Byzantium Endures

ELEVEN

ONE EVENING in the middle of January 1919, I was invited to dinner at The Savoy Hotel by a group of industrialists, educationalists and politicians. They said the meeting was to be of considerable importance. My presence was absolutely necessary.

I arrived at the hotel dressed in my best. I wore my heavy fox-fur overcoat, hat, gloves and my felt-and-rubber galoshes. I carried my silver-topped cane. All these were left in the foyer. The manager apologised that the elevator was temporarily out of action. In a dark three-piece suit, with a conventional collar and tie, I made my way up the wide staircase to the first floor. I stopped outside a huge door which I assumed led into a ball-room. I was admitted by a uniformed servant. It was, in fact, the master-suite of the hotel. It put my little suite at The Yevropyaskaya to shame. I walked along a short passage which was entirely mirrored on sides and ceiling. A green curtain was pulled back to allow me into the main dining-room which, with its crystal and gilt, had not changed since Tsarist days. It was occupied by cigar-smoking men. Some were in evening dress and some wore uniform. Others were dressed as I was in what were in those days recognised as tastefully classless suits. I was greeted by the journalist Elanski. He had the reputation of being a pro-Bolshevik and a terrorist. He was a mild-looking man with spectacles and a goatee. I had met him at The Cube where, because I kept my peace, I was considered a socialist sympathiser. Elanski introduced me to a variety of men whose names I knew. They shook hands with me and thanked me for sparing the time to come. They evidently believed me an important figure, but I was not sure what my importance to them was. Shortly after I had arrived, the green curtain was swept back and our self-styled Supreme Commander, Semyon Petlyura, came in. He was shorter than I had guessed, with the pink, smooth skin known as ‘typically Ukrainian’, a small moustache and a birdlike way of moving his fingers together when he talked. He wore a green and gold uniform. I addressed him as ‘Pan’, which was a term used only in Ukraine and Poland. He said he would prefer to be known here as Comrade Petlyura. He smiled. He said it made him feel more relaxed; that he was amongst friends. He, too, thanked me very deeply for finding time to join the meeting. We sat down to dinner. To my surprise I was given a place on Petlyura’s left, while Elanski occupied his right. Next to me was a general and opposite the general was a high-ranking minister in charge of the Civilian War Effort. I was called ‘Comrade Pyatnitski’ throughout the dinner and found the fact privately amusing. I understood during the meal something of the euphoria of holding powerful political office. It made me more determined than ever to keep out of politics in future. All the men there were worried about Bolshevik gains. Without proper allies our lines of supplies and communications would soon be cut off. Kiev would have to be abandoned. The insurgents were unreliable. Most of them had little idea of the importance of railways and telegraphs. They tended to fight only for local territory, often with the intention, Petlyura thought, of setting up tiny nations along old Cossack lines. He was even uncertain of his own Zaporizhian forces once they had gained what they wanted. ‘We have plenty of cavalry, plenty of infantry, a fair number of machine guns, plenty of trains, no aeroplanes, little artillery worthy of the name, no tanks or armoured cars. In fact, we are only slightly better equipped to fight a modern war than Stenka Razin.’ While we laughed at this, Petlyura’s small face became stern. He made a movement of his lower lip which had the effect of strengthening his jaw. ‘And that is why, Comrade Doctor, we have asked you to let us know your views.’

I was taken aback. ‘I’m no strategist.’

‘But you are a scientist.’ Elanski leaned forward. ‘And a brilliant one. Everyone speaks of you. I’ve met people from Petrograd, from Moscow, from Odessa. All say you’re one of the most far-sighted men of our day. A child-genius, who built his first flying machine at the age of eight.’

I smiled, holding up my hand. I wore rings, now, of Ukrainian filigree silver. They gave me a vaguely nationalist air without actually identifying me as anything in particular. ‘Stories of that sort are apt to be exaggerated. I have a number of inventions, many theories, some practical ideas. But without proper materials I am unable to make the necessary experiments. Thus, gentlemen, comrades, you find me in Limbo.’

‘Can you give us aeroplanes?’ asked the general. His name was Konovalets and he was scarcely older than me, though his face was set like limestone.

‘Not without proper plants and expert men. You must know this already. French aeroplanes are your best hope.’

Petlyura spoke in a small voice. ‘We need to buy time against Lenin and Trotsky.’

I looked questioningly at Elanski, who shrugged. ‘They won’t guarantee us anything.’

I was still cautious. Should the Bolsheviks enter Kiev next week, Elanski might be singing a different song. His type was becoming familiar in modern Russia.

‘We had heard about a kind of ray. Like concentrated sunlight.’ Someone spoke from the other end of the table. ‘Have you developed this ray?’

Now I laughed aloud. A few months ago nobody had taken the idea seriously. Tonight they ignored practical mechanical conceptions and grabbed desperately at a notion which every one of them would normally have dismissed as cheap fiction. But now the Reds were knocking at Kiev’s gates. Some there, I could tell, were still a little doubtful. There was no way in which I would convince them. I did not intend to try. I could make no claims until a prototype had been built. ‘Ray-cannon are not easily developed. A good deal of money and equipment is required.’

Petlyura was impatient. ‘You can have what you need. Doctor Braun,’ he indicated an elderly gentleman, ‘is a scientist from Kiev University. He can put all their resources at your disposal.’

‘When I have heard the young man’s idea,’ said Braun in a deep voice. He gave me a stare.

‘I have done some research,’ I said. ‘I believe it’s possible to concentrate a ray of light until it is so powerful it can cut through steel.’

it is not an unfamiliar theory,’ Braun agreed, ‘I don’t see how you can apply it.’

‘A special vacuum tube would be needed. Like a very large radio valve. Shall I describe it as simply as possible?’

