Journey Into the Mind's Eye

by Lesley Blanch

  In the spring of 1919, nine independent states were organized on Russian soil and recognized by the Allied powers.

  The Russian people found themselves isolated – more isolated than ever, within their separate ethnic groups and geographic boundaries, for now news travelled slowly if at all, impeded by enormous distances, wide rivers and mountains and, often, impenetrable snows. Telegraphic communications had, largely, broken down; the Ukraine did not know what was happening in Bashkir country; the Caucasus was cut off from Moscow; all information depended on the chance arrival of a messenger. As the talkers expanded on this state of affairs my mind would escape, deliciously, to early and more romantic systems, such as that of the Cossack couriers – generally illiterate – who travelled at a speed dictated by the seals placed on whatever letters they carried. Three pigeon feathers indicated they must ride by day and night, at the gallop; two feathers, at the trot; if there were no feathers they could amble along, taking their time.

  The trouble was, said the exiles, nothing had gone according to plan. Those Bolsheviki were a most obstinate lot: they positively would not collapse in the manner so confidently predicted by both the White Army generals and the Allied High Command. The obstinate proletarians were determined to keep their country for themselves.

  In April 1920 the Americans pulled out of Vladivostok, and, one by one, the Allied forces found it expedient to withdraw from the scene of their operations. The two Greek infantry divisions were routed by Bolshevik guerrillas. The crew of a French battleship mutinied – the ratings refusing to fight their own kind – the people – Red Russians or no. Strains of the Marseillaise sounded ominously from below decks and soon they sailed for home waters while the French High Command ordered the evacuation of their land forces. For the White Russians, as for the Reds, that particular war was over. Now, for both, a new economic war had begun; in each case, a struggle for survival. In Paris, as once in Constantinople, General Wrangel stood beside the battered remnants of his exiled army as they sought work of any kind, to keep themselves from the ignominy of begging. They were trained soldiers but now they worked as labourers; on the land, or handling freight, as did a group at the Gare de la Chapelle, doing pick and shovel work. They accepted whatever they could find, in France, in the Balkans, the Near East, or whichever countries would harbour them. Some, more fortunate, formed a dashing cavalry unit in Syria. In the General’s words: ‘The Army, not wishing to be a burden to the countries which gave it a place of refuge, feeds itself by working, till the day when it will be called to arms to do its duty to its country.’

  Among these lost legions were men from Siberia, who had moved westwards on various fronts and were at last evacuated from the far Crimea with all the rest. Siberian troops were always regarded as the toughest fighters. They withstood every hardship, and their requirements were fewer than others. They were usually the last to arrive at the battle front, for like Canadian or Australian troops, they came from a great distance. ‘But once there –’ said the Traveller, admiration lighting his usual impassivity.

  ‘Siberians,’ he continued, thinking aloud. ‘It’s odd that in the war there were so many Siberians, children of those condemned to prison or exile there who had suffered and lost all by the persecutions of the Tzarist régime, children who grew up overshadowed by restrictions, who still flocked to fight in the White Armies, against the Reds. For adventure, rather than idealism, I fancy. Warfare broke the monotony of Siberian life.’

  It was among these forgotten ranks who waited, and still believed, that I now sat, listening to them talking of Russia – the exiles’ Russia, become now a myth, like the legendary city of Kitej, the vanished realm of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, lying beneath the waters of the lake, from where its bells still sometimes sounded for those who loved it, to whom it still sometimes revealed itself, briefly, in all its loveliness. So, it seemed, the exiles saw the country they had lost, but which still gleamed for them, from afar.

  CHAPTER V

  Mademoiselle Lavisse had been able to observe her own, more sober Easter celebrations well before the Russian ones. Indeed, I had been obliged to accompany her to Le Temple Anglais in the Rue Boissy-d’Anglas, where worshipping in tight gloves and a stern hat, in company with the British Ambassador and other members of the English colony, she had felt her duties, as my governess, to be honourably discharged. On the Russian Easter eve, she had been persuaded by the Traveller at his most solicitous not to accompany us to the St. Alexander Nevski service. The spiritual nature of this outing excused its lateness, he convinced her. Moreover, he said, he dreaded the amount of standing it involved for her (in Orthodox churches everyone stands or kneels). But it was the corrupting atmosphere of Orthodoxy, something which as a Protestant she regarded with even more suspicion than Papist rituals, which finally persuaded her, and she had gone to bed early, exhausted by our days of concentrated tourism.

