Breakfast in the Ruins

9 The Downline to Kiev: 1920: Shuffling Along

Seated before the mirror, Karl examines his flesh. Neither the harsh neon light over the mirror, nor the mirror itself, are flattering. Karl pouts his lips and rolls his eyes.

— I don't think you're a Nigerian at all, now. Your accent changes all the time.

— We all change our accents to suit our circumstances. In the mirror their eyes meet. Karl feels cold.

We are all victims.

He is fourteen. His mother and his father were killed in an explosion in a cafe in Bobrinskaya.

Karl's friend puts friendly hands on Karl's shoulders.

— What would you like to do now?

He is fourteen. Sitting on a flat car, hanging on for dear life as the train roars across the plain. The plain is dead. It consists of nothing but the blackened stalks of what was once wheat. The wheat has been deliberately burned.

The sky is huge and empty.

Karl shivers.

— Any ideas?

The train moves to meet the sullen bank of grey cloud on the horizon. It is like the end of the world. The train carries death. It goes to find more death. That is its cargo, its destiny.

At several points on the train—on the locomotive bellowing ahead, on the rocking carriages, the bucking open trucks—black flags flap like the wings of settling crows. It is the Ukraine. And Karl shivers.

KARL WAS FOURTEEN. His mother and father had been thirty-five when they were killed by the bomb. They came from Kiev but had been driven out during one of the pogroms. They had thought it safer to stay with their relatives in Bobrinskaya. Someone had let a bomb off in a cafe and Karl had gone to Alexandria where he had met the army of Makhno, the Anarchist. He had joined that army. He had been in several battles since then and now he had a machine gun of his own to look after. He loved the machine gun. He had secured the stand to the flat car with big horseshoe nails. It was an English machine gun, a Lewis. His greatcoat was English, too. It was leather and had a special pocket in the front shaped like a revolver. During their last battle, near Golta, he had managed to acquire a revolver. They had been beaten at that battle. They were now making for Kiev because the railway line direct to Alexandria had been blown up to cut off their retreat. Makhno's black banners flew everywhere on the train. Some of the banners bore his slogan: Anarchy Breeds Order. But most were plain. Makhno was in a bad mood since Golta.

Over the rattle of the train and the roar of the locomotive came the sounds of laughter, of song, of an accordion's whine. Makhno's army lounged on every available surface. Young men, mainly, their clothes were evidence of a hundred successful raids. One wore a tall silk hat decorated with streaming red and black ribbons. His body was swathed in a sleeveless fur coat with the skirt hacked off to give his legs freedom. He wore green Cossack breeches tucked into red leather boots. Over his coat were crisscrossed four bandoliers of bullets. In his hands was a rifle which, intermittently, he would fire into the air, laughing all the time. At his belt was a curved saber and stuck in the belt were a Mauser automatic pistol and a Smith and Wesson.45 revolver. Bottles were passed from hand to hand as they thundered along. The young man in the top hat flung back his head and poured wine over his bearded face and down his throat, breaking into song as the accordion began to play the army's familiar melody, "Arise young men!" Karl himself joined in with the sad, bold last lines, "Who lies under the green sward?" sang the man in the top hat. "We heroes of Makhno," sang Karl, "saddle rugs for shrouds." There was a great cheer and peaked caps, sheepskin hats, derby hats, stocking caps and the caps of a dozen different regiments were waved or thrown through the steam from the engine. Karl was proud to be of this reckless company which cared nothing for death and very little for life. The cause for which they fought might be doomed but what did it matter? The human race was doomed. They at least would have made their gesture.

There was not a man on the train who was not festooned with weapons. Sabres and rifles and pistols were common to all. Some sported ornate antique weapons, broadswords, officers' dress swords, pistols inlaid with gold, silver and mother-o'-pearl. They wore boaters, solar toupees, extravagant German helmets, wide-brimmed felt hats, panamas and every variety of clothing. Near Karl and manning one of the other machine guns, a fat Georgian was stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of gentleman's blue riding breeches and boots decorated with silver thread. Around his neck he had wound a long feather boa. He was hatless, but had on a pair of smoked glasses with gold rims. At his belt were two military holsters containing matched-revolvers. The Georgian claimed that they had belonged to the Emperor himself. Sharing a bottle with the Georgian was a sailor from Odessa, his vest open to the navel, displaying a torso completely covered in pink and blue tattoos showing dragons, swords and half-dressed ladies all mixed up together. The freshest of the tattoos ran across his breastbone, a Nihilist slogan—Death to Life. A boy, younger than Karl, wearing a torn and bloodstained surplice, clutching a cooked chicken in one hand, jumped down from the top of the box-car behind them and swayed towards the sailor, offering him half the chicken in exchange for the rest of the wine. In his other hand he held an enormous butcher's cleaver. The boy was already nine parts drunk.

The train hooted.

Balancing on the carriage ahead, an old man, with a student cap perched on his white hair hooted back. He steadied himself by means of a Cossack lance around which was tied a torn black skirt. Painted on the skirt was a yellow sunrise. The old man hooted again, before falling on his side and rolling dangerously close to the edge of the roof. The lance remained where he had stuck it. The old man lost his cap and began to laugh. The train took a bend. The old man fell off. Karl saluted the tumbling figure as it disappeared down a bank.

