The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  The maintenance of this secret apartment over Tokatlian’s meant selling jewellery intended for London. The Pera cocaine was good, cheap and plentiful. Nonetheless Esmé proved a voracious user. Once they have overcome their prejudice and sampled it, most women develop an authentic passion for the drug. Some would even claim it is above all a woman’s drug. The deterioration of my finances was rapid and did not take long to become obvious. I had not paid my bill at the Palas and quite rightly Mrs Cornelius had refused responsibility. She had left Russia with much less than I. Accordingly I began to consider selling either my knowledge or my abilities. During the Civil War I had learned to survive very well in Kiev, and had become a successful businessman. Now I must attempt to do the same thing in Constantinople. It was Esmé’s habit to sleep most of the day, so I would go down to the docks where under the old arches I found dozens of motor repair shops. I became friendly with several people specialising in boat engines. I helped them out whenever they needed me and in a short time became not only assured of work, but had several important contacts amongst small ship owners who plied the Bosphorus, Aegean and nearer shores of the Black Sea. The majority of these owners were either Greek or Armenian. I eventually met cousins of my old mentor Sarkis Mihailovitch and was treated thereafter as a family friend. They, too, were mechanics. Few Turks ran such repair shops. Turks tended to feel they lost face if they let their hands get oily or even attempted to understand the mysteries of the internal combustion engine. They had lived on the backs of others for centuries. Up to now they had employed German and Britons to build their machines for them while the lesser races of the Ottoman Empire were ordered to maintain them. The British had built the underground funicular which ran between Pera and the Galata docks. The Germans had built the tram system. No Ottoman was responsible for a single innovation. Even the designs of the mosques were copied from the Byzantines. When a class or nation is reduced to a reliance on pride and slaves, it gives up the right to rule. They had no claim on Constantinople. Byzantium’s true inheritors could construct the machines needed to run a city which Roman engineers had given fresh foundations. The ancient warrens of two thousand five hundred years were a tribute to the simple fact that to survive was to embrace and understand new technology as it emerged. Working in the harbours of the Golden Horn, where galleons of Venice and Chinese junks had met regularly in the course of trade, I could watch flying boats land and take off: Macchis and Porte-Felixstowes flying from Italy and Gibraltar, taking important military personnel back and forth. I longed to pilot one of those machines, at least until I built my own. They were a reminder of what the West meant to me. They revived my imagination. They made Europe real again. Even the most magnificent ships could not convey this ambience. The planes flew to their home bases within hours, coming and going so casually. I dreamed of flying Esmé and myself to freedom, to Genoa or Le Havre. I would build a more sophisticated version of my first machine and escape with her on my back, a flying prince and princess, those staples of Oriental legend.

  I was touched when Esmé told me she dreamed one day of keeping house for me, of becoming my wife. I was only seven years her senior. When I reached thirty she would be twenty-three. There was nothing wrong with a man of twenty-five marrying a girl of eighteen. We planned like children, knowing little of normal domestic life. Esmé was admiringly curious of my designs, sitting silently as with set-square and slide rule I worked on a plan for a new steam engine which would use rapid heating chemicals, suitable for powering a motor car. Naturally, she could not follow the mathematical formulae but the symbols themselves fascinated her. For hours she would stare at them like a cat, her eyes following my pen as it formed them on the paper.