  Ten o’clock found the Traveller and myself leaving for the Rue Daru. He had come to fetch me at the hotel and was helping me into my coat. We spoke in whispers, for I think both of us were apprehensive that, at the last moment, Mademoiselle Lavisse would emerge from her room and forbid me to be out so late – even in such devout circumstances.

  ‘One good thing about being an émigré,’ he said, hanging his overcoat on his shoulders in his customary cloaklike manner, ‘– I don’t have any more family evenings. Easter used to be an excuse for fearsome gatherings at home – family life at its most suffocating. But being English you don’t know about that – you are all so detached.’

  ‘I don’t understand: you always say how much you love family life when you come to us.’

  ‘Ah! That’s quite different – it’s not my family life. One must always take care to be the cuckoo in someone else’s nest.’

  Holding hands, an agreeable childish habit we had never foregone, we watched the bright-lit Paris streets through which our taxi threaded towards the Rue Daru. At the corner of the Rue de la Néva it came to a standstill, for large crowds were converging there making for the Russian Cathedral. At all the windows people were craning to watch the proceedings. Outside the church, the crowds had thickened, so that it was some time before we could edge inside, to stand among the hushed, exalted throng.

  The symbolism of the Russian Orthodox Easter service is profoundly moving. Within the church, all is dark, anguished, still, as priests and people alike await the moment when Christ is risen. We lit our candles and inched our way to leave them before one of the loveliest, oldest of the miraculous ikons. Turning away the Traveller took my arm and began propelling me towards the door.

  ‘We’ll wait for the procession outside – you’ll see, it’s beautiful.’ Docile but disappointed, I followed him, burrowing through the crowds, making for the door.

  ‘The procession is what matters most, tonight,’ he said, explaining how the circling of the church expressed the hesitation, the doubts of the Disciples, finding Christ vanished from the Sepulchre. Thus, the procession goes to search for Christ outside the walls, and the third time, accepts the miracle, entering again, to proclaim the Resurrection. Yea, verily He is Risen!

  As we waited, the night air smelled damp and fresh, the scent of the early lilac in the courtyard overcoming the wafts of incense that floated from the church along with snatches of muffled chanting. At their windows the French householders stood silent, sharing something of the tension. Just before midnight the church doors swung open and in a flood of colour and candlelight the glittering procession emerged to circle the building three times, chanting. The long tapers they carried sparkled on the sumptuous brocaded vestments and the diamond-studded crowns of the Metropolitan and high clergy. Gold-coped priests and acolytes swung censers and carried the banners and ikons, all glowing out from the darkness. At last, with measured tread, grave in their joy, they re-entered the church, there to announce to the waiting throng that Christ was Risen. We heard a sudden burst of singing, rapturous music, and the bells rang out overhead
.

  Christos Vosskress! Christ is Risen! Is Risen! Yea, verily He is Risen! The crowds joined in the great cry, crossing themselves, prostrating themselves, kissing each other, friends and strangers, each saluted with the triple kisses of the Trinity.

  The Traveller and I exchanged such kisses; but as he kissed me, his basalt-dark stare clouded. He held me close, kissing me once again, before turning away, pushing me from him, roughly.