‘For my sake,’ he said. The old man had a sardonic humour lacking in most of his colleagues. Perhaps he had less to lose. I described how mercury would be introduced into a tube and boiled to drive out air. The mercury vapour would then be trapped while the tube was sealed, with wires extruding. Low voltage could be applied to a heating element in the tube. Once it reached a temperature of 175° Celsius a high voltage would be applied to the electrodes, producing an electrical discharge in the mercury vapour. The excited mercury ions would then emit a light beyond the spectrum perceived by the human eye.

‘I call this Ultra-Violet light,’ I said. ‘Mirrors or quartz lenses could be used to focus it.’

‘And how much electrical power would you need?’ Braun was impressed. He frowned over some notes he had made in pencil on the table-cloth.

‘Obviously, the better the source of power, the stronger the beam.’

‘It is violet in colour, the ray?’ said someone else.

I began to explain, but Petlyura gripped my arm. ‘How many of these ray-machines could you build to give us, say, a month before help arrived?’

‘There would have to be an experimental model first. After that, it should be fairly easy to manufacture more. If the generators were available to power them.’

‘Would the generators in the electricity stations do?’ Petlyura enquired.

‘I think so.’ I had not expected such an offer. This meant he was willing to divert Kiev’s entire power supply. I was flattered. ‘Cables would have to be laid.’

‘Where would the machines best be sited?’

‘On the heights.’ General Konovalets was adamant. ‘That gives a sweep, you see. If they were used in the outlying suburbs they would be too cumbersome to move quickly, eh?’

‘The machines themselves would be transported in the normal way of artillery, but the power-sources are the problem.’ I admired his quick grasp. ‘One can’t go dragging huge cables all over Kiev. The people, as well as the streets and the houses, would get in the way.’

‘They always do!’ Konovalets spoke with mock despair. ‘St Andrew’s would be one good site.’

‘You mean the observation gallery, near the dome?’ I considered this. ‘The only thing I wonder about there is - ‘ I hesitated, not knowing whether to bring the question of religion into a discussion with socialists, many of whom might be militant atheists.

‘Sacrilege,’ said Petlyura. ‘Is that what you’re worrying about? You’re a believer? And a scientist?’

‘ - the problem of diverting power to such a high point.’

‘There is no sacrilege,’ said Konovalets quietly, ‘in defending ourselves against Bolshevism. They are sworn to destroy all religions.’

I saw at once that he was right. Indeed, it was almost as if God were providing us with a site from which we could defend His faith.

‘We’ll construct the experimental model in St Andrew’s.’ Petlyura lit a cigarette as waiters took away our dishes. ‘Power is easily diverted?’ He looked towards his Minister.

‘Not that easily, Supreme Commander.’

‘But it can be done?’

Braun said, it might be best having some sort of emergency source. A small petrol-fuelled generator, or banks of Voltaic cells.’

‘Voltaic cells are a bit old-fashioned.’ I smiled.

‘I’ve always found them reliable. They don’t break down.’

‘But they’re hard to operate. The connections?’

Braun shrugged. ‘I still advise a separate source of energy. If, in the middle of fighting the Bolsheviks, they capture our electricity stations, then we have no weapon.’

I was forced to agree. I now understood his logic. My mistake, as usual, had been to miss the practicalities as I became obsessed with the pure idea. The very term ‘death-ray’ was unpalatable to me. These days we have such words as ‘anti-personnel devices’ which keep the entire thing in perspective. Many words of this sort were borrowed by the Germans from the Bolsheviks and from the Germans by the Americans when they offered a home to Germany’s best scientists after the Second World War. They do not make the idea of warfare abstract. They allow a technician to do his job without becoming confused by unnecessary considerations. It is for priests and novelists to decide where the moral blame, if any, lies. In giving himself up to the Age of Individualism, Man has lost the ability to reason clearly. His art and science become confused, for he believes he should reach independent decisions on every aspect of his life. One has only to accept the authority of the Church to know true clarity of vision.

I had been elevated from my rather, ambiguous status in the scientific and business community to a fully-fledged member of the socialist Petlyurist group. I was nervous. I asked Petlyura what my powers were.

‘Whatever you need to fulfill your task.’ He was expansive. ‘You may requisition whatever you want - men and material - so long as you do not actually interfere with our current military operations. We have Russian and Polish chauvinists to contend with. And Deniken is likely to prove a highly unreliable ally, if he actually is an ally. He, too, is a chauvinist, but at the moment he hates Trotsky worse than me. What will become of him if the French decide he is an embarrassment?’

‘Let him go to Turkey with a hundred riders,’ said Konovalets. ‘Things are so bad there, he’ll be able to conquer the whole damned country in a week and have himself crowned Tsar of Constantinople.’

Petlyura raised his champagne glass. ‘Death to the enemies of Ukraine!’

I sipped a reluctant toast. As a ‘Russian chauvinist’ I was not in complete accord with our Ataman.

‘Twentieth-century methods will produce a twentieth-century revolution,’ said Petlyura. ‘And it will impress the superstitious peasants with the importance of science. I hear you are a linguist, Comrade Pyatnitski?’

‘I know English, German and some French,’ I said, ‘as well as Polish and Czech.’

‘And Ukrainian?’

‘The local dialect?’ I experienced a moment of terror.

Petlyura changed the subject. Then I thought him a gentleman, whatever else he stood for. My diplomacy had not worked, but neither had it misfired. Official Ukrainian was a form of Galician not easily assimilated even by Kievans who spoke their own patois. The language was about as authentic as the average Republican bank-note.

We were all of us in that candle-lit room speaking, needless to say, purest Petersburg Russian. Petlyura said, ‘I would imagine the French would pay for the secret of your ray?’