  We continued to dine in obscure backstreet cafés. She wanted to cook for me, she said. She named Turkish and Roumanian dishes. Contemptuously she said the restaurants could not prepare them properly. She had been educated at a charitable convent school until she was ten. For a time she thought of becoming a nun. Then her father’s fortunes worsened. The Turks had grown unwilling to employ Christians in their War Effort. So Esmé herself had looked for work. During the War there had been few jobs. She tried to be a domestic servant like her mother, but most of the usual employers, the well-to-do Greeks, or people attached to foreign embassies had left the capital. Now, with so many refugees, the competition was impossible. Two friends of hers had gone to work at Mrs Unal’s. They told her money was good in the brothel once you were used to the hours. I guessed Esmé had been so obviously innocent Mrs Unal had sent her away. Even in Pera and Galata there were laws of sorts. The British did their best to maintain them, though much of their time was taken up settling disputes between different groups of Allied servicemen and attempting to discourage Turkish police from demanding bribes. Esmé said she even thought of returning to Roumania and finding cousins, but she had been her parents’ only support. They would die soon. In the meantime she had to care for them. To ease her conscience, I had already promised them a few shillings a week.

  The von Ruckstühl correspondence grew hysterical. Those intolerable Germans wanted her to leave. Marusya Veranovna had disappeared. Kitty was heartbroken. There was no money. Had I ‘dropped’ her? Reluctantly, I arranged to see her. In my room at the Pera Palas I actually enjoyed myself with her. I felt a return of spontaneity which had vanished during my time with Esmé, for it is hard not to treat a little girl as a delicate toy. Leda had become inventively lascivious. All her fantasies and frustrations had given her time to explore her range of lust. With genuine emotion I told her how much I had missed her. ‘But you are always in Scutari,’ she said. ‘Have you a woman there?’ I reassured her. ‘It’s because the influential Turks live in Scutari.’

  ‘Are you a spy, Simka? When I told Count Siniutkin you were a flyer who served with Intelligence, he said you must be a secret agent.’

  ‘All you need to know, darling Leda, is that I am a Russian patriot. I hate Trotski and his gang. I really should not say more.’

  ‘Then your work is dangerous? I am so selfish. It’s the anxiety. I feel it more for Kitty than myself. But I shall have to find a job.’

  When she left I offered myself the luxury of an hour in the bath alone and tried to collect my thoughts. I was indeed living fairly dangerously, though not as the Baroness guessed. In spite of my work, my savings were almost exhausted. Somehow I had put myself in the position of deceiving three women and, worse, I had diverted from my ‘life plan’. I had to find a way to resolve all these difficulties. Changing into fresh linen, I went downstairs to the bar and to my delight saw Mrs Cornelius. She had on a new soft silk frock of pale blue and sported a navy blue ‘picture’ hat. She was not in the least surprised to see me, but I believe I must have blushed under her searching eye.

  ‘Afternoon, Ivan,’ she said. She was distant and disapproving. ‘Ya got me note, then.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m this moment returned from Scutari.’ I was anxious to win back her good opinion. ‘I’m working. Trying to earn some money by doing mechanical repairs for the Turks.’

  ‘Where the ‘ell’ve yer reelly bin? Silly little bleeder. Unless ya pull yer socks up, yore gonna be in an ‘orrible mess. I carn’t ‘elp yer.’

  ‘You’ve already done more for me, dear Mrs Cornelius, than anyone.’ I spoke feelingly and with dignity. ‘If I am keeping you here, then you must travel on alone. I will join you as soon as I can.’

  ‘Oo’s bin torkin ter yer? I don’t fink you wait ter git ter London!’

  ‘I assure you I do.’

  ‘Then why ain’t yer doin’ somefink abart it?’ She was so pretty, even when her eyes narrowed with impatience.

  ‘We need documents. Divorce papers, if necessary...’

  ‘Divorce!’ She was exasperated. ‘I tol’ you abart that in ther larst note. It turns art there’s no bloody record of our marriage. I’ve orlready ‘ad that sorted art. Wot yer fink I’ve been doin’ wiv meself? It’s not me should be worrying. I don’t
need nuffink ‘cept a birf certiff ter prove I’m British. An’ that’s on its way. Are ya delib’rately tryin ter do yerself darn? ‘Oo is it? That bloody Baroness?’

  ‘I’ve been earning money. I assure you it’s true. At the docks. You forget I’m a first class mechanic.’

