The Laughter of Carthage

THREE

WE ARE THE shifting pastures on which the microbes graze, our dead skin is their sustenance and we are their universe. Perhaps we move in orbits as predictable to them as planets and that is why mosquitoes always know where to find us. It might only be delusion which makes us believe we travel at random or according to individual volition. Russian soil was to know my feet sooner than I might ever have guessed when I left Odessa. It was probably pre-ordained. I impressed the captain with a suggestion of business in Batoum important to the Government forces, so he willingly gave me leave to spend time ashore. The Baroness, too, would be allowed to go, though he made it clear he would not be responsible for any passengers who failed to board by the time the ship sailed again. ‘We remain under orders to take off as many refugees as we can reasonably accommodate, Mr Pyatnitski. However, we are not a civilian vessel and there’s some urgency about our commission, as I’m sure you understand.’

I gave him my word I would be on deck when the Rio Cruz cast off from Batoum. ‘I hope to contact certain anti-Bolshevik elements while ashore,’ I said. He said my reasons were my own affair. I immediately sought out Leda Nicolayevna who of course was delighted with my news and already planned to leave Kitty and the nanyana on board. Her excuse was that she planned to shop for a day or two. She thought we should stay just one night and return to the ship. If the Rio Cruz was still not ready to sail, we could then spend another night in Batoum, and so on. ‘But how shall we find a hotel?’

‘I will solve the problem easily,’ I told her. ‘I have lived by my wits all my life. I am extremely resourceful.’

Her love-making that afternoon was if anything more joyously zestful than ever and eagerly I began to look forward to our ‘shore-leave’ as she called it.

By breakfast-time next morning the air was much warmer but it had begun to rain with steady persistence. At the table. Captain Monier-Williams announced we should be docking in Batoum within two hours. ‘It will be a relief to put in to a port where some sort of order survives.’ This was his third visit in two months. The British had administered both town and harbour for almost a year. ‘Though God knows what it’s like now. The last time I spoke to Drake, the Captain of the Port, he was at his wit’s end. Huge numbers flooding in from all over Russia.’

‘The British should be flattered,’ I said. ‘It means they’re trusted.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Pyatnitski, it’s a terrible burden. What happens when we leave?’

‘They’ll pack up and move across the border into Turkey.’ Jack Bragg cheerfully attempted to save my feelings. ‘They can’t be worse off.’ Anatolia was only ten miles from Batoum. ‘Perhaps we should go the whole hog and declare the place a British Protectorate?’

‘I’m not sure the Russian Army would be pleased to hear that.’ Captain Monier-Williams offered me a dry little smile. ‘Anyway, at least here we’ll get a fairly clear idea of what our job’s supposed to be. Anyone wishing to go ashore had better get a chit from Mr Larkin.’ The Second Officer was acting as purser and as liaison between the Russian passengers and the British crew. Mrs Cornelius was not yet up and I was grateful. I would have been embarrassed had she been there before I was able to tell her my plans. ‘I’ll warn you,’ the captain went on, ‘that Bolshevik agents are everywhere in town. A fair bit of sabotage and general mayhem, I gather. So be careful who you talk to.’ This was addressed to us all. ‘And we’ll be checking papers and possessions pretty carefully when you come back. We don’t want any bombs slipped into your suitcases.’ He spoke sardonically, but it was evident his attitude towards his job was unchanged. He was as impatient as anyone to reach Constantinople.

As I rose to leave, the seedy Hernikof sidled up to the captain. He was dressed in dreadful tweed and smoking a German cigar. His unsteady eyes and weak mouth seemed to race through a dozen different configurations as if he sought the combination most agreeable to our commander. ‘Sir,’ he said thickly, in English, ‘I would be grateful for a word.’

Monier-Williams, I am sure, liked him no better than I, but he was polite and patient with the Jew, as he was with all of us. Hernikof spoke softly and I could not understand him. I was anxious to withdraw, so made an excuse and went out on deck to join my Baroness forward. She was standing by the rail under her wide umbrella, dressed in dark blue. Kitty was playing nearby with two little wooden dolls, under the shelter of the bridge, while Marusya Veranovna sat stolidly beside her, at attention on a folding stool, eyeing the dolls as if they might be rabid. I lifted my hat to them both as the Baroness turned, smiling at me. We exchanged our usual fairly formal greeting, then I said quietly: ‘In two hours we’ll reach Batoum. But you must see Mr Larkin and obtain a pass. It will look best, I think, if we go separately.’

‘Of course.’ She had on new perfume. There were roses in it and it seemed to promise summer. For a few moments, while she went over to tell her servant that she would be gone for a while, I was reminded of my childhood, of the scent of lilac in Kiev at springtime, of cornfields and poppies and picking long-stemmed wild-flowers in the gorges with Esmé. I would have given anything to have returned for a little while to that relaxed state of innocence which had been completely destroyed in less than an hour, when I found Esmé in the anarchist’s camp and she was laughing about what had become of her. She had been raped so many times, she said, she had callouses on her cunt. It would never again be possible to be sweetly, ordinarily, carelessly in love. I longed for that foolish happiness. I longed to re-experience it with my Leda, to believe our union unique, eternal. But it was impossible. With the exception of Mrs Cornelius, women were now a threat to my well-being. They betrayed one’s finer feelings. I trusted men no better; but one did not as a rule put one’s heart into the hands of a man. And children, as I was to learn again and again, can be the worst betrayers of all.

The Baroness returned in good spirits, with her pass. When I got to the saloon, however, I had to join a line of about ten people. I was immediately behind the odious Hernikof who turned and once again insisted on addressing me in tones of uncalled-for intimacy, lie would not be put off. He was telling me something about relatives he hoped to find in Batoum, the rumour that both Whites and Reds were ransoming Jews in order to finance their campaigns, that the Allies were discussing the idea of some Utopian Zionist State between Russia and Turkey to act as a kind of buffer against the Bolsheviks; so much nonsense I made myself deaf to it. Meanwhile Mr Larkin, long-faced and serious as always, with frowning concentration and glittering bald head, had seated himself at a little card table and busily checked papers or wrote short letters on sheets with the name of the ship stamped at the top. He spent far too long with Hernikof, but at last I received my own pass and he was quick enough, for of course he recognised me. A simple enough letter informing whomever it concerned that the undersigned. Maxim A. Pyatnitski, was travelling on His Majesty’s Merchant Ship Rio Cruz from Odessa to Constantinople and had been granted permission to stay ashore in Batoum until five hours before the ship was due to leave port. I had to sign at the foot of the page and take my ordinary identity papers with me. ‘The five hours bit is to be on the safe side,’ said Mr Larkin. ‘You shouldn’t have any trouble if you’re a little late.’

By the time I rejoined my Baroness, the coast was in sight, the rain had lifted and the horizon was beginning to brighten. ‘Won’t it be wonderful if there’s sunshine?’ She was animated. ‘They say it’s possible to have very warm days even at this time of year.’

I could not believe the British would abandon Batoum. ‘Maybe we should think of settling there,’ I said, phrasing as a joke my genuine distress at leaving Russian soil; distress which I knew she shared. She made a cheerful, fatalistic gesture. ‘Let’s enjoy the hours we have for what they are, not for what they might be.’

I decided to break the news to Mrs Cornelius. She was dressing when I knocked on the cabin door. ‘Jes’ give us arf a mo’ ter get me knickers on.’ She was looking extremely well, with her face flushed and her eyes bright, and she had on an orange dress. I told her I was going ashore to see Batoum for a day or so, hoping to look up one or two old friends.

‘I’ll prob’bly bump inter yer, then.’ She grinned as she drew on her fox-fur wrap. ‘I waz thinkin’ o’ poppin’ over ther side fer a bit meself.’ She laughed at my expression. ‘Yer don’ mind, do yer?’

