Byzantium Endures

NINE

I WAS SOON more at ease in a chaotic Kiev than I had been in Petrograd. I knew my city’s streets, its alleys, its short-cuts between buildings. I knew the areas hooligans preferred and where I could avoid the worst of them. I knew houses where I could hide. Our district, being a suburb, was relatively undisturbed. It was poor, offering very little for the wandering riff-raff. We were also lucky in that Podol was a main target for the looters. As the Dnieper ice began to break up, sending huge creaking, groaning and snapping sounds echoing throughout Kiev, I found I had developed something of Mother’s resilience. The ghost of my father had been laid to rest. My mother, as the widow of a martyred revolutionist, could not now be more respectable. Things might get worse, but it would make a change, as we used to say. In fact things improved for me. I decided to try taking over some of Sarkis Mihailovitch Kouyoumdjian’s old customers. Engineers were in short supply. I had met one or two people who had asked desperately after my ex-boss. Since he had left Kiev half the local machine-shops no longer operated. I had only a tenth of the Armenian’s practical experience and his feeling for broken-down engines. Even so, I knew I should have plenty of business.

I did a few small jobs for the Podol Jews who had been Kouyoumdjian’s main customers. They were overwhelmingly grateful. They paid almost anything I asked. Like my former master, I became a jack-of-all-trades, fixing electrical equipment, steam-engines, internal combustion engines, all devices not powered by man, child or beast. Indeed, I was willing to do what I could with anything containing cogs or levers. Thus, I soon had a fair bit of money with which to buy myself more sophisticated tools and some to set aside at home (the banks were not trustworthy). I used Captain Brown as a part-time assistant. With a job to do he became more sober during the day. My mother could have given up her laundry work, but she, too, was enjoying herself. It would have been pleasant to have seen Esmé from time to time, since we had been such good friends. She would have relished my success. There were more than enough women to satisfy my sexual needs. With money in my pocket, I became a very popular fellow in the cabarets where I spent an evening or two a week. The only shadow on my mind was the fact that I still had not heard from Professor Matzneff about my Diploma. Until I had it, I could not write off to the important engineering concerns applying for the job which would also help keep me out of the army. I had reduced my cocaine consumption to almost nothing, though our ‘Mother City’ became one of the main supply centres. Several of the women I saw were old friends from Petrograd. There were poets here, and painters and entertainers who knew me. My social contacts became very wide and useful. I took to dressing in expensively fashionable suits. Spring grew warmer. I bought myself a straw boater with an English-style band, and a silver-topped cane. I could go into any shop in Kreshchatik and purchase what I wished. I could hire carriages. And all this with honestly earned money. By day, and sometimes by night, I was a mechanic, in dirty blue cotton covered in oil. When I visited the centre of Kiev, I became the most elegant of youths. I always took the precaution of keeping only a minimum of money about my person and I preferred to travel in company. Many new little theatres and cinemas had opened up in the city, just as they had done earlier in Petrograd. The Foline Ballet Company arrived in Kiev and with it my old friend Seryozha Andreyovitch Tsipliakov. He greeted me elaborately when he came, at my invitation, to a private room of The Hotel Arson. The place had been renovated and taken over by Ulyanski. It was decorated in bizarre, explicitly sexual murals which never could have been tolerated a few months before. I found it convenient for a number of reasons. I chose to turn a blind eye to its vulgarities. It had become one of the main artistic and émigré meeting places in Kiev. Seryozha was impressed by my elegance and surroundings. He hugged me to him. I returned his embrace with affection. If it had not been for him I should never have met Kolya. We sat down to dine. I asked him if he had seen our mutual friend recently.

He told me Kolya had become too proud and had dropped everyone, that he was now a Prince and involved in the Arts Ministry but was unwilling to look after his old friends. Seryozha said he was planning to leave the Foline and go to America at the first chance. He asked where he could find some little boys and some cocaine. I told him and we parted. I had become oddly homesick for Kolya and Petrograd. I even considered returning there. But the fanatics were steadily gaining the upper hand in the government. The ‘Bolshevik coup’ of October was a natural consequence and everyone had expected it. Kerenski unleashed the whirlwind and was consumed by it. It is a shame Stalin could not have taken over at once, but History, that mystical force Bolsheviks invoke in place of God, was against him. He would never be able to rid himself of the Tatar Lenin and the Jew Trotsky sitting on his shoulders, whispering into his ears, even though he had killed them both.