It had not occurred to me. I think Petlyura saw this in my face. He smiled reassuringly as he patted my shoulder, ‘It is all right, citizen. You would not be here if I took you for a traitor. But I shall despatch a courier. We’ll tell Freydenberg we’re in the process of constructing a secret weapon. He must move his forces up quickly or it will fall into Bolshevik hands.’

‘That is strategy.’ Konovalets was approving.

‘It’s diplomacy,’ said Petlyura. His pink cheeks beamed. ‘And we thought it would be so easy to save Ukraine.’

‘I shall need authority,’ I said.

‘Give him a rank, Konovalets.’ Petlyura spoke carelessly.

Konovalets shrugged. ‘You are now a major in the Republican Army.’

And that was how I gained my first military title. Quite legitimately, but without having once spilled a drop of blood.

‘You’d better have that confirmed,’ Petlyura told an aide, is there anything else, Comrade Doctor?’

‘I have been expecting papers from Petrograd,’ I said. ‘They were held up. They’re probably destroyed now. A Special Diploma.’

‘A Russian diploma? They’re useless here. Professor Braun?’ Petlyura had these people hanging on his every word. The professor understood as rapidly as had the general. ‘You need what? Some sort of diploma? We could give you an honorary degree from the University.’

‘It would not be the same.’ I explained what had happened in Petrograd. ‘My dissertation warranted a Special Diploma, you see. The equivalent of a doctorate.’ I reached into my pocket and produced my wallet, handing him a copy of Professor Vorsin’s letter.

Braun read the signature first. ‘I know Vorsin. This is his. If the Comrade Secretary - Ah, Pan ...’ He looked up at Petlyura as if suddenly uncertain of himself.

‘Is it important to you?’ Petlyura asked me. He took the letter from Braun. He read it. ‘Well, it confirms what we have heard. Is that your price, comrade?’

‘There is no price,’ I said, ‘for resisting Trotsky and Antonov. It’s thanks to them I have nothing on paper.’

‘This letter is certainly clear. Isn’t it, Braun?’

‘Absolutely. We can - we have diplomas -’ The professor spread his hands. ‘If a D.Sc. is in order... ?’

Petlyura made a quick movement of his head and stared directly into my eyes. Then he looked at his napkin. ‘Will that suit you, Major Pyatnitski?’

I sighed and reached for my crystal goblet. ‘These are insecure times.’

Petlyura called down the table to his old comrade, Vinnichenko, another pro-Bolshevik. ‘Do you approve of this now, Comrade President?’

Vinnichenko, a literary man with very little stomach for what was happening, looked tired. He said sourly: ‘Certainly, Comrade Supreme Commander. If the Praetorians have agreed.’

Konovalets scratched the back of his neck. ‘This is silly. The Sich riflemen are loyal. We don’t wield power.’

I thought I was to witness open argument amongst the various Directorate factions. Vinnichenko said wearily, ‘I apologise, Konovalets. But you’re the only one the French seem to trust at all.’

‘It’s because they’ve never heard of me.’ The general smiled.

I laughed politely. Konovalets had the look of someone who might well be taking the reins of power soon. This was not to be the case. Colonel Freydenberg, in charge of the French, found it impossible to tell one socialist from another. He had been insisting, I was to learn, that all ’Reds’ be dismissed from the Directorate. Petlyura, Vinnichenko and the others controlled the Directorate. Freydenberg’s ultimatum was tantamount to demanding the dismissal of the whole government before he would come to the relief of Kiev. To Freydenberg, Petlyura and his gang were no more than bandit warlords. His only sympathy was for Deniken’s Whites. The Russian Volunteer Army was larger, more reliable, and represented the Tsar.

Konovalets’s Galician sharpshooters were the Directorate’s strength. This was why Vinnichenko had called them Praetorians. They were grouped in the outlying suburbs ready to meet Bolsheviks moving towards the city. No newspaper reported this fact. I was equally unaware of the immediate danger after I had left the meeting. Kiev seemed very quiet. The winter was cold. The snow was hard. I could not believe very much would change until March. In the meantime I had achieved both my D.Sc. and the rank of Major. As I had once dreamed, I had been honoured by an entire government. It was ironic I could not abide their idiotic politics but I admit I was momentarily seduced by the chance, at long last, to work on one of my inventions.

I had a note sent to Mother, briefly outlining my good news. She replied via the same messenger. I was to be careful. I was not to worry about her. It seemed every time I tasted success she became frightened. She had been too long with her head down, I suppose. It was hard to blame her.

Next day a diploma from the University of Kiev was delivered to my suite. Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski was a Doctor of Science who had graduated on 15 January 1919. Shortly afterwards an officer of the Sichovi Streltsi arrived to salute me, address me as Major and hand me an ordinary paper envelope containing all necessary insignia. I was expected, apparently, to provide my own uniform. I would have a special white one. I thought the matter over again seriously. I put the envelope in a drawer of my escritoire for the meantime. I was becoming identified with a specific political group. If the Bolsheviks arrived I was likely to be rounded up and this time I would certainly be shot unless I was very careful.

I prayed my so-called ‘Violet Ray’ would be effective against the Reds. Petlyura had given me the idea of taking the secret as soon as possible to Odessa. The French garrison would put the device at Deniken’s disposal. The entire fate of Russia lay in my hands. I received another message: a note from Petlyura confirming every assistance, giving me carte-blanche powers. The monks and priests had been ousted from control of St Andrew’s. I was now the new proprietor. This caused me some uncertainty. But God has His own methods. And surely my light-beam issuing from the great blue-and-white tower would fill even the Bolsheviks with an awe of the Almighty?

