Byzantium Endures: The First Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  ‘Russki?’ Mrs Cornelius replied in her abominable and attractive Russian. It was easy to see how, with her beauty and her spirit and her accent, she had won the hearts of the top Bolsheviks. She baffled the Chekist far more than I had. She laughed. He turned away to hide his scowl. ‘If yer like, Ivan.’ It seemed she addressed everyone by the same name. ‘This is a very good comrade. He is on his way to Odessa to work for the party there. He is known to many leading comrades from Petrograd days. I think you will find he and Comrade Stalin are old friends.’ The so-called ‘Siberian’ Bolsheviks had more weight with the rank-and-file at that time. Stalin was then just a name to me, associated with various rather incompetently waged Civil War campaigns and not popular with the Jewish intellectuals who controlled Party policies.

  I said, taking out my watch, that I had probably missed the Odessa train. The Chekist went to put his cigarette out in a spittoon. ‘It was stopped. It’s being searched at Fastov.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’ I make no attempt to imitate Mrs Cornelius’s Russian. ‘You can send a telegram and tell them to hold it up a bit longer.’

  ‘But how can I get to Fastov?’ I asked a reasonable question.

  ‘Same way as the troops,’ she told me. ‘By motor.’

  ‘I am not fortunate enough … ‘

  She slapped me on the shoulder. She began to pull on a huge fox-fur coat with a matching hat. ‘Daft!’ she said in English. ‘We’ll go in my bleedin’ motor, won’t we!’

  On her instructions, the sailors picked up my bags. They took them down to her large Mercedes which was still parked outside the main doors. There was oil on the snow. I thought it was blood. ‘‘Op in,’ she told me. I climbed into the back seats. I had never experienced a car like it. It felt warm under the canopy. In Russian she said to the driver: ‘What’s the benzene situation?’

  ‘To go where?’ The driver wore a Red Army cap with earflaps, and a huge red star sewn on the front. Otherwise he was dressed in the regular khaki of a Tsarist soldier: trenchcoat, gloves, scarf wound round the lower part of his face against the cold, and goggles.

  ‘Fastov, was it?’ Mrs Cornelius turned to me.

  ‘Fastov,’ I said.

  ‘We can get there.’ The driver was amused. ‘And probably back.’ ‘Perfect.’

  The Chekist stood outside the hotel. His hands were deep in his pockets. He looked smug. I remembered. ‘You have my papers, comrade.’

  As one robbed of his last consolation, he gave them to me. He must have been fondling them. Plainly he disapproved of Mrs Cornelius, but he had no power over her. Now he had no power over me. He had become like a demon in a pentagram.

  ‘Don’t forget about the cable,’ Mrs Cornelius told him. ‘And if Comrade Trotsky’s in touch asking for me, tell him I’ve put Comrade Pyat on the train to Odessa will you?’

  ‘Yes, comrade.’ He glared at us. The Mercedes, its engine cranked by grinning sailors, began to shake and mutter. Two of the sailors jumped into the front seats beside the driver. A third stood on the running board, his rifle on his shoulder. The driver engaged the engine, and we were off in style, flying the red hammer-and-sickle flag: an official Bolshevik car! More than once, as we left Kiev behind, we were cheered by the conquering Reds. It was an irony I think Mrs Cornelius appreciated. She would often wave back, but more like a queen than a comrade. It was then that I experienced one of my first ‘releases’. There are a number of them. I value them greatly. They are all specific to this century (i.e. I do not include the release of sexual fulfilment): the Release of Flying; the Release of Steam-liner Sailing; the Release of Rapid Train Travel; the Release of Motoring. In that monstrous German automobile, guarded by élite members of the Revolutionary Army, with a beautiful foreign woman at my side (her rose perfume, her furs, her wonderful complexion, her stylish self-assurance) I knew the Release of Motoring. I resolved to obtain such a car as soon as possible. She too was enjoying the ride. She chuckled. ‘Wot a pair o’ survivors we are, you an’ me, Ivan. That’s ther fing I like most abaht yer, I fink.’

  I was still dazed by what had taken place. It was she, after all, who had rescued me. Without her, I should be dead. She nudged me in the side. ‘Never say die, eh?’

  Suddenly I was laughing as she, alone, has been able to make me laugh. I laughed like a child.

