‘You were at Zoyea’s?’ I was still suffering from my encounter with Brodmann. He had been escorted discreetly out. ‘A few nights ago?’
‘That the ‘ore-’ouse wiv ther games?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Yeah! Yore lookin’ smart. D’yer know me boyfriend? ‘E’s in ther navy. Francois ‘e corls ‘isself. Don’t speak very good English. Say ‘ow do, France.’
I told the naval officer I was enchanted to meet him. I asked which ship he was with. He was Second Officer on the Oreste. They were leaving for Constantinople tomorrow, with troops and passengers. There had been trouble with Kemal Pasha. We spoke French, of course.
‘The British are trying to take over the whole thing,’ he said bitterly. ‘They are acting in a very vulgar manner.’
I was amused. The quarrels between these allies was reminiscent of the Crimea. But I remained grave. I heard Brodmann squealing ‘Treachery!’ as he passed by outside. ‘And you are kindly giving Mrs Cornelius a passage on your ship.’
He shook his head. ‘We are already full. She will be meeting me in Constantinople. I have spoken to the captain of a British merchantman. He has agreed to add a few more passengers. We had to arrange Mrs Cornelius’s papers, of course. She was good enough to ask me to escort her here. It is a pity we were not acquainted before.’
‘A great pity,’ I said.
Mrs Cornelius nudged me. ‘Stop it, the pair o’ yer. Manners! Tork English!’
We both bowed. My CO had entered the room and was looking thoughtfully at me. I said to Mrs Cornelius very rapidly in English: ‘I have papers. Can you get me aboard the British ship?’
She could tell I was anxious. She smiled and put a girlish, beringed hand on my forearm. ‘We got married, didn’t we? Yore me ‘usband. It’s ther Rio Cruz. Yer’ll need a licence or summink.’ She once more became the lady. ‘Delighted to meet you again, Major Pyatnitski.’ I clicked my heels and kissed her hand. I saluted the Frenchman. My CO, Major Soldatoff, signalled for me to come over. I did so with alacrity. I had been impressing him with my military discipline for a couple of months. He was an old Okhrana man, not naturally suspicious, but very sensitive to discrepancies of any kind. He had a seamed, ruddy face of the Great Russian type, with a white beard and moustache. He wore a dark uniform. I entered his office. He closed the door. He offered me a chair and I sat down. ‘Brodmann?’ he said.
‘A Red,’ I said. ‘I met him in Kiev, I think. When I was doing sabotage work. I told him I was on his side, of course.’
‘He says you’re Cheka? That you were a link between Antonov and Hrihorieff.’
‘I let him think that. At the time.’
‘I shall have to look into this, Pyatnitski. But it is routine, naturally.’ Obviously he was in no way seriously worried. He was almost apologising. ‘You’re a good interrogation officer and we need everyone. The Reds are coming back and they’re much better organised. We’re a little worried about spies.’
‘I understand completely, sir.’
‘There’ll be an enquiry. An extensive one. I don’t want to waste a man guarding you. Will you promise to stick near your quarters until the morning?’
‘I am lodging,’ I said with embarrassment, ‘at Zoyea’s.’
‘I know that. You won’t need to leave, then, will you?’ He was like an uncle. ‘Brodmann’s accusations are heard every day. I’ll have him properly questioned tonight. It could be he’ll admit he knows nothing. If that’s the case, it shouldn’t take long for you. You’ll be back on duty by the afternoon.’
‘It’s a holiday,’ I said with a smile.
‘All the better. After Christmas.’
I thanked him civilly and left. Walking through the snow towards Madame Zoyea’s I stopped to buy a bundle of cigarettes from a ragged young girl. For some reason I gave her a gold rouble for them and thanked her in English. She replied in the same language. I was amused. ‘You speak it excellently,’ I said.