Ivan the Terrible is sometimes depicted as Russia’s Macbeth. Stalin was our Richard III. He killed millions. He sat on his own in a vast Kremlin kino watching Mickey Mouse films while Russia died at his command. He had been close to God once. Though he resisted with all his might, God was still in him, still working through him. He killed in the name of the Future as Cossacks killed in the name of Christ. But he could not rid himself of the ghosts: Bolshevik princelings who had died as Boyars died under Ivan. Stalin said Ivan should have destroyed all the Boyars. If Stalin had been given the span of Methuselah, there would not have been a single person, save himself, left alive. He would have had his peaceful heaven on earth. He killed in the hope of shutting every accusing eye. They say murderers cannot sleep. It is the other way about: those who cannot sleep become murderers. Cut off from their dreams, they translate harmless nightmare into horrible reality.

I had plans to make reality of my own dreams. While I worked as a jobbing mechanic I continued to develop a stream of inventions, drawing up detailed plans on proper graph paper, giving every sort of accurate specification. When I applied for work in Kharkov or Kherson, I would be able to make the best possible impression. The summer was a good one. From Saint Alexander’s I could look across at Darnitsa, where the big German POW camp was, and see the prisoners bathing. They were in dreadful condition. They had endured hardship during the fighting and we could not afford to feed them. They were eating lice. I had a plan for them. It involved interesting local industrialists in certain patents I had. The Germans could be used as workers to develop them. They would be happy to work for food alone. But materials were short as well as men.

I also had a particularly exciting scheme: a machine to concentrate light. This was an admittedly primitive precursor of modern lasers and masers which are revolutionising medicine and astronomy today. I planned to harness invisible light (what is now called ‘ultra-violet’). With proper equipment and more faith from those nervous Ukrainian businessmen, at that time interested in getting their money out of Russia rather than investing in our War Effort, I might have turned the tide of conflict. The machine had drawbacks and would have been difficult to transport, but would have done more to spread alarm amongst the enemy than the most dashing and effective of cavalry or tank charges.

Mother began to display an informed intelligence which surprised me. My simpler ideas induced quite specific questions. I told her about my compressed-air machine-gun and my pilotless ‘fire-ship’ dirigible which could carry an enormous bomb, be towed into position by aeroplane, released over its target, then deliberately shot down. I was pleased to explain to her what was involved. I had even more schemes than I had had in Petrograd. Now I possessed the time and confidence to clarify them. I anticipated among other things the communications satellite (for which I have never received a penny in royalties), the television, the radio-printed newspaper, the war-rocket and the transport-rocket. Domestic automata were another idea of mine (the Czech word for serf, robot, had not yet been popularised by the leftist writer Chapek). I was also working on a scheme for pilotless aircraft controlled from the ground by radio-signals. I realise now that I spoke too much and too freely. Not only in Russia, but also when in Germany, America and England, where many of my schemes were ‘borrowed’ by unscrupulous men claiming my inventions as their own and selling them, needless to say, to Jewish firms who are still making fortunes from them. I need not name names here. It is enough to say that Marx and Spenser did not invent, I think, the underpant.

Looking back on those strange Kiev days, I suppose I must have seemed a peculiar figure to people who knew me. My mother, however, was not at all disturbed by my entering our flat as a grease-spotted mechanic and leaving as a man-about-town. I was gaining experience in every way. Primarily I confined my activities to Podol. There was more than enough work in the ghetto. The Jews would do anything to keep their sweat-shops going. I rarely had to travel more than a few streets. The trams had begun to run roughly on time. It seemed to us that things were settling down.