  Between avenues of lime trees, we travelled towards Fastov. I remembered my gypsy Zoyea. I imagined myself driving her in this car. It was not disloyalty to my rescuer to enjoy this fantasy. Mrs Cornelius had no sexual claims on me. I had none on her. She is the best friend I ever had. And all because I had visited a dentist in Odessa and been able to speak English! My luck since then was chiefly to stem from her. She became my mother, sister, goddess, guardian angel. And yet most of the time she hardly noticed me. I amused her. She had as much affection for me as a woman might have for a favourite cat. No more and no less. And, like a favourite cat, I survived to give her some comfort, I hope, in her old age. She wore very well. It was only, really, in the fifties that she began to decline and run to fat, though she had always been built on proper feminine proportions. I hate these skinny girls who try to look like boys. No wonder everyone today is a homosexual. We had thin girls in the twenties, but Mrs Cornelius was always feminine. I cannot say I have been as completely certain of my own sexuality as she, but for that, I suppose, I must blame Prince Nikolai Feodorovitch Petroff and perhaps even my cousin Shura. Unwittingly, Shura showed me that women are not to be trusted: they try too hard to please too many people. It is a man’s world. Those idiots who come mincing into my shop have no idea what I have witnessed. I understand every word, every hint, every gesture. The world did not begin in 1965. Perhaps it ended then. Affection, moderation, understanding; these are now only of value to the elderly. And the elderly are no longer respected. In Russia, if I lived there, they would be calling me an old bore: boltun. We laughed at them in Kiev: the Jews of Podol who had nothing but gossip and memory, which they mistook for experience. It was that sentimentality which used to irritate me. It still does. It is not surprising their sons rebel and become cruel, pragmatic revolutionaries; cynicism is the other side of the sentimental coin.

  The sailors were surprisingly good-natured about the trip. I think they enjoyed the motorcar. They had seen a great deal of the world. They had known what it was to risk their lives. They were, in their way, men of good will. They have not changed much, our Russian sailors. When I go to the docks for my vodka, as I still try to do, I meet them and speak to them. They are just as self-confidently tolerant and tough. They were fond of Mrs Cornelius. They flattered her with all sorts of purring Russian endearments, as they would flatter their sweethearts. She responded by blowing them kisses and sharing her food and cigarettes with them.

  Scores of dead horses were piled alongside the Fastov road. They were stiffening. Some were still warm; you could smell them. There were human corpses as well, sprawled in the winter sun; young peasant bodies left behind as Petlyura had tried to leave me behind, to cover his escape. Petlyura had been another sentimentalist who betrayed all he claimed to stand for. As usual he had accused as traitors those he had misled; sacrificing them to his enemies when they had come to doubt his lies. They probably deserved their fate. Some still held their booty: a pair of women’s shoes, a length of cloth, an ornamental sword. But most had already been stripped by the followers of Marx and Lenin. We passed a black line of dead Orthodox priests. The line had fallen neatly against a snowdrift. Behind the drift was an almost identical line of birches. It was as if shadows had been reversed, for the sun was on our side of the trees. There was blood, too, and that was black. The priests had been dead for some while. Their crucifixes had been cut from them, of course, as well as their rings, but otherwise their clothing was neatly arranged. Some pious woman had come upon them in the morning and attempted to give them a semblance of dignity. I remembered the church and the singing. The sweet girls’ voices. I think Catholic Petlyurists had shot t
he priests.

  Mrs Cornelius avoided the sight. ‘Between you an’ me, Ivan,’ she confided, ‘I wasn’t expectin’ nuffink like this. It’s wot comes o’ bein’ English, I s’pose. It wouldn’t ‘appen over there. You wanna get ter London, mate.’

  ‘I had considered it.’

  ‘Yer might find me there a’ead o’ yer.’ She gave the sailor on the running board a cigarette she had already lit. She winked and laughed with him. ‘It woz a soft spot fer sailormen got me inter me present predic, really, wannit?’

  ‘You’ve not been back to Odessa?’

  ‘Nar! I ‘alf-’oped, see, ter make ther Finlan’ train an’ go that way, like we wos talkin’ abart. But fings got orl wonky some’ow. An’ Leo can be a jealous pig. In spite o’ the fac’ ‘e’s not exactly single.’

  ‘Why not come with me to Odessa? The French are in control there.’

  ‘An’ a lot o’ bloody Bolshies, mark my words. I’ve ‘eard.’