She was flattered. She was shivering worse than Brodmann had shivered. She had been attractive. In other circumstances I might have spent more time making her acquaintance. There was something about vulnerable young women which brought out the best in me. It was almost love. She told me her husband had been a White officer. The Bolsheviks had shot him. She was supporting her mother. There were many young women like her in Odessa, selling small things from trays. She had a quality of the sort Esmé had once possessed. I supposed she would lose it, if the Reds came again. The Allies were already regretting their enthusiasm for the Volunteers. They were horrified by what they took to be our moral weakness. It was, of course, only our despair. The British hate despair. They will do anything to fight it, even going so far as to let socialists hold the reins of power in their own country. The Americans share the British hatred but have so far resisted socialism. It will come, no doubt. The French have a healthier reaction. They are merely disgusted by poverty. Disgust was at the heart of their colonial policy. It enabled them to withdraw from Indo-China with rather more honour than the Americans. But, to the British, despair and moral weakness are synonymous. It took me some years to discover this fact.
At Madame Zoyea’s I packed two suitcases. I had jewellery and gold. I had never, of course, recovered my other baggage, with my plans, my designs, my hopes. All I had was a blood-stained diploma and a dirty passport. I should have to begin all over again. I did not relish being put off in Constantinople, but even that city would be safer for me now than Odessa. And I was no longer poor. Sooner or later I should have had to leave, anyway. In about two months the Bolsheviks would return. I should have become a victim of the Cheka.
In the large suitcase went my uniforms, including the one I had been wearing. I dressed in civilian clothes and put on an expensive fur coat. My pistols were still with me, in the pockets. Both coat and pistols could be sold if necessary. I had a file of forms, including marriage certificates. It was an easy matter to forge the appropriate information. I asked Madame Zoyea to come to me. I told the maid that the matter was urgent. Within half-an-hour the proprietress was there. She was not surprised by the signs. I put on a good fur hat which matched the coat. I gave her fifty gold roubles. My passport and papers were, of course, in perfect order. I asked her to tell any callers I was engaged with one of her girls. I wondered if she could arrange a discreet cab for me, to take me to the docks at about five in the morning. She agreed and she kissed me. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘I think you were bringing us luck. What will happen when the Reds come back?’
I showed her my file of spare papers. ‘I’d advise you to make use of them for yourself and as many girls as you can. They’re all prestamped you’ll notice. They merely need names and dates.’
‘You’re very kind. But Reds are men … ‘
‘They’ll be trying to deny that fact,’ I said. ‘You should listen to me, Zoyea. Gypsies and Jews will not be the only ones to suffer under the Cheka. They’re anxious to eradicate all signs of their own and therefore others’ humanity.’ (To be honest, I do not think I phrased my warning so elegantly. Time improves all conversations, particularly one’s own. I was to see Zoyea again, I am glad to say, in Berlin.) ‘You are only safe while men admit their vulnerability. When they pretend they are demigods, you should be afraid.’ We kissed once more. She asked if I would like to make love. I told her I needed nothing to distract me. We kissed shyly, then.
It was dark, of course, when I left for the Quarantine Harbour and the Rio Cruz. In a troika, we trotted through heavy snow, through an Odessa still excited, still alive. Some would call her sordid, but even in death she held a warmth and elegance denied more famous cities. Catherine had founded her. Catherine’s spirit, at once cruel and intelligent, feminine and aggressive, remained in her. Catherine had courted Reason and been confused by Romance, but in her they had reached a kind of harmony that was Russian, though she was not. I saw Dietrich as The Scarlet Empress by von Sternberg. I loved it. It ruined him. The only Holly
wood film of its day to lose money. We reached the harbour and to my relief the ship was active. People were going aboard. They were almost all rich Russians.
I do not think I was followed. Indeed, I have the idea my Commanding Officer might have given me the chance to escape. I have been shown considerable kindness. I do not deny it.
My papers were checked several times, first by Russians, then by grim-looking Englishmen. I walked up the gangplank. It vibrated under booted feet. I was on the deck of my first large ship. She flew English colours, but was probably a spoil of war, taken from some South American state which, in the heat of the moment, had decided to ally with Germany. Many of the signs were still in Spanish. I climbed another gangway. There was no one to help me with my luggage. I reached a forward cabin on the upper deck. I opened the door. Mrs Cornelius was not there. It was dark. I switched on the weak electrics. The cabin had been converted for two passengers. There were two bunks. There were washing facilities. I put down my bags and took out my cocaine. I had to keep certain thoughts at bay. The cocaine had its usual positive effect. I began to think of Constantinople. It would be warm there. I was very cold. The cabin had no proper heating system. I stretched out on the upper bunk, assuming that Mrs Cornelius would require the lower. Her luggage, several trunks and cases, was stowed in one corner, near the forward porthole. I was still ready for trouble. It was possible I could be taken off before the ship upped anchor. The Rio Cruz rocked very slightly. The motion made me think we were leaving and that Mrs Cornelius had missed the ship, but I knew enough to understand that the engines would have to begin turning before we would be able to head for open sea.