Work began that day on producing a suitable vacuum tube. We were hampered on every side. Desertions at the glass-works; promises of copper wire which failed to have any substance; engineers suddenly disappearing; Russian mechanics hearing of some Bolshevik or insurgent victory and trying to get to Odessa or Yalta before all escape routes were cut off. The chaos in the streets returned. Petlyura’s forces were melting away. The French were right not to trust him. In the meantime the bell-tower of St Andrew’s became the housing for my equipment’s alternative power-source: banks of Voltaic batteries, connected with heavy copper wire, operated by a monstrous Nife Switch. In the chamber below I discarded tube after tube, mirror after mirror. Power cables were carried through the sacred corridors and up the steps of that wonderful building, ready to connect to my machine when it was ready. The monks were bewildered, but had been convinced by Petlyura of the necessity for using the place in the war against the Bolsheviks. The tube was secured in a sturdy tripod frame of aluminium and wood and looked makeshift. The mirrors were large at the end nearest the tube and shrank to smaller sizes, tapering almost to a point. Quartz lenses would have worked much better. Some were being ‘requisitioned’ but did not arrive. We looked down over the Podol ghetto. I could almost see my own street, higher up the hill. As one of the soldiers remarked, ‘If we can’t wipe out Antonov, we can finish off a few Jews before we leave.’

With the help of some cocaine, I worked rapidly at the device. Petlyura himself came to see me three times. On the third I was able to demonstrate some of the machine’s potential by directing the fluorescence onto a sheet of newspaper which almost immediately burst into flames. He was impressed.

‘But will it burn Bolsheviks?’

‘It’s a question of power,’ I said, it should have limitless capacity so long as it has enough electricity.’

Petlyura seemed not to have slept. He was sallow. His eyes had a withdrawn look. ‘I shall give you the entire city, the entire Ukraine,’ he told me, ‘if it will work. This will offer the people heart. This will bring the soldiers back.’

He had become desperate. I began to wonder what my next move should be. At the first opportunity I had my official car take me to Mother’s flat. There I warned her of the possibility of the Bolsheviks re-occupying the city. She laughed at me.

‘The Bolsheviks were here before. And we are still safe. So what is there to worry about?’

‘It might be necessary, mother, to go to Odessa. The French are in control there. We shall be safe in Odessa.’

‘Safe in Odessa?’ For some bizarre and mysterious reason she began to cackle.

I waited until Esmé arrived and told her my news. It was getting late. I was due back at my equipment. I could not afford to offend Petlyura, especially since he was becoming obviously overtired. I gave her an outline of what was happening. I begged her to be ready to leave with Mother and Captain Brown, if he would go.

She was confused. ‘The countryside is full of bandits. I have my work.’

‘There’ll be as much work for you in Odessa as here.’

She saw the point. ‘When should we leave?’

‘It might be wise to go before me. I can send for you if things quieten down. I am working ...’ I held my tongue. ‘There is some hope.’

‘I will not go to Odessa,’ said my mother. ‘I have never been to Odessa.’

I took my watch from my pocket: It was getting too late. ‘What harm will come to you? You can stay with Uncle Semya.’

‘Semya has been very kind. I don’t think Evgenia would like me there. She wrote a funny letter about you. And some girl. I burned it. She’s always been jealous.’

‘Mother, the Bolsheviks could take Kiev any day, unless my work is effective. I am asking you to be ready to leave. Once they are here, it will be impossible to get on a train.’

‘That’s true,’ Esmé agreed. ‘You should do as Max says, Yelisaveta Filipovna. We love you.’

‘My laundry,’ she said, ‘is my life. I would be foolish to go to Odessa. Am I to retire to a seaside datcha?’

‘You could,’ I said. ‘You would enjoy it.’

‘I would not.’

I had no more time to coax her. ‘You must promise to take Mother and Captain Brown. When you get my message.’ I looked into Esmé’s wonderful blue eyes. I kissed her on the lips before leaving.

Kiev was not so much a city under siege as one which seemed already to have fallen. Haidamaki had looted Podol with such efficiency they had hardly time for their normal pogromist activities. No fires were started, few Jews were killed, unless they seriously interfered with the business in hand. Shadowy groups of men with sacks and rifles dodged back and forth across the street as my motor, flying Petlyura’s official flag; rolled over cobbles which had not been cleared of snow for days. I was glad to return to the relative security of Kreshchatik. It was protected by more disciplined troops. At the half-deserted Savoy I quickly went to the main suite to report my progress to an anxious Petlyura who laughed, turning to Vinnichenko. The curtains were closed. Vinnichenko was peering through them like a spinster at a neighbour. ‘Are we going to hear any more of “co-operation” and “evacuation”?’ Vinnichenko shrugged. He was probably disappointed not to be able to greet Trotsky, Stalin and Antonov personally. Petlyura asked me, ‘How are things in the city?’

‘Troops are looting it, Supreme Commander.’

‘We should never have trusted the ones who came over from Skoropadskya.’

‘We should never have thought we could hold Kiev.’ Vinnichenko turned his back on us both. ‘We should have stayed with the peasants and not thrown in with Russians and Jews.’

Petlyura clapped me on the back. ‘Do not let anyone tell you I have anything against your people.’

I smiled, feeling my power over him. Was he trying to placate the Russian ‘Katsopi’ billygoats he had so despised? ‘You don’t hate us any more?’

‘It’s the peasants,’ he said. ‘Russians and Jews own all the shops, all the factories, all the machinery.’ His voice had begun to rise. He controlled himself, ‘Is the ray ready for final tests?’

It could not be tested until I had more power. I thought it would be pointless to requisition civilian electricity and harm public morale until the last possible moment.

Petlyura became immediately calm, as if responding to morphine. He stroked his moustache and gave me an encouraging wink. ‘Off you go, then, professor.’

The Savoy echoed. Some of the mirrors had been removed, as if the entire building were being made ready for shipment. There were very few shops open in Kreshchatik. Many were boarded up. I was tempted to drift down to Bessarabskaya and find myself one of the really young girls who were now working there. I had developed a taste for them. I was certainly a better customer than most they could expect. But with some weariness I directed the driver to return to St Andrew’s and the tower, which was full of light, like a beacon in the darkness and confusion. Climbing the stairs to the top of the church, I heard distant noises from the city: gunfire, shouts and screams. All these had become familiar. I wondered if I would miss them if they ever stopped.