  ‘Are you frightened they’ll do something to you?’

  ‘Nar! They got no reel respec’ fer women, any of ‘em. That’s me strengf, yeah? Know wot I mean?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘They don’t reckon women count. Unless they’re in ther Party, that is. I’m just a fancy-bit ter them. I’ll be orl right. If Leo ‘eard I’d got on that bloody train wiv you, ‘e’d jest bring it back, wouldn’t ‘e?’

  ‘I suppose he would.’ I rather regretted the principles which had, and always will, stopped me from leaguing myself with the Communists. They certainly knew how to gain and hold power better than any of their rivals. They saw and accepted no ambiguities. Many non-Bolsheviks eventually came round to Lenin. It was better to have Bolshevik order than no order at all.

  As we entered the rather unattractive town of Fastov, I saw a red flag flying from the dome of the church. A synagogue was burning. There were Red Cossacks everywhere and a considerable amount of filth and confusion. Overhead, a biplane dropped, observed us, then flew away towards the west. As if waiting to board a train, guns and horses crowded the street leading to the station. The long Odessa train had been shunted off the main line into a siding. People crowded around it. There were Red Guards, Chekists, women with babies which they displayed like talismans, Jews who argued vehemently with officials, men in uniform from which all insignia had been ripped: the wadding showed through their great-coats, so urgently had those symbols been removed. Youths gave the Bolshevik salute, old men wandered about in the deep snow, looking for things which had been dropped, beautiful girls fluttered their eyelashes and tried to flirt with the leather-jackets. Cossacks, with red stars on their caps, were lounging over their ponies making filthy remarks to all and sundry (there is nothing worse than a Cossack who has gone to the bad), while sailors marshalled whole lines of workers and peasants beside the train and into the first-class compartments which filled up rapidly and had begun to smell of urine. The richer people were being forced to enter the fourth-class compartments, or even the animal-wagons at the rear.

  The car bumped along a track and came to a stop. An officer in ordinary military clothes, wearing a cloak and an old Tsarist blue and white uniform with the inevitable red stars, came up to us. He did not salute. All the usual disciplines had been abolished at that time. They would return with a vengeance. People were astonished in World War II when Stalin brought back the entire paraphernalia of military rank and etiquette. He was sensible. While war is a fact of life, soldiers must exist; while soldiers exist, there must be proper ways of controlling them.

  Mrs Cornelius knew the officer. She greeted him. He grinned at her. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s my friend,’ she said. ‘He needs to be on the Odessa train. Party business. He’s a courier for Commissar Trotsky.’

  ‘There’s a carriage at the front for proletarian representatives. They plan to argue with French soldiers. Do you think they’ll succeed, comrade?’ He seemed anxious for an answer from me.

  ‘There’s every chance,’ I told him. I privately prayed the canker of Bolshevism would never touch France. But it was like a gas used in the trenches. It touched everyone. Bolshevism would have died out completely by now if it had not been for that shot at Sarajevo.

  They had rounded up a number of people in civilian clothes. I had seen some of them only recently. Then, they had been wearing Petlyurist uniforms. They were taken away behind an embankment. There was a burst or two of machine-gun fire and some laughter. The guards returned without their prisoners. I thanked God and Mrs Cornelius for my escape. By oversleeping, I had missed the train and probably that firing squad.

  Mrs Cornelius, with a gesture which reminded me of my mother, at once began to joke with the sailors, asking them which girl they liked the look of most. ‘Anything would do me at the moment,’ one said. ‘I’ll take a horse if the Cossack leaves it alone for a minute.’

  I could not quite summon proper self-control. I knew my lips were dry. I wondered if my alarm betrayed me.

  Another sailor leaned across the front seat and patted me on the shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, comrade.’

  I was grateful and smiled at him. He grinned back. ‘God knows what you Bolshies think you’re up to.’

  I became confused.

  ‘No offence,’ he added. ‘I don’t quarrel with Bolsheviks. So long as they go on representing Soviet needs.’ He spoke with a certain amount of menace, as if he challenged Lenin himself. I could make no sense of it. I told the sailor I agreed with him and that fundamentally we had no differences. He was already turning away to take an interest in an argument between a Chekist and a woman with three small sons who refused to hand over their bundles for inspection.