It had not occurred to me she would want to leave the ship. I could do nothing but nod, shrug, smile, pack a change of clothes into my small folding bag and agree that we should think of having dinner somewhere together in Batoum. She was the last person I wanted to know of my liaison with the Baroness. I left the bag on my bunk and returned to the forward deck.

The water had grown suddenly blue and the clouds overhead had broken into white masses moving rapidly away to the North. As they rolled, the water became brighter, the ship’s brass and woodwork glittered in the sun and we were like a golden barge afloat on a silver sea. Almost immediately everyone was out on deck, standing along the rails, removing clothing, chattering and laughing, like clerks and factory girls on a works outing. The wake of the ship broke behind us, cream foam on royal blue, and ahead were the snowy Caucasian peaks, the verdant slopes of the foothills, the contours of forests, even the faint suggestion of Batoum itself; hints of white and gold and grey, as the ship changed course and began to head directly for the shore.

The landscape was extraordinarily beautiful; a panorama of wooded hills and green valleys softened by the hazy sunshine. It seemed we had moved magically from the dead of winter into the simple fullness of spring. Flights of birds passed over dense forests. We saw pale smoke rising from pastel houses: a scene of astonishing peace for which we had been completely unprepared. People giggled and shook their heads like lunatics. More than one adult began to weep, perhaps in the belief we had been transported to Paradise. Gulls cackled in vulgar welcome and flung themselves into our rigging. The note of the engine grew brisker and merrier. Now we saw the ochre line of a long stone mole, the industrial buildings of an oil-harbour, the coaling-stations, the white quayside beyond, the sparkling domes of churches and mosques. British and Russian ships were tidily at rest alongside the landing-stages. Batoum was not a large town. She lacked the grandness of Yalta or the military solidity of Sebastopol, but in that haze, with her gilded roofs and her flags, she was infinitely more beautiful than any city we had ever seen. To us, used to uncertainty, destruction, death and danger, she looked at once fragile and permanent; a haven of security. She lay in a bay surrounded by densely wooded hills, with no major roads leading into her and only a railway connection with the rest of Russia. Her Oriental appearance made us feel that we had already reached our goal, that we were in legendary Constantinople, and we began to act is if this were indeed our ultimate destination. I was now genuinely tempted to have my trunks unloaded, to put down roots in soil which was, albeit Asian Russia, nonetheless still Russia. I have no idea what the result would have been had I followed my impulse. I nowadays sometimes wish I had chosen to leave the Rio Cruz there and then; but I was full of Mr Thompson’s praise, of dreams of my great scientific career in London. I suppose I would have been frustrated in Batoum within a month. It was a beautiful oasis in a turbulent world; it would be years before its character was completely destroyed under Stalin. Yet it was not really the resting-place for a man who dreamed of gigantic aerial liners, of flying cities, and who carried in his wallet a new means of harnessing natural power.

Slowly the Rio Cruz eased her way into a space between a French frigate and a Russian merchantman, throwing her lines to waiting British sailors on the quay. Water slapped against warm stones smeared with bright green weed and rainbow oil. I smelled Batoum. I smelled damp foliage and roasting meat and mint and coffee. Palm-trees marched along her promenade; she had wide parks, public gardens full of feathery bamboo, eucalyptus, mimosa and orange trees; her streets were crowded with calm, dark buildings, the colour of vine-leaves, of rusty stone, brick or stucco. And flying high over what was obviously the public architecture near the centre of town, were the reassuring banners of two Empires, the Russian and the British. At dockside huts and customs houses smart Royal Navy bluejackets with carbines and bandoliers stood guard. The quayside was spotlessly clean. Polished brasswork and fresh paint was everywhere. I heard the hoot of motor-traffic, the clatter of trams, the familiar bustle of ordinary city streets. Through the lines of trees I made out hotels and shops, pavements populated with a mixture of races and classes. There were Russian, British and French uniforms, Moslem turbans and Greek fezzes, Parisian tailor-mades and Turkish tarbooshes. The Revolution had temporarily improved the life of Batoum, giving her an intellectual and fashionable element she had never previously possessed. I felt like a hound on a leash as I hurried to collect my little bag and wait impatiently at the side as the gang-plank was lowered. My pleasure was spoiled only by Hernikof’s fat body sweating and eager (doubtless he had worked out a means of turning a profit while in Batoum) pressing against mine. He winked at me. ‘A bit of a treat this, eh? Makes a change from stamping passports in Odessa, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Chilled by his casual intimacy with my past, I refused to be drawn and was hugely relieved when sailors and soldiers at last arranged themselves on the quay, barricades were drawn about the disembarking area, a desk was situated beside the gang-plank, officers checked one another’s clipboards, shook hands, and finally the signal was given for passengers to come ashore. I was first down the bouncing causeway, well ahead of Hernikof, my coat flying, my collar open as I began to appreciate the heat. My gloves in my hand, my hat on the back of my head, I grinned like a chimpanzee at British officials who carefully inspected my papers, then handed them back to me. Abstractedly I nodded and mumbled at the Russian officer who searched through my bag and returned it. I almost sang to the Ukrainian NCO who again looked at my papers and checked my name and description in the large ledger he carried. He was a gigantic, fat man with handle-bar moustaches and a kindly manner. ‘Be careful, friend,’ he murmured when I stepped at last through the final barricade and breathed the sweetly exotic air of Batoum. ‘A good many people here don’t accept there’s a closed season for boorzhoos.’ I turned to look at him sharply. He sounded like a Red. But he grinned. ‘Just a well-intentioned word.’

When I saw that there were actually izvotchiks stationed beside the curb, underneath the palm-trees, I gasped with delight. The nags were almost as old as their drivers and the finery of the four-seaters was patched and faded, but one might have been in Petersburg before the War, or at least one of her suburbs. I approached the nearest. With his long whip, big coachman’s coat, top-hat and thick, grey whiskers the cabby was an unchanged survivor from Tsarist days. I asked him what it would cost to take me to the best hotel in Batoum.

‘The best, your honour?’ A look of condescending good-humour came over his ruddy features. ‘It’s a matter of taste. And a matter of your politics, too, I’d say. Also a matter of there being enough room for you. What about the Oriental? It has a good view and reasonable food.’ I think I actually gaped at him. He spoke pure Moscow Russian. ‘How much? Well, it’s a rouble, but nobody accepts roubles if they can help it. Have you any Turkish lira? Or British money would be best.’

‘I’ve silver roubles. Real silver. No paper money.’ In this respect the conversation was no different to any one might find elsewhere in Russia.

‘Very well, your honour.’ He scratched his cheek with the end of his long whip. ‘Take your bag in with you. There’s plenty of room.’

I was slow in doing as he suggested, for at last I saw the Baroness making her pre-arranged way along the pavement towards me. Then, to my horror, I realised her bag was being carried by the ubiquitous Hernikof. I did my best to ignore him as, according to plan, I raised my hat to her. ‘Can I give you a lift. Baroness?’ I had not, however, reckoned to have the company of a Jewish financier on our little idyll. He panted as he put the bag down, shifting his gaze from her to me and almost, I would swear, leering at us. She was polite. ‘You are most kind. M. Hernikof. I think I will accept M. Pyatnitski’s offer, however, since we were going in roughly the same direction.’ She took her valise from his hand and placed it hesitantly on the ground. I placed my own bag in the coach and reached for hers. Hernikof smiled at me. ‘Good morning again, M. Pyatnitski.’

‘Good morning, Hernikof. I’m sorry I can’t give you a lift.’

‘It’s of no consequence. I know my way about Batoum. Thank you.’ I resented his insolent, mocking tone.

