The Laughter of Carthage

SIX

I AM A RATIONALIST. I have always been a rationalist. I believe in the power of the human imagination, in scientific investigation, analysis and description, in the Christian philosophy of humane tolerance and self-discipline. Other more obscure forms of mysticism are to me at once foolish and deeply misanthropic. It is true I have always had a greater capacity to love the world than to love most of the individuals in it; but I am not like these hippies who worship gods from Space and tell you they were Sir William Scott in a previous life; neither will I listen to silly girls who talk of poltergeists, hauntings and psychic perception. Yet I probably possess a greater accumulation of evidence for the belief in reincarnation (or even less likely phenomena) than anyone alive. My experience in Constantinople might have shaken a man with less character and unbalanced him for the rest of his days. Only an overriding, saving sanity, an improving understanding of the meaning and power of prayer, has helped me maintain my reason. It would be self-deceptive, at very least, for me to claim I was always so stable. The shock of a new country and culture, my youth, my realisation that I was both an exile and an unwelcome guest, must all have contributed to my state of mind. I was well-educated. I knew many languages. I had mastered the power of flight; but I was also something of a hothouse plant. I received a diploma from the St Petersburg Institute by the time I was sixteen. I was, at twenty, both a Master of Science and a Colonel in the Volunteer Army. My brain, as we used to say, had grown faster than my soul. They took you, Esmé, in your youth and in your innocence. They took you away from me. They transformed you into a whore and gave you a hard, grinning mask. You became a bandit’s camp-follower, an anarchist, you who had lived only to serve the sick and needy; you became a cynic who saw love as the arch-folly and the past as a stupid illusion. Yet did we not smell the lilacs together in the old parks above Kirilovskaya, as the sonorous bells of St Andrew’s pealed the Easter jubilation? Can you deny we ran bare-legged, hand in hand, through the grassy gorges of Kiev while the sun made all her buildings soft and golden? We sat under autumn oaks, did we not, and let the red leaves cover us? Was all that an illusion, Esmé? Or must it be called one now, because it cannot be reclaimed? Wann werde ich sie wieder sehen? You were fucked so much you had callouses on your cunt. But you came back to me. Perhaps God sent you. You came back disguised as a harlot and were transformed into the tender, loving child who had admired and supported me in my youthful idealism. You were restored, purified, made whole; and it was granted to me that I should be the medium of your salvation. Esmé, my aspiration, my angel! My muse! God grants few of us the opportunity to relive the past, redeem our mistakes, take advantage of a happiness we usually only value when we have lost it. I am not ungrateful, God. I thank You and am repentant that I thought in those days You played a trick on me. I thought You unjust to bestow such a gift, then take it away again, dooming me to a lifetime of miserable disappointment, a hopeless Quest, to change my whole perspective of life. Is it my punishment, to suffer for all of them? Is that my punishment, God? I have wandered the Earth praying for an answer. Wie lange mtissen wir warten? They accused me of so many crimes. They whipped me with their Cossack quirts. They humiliated and tortured me. They imprisoned me. They mocked me. They called me such terrible names. They cannot understand.

I saw her in La Rotonde, sitting on a bar-stool, swinging her little legs and sipping lemonade, for all the world like a lively schoolgirl on holiday at Arcadia. She wore an old-fashioned pinafore and skirts and her golden hair fell in ringlets around her wide, fair face. Her blue eyes were large and unutterably innocent, merrily curious, and she was Esmé Loukianoff, my angel come back to life: in every perfect detail the same girl who had been my constant childhood companion. It was Esmé, the true Esmé, returned to me. I was a boy again, crying out my delighted surprise in that seedy café, making heads turn, not caring. ‘Esmé! Melushka! My darling!’

The stupid Syrian got in the way. Perhaps he did it deliberately, the shrunken devil. Drinks flew, glass smashed. I went down. I had not seen him there. I straightened up and began to rise to my feet. She was leaving with an American sailor, a thickset redheaded brute with tattooed arms, all in white. She could not hear me. ‘Esmé!’

They were in the street before I had reached the lobby.

‘Esmé! Esmé!’

I did not bother to collect my coat. It was cold. The day was grey and threatened rain. All the electric lights were coming on. There was mist in the streets, rising from the harbour. They stood in the little green shelter by the tram-stop apparently reading advertisements pasted over the inside. They were laughing. They were gesticulating to one another. The sailor was obviously drunk. My stomach turned over. There was a piece of metal in it. ‘Esmé!’ (He saved my life, she said. It was not much of a rape.)

I reached them as the tram sighed and squealed to a stop. Esmé, my darling, my sweet virgin, smiling at the sailor. I could read his depraved mind. I knew his filthy plans. I was disgusted. ‘Esmé!’ I recovered myself. I was panting. There was sweat on my face. People were staring. ‘Excuse me, young lady, I believe we’re acquainted.’ I caught my breath, trying to smile, to bow. I was shaking. She frowned. ‘From Kiev,’ I said, still forcing a grin, trying to seem casual. ‘Do you remember Kiev, Esmé?’