  I whispered in English to Mrs Cornelius. ‘Why do they shoot them so mercilessly? It will only bring more death.’

  Because she was frowning I thought I had offended her. Then the frown became a wink. She said seriously: ‘They re bloody shit-scared, Ivan. Leo an’ the ovvers, more than these bleedin’ fugs ‘oo don’t care ‘oo they kill. It’s like tryin’ ter stay on top of a bloody eruptin’ volcano, innit? They carn’t get ther stopper back in. Shoutin’ at it don’t exactly ‘elp! So they’re tryin’ dynamite, right?’ She screamed with laughter all of a sudden. ‘Pore buggers!’

  ‘A volcano expends its energy with less loss of life,’ I said.

  ‘Not in bloody Bali.’ Mrs Cornelius was smug. ‘They orl run up ther bloody ‘ll an lie darn in front o’ the bloody lava. If it gets enough o’ ‘em, they reckon, it’ll stop.’ She drew a handkerchief from a muff on the seat beside her and blew her nose. ‘I read that,’ she said with some pride, ‘in ther Penny Pictorial. Yer don’t see ther Penny Pictorial rahnd ‘ere, I s’pose?’

  ‘I have never seen it.’

  ‘Me neither. I could do wiv a nice read. It was a lot less borin’ fer me before all this broke aht, yer know. ‘Ow long’s it bin? Two years? Well, just over a year since the Old Man— ‘e don’t like me, neither—nearly bungled ‘is larst chance. ‘E won’t give an ounce o’ credit to Antonov, will ‘e?’

  I scarcely understood her. She was so immersed in the internal gossip and politics of the Bolsheviks she assumed everyone took her meaning.

  ‘Never met such a bunch o’ self-important buggers. They orl ought ter be given little kingdoms of their own. No wonder I carn’t keep me eyes off ther bloody sailors!’ She sighed. ‘Well, it woz fun while it lasted. While they ‘ad nuffink ter do but talk. I’ll be glad ter be art of it, an’ no mistake. Yer goin’ ter Blighty?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I’ll give yer me address in Whitechapel. Somebody’ll know if I’m back an’ wot I’m up ter. But, I tell yer, Ivan, I’ll be up West first charncet I get.’

  With these cryptic words she stretched across me, all soft fur and French perfume, and opened the door of the car. As I began to climb out, she fumbled with gloved hands in a reticule, removed a pamphlet printed on coarse paper, and with a pencil slowly wrote down a si
ngle line. She gave me the pamphlet. ‘Don’t mind if I wave bye-bye from ‘ere, do yer? I’m not goin’ in that bloody snow if I can ‘elp it.’

  Two sailors shouldered their rifles and took my bags from the box at the back of the car. Between them I walked in dirty slush to the carriage nearest the locomotive. A variety of desperadoes, male and female, regarded me from misted windows. The sailors dumped my bags on the metal steps. Stumbling through the door I found I was in a sleeper. The compartments, however, were fairly full and there would be no way in which I would be able to stretch out. The majority of the people were dressed as peasants and industrial workers. There were one or two ‘intellectuals’ in dark overcoats similar to my own. My natural inclination was to join these. I had stored my luggage (including a small hamper from Mrs Cornelius) before I realised I had made a serious mistake. I would not be able to answer their questions or understand their references. They had made space for me. They were calling me comrade. I shook several hands and then went back to the carriage door to wave to Mrs Cornelius. Fox-fur arms saluted me. The car was already turning. One of the sailors now sat next to her, grinning at his friends and at me. I heard a faint ‘Keep yer pecker up, Ivan!’ and she was gone. I was left with the cursing Cossacks, the pallid Chekists, the weary sailors. I returned to the relative security of the compartment and was offered a flask of vodka. I accepted it and sipped. It was raw moonshine; the kind they brewed in Shulyavka, the foulest slum in Kiev. I expected to go blind instantly and it affected my vocal chords as the arak had done in Odessa. The man who had offered it, a round-faced Ukrainian with a bushy red beard and thick spectacles, laughed and said, ‘You’re used to better, eh?’

  I managed to say I was not a great drinker. This gave him further amusement. ‘Then you can’t be a Katsup. What are you? A Moslem?’

  I considered claiming I was from Georgia or Armenia, but the problem there was that someone else in the carriage might know those areas. I shook my head and said I was from Kiev. I had spent some time in Petrograd and elsewhere.