In my white suit, my boater, with my silver-headed cane, I would take a Sunday stroll along the banks of the river. I would hire a carriage to go for picnics in the countryside with Mother and Captain Brown. Esmé returned on leave, looking exhausted and thinner than I remembered. For once I was able to be of use to her. Rather than have her suffering the discomfort of our apartment, I decided she must stay at a good hotel, The Yevropyaskaya on Kreshchatik. She was welcomed as a countess and received every courtesy. She was delighted. She hugged me and kissed me and said it was a wonderful present. She was pleased about my Diploma and full of questions. I could see she needed sleep so left her in that elegant summer room, full of silver and gilt and silk. I would call for her in the evening. Meanwhile I had a variety of clothes sent round to the hotel and ordered a four-wheeler to be outside by six o’clock.

At six she was wearing a perfect blue dress, a fashionable matching head-band, feathers, ‘tango’ shoes. She wore little makeup, and her large blue eyes looked lovely in their setting of pink and gold. I was proud to be seen with her as our carriage took us to Tsarskaya Square and one of the best restaurants in Kiev. She tasted course after course, but was unable to eat very much because of the excitement. ‘They told me everyone was starving at home!’

‘Not everyone,’ I said. ‘The food is simply not getting to the soldiers. So it has to be eaten.’ I told her I knew of people who made special trips to Moscow and Petrograd with just a couple of baskets of provisions. They came home almost millionaires.

‘Is that how you’re living?’ she asked.

‘Good God, no! I’m doing proper work.’ I was rather hurt by the suggestion. She became apologetic. I poured her more French wine and calmed her. ‘I’ve taken over Sarkis Mihailovitch’s business. The profiteers, you could say, are giving me my profits. But mostly they’re honest enough. Everyone buys and sells something. Have you seen the markets? Bessarabskaya? A Contract Fair going all year round! Peasants bring their produce to the city because no one can get to the country. They drive whole herds into Kiev. And you can obtain literally anything in the Bessarabskaya.’ I was too delicate to do more than suggest my meaning, but she understood. Working amongst soldiers had evidently given her a knowledge of the world.

A band started to play. It was Gypsy music, very sad. Esmé began to relax. She was immensely beautiful now, in her prime as a girl. I still considered her a sister. I could not regard her as a sexual partner. I wished her to keep her virginity. I could now help her marry well. I was a brother and a father to her. I wanted to do for her what her father would have wished. A number of my friends and business acquaintances saw us together. I was winked at more than once and when Esmé was not in earshot I was congratulated. I explained nothing. It suited me to be seen with her. When the War was over I would need to give dinners to great industrialists. Esmé would make a perfect hostess. I could employ her in my firm. I had begun to evolve what the Germans call ‘a lifeplan’. I would model myself as far as possible on Thomas Edison, the American inventor and entrepreneur. My name would become as famous throughout Europe as his was in his native land. It would become a synonym for progress and enlightenment, possibly mentioned in the same breath as Galileo and Newton. But I would be practical. I would keep control of my own patents. I spoke to Esmé of this and of certain details I had already worked out. ‘You will be a full partner,’ I told her. ‘It is only fair. Your encouragement, and mother’s, made me what I am.’

She looked down at her plate and she smiled a little, ‘I had aspirations to become a doctor,’ she told me. ‘I think I have a vocation.’

‘And perhaps Captain Brown could become a laundress!’ The humour was meant to be harmless. The image of my feminine Esmé in mannish suits, carrying a doctor’s bag, was ludicrous. ‘Why not? Anything is possible in the New Russia!’ I parodied a popular phrase of the Provisional Government. I changed the subject: ‘There’s talk of mutiny. Will you be safe at the Front?’

She looked up and laughed spontaneously. ‘Safer than walking up Kreshchatik. Dear Maxim. The soldiers are like children. You get the odd agitator, of course. But their loyalty depends on respect. If they like an officer, or a nurse, they’ll do anything for them. Conditions are unspeakable. They’re so grateful if you merely wipe the sweat from their foreheads. They’re honest, decent, Russian lads.’

‘All the virtues you mention can become vices overnight.’

She did not want to listen. She frowned and shook her head.

‘Children can turn against you,’ I said.

‘We’re their nanyanas. They trust us. They know we suffer as they do. They know we volunteered to help them.’

I called for the bill. She had reassured me a little. But she was still innocent.

We took the carriage through the steep Kiev streets. There were lights of sorts burning, candles and oil-lamps. I wished we had been able to paint the town red in proper style, the old style, when Kreshchatik would have been full of electrics and gaslight; the pleasure gardens along the river would have had different coloured lanterns glowing in the trees. German bands would have played waltzes. Then I should truly have enjoyed my triumph and her enjoyment.