She had amnesia, I thought. Neither she nor the sailor understood my Russian. The tram drew up with a groan beside the stop. My English would not come to me. I was ten years old again. ‘Esmé!’ They made to board. Its destination was Galata Bridge. I followed them on. I rubbed at my head, trying to recall just a few ordinary English words. The sailor was shorter than me, but more muscular. He had huge forearms, like Popeye. He glared into my face. ‘Piss off, buddy.’

I was desperate, panting at him like a placatory dog. The English returned. ‘You don’t understand, sir. I know this girl. She’s from my home-town in Ukraine. An old family friend.’

He laughed sharply. ‘Sure. And she’s my sister. OK?’

I was shocked. Moja siostra! Moja rozy! Slōnce juz gaslo! Po dwadziescia! Cieniu! O Jezu Chryste! My sister and my rose. My darling! Twenty lice-ridden soldiers stood outside your hut making coarse jokes among themselves then went in one by one to relieve their animal lusts upon your body. ‘She is the daughter of my mother’s—’ I failed. ‘My mother’s I reached for her. ‘Esmé! It is I, Maxim from Kiev!’

She shrank back. (I have a boy. He wants to marry me.) The sailor must have hit me. My face was against rattling boards, there were people treading on my arms and back. The side of my head was numb. Brown hands tried to grab me. I wriggled free. hated the stink of those Turks. ‘Esmé!’ The tram had reached Galata Bridge and I could see nothing. My eye hurt. It was growing dark. The conductor yelled to me, driving me off his tram, pointing to his own skull and making ludicrous faces. He thought I was crazy.

I found myself on the pavement, near where I had first come ashore. The water was grey, a repeated, unrhythmical slap against the pontoons. Ships cried out. A million people swarmed across the bridge and then vanished. The mist grew thicker. There was a rushing noise. The bridge was suddenly deserted, empty. I moved down the steps and made to cross, thinking my Esmé had gone that way. A Turkish policeman at the barrier put his long rod against my chest. He shook his head and wagged his finger. I pressed on, trying to brush him aside. He became firmer, pointing to a sign in Arabic and beginning to hector me in the way only Turks can. There were Roman letters below the sign but I could not read them. Behind me was a ululation of street-sellers, the sound of motor-horns, of reined-in, impatient hooves. I looked back the way I had come. She was not visible in any direction. I screamed at the policeman. I offered him money. I pleaded with him to let me pass. He shrugged and pointed, relaxing as I understood what he was showing me. I could not cross now. The middle section of the bridge was parting to admit the big ships into the Horn. There was a line of them, flying a dozen different national flags: battle-cruisers, tramp-steamers, oil-tankers, grain-carriers; and flitting around them, like parasites around the whales, were the little red- and yellow-sailed caiques. The policeman refused to understand my French. ‘Ma soeur! Ma soeur!’ He poked me with the tip of his stick, shaking his head again, with more impatience. ‘Sorella! Sorella!’ I shouted. ‘Schwester. Shvester! Shvester! Hermana!’ I racked my brains. I was angry with myself for learning too little Turkish. By now I should have known more. I was paying the price of laziness. ‘Kiz kardesh!’ He shrugged and relaxed. The steamers were moving through the gap, confident and graceful, into Galata Harbour. Why should an American sailor take her to Stamboul? Or had they gone off in another direction altogether? I was quivering with frustration as I sat against the barrier while a great crowd of Turks, Albanians, Arabs, Persians, Montenegrins, Greeks and Jews began to form behind me.