‘You are too rude, Maxim.’ She was embarrassed as she arranged herself in our carriage. ‘You know poor Hernikof meant well. Are you jealous of him? He was not trying to impose.’

‘I want to be alone with you.’ I settled myself beside her. ‘I’m determined we shall have an unspoiled holiday.’ The cab started off at a smart Petersburg trot. With a petulant twist of her mouth she dismissed the subject of Hernikof. The sudden movement of the vehicle as it crossed the wide quayside towards the boulevard seemed to excite her and her lips opened as though she already gasped in the grip of a lust if anything greedier and hotter than my own. When we accidentally touched we could barely keep from embracing and in order to preserve decorum I moved to sit across from her in the four-wheeler. We pretended to be interested in the pleasant buildings, neatly kept flower beds, the shrubs, the tall palms. We attempted to make conversation, rehearsing our charade.

‘What perfect sunshine.’

‘The British officers were very pleasant, I thought.’

‘And the Russians unusually courteous. Isn’t it lovely to be in a proper cab?’

The ride was relatively short, through orderly streets, unspoiled by war, and we had soon arrived outside the Oriental, a tall and elegant building in Nabarezhnaya Street, looking out onto the harbour. The hotel’s polished stone and carved Egyptianate pillars, decorated with gilt, filled me with an immense sense of comfort. While the Baroness waited in the cab I ran up the steps and entered the airy, peaceful lobby to enquire at the reception desk if they had rooms. A thin Armenian manager was elaborately upset, reporting there were no ordinary accommodations, only two suites left at three English pounds a day. He would be delighted to accept a cheque drawn on a European bank, at a pinch he would also accept francs, but desperately regretted he could not take any form of Russian funds unless they were gold. I pretended to dismiss this as perfectly normal and was a little disdainful, a little impatient. He became still more spasmodically apologetic, sending a Georgian porter to carry our baggage as I escorted the Baroness up a wide yellow marble staircase to the first floor. The carpets were of a pinkish-red and the wall-panels matched them, reminding me of the luxury of first-class train travel in pre-War days. Our suites were to be one above the other and when we reached her door I removed my hat, bowed, and loudly wished her a pleasant stay. ‘I will be at your disposal the whole time.’

‘I am more than grateful to you, M. Pyatnitski.’

‘Perhaps you would care to dine with me this evening?’

‘Thank you.’

‘Shall I meet you here at six-thirty?’

‘Six-thirty. Excellent.’

I signed for the porter to continue upwards. We parted. This little scene, of course, was for the benefit of the hotel staff. I took another flight on strawberry carpet, then followed my small bag through a doorway fit for a Calif into an elaborate sitting-room. Beyond this lay a bed chamber whose size and appearance resembled a small harem, with its large four-poster, gauze curtains, an ornamental ceiling in deep blue-and-gold arabesques. From the windows I looked out past tall palms at the blue sea. I had ascended to Paradise. I tipped the porter with a silver rouble, silently daring him to complain, and when he had gone I stood on the balcony, inhaling warm, spicy air. I had forgotten what comfort could be. This was a hint of everything I might expect in Europe. There would certainly be luxury in London to match this. Luxury in Paris. Luxury in Nice. In Berlin. There would be handsome motor-cars, the country-houses of aristocrats, servants, expensive restaurants, everything which, as little as two months earlier, I had never expected to know again. I began to realise that soon I could be living in cities which were not ruled by the moment; cities which could barely conceive of the possibility of sudden attack, which presumed an invulnerable culture and institutions; where Bolshevism was at worst a bad joke and where civil justice was taken for granted. I began to shake as I stripped off my overcoat and jacket and stretched on the blue velvet counterpane, drawing deep breaths, laughing to myself, feeling tears of relief stream down my face as it dawned on me exactly how fortunate I was, how dreadful had been the horror from which I had escaped. For me normality had become violence, suspicion, lies, sudden death, random denunciation, arbitrary imprisonment: but suddenly I saw it could so easily be secure and elegant surroundings and well-mannered companions of one’s own choosing. My proper rewards were within my reach again. In an almost drunken mood I put on my jacket, let myself out of my door and walked with swift caution downstairs to be admitted, unobserved.

My delicious mistress, already stripped to her petticoats, threw herself, a soft, sweet-smelling, purring, voracious creature, into my arms. Still wearing most of our clothes, we fucked on the counterpane. Then we undressed, entered the wonderful linen sheets which were freshly washed and scented with lavender, and fucked again. How I wished I might have fallen in love with her, forgotten every element of sense, worshipped her, allowed myself to rise to heights of euphoria, planned marvellous weddings and promised to be faithful until death as boys of my age usually did. Common sense would not have mattered. Leda would have enjoyed the romance as much as I. Her body was so soft, so vibrant, so powerful and in the midst of love-making the expression of ecstasy on her face made her look like a goddess, in whose veins ran fiery copper. Nobody would have been harmed by my falling in love. Her lust was magnificent. My lust was her equal. We had boundless energy. We hardly made use of the cocaine at all. Later, while I hid in her bedroom, she ordered wine and food for lunch. We gorged on cheese and cold beef and salmon. We guzzled French champagne; and when six-thirty came we ignored our decorous dining plans and fucked standing up on the deep blue and orange Turkish carpet, then she ordered caviare and white Georgian wine served in her suite and we gobbled that as greedily as we gobbled one another’s genitals. I was not in love. I could never love a woman, unless it was my mother or Mrs Cornelius. But she was in love and it pervaded everything; it made me gay. It almost made me forget Esmé and all I had lost. Leda said I must be the greatest lover in the world; we must never lose touch. I knew she dare not utter her real wish: that we should be together always. She only needed me to say the word. But I would not. I was already committed to my dream. With the Esmé I had known before the Revolution I might have fulfilled my destiny, for she had worshipped me uncritically from childhood. But Esmé was gone. She could not be replaced by this handsome, strong-willed aristocrat whose imagination and ambitions were equal to my own. Because she was used to power, Leda’s wishes would always be in some ways opposed to mine. There was no woman like Esmé. Without her, I must achieve my dreams alone.

The next morning, somewhat shakily, we returned to see if the ship were due to sail. Mr Larkin said he guessed we should be in port for at least another two days. Like children released from school, we all but skipped along the palm-flanked Promenade to observe the little Moslem boys playing tag and knuckle-bones on the stony beach, then, at the Baroness’s suggestion, we walked to the Alexander Nevski church, a building predominantly of blue marble, which had only been completed a few years earlier yet was the embodiment of Russian tradition, with its golden dome and spires. People entered and left the massive church at a surprising rate and it was my guess they prayed for lost relatives, even for the soul of Russia herself. We meant to stay only a few moments, merely to be able to describe where we had been when we returned, but the Baroness made us stay longer and I was grateful. In those days I had not discovered my Faith, yet I began to feel profoundly restful within those white marble chapels, beneath high, vaulted ceilings, amongst magnificent ikons. Here was evidence of the true spiritual quality of the Russian people, for each painted panel, set in alcoves throughout the church, was the work of a master. Coming to this tranquil shrine from the misery of Odessa and Yalta it was hard to believe that barbarism had so swiftly overtaken our country. (I heard later that after the British left Batoum, her Bolshevik masters argued amongst themselves about the function of the Cathedral. Some wanted it for stables, but there was noisy dissent from the Soviet’s Greek Orthodox members. After a great deal of impassioned argument these dissenters finally compromised. ‘We agree to your using the Cathedral as a stable. In turn, however, we must be allowed to use your synagogue as a lavatory!’)