Some new, larger tubes had been delivered. I admired the workmanship. The corporal who was helping me said that they would probably be the last we would get. I asked why.

He grinned. ‘They looted the glass-works about two hours ago, that’s why.’

‘What do they want with glass?’

‘They thought they’d find gold.’

I inspected my tubes. They were excellently made. I began carefully to unscrew the clamps holding the smaller tube on the swivel stand. I replaced it with a new one. ‘Gold?’

‘They guessed the Jews were making gold,’ said the soldier. ‘Because of the crucibles and stuff.’

‘The glass-works isn’t Jewish.’ I connected up the wires.

‘They got even angrier when they found that out.’ The corporal laughed.

I stood back to admire the machine. Once the mirrors were properly aligned and more power diverted, I thought it would be possible to try out the ray on one of the trees near the yacht club. It still stood, deserted, on Trukhanov Island, on the other side of the ice-bound river. I lit a cigarette and then, in a democratic mood, handed one to the soldier. He was impressed by the gesture. ‘Thanks, comrade.’

‘What about the Bolsheviks? Will we beat them?’ I felt it was important to know what a regular soldier, with some experience, thought. He was more reliable than Petlyura.

‘It depends. They’re nearly all Russians. They look down their noses at Ukrainians. It keeps them together. But Ukrainians can’t even agree on what to call their commanders.’

I nodded. ‘They’ll side with anyone, it seems. The Hetman, Petlyura, Hrihorieff, Trotsky, Korniloff...’

The soldier drew on the long paper tube. ‘This is good tobacco. Is it Turkish?’

‘I think so.’

He made a gesture towards the suburbs and beyond. ‘Those poor bastards out there have nothing. They don’t believe in governments - nationalist, Tsarist, Bolshevik, Polish, French. They believe in freedom and owning a plot of land.’

‘To nurture their own gardens,’ I said.

‘If you like.’

‘Voltaire,’ I explained.

‘I know.’ He was amused. ‘That’s why they put me with you. I’m the intellectual of the division.’ He began to laugh, ‘I did a year at technical college before I was conscripted.’

‘You were at the Front?’

‘Galicia.’

‘You’ll fight the Bolsheviks when they attack?’

‘You’re crazy,’ he said. He patted my tube. ‘This will fight the Bolsheviks, comrade professor. I’ll be running like fuck for the nearest train.’

I laughed with him. We were of an identical mind.

I left him on guard when I had lined up the available mirrors and tested the projector once more on a paper target. I had slept only a few hours during the whole week but I still did not feel like going to bed. I directed the driver to Bessarabskaya. He told me it was four in the morning. From all around I heard cackling laughter, breaking windows, the creak of hand-carts bearing away loot. We returned to the hotel where I found a message from Esmé. A train departed for Odessa in the morning. She would do all she could to be on it, but she needed extra papers, travel-permits. I telephoned a good friend of mine in the appropriate ministry. I was impossibly lucky. He, too, was not sleeping. Within an hour, I had documents for myself, my mother, Captain Brown and Esmé. I put my permit with my passport, summoned a soldier from downstairs, and sent him to Esmé. For once I was relieved that neither Esmé nor my mother were resisting me. I fell asleep suddenly and was awakened at noon by a nightmare in which I, several years younger, was writhing in the mud, the only figure on a vast, deserted battlefield. There were bullets in my stomach.

I did not immediately open my eyes because I thought for a second I was in Odessa again, listening to the sound of the Arcadian surf. My eyes were filled with yellow light, like blood. I realised that the sun was out. It was the first sunshine I had seen for a long time. I rolled over and looked about me. My apartment was insane. I had not noticed before that it was so untidy. Yellow blood from the sun. It ran in a series of canals, cut across the steppe. It ran swiftly and could not be navigated or crossed. The booming continued. It was, of course, artillery fire. It might have been our own. It had become impossible to distinguish friends from enemies. They battled over Kiev. They came and went. They all said they were saving us. Some cities are fated to become symbols. In those days we lived symbolically in a symbolic city. The mad universe of the Symbolists had for a while become reality. Had all those people I despised in Petrograd been prescient? Or had they created this world because it was the only environment in which they felt at ease. It was a madman’s world. Someone was standing in the room. A young corporal in a Cossack coat. He held his sheepskin hat in his gloved hands. I think he said the situation was urgent. Yellow blood still filled my eyes. I got up. I was wearing my clothes.

Hannibal’s Numidian cavalry drove deeper and deeper into Spain, that pious land; drove deeper towards the shrine of the Holy Virgin. And the steppe was broken by black trees. Burning bronze ran through the Kiev gorges. And I was on fire: and my mother’s black clothes were on fire. ‘A train?’

Cossack: ‘They thought you’d been killed. The enemy is close. You are needed, Pan.’

He spoke with a strong Polish accent. My Polish was weak. Mother had taught me once. And I had listened to her nightmares.

‘Has the train left? The morning train for Odessa?’

‘The emergency train. Yes.’

‘Was it well-protected?’

‘Armoured, I think.’