  ‘The Resurrection kiss! You swore it me!’ He was quoting Pushkin, I knew, for I was familiar with most of the verses which had been translated. These poignant lines were occasioned by the poet hearing of the death of his mistress Amalia Riznich – a bitter outcry of the flesh against the tomb. I wondered why the Traveller spoke those lines now, and of whom he was thinking as he spoke them with such passion, over my head. A wave of vague, undirected jealousy enveloped me. It did not occur to me, then, that perhaps the Traveller was remembering an abstraction – a Russia that had vanished with his youth, when he uttered that bitter farewell: the exile’s rather than the lover’s cry. Gone is the Resurrection kiss! But yet to come: you swore it me! But such metaphysical suppositions had no place in my reasoning at that moment. And soon, being absorbed by the scene around me, I forgot to be jealous of some imagined creature of flesh and blood, and returned to watching the Easter crowds embracing and congratulating each other as they dispersed to break their fast at the Rozgoveni – the traditional feast, a gargantuan spread of paskha, koulitch, caviare, multi-coloured eggs and much more or less, according to their means. Gradually the streets emptied, the French watchers banged their shutters close, and the quarter resumed its habitual quiet. The Traveller had been silent, leaning against the railings, his coat collar turned up, his slit eyes staring at nothingness.

  ‘In the old days’ – he shrugged – ‘as I told you, we should have been caught up in some frightful gathering.’

  ‘But gone to the Gipsies later,’ I prompted.

  ‘Are you mad? The tziganes on Easter night? They were for other nights . . . Easter was something quite apart. In Holy Russia we took Easter seriously. Why, no one even made love to their own wives, let alone anyone else’s, in Holy Week.’

  His face darkened. ‘D’you remember Liouba?’ he asked, and seemed put out when I looked blank.

  ‘Of course you don’t – you couldn’t. I forgot. They killed her off before you were born.’ He spoke crossly and I felt disgraced. ‘Bed for you, Miss,’ he snapped, and hailed a passing taxi.

  As we drove through the empty streets I ventured to ask why Liouba had been killed.

  ‘None of your business.’ He glowered ahead, the slit eyes like dark thread. Abruptly his face changed, lit by one of his most delightfully malicious smiles.

  ‘There are a few of our Tziganes here, you know – they came in from the Balkans. They won’t be keeping Easter – except as good business. I think we’ll go and find out what they’re doing. Shall we?’

  ‘We?’ I wondered how Mademoiselle would view this further excursion.

  ‘It’s educational,’ he replied, and giving the taxi-driver (a fellow Russian) an address in Passy, we rattled off to perdition.

  In my imagination, the Tziganes were a tawny band of savages, dancing fiercely round the camp fires, strumming guitars, stretched on bear-skins, loving wildly but chastely, nobly, as in Pushkin’s Aleko, holding proudly to their tribal laws. If, however, they were what I thought of as the indoor kind, then, although equally tawny and savage, their setting was some crimson and gold restaurant, all mirrors and chandeliers. But now the foreground of this glittering scene was filled with even wilder figures. Here, Hussars drank from the satin slippers of beautiful ballerinas. Mysteriously masked men, still retaining their heavy, sable-lined overcoats called for champagne, and more champagne, flinging bank notes in the air and, maddened by the music of the Tziganes, forced their mistresses to dance naked on the tables, while, equally maddened, the Tziganes broke their guitars and fiddles over each other’s heads and rushed out into the snowstorm, leaving the débauchés to challenge each other to duels or blow out their brains. All this to the strains of The Two Guitars.

  It was inevitable, then, that the unpretentious night club at which we now arrived should seem an anti-climax. I had never been to one before and I stumbled across the small darkened room with a faint sense of disappointment. The Traveller explained that he preferred this place because the particular Tziganes who performed here were worth all the rest of the already corrupted groups who were hired by more elegant establishments.

  ‘That lot get themselves up in fancy dress – shiny satin roubashkas, shinier every year – and sing the sort of songs the French public like. These are different. You’ll see.’ He ordered blinii for both of us, and warned the waiter to reserve me a double portion of paskha which he knew, with prophetic accuracy, would be my favourite food for evermore. Vodka and champagne now materialized; ‘but no vodka for you, Miss,’ he said, downing several tiny glasses in rapid succession and making short work of some piroshki.

  ‘How d’you find the champagne?’ he asked, his tone implying that I was at least knowledgeable, if not a connoisseur, instead of tasting it for the first time, as he very well knew.

  ‘We had a saying in Russia,’ he went on. ‘One cannot live without champagne and Tziganes. And another: Only he who loves a Tzigane knows Paradise . . . I know – I loved one once, and Paradise it was – at a price. Tziganes are an expensive hobby. You’re better off in England with pets. More champagne?’ He bent forward to refill my glass.