  ‘First clars wanker more like.’ She sighed. ‘Ave a drink.’

  I asked for anis.

  ‘I’m doin’ me best fer ya, Ivan.’ She was superficially more calm. ‘But yore not ‘elpin’ yoreself.’

  ‘My personal life is complicated,’ I admitted. I was yearning to tell her everything, but she gave me no time.

  ‘Personal life! Ivan, ya carn’t start ter bloody ‘ave a personal life until yer git ter bleedin’ London! Not unless it’s direc’ly connected wiv a passage on a ship. ‘Ave an affair wiv an admiral. It’s orl ya kin afford!’

  ‘Someone else is now involved. A relative I found here. An orphan. I want to save her, too.’

  ‘Come orf it, Ive. Ya’ve orlready tol’ me yore an only child!’

  ‘You’ve heard of Esmé? This is her half-sister.’

  Mrs Cornelius stiffened. ‘Git rid of ‘er.’ She spoke urgently and firmly. ‘An’ double quick. Yore talkin’ bad news, Ivan. Dump ‘er. Do wot yer ‘ave ter do. But do it nar.’

  I was offended. ‘This is not a passing affair, Mrs Cornelius. The girl in question has been of considerable help to me in a dozen ways. I am prepared to say, quite frankly -’

  Mrs Cornelius lifted an imperious hand. ‘I’ve ‘eard it.’ With the other hand she signalled for the waiter to bring us more drinks. ‘Yore a babe-in-ther-wood, Ivan. I fought some bint woz takin’ yer. An if they ain’t, then it’s even worse. Yore takin’ yerself!’

  This was to me the most appalling blasphemy. ‘You must hear me out, Mrs Cornelius!’

  ‘Let ya make even more’ve a fool o yersel’? Do me a favour.’

  I was enraged. I thanked her for the anis and got to my feet.

  ‘Pull yoreself tergevver.’ She spoke in a fierce hiss. I knew she meant well. She cared for me greatly. If she had met Esmé she would not have said what she did. And she compounded the error with every statement. ‘Git art o’ it, Ivan. Every bloody man fer ‘isself!’

  ‘She’s my responsibility. Only a child. Thirteen years old, Mrs Cornelius!’

  She sat back, pursing her brilliant lips. ‘Don’t involve me, Ivan.’

  ‘We could say she was adopted.’

  Mrs Cornelius told the waiter to leave both drinks. She opened her navy blue handbag and paid him. By then I was insulted as well as furious. Without speaking further, I left the bar.

  I realize now she had my best interests at heart, but my mind was clouded by my desires. I could not be separated from Esmé. I began to think Mrs Cornelius must be jealous of my little girl. I walked up the Grande Rue in a wild rage, careless of wind and rain. I felt severely let down and misunderstood. Since I could no longer trust Mrs Cornelius, I would seek my own way out. I needed only Esmé. I paused, finding myself in a Turkish cemetery. This one was the oddest I had seen, for almost every stone bore a life-size sculpture, some of them mundane, some of them utterly bizarre. Here a shoemaker worked on his last, there a baker prepared bread, while elsewhere a man seemed to be hanging from a gibbet, his body twisted and his face in agony. Scarcely a stone in the place did not have one of these realistic monuments and I came to realise they represented not only the occupants, but their trades and the manner in which they had died. The cemetery was surrounded by an old yellow sandstone wall. The rain fell relentlessly but without much force. Crowds of rooks flew screeching across a miserable sky. Gulls sailed on the colder currents, complaining. The old garden breathed like a dying man. I stumbled over cracked slabs to the shelter of a wall and found myself staring down beyond it at Italianate slate roofs, groves of bare trees which bent in the wind, a clear view of the Bosphorus. A gnarled Turk in lopsided fez and sodden woollen overcoat reaching almost to his feet, passed by on the path. He stopped and, careless of me, began to urinate against the wall. Upon consideration I could not bear the prospect of losing Mrs Cornelius. I was fully aware I had let myself drift away from my original course. There was a possibility I might never find it again. But must I be forced to choose between Esmé and my destiny? Many men were asked to make the same dreadful decision at some stage in their lives. Yet surely Esmé was as much part of my destiny as my engineering ambitions. She was my imagination and inspiration. Mrs Cornelius would not be angry with me for long; she was incapable of holding a grudge. If necessary I would get to England by my own route. Then I would look her up in Whitechapel as soon as I arrived. My commonsense restored, I left the cemetery and walked towards the lights of the Grande Rue.