Esmé said she felt guilty. So many were now homeless, sick and crippled. I told her that I was not oblivious to the misery. I spent my own money freely, giving to beggars and to various church institutions, to organisations set up for the aid of the needy. Even the Jews of Podol knew me for one who could be relied upon to put a coin in a collecting box. Meanness has never been one of my vices. When I had money, I would give. And, of course, I was saving. I had a duty to my mother, to myself, to all those I loved, to make sure that political events would not affect them. The day would come when Mother would be too frail to work at the laundry. A man can live as he chooses, I said, so long as he is insured. Freedom is based on a sense of responsibility. That is what the Bolsheviks never realised. The only slogan I ever hoped to see strung out on a banner over any street was ‘Live and let Live.’

Esmé asked where I intended taking her next. I mentioned a popular cabaret. It had one of the usual names: The Purple Monkey or The Chartreuse Sioux. She asked if she might visit the flat instead, to have a quiet glass of tea with my mother and Captain Brown. Captain Brown would have had more than one quiet glass of vodka by now and if not asleep he would be singing some obscure Glaswegian shanty, but I understood that the high-life could be exhausting. I had no hesitation in ordering the carriage up Kirillovskaya to our own little street. Esmé’s instincts had been good. Suddenly I was at ease again. Here so little had changed: the woods and gorges, the mixture of houses, the distant barking of dogs, the quarrelling of couples. We might have been the two happy children who had attended Herr Lustgarten’s school. So little time had passed since we had tried out my first flying machine. Now her father was at rest and, oddly enough, my mother seemed mentally at rest.

Though I had a key, I knocked on the door. It was opened at once. My mother had seen Esmé earlier, before I had arranged the hotel, but she hugged her as if greeting her for the first time. ‘What a beautiful girl. You are still an angel. Look at her, Maxim!’

I looked at her. ‘Were you expecting us then, mama?’

She became flustered. ‘Was it a good restaurant?’

‘The best. You must come there.’

‘Oh, I always get too nervous. I have indigestion before I take a bite of bread!’ It was why I had given up trying to take her out.

Esmé sat down in her usual chair and removed her shoes. She hitched up her skirt and scratched a perfect calf encased in pale blue silk. I was used to women, of course, and most of them had no modesty at all, but I expected different behaviour from Esmé. This was stupid of me. She was, after all, amongst family and she had been serving at the Front. My mother put lumps of sugar and pieces of the fresh lemon I had bought that morning into Esmé’s tea. ‘I’ve brewed it strong. You’ve got used to strong tea, eh?’

‘Not any more.’ Esmé did not elaborate, it’s very good, Yelisaveta Filipovna.’ She looked at me, smiling. ‘The best thing to pass my lips all day.’

‘I have wasted a fortune!’ I said in mock despair. I settled down into a chair and accepted a glass of tea.

‘You are not eating properly,’ said my mother to Esmé. ‘The food is bad?’

‘Not as bad as what the soldiers get.’

‘Weevils in the bread, eh?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Mother,’ I said, ‘you’ve become a critic!’

She shrugged. ‘They let us criticise now, instead of eating.’

Esmé was amused. ‘We’re all turning into revolutionists.’

‘We bend with the wind,’ said my mother. ‘What is the alternative?’

I knew her thoughts. My father had never learned to bend. He had stuck zealously to his religion of anarchy and violence. Strangely, now that chaos threatened on all sides, my mother had lost her anxieties.

Esmé made it clear she did not want to discuss the War, ‘at least, not tonight’. We talked about a letter my mother had received that day from Uncle Semya. It was one of several he had sent. All the others had gone astray. ‘He’s well. He says they’re making the most of the lull. They’ve taken a villa in Arcadia. Is that a nice place, Maxim? It sounds it.’

‘It was,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it still is.’ I wished we could all three be there at that moment, enjoying the warm, salty air of an Odessa evening. I yearned for that southern magic, the smell of rotting flowers mingled with brine, the simple fellowship of Shura and his friends which had appeared so sophisticated and now seemed pleasantly provincial. ‘Shall we all go there tomorrow? Take the train?’