  Sipping with what I hoped was a negligent air, I began to think more kindly of my surroundings. Even the Niagara-like flow of a too adjacent W.C. did not dispel the waxing glow of dissipation which now seemed to illuminate the scene. It was, I thought, quite extraordinary how often the French seemed to need the lavatory. Wherever I went, in restaurants or cafés, I always observed a line of men, either buttoning or unbuttoning, perpetually hurrying past, colliding with waiters and blocking the narrow space between the tables. At this night club there did not seem to be a ‘Ladies’ marked anywhere, and I realized I would have to brazen it out, taking my place in the line, or ‘manage’, as Nanny used to say. In the England of my childhood, the lavatory was something to which we went or from which we emerged as inconspicuously as possible, a sharp dividing line for the sexes.

  ‘No thanks, I’m quite all right,’ I replied, in answer to the Traveller’s solicitous inquiries as to my needs.

  ‘No, you’re not – you can’t be, it’s hours since we left the hotel,’ he said firmly. ‘You’d better go and get it over. And,’ he added impressively, ‘the sooner you learn not to be fussy about that sort of thing the quicker you’ll be able to stand the kind of Asiatic travels you’re after! You’ll have to do without the “Ladies” if you ever get to Outer Mongolia.’

  I needed no second bidding.

  When I returned the Tziganes were filing in and taking their places on a bench against the wall. They bore no resemblance to the wild creatures I had imagined. Although they were tawny skinned, with ink-dark hair, they were neither picturesque nor romantic looking. There were no bear-skins, no tambourines, no gaudy kerchiefs. The women wore shawls over their dresses; the men were unshaven, without collars, in dark, everyday suits, entirely without magic I thought, until I became aware of a compelling, animal force beneath the sullen mask.

  The Russians in the room were now applauding their arrival and crying out for the songs they wanted to hear. The Tziganes remained immobile, staring straight in front of them.

  ‘Poor things, they’d be better off in Montparnasse, they hate Passy,’ said the Traveller, ‘but they stay here because of the Grand Duke. They’re waiting for him now; he usually comes in about this time.’

  It was difficult to imagine any connection between the etiolated, sad-faced man to whom I had once been presented, and this rough-looking lot. I did not know that he retained here, in Paris, something of his former, St. Petersb
urg style, however reduced, combining his pleasure in the Tziganes’ music with his patronage, which sustained them, and finally set them up in the little restaurant where we now found ourselves. In effect, the Tziganes had become his private orchestra; more wholly his, in exile, than when he had known them in his Imperial splendour.

  Across the soupy darkness the Tziganes had recognized the Traveller and now came crowding round our table, greeting him with warmth. They stared at me with their unblinking black-blazing eyes, and then, smiling, showed wolfish white teeth, so that I had the impression they were in fact laughing at me. Probably they were: in my school-girlish pink dress I must have looked out of place. But they were very polite, bowing and asking what ‘the barishnaya’ – the young lady – would like them to sing. At that moment, one of the older women, a squat toad-like figure with matted hair, advanced on the Traveller, bearing a glass of champagne on a painted wooden tray. This she offered to him ceremoniously, singing what appeared to be a song of welcome in which the whole band joined. It was, the Traveller explained later, a ritual with the Tziganes.

  To whom shall we drink it?

  To whom shall we pledge it?

  To he who is here.

  The Tziganes gathered round and the toad-figure subsided beside the Traveller, laying a massive arm across his shoulder. Like several of the other women, she looked battered but not old: rather, she seemed timeless. He looked at her with affection. ‘She was such a beauty . . . Tant pis! she can still sing better than all the rest.’

  The Tziganes waved aside the drinks he offered; it was rare for them to drink alcohol, he said, though they generally inveigled their audiences into excesses. Soon, they filed back to their places on the banquette, and sat staring blankly out over the now overcrowded room. The Russians cried louder for their favourite songs, but the Tziganes still appeared indifferent, until a whispered message informed them that the Grand Duke would not be coming in that night. (‘Caught up in a family party, no doubt,’ said the Traveller, making a face.)