I got up from my bunk. I looked through the porthole. The sea was black, almost as if ice had formed on it. People came and went about the ship. I thought I heard shots, but from a good distance along the dock. I had left too easily and yet I accepted my good fortune. I had hardly questioned the fact that Mrs Cornelius would again be the means of my salvation. Wrapped in my Russian fur, I fell asleep.
I was awakened by grey dawn and a song. It was Mrs Cornelius. She was quite drunk. She had her hat on the back of her head. She was singing something from the British music-hall. ‘We don’t wanter fight, but by jingo if we do, we got ther ships, we got ther men, we got the money, too. We’ve fought the bear before, an’ while we’re Britons troo-oo, ther Russians shall not ‘ave Constantino-pol. Oops, sorry Ivan. No offence.’
She sat on her bunk. ‘I feel a bit queasy on boats, don’t you? Orlways ‘ave done. Oo-er.’ She was trying to remove her boots. I glanced at her wonderfully rounded calves. She sensed me behind her and looked up. She winked. She was delicious. Her perfume, her clothes, her confident womanhood. ‘Don’t worry, chum,’ she said, to cover my embarrassment, ‘I’m not ashamed of ‘em. I’ve reached me maturity, yer know. I’m used ter a bit o’ admiration.’ She stood up in her stockinged feet and began to ease her back. ‘Cor! Wot a farewell party that was! Anyway, we’re spliced, ain’t we? They tol’ me you was ‘ere when them sailors ‘elped me aboard.’
‘Do you mean married?’ I asked her. I was not fully awake.
She shook her head. Evidently she had made her mind up on the moral score. ‘In name only, Ivan, old fruit. See, I give me word ter that Froggy. ‘E ain’t much, but ‘e ‘elped me get art o’ that ‘ell-’ole. An I like ter keep me word, if I can.’
I accepted her decision. It would be many years before we were married in the carnal sense. The ship swayed. She was not of the latest design and had no sophisticated stabilisers, no Pratt and Whitneys, although, I was to learn, she had been built on the Clyde. I still felt cold. Snow was falling on the ship. It settled on rigging and rails. I thought it would sink us. But everything was purified against the blackness of that water. It was impossible to see the city through the blizzard. I searched for the outline of the Nicholas Church. Odessa was lost to me, as Esmé was lost, as Kolya was lost, almost casually.
I am not a Jew. I am not a racialist. I remembered how the Jew in Arcadia had been kind to me; how I had loved him. The thought was not pleasant. I recollected the incident a day or so ago, now that I am old and selfish and unattractive. The selfish are only attractive when young. I have given much, but never as much as I have received.
Later, I would go out on deck and stand in the Russian snow, letting it cover me from head to toe, while the ship sailed steadily for the heat of that Holy City, our Tsargrad, which, for the moment, the British had freed from Islam. We had fought for Byzantium more than once. We had been deceived by Patriarchs more than once. But we had known honour and we had taken that honour back with us to Kiev. From Kiev it had passed to Moscow. Bells rang from the shore. It was Christmas Eve. Moscow was lost. Christ was betrayed. Bells rang from St Nicholas for the birth of the Saviour whose trust was mocked. The Reds swept in; the red tide rose and disgorged its walking dead, its ancient reapers of vengeance with their sickles: Carthage come from beyond the sea. Ghosts of Tatars and Turks laughed together beneath the windy banners of Islam, beneath the flapping banners of Bolshevism, beneath the banners of barbarism and cynicism and a passionless vengeance which dared to grace itself with the name of piety. Down from his hillsides came the Bandit Tsar, the Steel Tsar from the East, with four faces. Oh, my sister and my brother and my mother. You are fallen beneath the chariot of the Antichrist. Those whom I loved and who loved me; they are all fallen. They would not come to the city of sleeping goats, the city of the Jew. They would not come to Odessa and be saved by me. They thought Byzantium would save them, but Byzantium could not. The Greek could not come to Odessa. We fled before Carthage. The Greek could not come to Russia. Russia, knowing only pride, fell. They put a piece of metal in my womb. They poisoned me with their kindness. They confused me. Why did they not let me die? The Germans came, with their Ukrainian Cossacks, and they put a camp in the gorge where I had flown. And they put an old woman into the sea of ashes and they drowned her with their bullets and the blood of thousands. Jew and Russian mingled blood at last. Black goats bleat. What sacrifice is worth their death?