I went with this Polish Cossack. There were little girls singing a huge chorus in my mind. Pure, Russian voices. There is no sound like it. And still I blinked away the sun’s blood. It was Liszt. I had heard it at the Opera House in Odessa with Uncle Semya. Dante. I could not. My mind was weak. Something had attacked it as I slept. There is no purer sound than that of little Russian girls singing. Magnificat anima mea Dominum! Into Purgatory. So much for the Divine Comedy. I was surrounded by them. Had I wronged them? I could not have wronged anyone. I took what others would have taken. I am no priest. I have never claimed it. It was at the Albert Hall. I should never have gone. Layers and layers of red, all circling down to the hell on the stage; that Bolshoi chorus. But I was lonely. I had lost everything. Some would have adopted a dog. I was tired of dogs. We had had too much of dogs in my Russia. And children never trusted me. Did they know? I am not an uneducated man. The Cossack put me in a red carriage and I was taken up the hill to Andreivska. That red hell of the Albert Hall. I remember the lights. The little girls in their white dresses. They had to take me home in the end. I wanted to hear those voices, even though they sang in Latin.

Rome and Rome and Rome. They said Britain was the New Rome. All she inherited was the patrician. Moscow inherited the priest. Rome and Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow. The voices are still as sweet and I did them no damage. I was clean. I was cleaner than the others. We got to the church and Petlyura himself had arrived. He was furious. ‘Sleeping, comrade?’

‘I worked late into the night.’

‘And so has this fellow?’ It was the soldier with whom I had shared a cigarette. He looked bleak. Petlyura had evidently been screaming at him. There were various generals standing about in coats and elaborate frogging. Some had no insignia. Some had removed their epaulettes. I had learned to recognise such signs. It was almost as good as waving a white flag. From below in the church the priests were holding a service. It was the Kiev part-singing of Diletski. I think it was Khvalite imyagospoderi, aliluya! It was an omen, I thought. Church and Science were coming together to destroy the Red Jew.

‘My machine is as good as ready,’ I said with dignity, i was awaiting instructions.’

‘Antonov’s forces are moving in from all sides.’ Petlyura scowled. ‘We’ve no time to set up further stations. This is the only one we can use. Tonight we shall direct it over there.’ He pointed roughly towards my own home. I was glad Esmé and my mother had gone. There was no more sun. I blinked at Petlyura. He said. ‘You are certain the light is invisible?’

I reassured him.

‘It will weaken their morale. It will give us time to put the rest of our plan into action.’

‘You are going to counter-attack?’

‘Look after the scientific matters, professor.’

The soldier glanced cynically at me. I avoided his eye. I wanted no trouble. My head was aching. I had forgotten my cocaine. I asked permission to return to the hotel for medicine. ‘Have some of mine,’ said Petlyura. He handed me a small golden box containing cocaine. I was not surprised. That entire Revolution, that entire Civil War, was fought on ‘snow’. It was the fuel, far more than politics or gunpowder, of the entire affair. Revived, I noticed the soldier smiling at me in an insolent way. ‘You think I don’t know what I’m doing?’

‘I think you might be the only one who does, comrade.’

Petlyura said sourly: ‘You could be shot, corporal.’

‘I think I stand a fair chance of it today, comrade Supreme Commander.’ The corporal had no fear because he had become so tired. I felt sympathy for him. We were being outmanoeuvred. Even Scipio had needed an army to destroy the Carthaginian elephant. It was all sunshine in those days. The battles were fought in heat, not snow. Only Hannibal had known snow, and that was the kindly snow of the Alps, not Russian snow. Ragnarok come again. Entropy. There is so much evidence in Russia. We are lucky to have our brief moments of warmth and life. It is why we worship God.

Petlyura was mumbling at the corporal. He could afford to shoot nobody. His army might only now consist of the silent generals, the corporal and my ray machine. He said something in French to the only man apart from myself in civilian dress. But Petlyura’s accent was so abominable I think no one understood. The civilian might have been the French consul. He nodded. Petlyura asked me to position the lens towards the woods of Trukhanov. ‘Could you hit those trees?’

‘Of course. But I must have the power.’

‘It’s being diverted.’

I directed my machine towards the Dnieper ice. As I pressed the appropriate switch I drew a thin line of heat across the white surface. ‘I have melted it. Think of the civil applications of the machine.’

‘Cutting ice seems hardly the purpose...’ said one of the generals.

‘It could be of use on ships,’ said another. They all spoke like automata. It was as if they had drawn their energy and inspiration from Petlyura, a source which could no longer supply what they needed. My device meant little to most of them. They did not know why they were here.

‘You burned the ice?’ Petlyura borrowed some field glasses, ‘I see the crack. Excellent. In itself, this will be of use when they try to cross. It will be like Alexander Nevski. Our enemies will perish in our river.’

He gave me the field glasses. They were of no use to me. A general leaned forward and, with a peculiar smile, retrieved them. ‘Thank you,’ he said slowly, as if I could not understand Russian.

The priests were still singing for their congregation. The sound grew louder and louder. Petlyura found their voices disturbing; I was glad of them. Even then, without realising what I was doing, I was receiving God’s inspiration and not Man’s. I was to remember that moment, when I alone, in the assembled company, had strength.

‘Those peasants,’ said Petlyura. ‘They are brutes. They are treacherous, stupid. They betrayed me. They are primitive beasts.’

‘We’re all that, comrade,’ said the soldier. He leaned against the parapet, looking towards the window. ‘But some of us are innocent beasts. That’s the only difference. You didn’t spend long enough with the herd.’

Petlyura was sucking at his weak lower lip. His pale eyes looked from general to general and found nothing there but blankness. ‘Korishenko,’ he said, ‘you will ensure all power is directed to the professor’s machine.’

Glad to be on his way, Korishenko saluted and departed.

‘We’ll wait until nightfall,’ said the Supreme Commander. ‘Will there be any danger? No backlash from the machine?’

‘It is unlikely.’

‘And what if people get in the way?’

‘Tell everyone to stay in their basements,’ I suggested. ‘Just in case.’

‘We don’t want to slice some poor Jew in two,’ said the corporal.

Petlyura and his henchmen were already leaving the tower. Petlyura had begun to speak in his appalling French. I heard the civilian say: ‘What of the Jews? Is there another pogrom?’