On the curve, Karl could see the front section of the train where Nestor Makhno himself sat. The flat-wagons on both sides of him were piled with gun-carriages, their dirty steel and brass work shining dully beneath a sun which now only made occasional appearances through the looming clouds. A truck near to the engine was full of shaggy horses, their backs covered by Jewish prayer-shawls in place of blankets. Makhno's chosen Heroes sat all around their leader, their feet dangling over the sides of the wagons, but none sat near him. Karl had an impression of nothing but legs. There were legs in riding boots, legs in puttees made from silk dresses or red plush or green baize ripped from a billiard table, feet in yellow silk slippers with velvet pompoms bouncing on them, in felt shoes, in laced boots, in sandals and in brogues, or some completely naked, scratched, red, horny, dirty. No songs came from Makhno's guard. They were probably all too drunk to sing.

On Makhno's wagon a huge, gleaming black landau had been anchored. The landau's door was decorated with the gilded coat of arms of some dead aristocrat. The upholstery was a rich crimson morocco leather. The shafts of the landau stuck up into the air and on each shaft flapped a black banner of Anarchy. On each corner of the wagon was placed a highly-polished machine gun and at each machine gun squatted a man in a white Cossack cap and a black leather greatcoat. These four were not drunk. Makhno himself was probably not drunk. He lay against the leather cushions of the landau and laughed to himself, tossing a revolver high into the air and catching it again, his feet in their shining black boots crossed indolently on the coach box. Nestor Makhno was dying. Karl realized it suddenly. The man was small and sickly. His face was the grey face of death. The black Cossack hat and the gay, embroidered Cossack jacket he wore only served to emphasize the pallor of his features. Over his forehead hung a damp fringe of hair which made him look a little like some pictures of Napoleon. And his eyes were alive. Even from where he sat Karl could see the eyes—blazing with a wild and malevolent misery.

Nestor Makhno tossed the revolver up again and caught it. He tossed it and caught it again.

Karl saw that they were nearing a station. The train howled.

The platform was deserted. If there were passengers waiting for a train, they were hiding. People normally hid when Makhno's army came through. Karl grinned to himself. This was not an age in which the timid could survive.

The train slowed as it approached the station. Did Makhno intend to stop for some reason?

And then, incongruously, a guard appeared on the platform. He was dressed in the uniform of the railway line and he held a green flag in his right hand. What a fool he was, thought Karl, still sticking to the rule book while the world was being destroyed around him.

The guard raised his left hand to his head in a shaky salute. There was a terrified grin on his face, an imploring, placatory grin.

The front part of the train was by now passing through the station. Karl saw Nestor Makhno catch his revolver and cock it. Then, casually, as his landau came level with the guard, Makhno fired. He did not even bother to aim. He had hardly glanced at the guard. Perhaps he had not really intended to hit the man. But the guard fell, stumbling backwards on buckling legs and then crumpling against the wall of his office, his whole body shuddering as he dropped his flag and grasped at his neck. His chest heaved and blood vomited from between his lips.

Karl laughed. He swung his machine-gun round and jerked the trigger. The gun began to sing. The bullets smashed into the walls and made the body of the guard dance for a few seconds. Karl saw that the placatory smile was still on the dead man's face. He pulled the trigger again and raked the whole station as they went through. Glass smashed, a sign fell down, someone screamed.

The name of the station was Pomoshnaya.

Karl turned to the fat Georgian who had opened a fresh bottle of vodka and was drinking from it in great gulps. He had hardly noticed Karl's action. Karl tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, old Pyat—where the hell is Pomoshnaya?"

The Georgian shrugged and offered Karl the bottle. He was too fuddled to understand the question.

The station was disappearing behind them. Soon it had vanished.

The tattooed sailor, his arm around a snub-nosed girl with cropped hair, a Mauser in her hand, took the bottle from the Georgian and placed it against the girl's thin lips. "Drink up," he said. He peered at Karl. "What was that, youngster?"

Karl tried to repeat his question, but the train entered a tunnel and thick smoke filled their lungs, stung their eyes and they could see nothing. Everyone began to cough and to curse.

"It doesn't matter," said Karl.

— You're still looking a bit pale, says Karl's friend, fingering his own ebony skin.—Maybe you could do with another bath?

Karl shakes his head.—It'll be hard enough getting this lot off. I've got to leave here sometime, you know. It's going to be embarrassing.

— Only if you let it be. Brazen it out. After all, you're not the only one, are you? Karl giggles. — I bet you say that to all the boys.

You have been told that you have at most a year to live. Would you decide to spend that year: (a) enjoying every possible pleasure?

(b) doing charitable works?

(c) in some quiet retreat, relishing the simpler pleasures of life?

(d) trying to accomplished one big thing that you will be remembered for in times to come?

(e) putting all your resources into finding a cure for the illness you have? or would you simply kill yourself and get the whole thing over with?