Near the High Altar we came upon a life-size portrait of Christ standing on the water. He stretched a helping hand towards Peter, who was sinking. It was a prophetic picture of Russia. Peter, our patron saint, was sinking. And Christ was his only hope. This mural made a deeper impression on me than I realised. At that time I must admit I was impatient to return to the Oriental and our bed, yet now I can still recall the elaborate carved marble framing the picture. Christ stands surrounded by golden light. Peter is up to his waist in the waves, his hands stretched towards our Saviour. I remember the flowers and the crosses cut from stone, the little electric bulbs set at intervals along the curved top. All of it was virtually brand new. Doubtless the Bolsheviks demolished it and sold whatever was valuable, knocking away Christ’s helping hand.

Leda and I walked for a while in the Cathedral gardens and left by a side gate in time to see a detachment of Punjabis marching down the Boulevard. I am certain the British used these troops the way the French used the Senegalese: as a warning of what to expect if the Reds were victorious. Asia had not let go of Batoum, even during that moment of respite. The Punjabis went past at the double, in their khaki turbans with the rifles over their shoulders, making for the harbour. As usual the Baroness failed to see their significance. ‘Don’t they look splendid,’ she said. That same remark might have been made by a woman in the eighth century as the Moors poured through the walls of Barcelona. (They doubtless felt they were returning home, for Barcelona takes her very name from a Carthaginian founder, Hamilcar Barca). When the Romans drove the Carthaginians from Europe as the Spanish, at great cost, eventually drove out the Moors, did they count that cost? In those days honour and religion meant everything. When Britain decided she could no longer afford her Indian mercenaries she marched them out of Russia, leaving her people prey to barbarian creeds, to the enemies of Christ. The West only waited a year or two before they began to sign Trade Agreements. The Trade Agreement is what destroyed the Chinese Empire. Genghis Khan knew its value. One might as well sign pacts directly with Satan and have done with it!

‘Russia will be saved. Russia will be saved.’ Leda murmured to me that night. But today I ask my Baroness, who probably died when Bolshevik bombs destroyed her flat in Brüderstrasse twenty-five years later, ‘My dear woman, whom I almost loved, when will that be?’ She lived over a Berlin antique shop, working for a Swiss specialist in ikons. I never knew if there was anything between them. The Swiss survived. He died of old age in Lausanne fairly recently, having become a millionaire from the profits on our ikons. She must have been fifty-seven. I bear her no ill will. I can still smell her. Indeed, I can smell us both. I feel the fine linen wrapping itself over our bodies, the depth and quality of the mattress; I taste the wine, hear noises in the street outside as soldiers keep the peace; the stars are clear and golden in a deep blue sky which outlines the palms; I see the lights of ships on the water, listen to the sirens and the nightbirds calling.

It took 20,000 British troops to maintain, in one small Russian city, an illusion that the past could be kept alive, or even rebuilt. Illusions cost their creators no small part of themselves. I am reminded of those familiar Arabian tales where magicians are drained of their soul’s substance by the very phantasms they conjure. The reward is never great enough to justify the price. Look, says the sorcerer, there is a griffon and there a dragon! I do not see it, says his audience. Look again! Ah, yes, now we see! (But the energy has drained from the illusionist into the illusion. He is suddenly a corpse.) In the years of their dying all Empires are sustained in this way. And what has the Communist illusion cost the Russian people?

I shall not deny that in our ignorance we were pleased enough, my Baroness and I, to enjoy the fantasy while we could. We ate, we made love, we stared at the goods in the shops, we visited bazaars, I purchased a little poor-quality cocaine; we pretended we were in love. But that same night a shock ran through the Oriental, like an earthquake. Aroused from half-sleep we went to the window. Red flames poured upwards from the darkness of the water and huge clouds of black smoke obscured the stars. A ship was burning in the oil-harbour, on the other side of the mole, close to where our own ship was moored. I could see there was no immediate danger to the Rio Cruz. Nonetheless at Leda’s suggestion I pulled on my clothes and went downstairs. A number of English officers were already in the lobby, some partially clad, some in dressing gowns. Their voices were loud and excited, though it presently emerged they were no better informed than I. Eventually, when a motorbike messenger arrived, one of the officers turned to another: ‘Sabotage, of course. The Reds got a bomb aboard a tanker.’ This was sufficient for me. I returned to the Baroness. ‘Our ship might now decide to leave earlier. We’d best be prepared for it. But Kitty is safe.’ The prospect of our idyll ending prematurely caused us to make love with increased passion.

We returned in the morning. On board ship Mr Larkin was completely confused. The Rio Cruz was covered in oily filth and her crew worked demonically to clean it off. A French frigate, at great risk to herself, Mr Larkin told us, had towed the tanker out to sea and beached her on a sand-bank where she now burned harmlessly. Foul smoke drifted over everything, settling like swarms of flies. Mr Larkin’s face was half-mad. ‘That’s not the worst of it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You knew that chap Hernikof, didn’t you? His body was dumped by the gangplank last night. He was stabbed in at least six places. It was ghastly. He’d been stripped naked. There was a Star of David carved into his chest and someone had cut the word “Traitor” into the flesh of his back. I’ve never seen anything like it. God knows what madman did it. He had contacts in Batoum, I gather. It could have been one of them. Turned against him, perhaps. Reds? Whites? Zionists? I don’t know. The military police aren’t optimistic. They have so much on at the moment.’

The Baroness was leaning heavily against me, almost fainting. There was no blood in her face at all and her eyes were glazed. I supported her as she clutched my arm.

‘What’s more,’ Larkin was oblivious to her reaction, ‘Jack Bragg’s missing. He went ashore yesterday afternoon and didn’t return last night. There’s a general search out for him. We still don’t know if it’s connected with the Hernikof business.’

‘I must help the Baroness to her cabin.’ I spoke gently. ‘Mr Hernikof was a friend of her late husband.’

Larkin blushed. ‘Leave your bags. I’ll get a rating to bring them to you.’

Leda was almost in shock. After I had settled her in her bunk I told Kitty and the nanyana she had mild food poisoning and went to the saloon to find some brandy. On the way back I bumped into Mr Thompson, emerging from the engine-room. ‘Morning, Pyatnitski.’ He wiped grease from his hands. ‘Sorry about the news.’

I indicated the cognac. ‘The Baroness has taken it badly.’

‘Well, at least you seem to be bearing up. It’s probably nothing to worry about.’

The significance of his remark, which seemed a little offhand, escaped me until I left Marusya Veranovna with the Baroness and went down to my own cabin for a restoring sniff of cocaine. It was evident Mrs Cornelius had not spent the night in her bunk. I sought out Mr Thompson. He stood leaning on a bulkhead watching seamen swing the loading booms over the ship’s forward hatch. They were taking off guns. ‘Have you seen my wife, old man?’

The Scotsman was surprised. ‘I thought you seemed very casual. You didn’t know she hadn’t returned? She was due back last night, for dinner. I gathered she’d met you somewhere in Batoum.’ He glanced down at the deck, making a pattern in the film of oil with the toe of his boot. ‘Well, it was the obvious assumption. Then, when you came aboard...’

‘She wasn’t staying ashore?’

‘Not as far as we knew.’ He was a bright red. ‘Look here, I’d guess she got into some sort of minor trouble. And Jack Bragg became involved, perhaps tried to help her. We’ll know soon. But it’s early days yet to start worrying too much.’

I was interested in neither his speculation nor his reassurances. I ran back to the gangplank, down to the quay where the purser stood talking to one of the burly Marines. ‘Are the police looking for my wife, Mr Larkin?’

Larkin tightened his thin lips and polished his spectacles with a grey handkerchief. ’Well, we’ve told them all we can, Mr Pyatnitski. I thought you must know where she was. She went off cheerfully enough yesterday to do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. I knew you had business in Batoum and thought perhaps you were meeting her. We weren’t too worried.’