‘Is there a train, any more?’ My mother brightened.

‘There has to be. It’s a main line.’

‘It’s a wonderful idea.’ But she was hesitant.

Esmé drained her glass. ‘I have to be back in two days. You could go.’

I became obsessed. ‘What about compassionate leave?’

Esmé was regretful. ‘Not fair. There are only a few of us.’

‘She has her duty, Maxim.’

‘Yes, mama.’

‘And I suppose we have ours.’ Mother collected the glasses. ‘Without me, the laundry would collapse. The ladies would receive gentlemen’s collars and the gentlemen would be going to bed in ladies’ night-dresses.’ She giggled. She had to pour herself another glass of tea and sip it before she could stop. We both laughed with her.

‘It’s like the old days,’ said my mother, and her face became set and sad.

‘The future will be better,’ I said. ‘We’ll buy a house of our own. On Trukhanov Island. We’ll have a yacht. We’ll sail up and down the Dnieper. We’ll have a motor and visit Odessa whenever we feel like it. And Sevastapol. And Yalta. And Italy and Spain. And Greece. We’ll take the waters in Baden-Baden, which by then will be part of Russia, and we’ll go to England for the Season. Paris will be our second home. We shall hob-nob with the famous. You, Esmé, shall be courted by dukes, by the Prince of Wales. I shall attract a circle of titled ladies who will fight one another for my affections. And you, mother, will be Queen of a Salon!’

‘I should become bored very quickly.’

‘I shall invent a new method of cleaning everything. A universal laundry. At the touch of a switch, you’ll make the whole world shine!’

‘I could run the Salon and this world-launderer at the same time?’

‘Why not!’

We laughed again. Those were moments which were to be amongst the happiest I have known.

My mother told me Uncle Semya was very pleased about my Diploma. If I needed any assistance finding a good job in Odessa he would be happy to offer it. He suggested, however, that there were opportunities ‘elsewhere’. She took him to mean I might find greater scope abroad. I wondered if he still wished me to travel to England. The thought excited me. Since I had become such a man of the world I could go anywhere with complete assurance. The passport remained one of my most important treasures. It was an ‘open’ passport, the hardest to obtain, particularly during the War. I could leave and enter the country at any time. I could visit all countries friendly to Russia. I could go to England, America, France. If peace were made, I could even go to Berlin should the spirit take me. At the age of seventeen I was a person of considerable substance. I already possessed virtually everything I had ever dreamed of save the resources to build my own inventions. I took Esmé back and on my way to my own hotel I continued my internal debate.

I had written once or twice in the past month to Professor Matzneff. Probably the letters had not reached Petrograd or perhaps he had left the Institute. I had given other letters to friends who felt it safe to return. It would be a little while before I had any reply. Telegrams were no longer reliable. I had made one or two attempts to deal with representatives of the Kiev Technical College but they were too busy with their politics to take an interest in my problem. One man, with pince-nez, a grey beard and all the appearance of a typical ancien-régime supporter, told me mine were ‘Russian qualifications’. If I wished to receive a diploma in Kiev, I must re-take the examinations in Ukrainian. I had given up in disgust. In the meantime I was still rising in the world. Peasants, workers, deserters, refugees, men of affairs, poured into Kiev, demanding services often operated by machinery. Thus I enjoyed the benefits of the influx as well as the inconveniences. I could see that science and technology were to be Russia’s salvation. Putilov, the visionary industrialist, shared my view. So would Stalin, for that matter. We needed no revolutions. We needed, I suppose, word from God that He approved of science. Stolypin had recognised ignorance as Russia’s most dangerous enemy. It is to my city’s eternal discredit that she allowed herself to be the scene of that great politician’s assassination. Perhaps Stolypin was God’s true emissary? The forces of the Antichrist, disguised as policemen, destroyed him. The Tsar, I heard, was not sorry. He thought Stolypin was a Jew-lover. Maybe he was and maybe that was his weakness. He had pointed out that the Germans made ‘sensible’ use of their Jews. But the Jews infiltrated German culture until they controlled it. They will always do the same, given the smallest chance.