They rode through Russia with their flags and their machine-guns and they took away our honour. We left it with them to die and had only our pride. They took away our language. They took away our Christ. But the Slavs know Carthage. The Slavs shall rediscover honour. They shall dig their weapons from the earth. Teach us your litany of revenge; speak to us in lies and feast yourselves on your caviar, your Georgian champagne, your game-birds and your soups. You are ignoble. You have dishonoured your land. You have dishonoured virtue. Clap your heavy hands as your tanks roll past the Kremlin: then put your hands to your eyes, for the great guns shall turn on you and Russia shall have vengeance. Is that what you fear? Traitors! You are weak. Zion! Rome! Byzantium! All are stronger than Carthage. Odysseus returns. The Greek sleeps. The Greek wakes. Those cities are lost to me. Those virtues are lost to me. Everything is lost to me. But it will be found. The Greek’s words were corrupted and his love was betrayed. Prometheus! Mercury! Odysseus!
Mrs Cornelius came waltzing through the snow. She was still singing her song. I suppose it popped into her mind because she was looking forward to the Bosphorus. She linked her arm in mine. Snow scattered. She began to drag me along the throbbing planks of the deck.
The Steel Tsar longed for God. He won back our old Empire and made us strong again, and though it seemed that cruel Carthage had conquered, the Greek is waking. Byzantium endures. There is an Empire of the Soul and we are all its citizens.
Mrs Cornelius said, ‘Yer get real snow in Russia, I’ll say that!’
I asked her how she had managed to leave Kiev and the jealous Trotsky. ‘I come over dead bored. ‘E come over worried, didn’t ‘e?’ she said. ‘I woz ‘angin’ abart there, waitin’ fer Leon till bloody May. Pregnant, an’ all. ‘E kep’ sayin’ ‘e woz comin’ an’ then when ‘e did it was on’y ter say goodbye. So I got ther lads ter take me ter ‘Dessa an’ ‘ere I am.’
‘The child? Was th
ere a child?’
She turned her back on me as she brushed snow from her skirts. ‘‘E’ll be orlright.’
I became silent.
‘It’s not as if ‘e’ll know any different,’ she said.
I went below. The Chief Engineer was sorry for the Russians. He showed me his machinery. I told him of my plans for new kinds of ships, for aircraft and monorails. He was interested. He was glad, he said, to have a fellow engineer aboard. I asked him when we would be arriving. He told me it would be on 14 January 1920. My birthday. I was amused by this coincidence. Guns fired from the shore. They fired into mist.
I asked him about other craft he had served with. He said he had known many better ships than this, but that the Rio Cruz was seaworthy. He was from Aberdeen and had always been interested in mechanical things. We became friendly. There is a kind of brotherhood which exists amongst engineers.
I told him about the flying machine I had invented in Kiev, about my Violet Ray. He said he had certain ideas of his own: ships which would be jointed so that they would ride the waves naturally. He showed me some drawings he had made. They were rather crude. I began to sketch again, to illustrate the sort of notions I had conceived in St Petersburg. I said that the future lay with us. It was our duty to lend our enthusiasm and knowledge in the cause of human comfort. We discussed such matters all the way to Constantinople.
Appendix A
The Manuscripts of Colonel Pyat
The following are taken from Box 1 of Pyat’s manuscripts. They were composed mainly on poor-quality writing paper which seems to date from the mid-forties, unless it is of more recent East European origin. I reproduce the material pretty much in the order in which I discovered it, but without the little scrawled pictures. The breaks are mine. The final sequence is translated from the Russian.
BURST THEM. NO. Shmetterling. Ma fie sans la prix. It runs down. Ougron fal czernick.
Byzantium Endures: The First Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet Page 51