‘But you’re worried about Bragg?’

‘Jack had his orders. He was supposed to be on duty last night.’

Presumably because he had made a fool of himself with the Baroness, Larkin was still embarrassed, very red about the neck. He cleared his throat. ‘Why don’t you try the MP Post at Number Eight dock. They might know something by now.’

I dashed along the quayside, my heart pounding from the double stimulus of cocaine and adrenalin. I was panic-stricken. If I had not realised it before I now knew that I cared for Mrs Cornelius more than anyone. Without her help my chances of reaching England would be alarmingly reduced.

The Military Police hut was a dark green building with red insignia. I banged on the door. A corporal in an ordinary uniform jacket but wearing a khaki kilt, opened up. He had the familiar white armband. He said something mysterious and when I cocked my head and asked him to repeat it, said slowly, as if to a moron, ‘And what can I do for you, sir?’ I told him my wife, an English woman, was missing in the town. He became friendlier and brightened. ‘Mrs Pyatnitski, sir? She was last seen at the Shaharazaad cabaret around midnight. Our people are still trying to trace her, but you can’t imagine what it’s like. There are a thousand private wars going on here. Whites against Reds. Greek Orthodox against Turkish Muslims, Oofs against Lazis, Armenians against Georgians, Turks against Armenians, this bunch of anarchists against that bunch of anarchists, not to mention the family feuds.’

‘My wife couldn’t be involved in anything like that. She’s never been to Batoum before. She has no political connections.’

‘She’s British, sir. That’s enough for some of these wallahs. But we think she just went joyriding with a party of people from the nightclub. Some of the Russian officers are a bit wild, you know. Maybe they went up into the ruins.’ He pointed towards the hills, assuring me I should have any news immediately he received it. I made my way back to the ship. A light drizzle had begun to fall. The illusion was thoroughly destroyed. I listened to the sound of raindrops striking the big leaves of the palms like machine-gun fire. My impulse was to rush to the old quarter and begin my own search, but that would mean leaving the ship. I dared not risk being absent if the Military Police had anything to report. I bemoaned my carnal selfishness which had led me from her side. What must these people think of me? In their eyes I had deserted my own wife and returned with another woman. Ashamed and depressed, I climbed back aboard. But I could not bring myself to leave the rail near the gangplank. When the old nanyana came up to inform me the Baroness wished to know where I was I impatiently told her Mrs Cornelius was missing and I could not come. Eventually, after waiting two hours and seeing all the guns unloaded and borne away in a British army lorry, I went hastily to Leda’s cabin. She was still in her bunk, with servant and child paying attendance. ‘My poor friend,’ she said. ‘Your wife?’

‘No news. How are you feeling?’

‘Hernikof was a sweet, vulnerable man. So good to his people. Why should he have been murdered? He was like my husband. They did no harm. It’s so horrible . . .’ And she began to weep.

‘One does not have to do harm to become a symbol of another’s hatred,’ I said.

‘I think the Whites killed him,’ she whispered. ‘The Reds killed my husband and the Whites killed Hernikof. It’s as senseless as that.’

‘There’s no evidence. Bolshevik friends could as easily have turned against him if, say, he refused them money. Or some extremist Zionists. Who knows what his business was in Batoum? Or Turks. In Russia you’re no longer murdered for any particular reason. It could have been a simple mistake. Count yourself lucky you’re still alive.’ But I failed to comfort her. She remained agitated. ‘What of Mr Bragg?’ she asked. ‘Still not back?’

‘So I gather.’ Formally I kissed her hand, feeling unjust resentment towards her for the time she was taking. ‘You should try to sleep. Get some more brandy. I’ll look in as soon as I can.’ I returned to the quayside where Mr Larkin patiently checked his clipboard. The ship was thoroughly cleaned and new cargo was being loaded. ‘It’s a rum go, Mr Pyatnitski. There seems to have been a brawl at the Shaharazaad last night. Mrs Cornelius was insulted. Jack went to her aid. Then a general melee. A raid by the Russian gendarmes. Most of the customers got away. No bodies were found so that’s one good sign. As for old Hernikof, it seems he was there for a while, too. Then he left with a couple of Cossacks, or they might have been local tribesmen.’

I was not interested in Hernikof. Why should I care if he had lost his life while engaging in some shady mercenary transaction? Doubtless he had considered me a useless luftmentsh of the kind which abounds in Odessa; I could guess from his eyes. Well, those eyes would never accuse me again. This is not to say that I approved of the manner in which he met his death. I might have cared about that more if I were not terrified for Mrs Cornelius. Had she survived the entire Revolution and Civil War only to be abducted by Caucasian tribesmen? Had she been raped and killed in some remote mountain village? I had heard such tales since I was a child. The Caucasian brigands notoriously owed allegiance to nothing save their own small community. They might claim to be Moslems or Christians, Reds or Whites, when whim or expediency directed, but they were at root nothing more than heartless thieves. I looked through the rain, beyond the town to the great peaks. If it proved she had been carried off, I would spend every kopek to raise an army of mounted men. I had ridden with Cossacks and anarchists and could prove myself as tough as any of them and infinitely more cunning. I was frequently underestimated in this sphere. People knew me as an artist, an intellectual, a man of words. But in my day I was also a man of deeds. I was determined not to lose Mrs Cornelius as I had lost Esmé. A woman of enormous natural goodness, she threw too much of herself away on feckless creatures who never appreciated her. I wondered if Jack Bragg was in trouble. Perhaps she was helping him. I went to the saloon for a drink. Mr Thompson followed me in. ‘Let me buy you a whisky.’ He sat me down near the portholes so I could look out at the quayside while he went to the makeshift bar. He returned with our drinks. He was at a loose end while the ship was in port. His stokers were cleaning boilers and engine-room. ‘There’s a dull enough explanation waiting for all this,’ he said. ‘You’ve a brilliant imagination and it’s a wonderful thing. But at times like this I’d think it could be your worst enemy.’

I barely listened to him. While he droned on in this conventional frame I continued to sift through the few facts I had. Thompson was assuming, like the Baroness, that Jack Bragg and Mrs Cornelius were somehow romantically involved. I was no fool; I knew exactly what they were thinking. I saw no point in disputing this foolishness. Mrs Cornelius was always a woman of honour. She embodied the great English virtues. For me, when she died, England died. Nothing remains but mud and old stones over which the bastard races of a hundred petty nations squabble. The spirit of England flew away in 1945 when the Socialists broke apart the British Empire. I witnessed it all. I have more authority than bearded schoolteachers with insane eyes and red mouths screaming at me from pedestals, those bezdusny! I have seen their breed before. Civilisation is dying, nation by nation, piece by piece. The omens are everywhere: In the cracked paving-stones, the fallen railings, the graffiti-smeared walls. The omens are as loud as the voice of God. Who needs to tease out subtleties and nuances? That is where too many people go wrong. Mr Thompson detected an affair. I detected only jolly friendship and kindness. Is it better to see the obscure vice or the obvious virtue?

Those who belittle Mrs Cornelius’s greatness merely betray the smallness of their own souls. But I am sure Thompson meant well. He said nothing outright as he tried to ease my anxiety. While ashore he had found a few copies of some English illustrated weeklies, The Sphere, Illustrated London News, Pall Mall and so on. In them were pictures of new gigantic flying boats and airships which planned transatlantic crossings. With the Great War’s end, there seemed a fresh spirit of optimism in England. There were pages of smiling young pilots climbing onto the bright fuselages of monstrous aeroplanes, sketches of aerial cruisers with double-hulls and vast numbers of propellers and wings which in future might carry the mail across the Empire. Even in my anxiety for Mrs Cornelius I was captured by the excitement. ‘There’s people with money to spend on new inventions,’ said Thompson. ‘None of these things are cheap to build. You must remember to be cautious, like Mr Edison, and form a proper company. Too many innocent boys have been cheated in the past.’ It was strange how he thought me a boy. I had not been that since Kerenski elected himself to power. Yet there were youths in England of my own age who had never slept with a woman, who had not even left school. In that respect at least I had an advantage, but none of my dreams could be realised without Mrs Cornelius. I looked to where, in the last of the afternoon light, Mr Larkin was checking the documents of new arrivals. I became even more alarmed. The ship must soon be due to sail.

