Jack Bragg swayed at the rail. The sun caught his bloodshot eyes and dirty fair hair, made his skin look even greyer. ‘What about it, Mr Pyatnitski? Fancy walking the plank?’

  ‘You’d better get to bed.’ I was jovial. ‘I promise to warn you if I see the skull-and-crossbones on the horizon.’

  He stumbled sleepily down the deck and almost fell into the seeress as she reshuffled her pack. I continued to study the schooner. She was a filthy vessel. Her furled canvas was tattered and patched. I had no idea where she came from but made out a Russian word on her side: Phoenix. Probably she had begun life as a fishing vessel. Some of the sleeping men wore bits and pieces of Tsarist Navy uniforms. Others had on army coats, expensive cavalry boots, artillery caps. They were doubtless moving regularly between the Turkish Black Sea ports and what remained of free Russia. Very likely, too, they would take passengers for a high price. I could not blame them. They had no future at all if the Reds won. In the distant streets I heard the noise of a window breaking and turned to look. The bell in the Cathedral began to toll. An old horse hauled a creaking, overladen cart along the road beyond the quay. Then two big army lorries pulled up outside the barrier to unload more passengers: wounded White Army soldiers in dirty English greatcoats; peasant women with babies; old men who might have come straight from the most backward and remote regions of Georgia; grandmothers in black shawls and skirts. They flocked, bemused, towards us. I was horrified, certain the ship must sink under their weight. I watched Mr Larkin run down to meet them. The other officials, Russian and English, began to assemble at their posts. I could look no longer. The smugglers (or pirates) were waking as if, hearing the refugee babble, they scented sustenance. I made my way into breakfast. This might be my last peaceful meal before we reached Constantinople. An hour or so later the ship’s engines turned and I cheered up at the prospect of being at sea again.

  We were pulled from Batoum by a little tug. When she released her lines they twanged and glittered in the crisp air. The sun was hot on my face; Batoum was apparently at peace, though smoke from the burning tanker still occasionally drifted over the harbour. With a more knowing eye I looked back at the palms and bamboos, the malachite houses and shady streets, bitter that my hoped-for idyll on Russian territory had been so savagely interrupted, hating Hernikof for his vulgarity and the horrible manner of his dying. Into smooth water, her old machinery complaining, the Rio Cruz turned towards the farther shores of the Black Sea. Her last port of call before Constantinople was to be Varna in Bulgaria, a country which would show considerable hospitality to its Slavic brothers. The peasants sat in groups near the forward hatches. They had spread carpets and bundles everywhere and were eating food they had brought with them. We were loaded almost beyond safety point, but Captain Monier-Williams had his instructions. All we could do, he said, was pray for good weather. Whatever I thought of the poor creatures on deck I was deeply moved when one of the bearded peasants rose to look back at Batoum, removed his cap and began to sing in a high, pure voice Boje Tzaria Khrani. ‘God Save The Tsar’. Almost unconsciously I found myself joining in our National Anthem. Soon it seemed the entire ship was singing.

  First Batoum disappeared and then eventually the white tips of the mountains. The Rio Cruz was again alone on a grey sea under an overcast sky. Fortunately for the refugees on deck it did not rain, but the waves grew gradually more agitated. I became afraid we would never lift above the steep watery walls as the ship, groaning and wheezing, trembled in the water, moving ungracefully through cold Limbo.

  It was almost a relief to resume my strict daily routine with the Baroness, though perhaps I fucked with a little less enthusiasm as I detected in my sweetheart a certain frantic desperation, the consequence, I suspected, of Hernikof’s murder. She no longer made a pretty pretence of refusing my cocaine. Now she would nag at me until I prepared it. If her love-making became more experimental, it was also less joyous. I was sympathetic. I held her tightly for long moments. More than once that first day out from Batoum we cried softly together, listening to the random bumps and thuds on all sides of us, wondering if we should ever be as happy as we had been during our time when Russian passion had bloomed unchecked on Russian soil.