The Germans took Riga and even more people came into Kiev. Livonia had begun to claim ‘nationhood’, so in a sense the victory was not on Russian soil, but all true Russians saw the defeat of Riga as a terrible blow. Of course the Jews did not care who won. They might have felt, speaking Yiddish, that life would be better for them under the Germans.

Soon I would be eligible for the army. I was determined not to be thrown away as cannon fodder. I wrote out a number of copies of the letter in which Professor Vorsin had mentioned my Special Diploma. Each copy was clearly marked ‘Duplicate’. It would not seem as if I were attempting a crude forgery. I sent these off, together with a letter of my own, to various establishments in Ukraine, offering my services. My only problem was that the letter had addressed me as D. M. Kryscheff whereas my new name was M. A. Pyatnitski. This was the sole substitute I made. Professor Vorsin’s writing was very precise and formal and easily imitated. I produced, after several attempts, a facsimile which was honestly what he had written, but which now called me by the same name as the one on my passport. This might seem a petty trick. It should be understood that I was determined to get justice. It did not seem wrong if I corrected the balance, since events threatened to rob me of everything I had achieved. With the help of a local printer, I reproduced the stationery of the Petrograd Institute of Technology. It was on this that I transcribed the professor’s promise of my Special Diploma. After it was done I felt many doubts lift from my mind. I became confident that the wind would soon turn and bring me what I deserved. Through an acquaintance in the Podol underworld, I had two copies of my passport printed, complete with photographs. One was in the name of Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff, so that it would marry with my Diploma if it came in the wrong name. The other was an exact copy. Captain Brown introduced me to a British Tommy in hospital in Kiev. He was due to return home via Archangel. He had lost his right leg. I offered him a good sum if he would carry a passport home with him. I asked him to put it in a safety-deposit and leave the key in London for collection by me. He winked mysteriously as he pocketed my gold roubles. ‘Don’t worry chum. I’d be doing the same.’ He said if I got to London to go to St Martin’s Lane Post Office where I should find my key. I only half-believed him. But Captain Brown assured me he was a thoroughly reliable fellow. He had also agreed to take a letter which he would post to the captain’s relatives in Scotland as soon as he arrived in Blighty. The young soldier’s name was Fraser. He was to become quite a success as a shoe-shop proprietor in Portsmouth. I still wonder if he began by selling all the odd shoes of his own pairs. There must, after all, have been many men needing only left shoes in post-war London.

I had been wise to take my precautions. In September 1917, when Kiev was at her golden best, Kerenski made himself premier and declared Russia a republic. Hubris! He had overstepped himself. He was obsessed with his own mission to ‘save Russia’. He underestimated Lenin. Almost at the very moment when we might have won the War, when the first American divisions were arriving to help us, Lenin and his gang became the rulers of Russia, ready to make a separate peace with Germany. This merely confirms my contempt for Comrade Bronstein as a strategist. There was no need for peace at all. We had almost won. It was a typical Bolshevik decision. It pretended to have anticipated and planned for the chaos it itself created. History? Men were deserting from the army faster than they could be sent to the Front. So the Bolsheviks said this was part of their scheme. They were to change their tune very shortly afterwards. Most of the population rose up against them. They had to create a Cheka and a Red Army to terrorise the people they claimed to be saving. On the day of the first important tank battle, at Cambrai, our Ukrainian Rada declared the province a republic. We were suddenly no longer Russian citizens. At least we were not subject to the Bolshevik madness. Although my links with Petrograd were almost completely cut off I felt we had gained breathing space. We still had a free enterprise system enabling me to continue working and saving.