Mr Thompson confirmed this, in the morning. ‘They’re expecting more trouble here. That bomb on the tanker was just the opening incident, I gather.’

I decided, in spite of the danger, to take our luggage off the ship while I pursued my private investigation. The Rio Cruz would not leave until ten the next day. At dawn, if Mrs Cornelius had not been found, I would disembark. As I finished my drink the door of the saloon opened and the pale Baroness entered. ‘Have you heard anything?’ She sat down with a nod of thanks as Mr Thompson drew back the chair for her. Mr Thompson did not understand our Russian. ‘Can I fetch you something to drink. Baroness? Or a cup of tea?’

‘Some brandy, thank you.’ While the engineer returned to the bar she leaned forward. ‘I could not stay away. What can I do to help?’ She would cheerfully have seen Mrs Cornelius dead, yet was trying her best to be humane. I appreciated her self-control. ‘I shall have to go ashore if there’s any prospect of the ship leaving without her.’

‘Then I shall go. too.’

‘That’s impossible. There’s Kitty. You have your duty. I have mine.’

‘All our duties can surely be reconciled.’

I did not argue with her. If Mrs Cornelius had been taken away from Batoum and I had to organise an expedition, Leda would be an impediment. There would be no room for love-making. It would be a time for bullets and fast-firing carbines.

I lifted my head. Machine-guns sounded from the old quarter, near the bazaar. Two armoured-cars roared along the Boulevard, their sirens honking like geese. I heard one small explosion, then two larger ones. Smoke and flames began to rise behind the Cathedral. There were shouts. I rose to my feet, looking questioningly at Mr Thompson who said, it’s just the usual trouble.’

Batoum was no longer a sanctuary. She had become a sinister trap; one of those beautiful gardens in medieval Romance designed by a sorceress to lure unwary knights. My instinctive terror of the East returned. It had been folly to believe the illusion. Where I had admired the domes of churches I now saw, in rainy twilight, the sinister outlines of Saracen mosques. Where I had been comforted by the smart discipline of British Tommies. I detected armed and turbaned figures hiding in every shadow. Shouts came from the quayside. A large covered navy truck began to pull up beside our little barricade. I thought it was the police. I left the saloon and was halfway down the gangplank when an electric torch flashed suddenly in my eyes. Blinded for a moment, I stumbled and almost fell through the ropes. As I recovered I saw figures standing near the truck, is there any news?’

‘Blimey,’ said a familiar voice, ‘it’s Ivan.’

Mrs Cornelius seemed hurt. She was supported by two officers. I rushed up to her. ‘Are you wounded? Was it the tribesmen?’

‘Tribesmen? Do wot? Natives, yer mean?’ She was baffled. I realised at last that she was drunk. ‘Sorry, Ive. Lorst track o’ ther time, didn’t I. Jack woz good enough ter. . .’

A dishevelled Jack Bragg stood behind her staring glumly at me. ‘Spot of bother, Mr Pyatnitski, with some Georgian irregulars who took a fancy to your missus. The upshot was they carried us off. I was drugged, I think. Mrs Pyatnitski was drugged, too, weren’t you Mrs Pyatnitski.’

‘Drugged blind,’ she agreed.

Jack Bragg’s face was almost a parody of embarrassment and anxiety. ‘We managed to escape this morning. But we got lost up-country.’ He made a vague gesture towards the wooded hills. ‘A patrol found us and brought us back. Luckily. We’re a bit wet.’

‘He has been frantic.’ We all looked up at the ship. It was the Baroness. I had not known she spoke such clear English. She leaned forward on the rail, into the lamplight. She was a picture by Mucha, a Slavic angel. ‘Poor Mr Pyatnitski has spent the entire day trying to trace you.’

‘I think you’d better get aboard in a hurry, Bragg.’ An invisible Captain Monier-Williams spoke from the bridge. He sounded more than a little angry.

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Bragg turned to Mrs Cornelius. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Right as rain,’ she said. ‘But could do wiv a dryin’ orf!’ Absently, she reached into her décolletage and removed a large black glove. ‘Where the ‘ell did that come from?’

Jack Bragg ran up the gangplank to make his peace with the captain. I felt sorry for him. He had suffered in a noble cause. Mrs Cornelius kissed the two young officers on their cheeks, wished them a cheerful goodnight, and leaning heavily on me began to climb the plank. ‘Nick o’ time as usual, eh, Ivan?’

I put her to bed where she fell immediately asleep. As I looked down at her breasts rising and falling in the glow of the hurricane lamp I thought her a true earth-spirit. I envied the unselfconscious spontaneity with which she lived each moment to the full. Sadly, it was impossible for me to emulate her. I myself must live for the future. I had to consider the next fifty years. My life, as a result, was hardly my own.

I went forward to placate Leda. The tanker was still burning in the distance, aground on the sand-bar; flames sent a shudder of shadows across the fo’c’sle. She stood looking at the town and her expression was sad. I guessed she was thinking of her husband. Then I realised she was mourning the worthless Hernikof. ‘You should not grieve so much.’ I put my hand on hers where it gripped the samson post. ‘You hardly knew him.’ She glanced down at the water. ‘He was so miserable without his family.’ Her huge blue eyes were full of tears. I took her in my arms, careless if we were seen. ‘At least he is with them now.’ I could not approve of the manner in which Hernikof had met his end, yet it was a relief no longer to be pursued by him. I sometimes think back to my time in the shtetl, when I had been in a fever. Had I said something so terrible to the Jews there that they had placed a curse upon me? Would I forever be followed by some snivelling, mealy-mouthed nemesis? It is foolish to be so superstitious. It is ridiculous to assume that they slip pieces of metal in a person’s womb. I hold with none of that rubbish. Hernikof had not been popular on the ship. It was even possible he had brought about his own death if he had gone deliberately where he should not have gone, or seen those he had no business seeing. It is a form of suicide we have all witnessed at one time or another. I said nothing of this, of course. I was sensitive to her grief. I let her weep a little. I cared for her.

When eventually I made my way back to our cabin, Mrs Cornelius had recovered consciousness and had undressed herself. She was tying her hair in pieces of paper. ‘I ‘ope I didn’t put yer art, Ivan. ‘Course the story we tol’ woz a bit of a fib, but I didn’t wanna git Jack inter trouble.’

‘You lied!’ I was momentarily hurt; I knew a flash of suspicion.

‘There wasn’t no Georgians, really. We got put in clink by ther Russian coppers. Drunk.’ She looked back at me. ‘An’ more’n a bit disorderly, ho, ho. It woz Jack got us art, wiv a bribe. An’ give false names.’

My suspicion vanished. She had all my sympathy. I know what it is to live in prison. It is humiliating. Those who pointed the finger at me in Kiev never knew what I suffered. One’s whole identity is stolen. They can blame me, but I do not blame myself. To name a few names is nothing if they are already on a list. It was a formality when the Varta released me. I betrayed nothing. The Reds call me a profiteer and trump up charges. They always will. It is jealousy. There is no such thing as friendship between them, it must have been dreadful.’ I said.

‘It could’ve bin worse. We still ‘ad their bleedin’ vodka!’ She laughed. I admired her courage. It was as great as my own. ‘But not a word ter nobody else.’ She put a finger to her delicious lips. ‘Jack’d get ther sack.’