  Returning with relief to the admiring comfort of Esmé, everything else was put from my mind. My plans for the steam car progressed. I let it be known around the docks and workshops that I had an invention worth millions to an investor. In less than two weeks I made several contacts and almost concluded an arrangement with Mr Sharian, an Armenian financier. He offered to fund me for the prototype and intended to sell the first cars in Paris. Then Mr Sharian was murdered in broad daylight on the Galata Bridge and I was dragged to the police station as a suspect. I gave my address as the Pera Palas. There were people who could vouch for me. I mentioned, among others, Major Nye and Count Siniutkin. The Turkish police were already in the process of ignoring everything I said and turning me into the murderer but happily the British redcaps were more cautious. I said my wife, Mrs Cornelius, would be able to speak on my behalf. I began to feel as if I were within the nightmare once again; this was overly familiar to me. A British MP sergeant interviewed me and I had to repeat everything. My unlit cell had iron manacles stapled into mildewed stone and had probably been built in the middle ages. After some delay the sergeant returned. He told me Major Nye had been recalled to London and Mrs Cornelius had already left the Pera Palas, taking a train to Paris. At this I became frantic and I am not sure what I said, though I remember begging the sergeant to help me, swearing I was not capable of killing anyone. He told me he could only do so much. I could not think properly. How long would Esmé wait before she panicked? If she spoke for me, it would betray our secret and cause me dreadful embarrassment. I could imagine what the gossips would make of my pure, wholesome love for her. I felt I was going mad.

  Six hours later the authorities released me. The murderer had been caught. A Circassian identified by all witnesses, a man with an old grudge against Mr Sharian. The Turkish police told me none of this. It was the British MP who apologised. ‘Were you supposed to travel with your wife? Well, send her a telegram and tell her you’ll be on the next available train.’ Fearing the worst, I rushed back to Tokatlian’s where I found Esmé weeping. She had been convinced I must be dead. In a short while she was comforted and cheerful again and I was able to spare the time to go over to the Pera Palas. The manager came to me while I waited in the lobby. Mrs Cornelius had indeed left a forwarding address. It was c/o Whitechapel High Street Post Office, London E., England. Major Nye could be reached through the War Office in Whitehall. In the meantime, said the Greek with hypocritical apologies, my baggage had been removed from my room. They would be pleased to return it on receipt of a month’s rent. Most of my plans, my clothes and half a kilo of cocaine were in the trunks. After I had fetched the money from Tokatlian’s I was almost completely out of funds. The trunks were transferred to my rooms by two huge Somalis who normally acted as commissionaires in the evenings. I did not tip them.

  That night I sold almost the last piece of jewellery and took Esmé to the music hall. I was desperate to get a grip again on reality. When I was in her company nothing seemed of particular gravity. Mrs Cornelius would soon be in London and I could write to her there. She was in a much better position to get permission for me to enter the country. If I looked at it from certain angles, things could even seem as if they had improved for me.

  On the ot
her hand my Baroness, whom I saw the next afternoon, was growing increasingly distraught. Her anxiety made her less attractive. Rather than make love, she preferred to discuss her dilemma. She had still heard nothing from her husband’s family in Berlin. Her German hosts felt she had overstayed her welcome. Kitty needed far more attention, now that Marusya was gone. Was there some way she could earn money?