  Mrs Cornelius also seemed particularly happy to return to her habitual pattern. That night she sang and danced her way through a score of favourite songs. Jack Bragg was on duty again, but Captain Monier-Williams remained to sing a chorus of My Old Dutch. Mrs Cornelius said he was a great sport. She sat on his knee, coaxing a chuckle and a smile from his stern Welsh features. In the far corner of the saloon a group of Russians gathered around an accordion and we shouted at them to give us something cheerful. The player, a young, fair-haired, one-legged soldier from Nizhny Novgorod, began the Kalinka. Soon Mrs Cornelius crossed to join a dozen middle-class dowagers in a boisterous dance while we men clapped and stamped our feet. Again the captain was persuaded to join in for a while before murmuring to me: ‘If there’s much more stamping, I’m afraid we’ll all go through to the bilges.’ He straightened his cap, leaving the room with almost a jaunty swagger. When Mrs Cornelius pulled me into the circle to dance I found I had become rather mournful, as if Hernikof s memory haunted me. I had nothing to be ashamed of. A Jew was a Jew. I had not been cruel to him; but now I recalled his drunken eagerness for friendship. Had it been in quest of friendship that he had disappeared into the streets of Batoum to be knifed and robbed and branded?

  Claiming a need for fresh air, I returned to the deck. It was stupid of me to react so and my resentment towards Hernikof increased. I climbed rapidly to the top of the ship to stand beside the funnel overlooking the engine-room hatch. The deck-passengers had wrapped themselves up in their carpets for the night, though some were still smoking and talking. Candle-lamps burned here and there, together with the ship’s own lights. It was a strange, fascinating scene, but it had become impossible now for me to be alone there. I retreated to my cabin and by means of almost half my remaining cocaine fled into fantasies of the future, of my own success, and put Hernikof out of my mind.

  Next morning I took my usual stroll but was intensely irritated by the people on the forward deck. For the first time the green woman had left her post. I saw her sitting under one of our swaying lifeboats, slowly arranging her pack. I decided it was time I attempted to address her directly, since we were both so discommoded, and was making my way towards her when our signals suddenly began to clang and the engine-note changed. The whole ship shuddered. She slewed sickeningly round. My first thought was that we had struck a rock, or another ship. The deck-passengers jumped to their feet yelling and pointing off the portside. I ran to the rail. In the choppy water, not more than a few yards from us, was the vessel we had almost hit. It was a long barge of the sort normally only seen on canals. She had no engine, no passengers, but was piled high with all kinds of trunks, suitcases, bundles and bags over which tarpaulins flapped. It
was a strange and disturbing sight, for the barge had no business being at sea. We passed her and slowly she dropped behind us, rising and falling in the thickening mist. Her cargo might have been Bolshevik loot or the effects of a single aristocratic family. It could have been valuable, but with our decks so crowded it would have been madness to try to get alongside her. The water became choppier and the barometer was falling by the minute. Our breath steamed and joined with the mist. Gradually the wind increased and for a while the air was clear, but later the wind again dropped, the night became very foggy, and Jack Bragg was positioned forward with a searchlight to keep a look-out for ice.

  After dinner that evening I joined Bragg at his post. He was smoking his pipe and humming a tune to himself as he pointed the little beam this way and that across the black, unpleasant water. The ship’s gloomy foghorn sounded every few minutes. The Baroness had gone to bed early, claiming to have caught a slight chill. I raised my coat collar, for some reason unwilling to return to my cabin. Instead I offered to take a turn at the light, but Bragg refused. ‘I can’t afford to get in the captain’s bad books again!’ Although the yellow beam did not pierce the fog very deeply, we were moving at half-speed in a heavy sea so there was not much danger of us running hard into another vessel or the pack ice which in the past two hours had begun to appear here and there. The inky waves made a horrible hollow sound on our hull. For a while Jack and I smoked and chatted about nothing in particular; then, suddenly, he frowned, his eyes following the beam. ‘Hello! What was that?’