‘Nonetheless, I will thank him for what he did,’ I said.

‘If yer like.’

I left her to finish her toilet and returned to the saloon to buy Mr Thompson a nightcap. He could see I was greatly relieved. We stood by the bar listening to the strains of the Kamarinskaya played by one of the loyalist soldiers on his accordion. A few children still made attempts to dance while their mournful parents murmured of death and torture, of injustice, destruction of their hopes for the future. ‘Will Jack Bragg be all right?’ I asked.

‘The old man’s pretty peeved with him. But no great harm’s been done. The captain’s hated this run since we began. He’s more sympathetic if a chap steps over the line a bit. A tongue-lashing and double-duty for a night or two won’t do Jack any harm.’

We wandered out onto the deck. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. The distant flames had died down. ‘The weather should improve on our way back to Varna,’ said Mr Thompson. He saluted me. ‘Well, goodnight, old man.’

I was left alone. I walked once round the deck, then returned to the cabin, got into my bunk, smoked a cigarette and listened to Mrs Cornelius as she sighed and twisted. I knew she was dreaming what she liked to call her ‘nice dreams’. For once I was not much disturbed by her and was soon asleep.

I met Jack Bragg on deck next morning as I took my usual exercise. The hadacka with the green face was dealing her cards. She had evidently found a new pack. She was laying out the full deck as I passed. The Russian ship had left in the night and there was a two-masted schooner in her place. The sun was bright. Batoum seemed cheerful again. I moved to the rail and looked down at the schooner. Her ragamuffin crew were still asleep on deck. Armenians, Turks, Russians, Greeks, Georgians, they looked like pirates from a nineteenth-century storybook. They had pistols and knives all over their bodies and were dressed in a crazy mixture of uniforms, of Western and Asian clothing. They reminded me a little of Makhno’s anarchists. Jack and I paused on the poop. He had been on his watch duty since midnight. His eyes were red, his chin slightly unshaven. ‘Mrs Pyatnitski told me the truth last night,’ I said. He showed some alarm until he saw I was not angry. ‘About your getting them out of prison,’ I said.

‘Oh.’ His voice was hoarse, it was nothing. A few English sovereigns work wonders these days.’ Even as he spoke he began to look more ghastly than ever. ‘You must think me an awful blighter, leading your wife astray like that.’

I was able to smile. ‘Nonsense. If I know her, she did the leading! How did the captain take it?’

‘Not too badly, really. I say, do you think those chaps are smugglers?’ He indicated the schooner.

‘Very likely. They’re from all over the place, aren’t they? Doubtless they’re taking advantage of the present situation while they can.’

‘These waters are still supposed to have corsairs in them, you know.’ Jack Bragg swayed at the rail. The sun caught his bloodshot eyes and dirty fair hair, made his skin look even greyer. ‘What about it, Mr Pyatnitski? Fancy walking the plank?’

‘You’d better get to bed.’ I was jovial. ‘I promise to warn you if I see the skull-and-crossbones on the horizon.’

He stumbled sleepily down the deck and almost fell into the seeress as she reshuffled her pack. I continued to study the schooner. She was a filthy vessel. Her furled canvas was tattered and patched. I had no idea where she came from but made out a Russian word on her side: Phoenix. Probably she had begun life as a fishing vessel. Some of the sleeping men wore bits and pieces of Tsarist Navy uniforms. Others had on army coats, expensive cavalry boots, artillery caps. They were doubtless moving regularly between the Turkish Black Sea ports and what remained of free Russia. Very likely, too, they would take passengers for a high price. I could not blame them. They had no future at all if the Reds won. In the distant streets I heard the noise of a window breaking and turned to look. The bell in the Cathedral began to toll. An old horse hauled a creaking, overladen cart along the road beyond the quay. Then two big army lorries pulled up outside the barrier to unload more passengers: wounded White Army soldiers in dirty English greatcoats; peasant women with babies; old men who might have come straight from the most backward and remote regions of Georgia; grandmothers in black shawls and skirts. They flocked, bemused, towards us. I was horrified, certain the ship must sink under their weight. I watched Mr Larkin run down to meet them. The other officials, Russian and English, began to assemble at their posts. I could look no longer. The smugglers (or pirates) were waking as if, hearing the refugee babble, they scented sustenance. I made my way into breakfast. This might be my last peaceful meal before we reached Constantinople. An hour or so later the ship’s engines turned and I cheered up at the prospect of being at sea again.

We were pulled from Batoum by a little tug. When she released her lines they twanged and glittered in the crisp air. The sun was hot on my face; Batoum was apparently at peace, though smoke from the burning tanker still occasionally drifted over the harbour. With a more knowing eye I looked back at the palms and bamboos, the malachite houses and shady streets, bitter that my hoped-for idyll on Russian territory had been so savagely interrupted, hating Hernikof for his vulgarity and the horrible manner of his dying. Into smooth water, her old machinery complaining, the Rio Cruz turned towards the farther shores of the Black Sea. Her last port of call before Constantinople was to be Varna in Bulgaria, a country which would show considerable hospitality to its Slavic brothers. The peasants sat in groups near the forward hatches. They had spread carpets and bundles everywhere and were eating food they had brought with them. We were loaded almost beyond safety point, but Captain Monier-Williams had his instructions. All we could do, he said, was pray for good weather. Whatever I thought of the poor creatures on deck I was deeply moved when one of the bearded peasants rose to look back at Batoum, removed his cap and began to sing in a high, pure voice Boje Tzaria Khrani. ‘God Save The Tsar’. Almost unconsciously I found myself joining in our National Anthem. Soon it seemed the entire ship was singing.

First Batoum disappeared and then eventually the white tips of the mountains. The Rio Cruz was again alone on a grey sea under an overcast sky. Fortunately for the refugees on deck it did not rain, but the waves grew gradually more agitated. I became afraid we would never lift above the steep watery walls as the ship, groaning and wheezing, trembled in the water, moving ungracefully through cold Limbo.

It was almost a relief to resume my strict daily routine with the Baroness, though perhaps I fucked with a little less enthusiasm as I detected in my sweetheart a certain frantic desperation, the consequence, I suspected, of Hernikof’s murder. She no longer made a pretty pretence of refusing my cocaine. Now she would nag at me until I prepared it. If her love-making became more experimental, it was also less joyous. I was sympathetic. I held her tightly for long moments. More than once that first day out from Batoum we cried softly together, listening to the random bumps and thuds on all sides of us, wondering if we should ever be as happy as we had been during our time when Russian passion had bloomed unchecked on Russian soil.

Mrs Cornelius also seemed particularly happy to return to her habitual pattern. That night she sang and danced her way through a score of favourite songs. Jack Bragg was on duty again, but Captain Monier-Williams remained to sing a chorus of My Old Dutch. Mrs Cornelius said he was a great sport. She sat on his knee, coaxing a chuckle and a smile from his stern Welsh features. In the far corner of the saloon a group of Russians gathered around an accordion and we shouted at them to give us something cheerful. The player, a young, fair-haired, one-legged soldier from Nizhny Novgorod, began the Kalinka. Soon Mrs Cornelius crossed to join a dozen middle-class dowagers in a boisterous dance while we men clapped and stamped our feet. Again the captain was persuaded to join in for a while before murmuring to me: ‘If there’s much more stamping, I’m afraid we’ll all go through to the bilges.’ He straightened his cap, leaving the room with almost a jaunty swagger. When Mrs Cornelius pulled me into the circle to dance I found I had become rather mournful, as if Hernikof s memory haunted me. I had nothing to be ashamed of. A Jew was a Jew. I had not been cruel to him; but now I recalled his drunken eagerness for friendship. Had it been in quest of friendship that he had disappeared into the streets of Batoum to be knifed and robbed and branded?