The snows covered Kiev. The river began to freeze. The armistice was as good as made. It was signed officially by the Bolsheviks. This did not mean an immediate end to the fighting. It did not improve the lot of the ordinary people one jot. Such paper agreements rarely do; but soldiers came home and with them Esmé. I think the city was kept warm during that winter by the agitation of large crowds, by bodies pressing together in the squares, by the hot air issuing from every mouth. Esmé declined to stay at an hotel. I let her live with my mother while I went to The Yevropyaskaya, which was full of delegates of one sort or another, It was impossible to find peace there. Eventually I moved to the more expensive Savoy. Even here I was to be plagued by politicians. I gave up after a week or two and returned to Ulyanski’s. It had ceased to be The Hotel Arson and was now The Cube; the last word to describe a ramshackle building of imitation Gothic turrets and imitation Kremlin domes. Still, the mixture of architectural styles did not clash on the outside nearly so much as the mixture of artistic styles within. Acmeists, Futurists, Constructivists, Cubists; poets, musicians, painters and journalists drank quite as much as the politicians. They talked almost as much as the politicians. They certainly fornicated as much, if not more; but at least they left one alone. I had worn out a lifetime’s supply of different cockades during my couple of weeks at Kreshchatik hotels. The Cube stood near the site of the Château des Fleurs, not far from the Municipal Gardens. The Château (a pleasure garden and theatre) had perished before the War during a fire to rival London’s Crystal Palace. Once established at The Cube I began to feel as if I were back in Petrograd in the good old days. I had a small top-floor private suite looking out over snow-covered parks and bare trees to the Dnieper.

I still worked as a mechanic. I kept my tools and overalls at Mother’s. Esmé was relieved to see the evidence of my honest work. She continued with her nursing. She now served at the Alexander Hospital, not very far from where I lived. Occasionally I was able to give her lifts in a cab. When cabs became scarce, we sometimes shared a tram-ride. As fuel and lubricating oils disappeared, my Podol customers began to go out of business or adapted to more primitive manufacturing methods. I would shortly be in the position of a doctor whose patients were all dead, so I cast around for larger game. It was not hard to find. Some of the main engineering firms, a few stores with private generators, hospitals and public offices, all needed me. This was far more to my taste. Gradually I became a diagnostician until I did little of the ordinary physical work myself. There were other freelance engineers in Kiev in those days: people who had been invalided out of the army or had taken a ‘ticket of leave’. My knowledge of more sophisticated machinery was at first almost wholly theoretical. It did not take me long to get experience, though at cost, sometimes, to the customer. Soon I exchanged my overalls and tools for a sober dark grey suit, a grey homburg and grey overcoat with a fox-fur collar. I must have looked ridiculously young in that fine suiting, but I knew what I was doing and could easily instil my own confidence into those seeking my help. Sometimes a machine had nothing wrong with it. Its operators had simply lost heart. I was able to cure it with a few mystic passes and taps. I told my mother how my career was improving. She wondered if I were not moving ‘too far, too fast’. But I was getting what I could while I could. There was no telling how long our Ukrainian Republic would stand. Both Bolsheviks and Germans were greedy for Ukrainian corn and raw materials.

I gave my mother the best holiday of her life. We had a Christmas Eve dinner in a room at a fine restaurant where I managed to get her to take a glass or two of champagne. She enjoyed herself immensely. The waiters treated her like a queen. Esmé and Captain Brown sang Christmas songs and we exchanged gifts. It was marvellous. I never feel guilty about my mother. When it was possible I compensated her for much of her suffering. That night she knew a taste of heaven. As we drank liqueurs I told them my great plan. I was going to start a proper business. No longer just a consultant, I would be head of a firm of engineers.

‘Whatever happens to Kiev in the future,’ I said, ‘there will certainly be a demand for us. We shall design new factories, install machinery, give advice. If Ukraine booms, we shall boom. If she is in trouble, we shall help her in her trouble.’

My mother seemed taken aback. Her face clouded. ‘And what will you call yourself?’

‘All-Ukraine Engineering Consultants,’ I said, it has a suitable ring to it.’

She became reconciled. Esmé grinned at me as if I had somehow pulled off a coup requiring both nerve and intelligence. ‘And your own name?’ she asked.

‘Pyatnitski for the moment.’

‘Your father...’ began my mother. But then she nodded, it would be better. You’ll be careful?’

‘The times have changed,’ I said. ‘I have changed with them. I was born to be part of these times.’

‘You’ve an eye for the future,’ murmured Captain Brown from behind his champagne. He toasted me. ‘A Happy New Year to you!’

My mother began to cry. Almost at the same moment Esmé began to chuckle. It was a strange experience. I did not know to whom I should respond. At length I went to comfort my mother. ‘Why are you crying?’

She said she was crying from happiness.