‘Naturally, there isn’t.’

‘We have Jews in France.’

The men disappeared into the swollen voices of the chorus and I was left with my corporal.

‘Did he say anything to that Frenchman about retreating from Kiev?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘What did he say about the Jews?’

‘Nothing.’

The corporal lifted his arm as if to knock over my machine. ‘I have no prejudice, but I warn you ...’

‘What are you saying?’ His gesture continues to haunt me. Did the fool think me a Jew because I had an interest in science? I agreed with Petlyura and the peasants’ point of view on that score. The Jews in Ukraine and Poland turned the very earth white, they bled both countries. The black earth was drained so deep that only blood could bring it back to life. Blood and the sun and our wide rivers which the Reds claim to have harnessed. Who can tame a Russian river? It is eternally free. They tried to make European bourgeoisie of us all, but they failed. We are not naturally middle-class. We are intellectuals, we are workers, we are peasants. Let the Jews find their Zion elsewhere. They shall not have Russia. Only Slavs survive on Slavic earth. The Tatars failed to survive. The land destroyed their khanates. They are the same: Phoenician trader or Zionist fifth-columnist. I know this as I know the devil is in all men. As the devil is in me. I offered the soldier a cigarette.

The afternoon sun was beginning to sink. Kiev was silent. Everything was still. Trains steamed away from the city. I could see their smoke. I saw figures on the ice. I did not know who they were. The singing had stopped from below. I felt lonely. I could have wept. I wanted a girl. I wanted comfort of any kind. I remembered Kolya. Was he now in prison in Petrograd? Emigrated? With Korniloff or Deniken, fighting their way back to the centre of power? Why were Poles invading Ukraine? They wanted their Empire back. No wonder the Germans came to fear them, as they feared the Czechs. Czechs were famous for their courage and fighting skill. They fought their way home across Siberia. Teutons fear Slavs, just as the decadent Latins feared the Vikings. If only the Empire had stayed together. A Slavic Empire. We should have had a neo-Hellenic world by now. We are the inheritors of the Greeks. It is our Slavic blood, not Communism, which unites us. The Anglo-Saxons and the Chinese have had their day. They have achieved the stability of death. Negativity was never a Slavic trait. We would always rather be doing something than nothing. If the Poles had looked to Germany for their territory, we should not have had another War. Nationalism goes against all rational progress, all the findings of science, all the experience of mankind. Israel! A fresh joke, for now the Jew becomes a ‘nationalist’. That is when we have to fear the worst.

Warsaw and Prague and Kiev. They were beautiful cities. And who destroyed them? Bolshevik Jews. Hitler could never have done what he did if it had not been for their threat. He had to extend and maintain defences against them. Russia had always been a friend to the German people. And who broke that bond? The Jewish landlord, the Jewish intellectual, the Jewish politician. Is the world waking up to the threat? Not hysterically, as Hitler did, but sanely? Let them have Israel. Let them have the whole Middle East. And then let us build a thick wall around the Jew and say goodbye to him forever. He can wail inside his wall. I shall not listen to him.

As it grew darker I could tell the requisite power was being diverted. The corporal went to fetch us some food. He returned with the news that everyone had been warned to stay in their cellars. Some thought there was to be a Zeppelin raid, others had heard a story of my ‘Violet Ray’. It is astonishing to what extent information spreads in a city under siege. Gossip, as they say in Ukraine, takes the edge off hunger. My emergency Voltaic batteries were also prepared. I connected these to the transformer in case of a sudden failure of power. The darkness brought relief to me. My eyes were hurting. I could not dismiss the images of death, of blood, which filled them. At least Esmé and my mother and possibly Captain Brown were away by now, racing down the line to Odessa where French order existed, where there was hope. If things became worse, Uncle Semya could help them leave the country for a while. I assured myself that as soon as I knew exactly which way the wind blew I would use my ray to demonstrate its power, pack it up with the aid of the corporal, and be off with the basic apparatus to the French. The next train to Odessa would be carrying myself and my invention. The next ship out would be taking us to Paris.

There were no lights burning anywhere, but the artillery fire had begun. There were flashes of light from Trukhanov. I directed the projector at the island. The corporal asked me for one of my cigarettes. I handed him the case. He removed a papyrussa and put the case back in my pocket. He began to smoke. I wondered if any Bolshevik field glasses observed his red tip. If so, what did they make of the silence and darkness? The guns continued to fire from time to time. I heard a few yells, the sound of motor-engines, of horses’ hooves on the wooden blocks of streets where snow had melted beneath the wheels and feet of the Petlyurist army. I pressed the switch of my projector. I saw a flash of light. I think I destroyed a gun. I turned to the corporal so that I could enjoy my success with him. He had gone. The entire church was deserted. Kiev had filled up with ghosts. I trusted the corporal’s instincts more than Petlyura’s or my own. I called to him, but it was too late. He had gone to join the Bolsheviks or return to his village. I was about to dismantle my projector when I heard boots on the steps. I was in such a state of terror I was sure I should see ghosts or Antonov himself. But it was Petlyura, in his green uniform, with his black shapka on his head, a riding crop in his hands. He had a more dapper appearance than the Hetman. He sought an aristocratic image which simply made him look ridiculous. A character from The Prisoner of Zenda.

‘Have you used the ray yet?’

I told him I had destroyed a gun.

‘One gun isn’t enough.’

‘The machine has to be aimed. It consumes a great deal of energy with every shot. I have done well so far.’

‘You raised my hopes. You betrayed them.’

Two generals stood behind him, together with a few soldiers of lesser rank. All wore different uniforms: some blue, some white, some green.

‘I told you what I could do. With another day or so.’

‘Antonov is almost in Kiev. He’s moving troops up rapidly. We’re going to have to evacuate the city. You’ll hold off their advance with your ray.’