Claiming a need for fresh air, I returned to the deck. It was stupid of me to react so and my resentment towards Hernikof increased. I climbed rapidly to the top of the ship to stand beside the funnel overlooking the engine-room hatch. The deck-passengers had wrapped themselves up in their carpets for the night, though some were still smoking and talking. Candle-lamps burned here and there, together with the ship’s own lights. It was a strange, fascinating scene, but it had become impossible now for me to be alone there. I retreated to my cabin and by means of almost half my remaining cocaine fled into fantasies of the future, of my own success, and put Hernikof out of my mind.

Next morning I took my usual stroll but was intensely irritated by the people on the forward deck. For the first time the green woman had left her post. I saw her sitting under one of our swaying lifeboats, slowly arranging her pack. I decided it was time I attempted to address her directly, since we were both so discommoded, and was making my way towards her when our signals suddenly began to clang and the engine-note changed. The whole ship shuddered. She slewed sickeningly round. My first thought was that we had struck a rock, or another ship. The deck-passengers jumped to their feet yelling and pointing off the portside. I ran to the rail. In the choppy water, not more than a few yards from us, was the vessel we had almost hit. It was a long barge of the sort normally only seen on canals. She had no engine, no passengers, but was piled high with all kinds of trunks, suitcases, bundles and bags over which tarpaulins flapped. It was a strange and disturbing sight, for the barge had no business being at sea. We passed her and slowly she dropped behind us, rising and falling in the thickening mist. Her cargo might have been Bolshevik loot or the effects of a single aristocratic family. It could have been valuable, but with our decks so crowded it would have been madness to try to get alongside her. The water became choppier and the barometer was falling by the minute. Our breath steamed and joined with the mist. Gradually the wind increased and for a while the air was clear, but later the wind again dropped, the night became very foggy, and Jack Bragg was positioned forward with a searchlight to keep a look-out for ice.

After dinner that evening I joined Bragg at his post. He was smoking his pipe and humming a tune to himself as he pointed the little beam this way and that across the black, unpleasant water. The ship’s gloomy foghorn sounded every few minutes. The Baroness had gone to bed early, claiming to have caught a slight chill. I raised my coat collar, for some reason unwilling to return to my cabin. Instead I offered to take a turn at the light, but Bragg refused. ‘I can’t afford to get in the captain’s bad books again!’ Although the yellow beam did not pierce the fog very deeply, we were moving at half-speed in a heavy sea so there was not much danger of us running hard into another vessel or the pack ice which in the past two hours had begun to appear here and there. The inky waves made a horrible hollow sound on our hull. For a while Jack and I smoked and chatted about nothing in particular; then, suddenly, he frowned, his eyes following the beam. ‘Hello! What was that?’

I had seen nothing. He moved the beam back a few feet to reveal a dark outline not a hundred yards away from us. ‘You’d best take the blasted light after all,’ he said. ‘I’ll warn the captain.’

My hands were shaking as I did my best to keep the beam on what was obviously a fairly large vessel. We were passing very close. It seemed our course must inevitably bring us into direct contact with her. Now, as Jack went off to the bridge, I saw little white blotches everywhere and realised to my astonishment that these were human faces, apparently scores of them. When their thin cries gradually became audible across the water, I shouted back in response. They could hear nothing, of course. There were no engine-sounds and it seemed they were stranded. A moment later from the bridge the captain’s amplified voice called out our name, telling them we would try to come in closer. But the sea was beginning to rise even as we approached. I could see the vessel fairly clearly now. She was a little harbour-tug. There must have been two hundred people crammed on every surface of her. I thought I could read her name at one point, the Anastasia out of Akermann, but that might have been my imagination. Whoever commanded her was now shouting back, begging for help. They had lost their engines. Their propeller had been tangled in a hawser. Jack joined me again at the searchlight. We were by now both soaked in spray. ‘Poor bastards. They seem to be taking on a lot of water. They’re sinking for certain. She must have been hauling that lighter we saw. When the cable snapped it wrapped itself round their screw. Listen to the wailing! Isn’t it pathetic?’ He told me there was nothing the captain could do. He dare not risk his own people’s lives. He could only radio the nearest British warship and ask them to go to the tug’s assistance. ‘God help them.’ said Jack. ‘They can’t last another hour in these seas.’

Soon the tug with two hundred terrified faces had disappeared in the wild darkness. Our own deck-passengers had scarcely stirred. The sea grew heavier and colder. It was to remain bad for all the time it took us to reach Varna. We never learned if the tug was rescued, but Captain Monier-Williams asked me not to mention her likely fate. He did not want to distress anyone. In our hearts, we knew she had gone down.

At Varna we lay off near the harbour entrance while, to my great pleasure, boats removed over half our passengers. The ship seemed at peace again, though pack-ice still bumped our sides occasionally and there was snow in the air. To me the snow was almost welcome. I was not sure if I would ever be completely happy without it. My Baroness, her daughter and nanyana, stood next to me as the peasants, many of them shivering and blue, apparently seasick, were loaded into the boats. ‘At least the Bulgarians are Slavs.’ Leda was wrapped in her own thick, black fur. We must have resembled a pair of Siberian bears, for we both had black ‘three-eared’ caps pulled down over our heads. ‘But what’s to become of us in Berlin and London, Simka?’ She had taken to using this diminutive quite openly sometimes. ‘Won’t we seem strange, exotic creatures to them?’ She glared miserably at the leaden sea.

I told her I thought she was being a trifle melodramatic. Other nations read our literature as thoroughly as we read theirs. We had music and painting in common. The sciences. ‘We can rise above the differences, Leda, because we are educated. You’ll see. It would be worse for the likes of them,’ I indicated the frightened peasants clambering into the boats. ‘They have only Russia.’

She would not be comforted. ‘Certainly it’s pointless to worry. After all, there’s every chance I’ll be stuck in Constantinople for the rest of my life.’

I refused to be drawn. A wind had grown from the East to obliterate the Westerly. I fancied it still carried imploring voices from the tug. I had been unable to rid my mind of them, just as Hernikof still insisted on haunting me. I sympathised with the captain who had been forced to an unwelcome decision; the only decision possible. For all that, I had a dim sense that I had myself betrayed those little white human faces. In comparison, Leda’s concerns were rather feeble and I found them irritating. ‘I’m sure you’ll survive,’ I said.

‘You’ll help me if you can, Simka?’ It was almost an order.

I sighed, forcing myself to smile. ‘Yes, Leda Nicolayevna. I’ll help if I can.’

The fog was too thick for us to see anything much of Varna. I have heard it is an unremarkable town. I was surprised so many disembarked there. I said as much to Mr Thompson shortly after we had left the harbour’s sea-roads and were heading with some speed towards the mouth of the Bosphorus. He frowned. ‘Can’t you guess, Mr Pyatnitski? We’ve put every suspected case ashore. And that’s two-thirds of the people we had on board. We’ve been lucky, I think. Larkin’s guess is that Hernikof was suffering from it, though of course it’s unlikely he gave it to anyone since he’d recovered by the time we reached Batoum. It’s impossible to say now. We can just hope we’re all right. It’s typhus, old man.’

So Hernikof had managed to infect a large number of honest Christians before he had been killed. I was thankful my suspicions about him had been accurate.

‘But none of the crew has it?’ I asked.

‘Not so far. Of course, the pity is we’ll probably be under quarantine when we get to Constantinople.’

At that moment I believed I would never be free of the Rio Cruz. It was January 13th, 1920. The next day was my birthday. Hallan, amshi ma’uh ... I have spoken the words that must be spoken and Anubis is my friend.