‘Alone?’

‘You’re a major in the Republican Army, comrade. You can be shot for disobeying orders.’

Someone grinned. ‘That’s true.’

‘And you’re leaving?’ I could not believe such perfidy.

‘We’re withdrawing from this position. We still have a great deal of support. I think we can rely on Hrihorieff. There’s a strong chance the Entente will lend us troops. Deniken and Krassnoff will have to throw in with us. It’s to their advantage.’

‘How shall I leave if the Bolsheviks find me?’ It seemed a fair question.

‘You’ll be able to slip away,’ said a captain. ‘You’re wearing civilian clothes.’

I wondered if I could get back to my hotel and pick up my bags or whether they would have been stolen already. I saluted in military fashion. ‘Then I shall do my duty.’ That duty, naturally, was to my dependants and to myself. There was no chance at all of the Ultraviolet Projector standing off the entire Bolshevik army. Petlyura had miscalculated everything. I asked him where I should meet the rest of the army.

He hesitated. ‘You’ll hear.’

He expected me to be captured. He did not want to risk my revealing his position. Some of his generals looked openly sympathetic to me. Others were smiling. I seemed to have become a bone of contention amongst them.

‘What if Antonov captures the ray?’ I asked.

‘You’ll destroy it first.’

I thought he was placing a great deal of trust in my loyalty to a cause I had never supported. ‘If they capture me before I can destroy it?’

Petlyura turned. With a gesture of supremely arrogant impatience he struck with his whip at my apparatus. I was horrified. The tripod wobbled but held. ‘They’ll never guess what it is. They have no money. They can’t pay you. Take it to the French. They’ll give you what you ask.’ He was suspicious of something. He was mad.

I became confused and distracted as I attempted to right the machine before the precious vacuum tube was thrown out of alignment. But Petlyura had already done his worst. The machine would take hours to re-set. I told him nothing of that. ‘You asked me to build this.’

‘And it doesn’t work!’

‘You have not given it a fair trial.’

‘Very well. Use it now. Sweep Trukhanov.’

‘I will do my best. You have probably made it impossible...’

‘Destroy Trukhanov.’

I shrugged and pointed the projector in the general direction of the island. I began to move it as a man might move a machine gun, spraying from side to side. Nothing, naturally, happened.

Petlyura was laughing. ‘I’m in a hurry, comrade.’

I noticed from my instruments that not enough power was going through the transformer. ‘The power has been diverted. I must use the Voltaics.’ I pointed up the narrow stair to where they were arranged. ‘Someone must pull that large switch all the way down when I give the word.’

Petlyura was staring at me as if he believed himself crazy. ‘Will it work?’

‘Pull the switch!’

Some fool went clattering up to it, all spurs and frogging; a military genius who could sit a horse without instantly falling off and was thus a general in Petlyura’s idiot-army. He pulled the switch, of course, before I gave the word. The Voltaics began to arc. The soldier came stumbling back. There was noise and light everywhere. Petlyura screamed and was gone, his men behind him, while I battled with what was left of my equipment. It was impossible to do anything. I opened one of the straw-filled ammunition boxes which had brought my vacuum-tubes. The case still contained a tube. All I needed were the lenses. I began to dismantle them as quickly as possible. Someone returned. There was a pistol shot, the tube on the tripod burst and as I covered my eyes I felt pieces of glass strike my hands and forehead. Another shot was aimed at me. Petlyura evidently wished to be sure the Bolsheviks gained no advantage. It seemed at that moment to be a bizarre act of vengeance. I thought it was Petlyura himself firing. I suppose I was mistaken. I saw flashes of pistol-fire and a dark silhouette. I moved behind one of the columns, onto the outer balcony. All six shots were discharged before the figure ran away. Something was on fire. It was my straw. I tried to pull at least one of the tubes to safety but there was every danger it would overheat and burst and then I should be killed. Electricity still sputtered. The connections had been badly made. My worst danger was from the fire in the straw. I did not save a single lens, a single tube. I moved cautiously down the steps, trying to hear any sound of the assassin. But he was gone. I heard some cars going away. Monks with tapers came and looked at me. They were accusing me. I tried to ask their forgiveness with my eyes but they turned their backs to me. I was too cautious to speak. I still found it hard to believe such hatred and violence had been directed at me. I slipped from the church. A Jew in a skull-cap ran past. He was panting. He held something to him. A bundle. It was a baby, I thought. But it was probably a family heirloom he hoped to save from the new invaders. He was quite young, in his twenties, and sandy-haired. But for his obvious Jewishness, he might have been handsome. When he had gone there was only the heaped, dirty snow. Everything was dead. I moved nervously back towards Kreshchatik but I was hardly bothered at all. The inhabitants had taken to their cellars. All the Haidamaki had gone. I reached The Yevropyaskaya and walked through undefended doors. I went up to my room. There was no one about. My room had been searched. Nothing of any note had been taken. I slipped my diploma, passport and other papers, together with some gold, into a special secret pocket of my trousers. I packed my notes and realised that most of my designs for the machine, together with written descriptions of processes, had gone. I put little packets of cocaine into prepared places in my jacket and waistcoat. I wondered if Petlyura himself had decided to sell my plans to one or other of the opposing forces. There was nothing I could do. I no longer had any concrete proof I had built and tested my ‘death-ray’. I had been thoroughly and cynically betrayed. After some thought, I decided to take what I could and head for the station. It would be dangerous at night. I would wait until-dawn before venturing out. I went to sleep in all my clothes because the heating had been turned off in the hotel. I heard shots. There was yellow blood in my eyes. I writhed in mud. My mother burned. Bronze bubbled through the gorges of Kiev. Suns rose and set over a battlefield which was the whole world. Years went by as I searched for something.

In the morning I looked out of my window and saw Red Army cavalry riding up Kreshchatik.