It had grown dark by the time I was allowed to pay the toll and cross. I walked all the way to the other side, the boards bouncing under my feet, up the tree-lined streets where Moslems kneeled and made noises in the backs of their throats, into a sudden silence. Men were on their faces, sprawled in front of the Blue Mosque. The sky had lost almost all its colour and the outline of the mosque was massive ebony. It frightened me, that citadel of heresy and superstition. I passed hastily between the faithful, crossing a square to Hagia Sophia, almost a twin to that other monstrous building, but still a Christian church in her vast tranquillity. Down steps, along alleys, through the reeking fish-market, past the main entrance to the Grand Bazaar, up streets filled with the glare and flicker of lamps and candles and tiny braziers, where coppersmiths and armourers still worked, between rows of dimly lit tobacconists where the shags and flakes were heaped in piles, each pile topped by a lemon. I went by restaurants, peering in every one but seeing no white women or even American sailors; mosques and fountains, black and white arches, tiny streets with walls covered in vines, columns, pilasters, corridors, and eager voices shouting, little hands plucking. ‘Capitano! Caballero! Kyrie! Eccellenza!’ Rugs and silks and cushions. Horses, camels and hawks. White-robed Arabians; dervishes in conical hats and hair-coats; Hebrews in yellow cloaks; Albanians with pistols in their belts; Tatars in sheepskins; negresses in Cairo motley; bearded Circassians in black and silver; Syrians in Byzantine dolmans, their style unaltered for two thousand years. I stumbled without bearings through this confusion of centuries, hunting for that tiny fragment of my own past which had so briefly been within my grasp. I sat on worn marble and wept for my stolen optimism, my sister, my bride. We were to marry. My mother wanted it so badly. I had walked too far. There was no evidence even that they had crossed the bridge. I suppose I assumed she was leaving the vice of Pera for the virtue of Stamboul; but there was no virtue in Stamboul, merely an illusion of godliness, a tenuous cloud over the accumulated miseries and evils of Oriental ignorance, cruelty and greed. She had looked so respectable. Was she the daughter of one of those old Greek families who lived in the Kondoskala quarter, near the Cistern of the thousand and one arches? An escaped slave, taking advantage of the Allied occupation? She had not understood Russian, yet had looked pure Ukrainian. I realised I had temporarily been insane. The girl could not really be Esmé. I had seen Esmé with the anarchists only a few months earlier. She was much older. This child could not be more than thirteen. How had she appeared amongst these dark-skinned people? Perhaps she was Circassian. The daughter of Russian exiles who had come years before to Constantinople? Or could Loukianoff have fathered a child here? The likeness was so striking I was certain she must be a relative. A cousin at very least. If I could find her, I would learn of some obvious connection. In the gloomy archways nearby I heard scuffling, muttering, and remembered how everyone said it was unsafe, even these days, for a European to go alone in Stamboul at night. I made for a lighted thoroughfare as quickly as I could and was lucky enough to find a cab returning to the Pera side. I took it across the Horn to La Rotonde and pushed my way inside to grab at the horrible Syrian gargoyle, that dwarfish trader in tender little bodies, and growl at him, threatening him with the Law, the vengeance of the whole Cossack nation, the curse of the world’s deities, unless he told me the truth.

‘Where is she? Who was that sailor? Where does she live? What does she call herself? What was she doing here?’

‘She’s a Greek kid, I think.’ He wriggled under my hands like a dogfish, looking wildly about for help, knowing few would bother themselves even if I squeezed him to death on the spot, yet so automatically devious he still answered questions with other questions. ‘M’sieu Pyatnitski, I’m not her father! She’s new - calls herself -what is it? - Helena? What are you accusing me of? The old lady doesn’t ask for birth-certificates. How many times has she been in? Once or twice, maybe? Aren’t you a man of the world? Do you say I had something to do with what happened to Betty and Mercy? Am I that kind of monster?’

I dropped him and told him to get me some absinthe. I was shaking in every bone. Sonia tugged at my sleeve. ‘You’re bleeding. Sit down. Tell me what’s wrong.’

I swallowed the drink the Syrian brought. He shrugged at me. ‘You don’t have to pay. But I’m not to blame for any of this.’

When he had gone I put my head in my hands. I was sobbing. Sonia tried to comfort me, touching my face, dabbing at the cuts. ‘I must save her!’ I repeated this over and over. ‘She cannot be allowed to sink into the quagmire. Do you know her, Sonia?’ I looked up at last. ‘Do you know a Greek girl. A blonde who calls herself Helena?’

‘I’ve seen her. She’s pretty. One of the ladies from Mrs Unal’s sent her across a couple of days ago. God knows why she was looking for work there. Just as well she came over. You talk as if you know her.’

‘I do know her. Sonia, if you can get her address, I’ll pay. But let me have it at once.’

‘She might live down near the Roman Catholic Cathedral, towards the old bridge. She mentioned it once. Would that make her Italian?’

‘Perhaps Polish.’ I grew calmer. ‘Or Ukrainian.’

‘You must fancy her a lot, Max.’ Sonia was sympathetically amused. She dabbed again at my face.

‘I love her.’

I could see the Armenian girl was impressed by my sincerity. Her eyes grew tender and she smiled. Like many an older whore, she had a huge reservoir of sentimentality. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she promised. ‘But don’t break your heart, Max. Not over one of us.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that my Esmé was not to be compared with the likes of her, but that would have been ungracious of me. I got to my feet. I was unsteady, ‘I can’t help myself.’

I tried hard to remember what I had arranged to do at this time. With some effort I recalled Mrs Cornelius and the Baroness von Ruckstühl. At that moment neither woman had any real substance. I attempted to recall what they had said to me, but my mind was empty. I should have returned to the hotel, but when I left the café I found myself standing by the tram-stop. Then I wandered off the Grande Rue, down towards Galata, into the little, horrible side-streets where rows of Islamic washing clung to my face and the strange odour of perfumed tobacco came from grills set at the base of the houses. Dogs ran everywhere carrying shapeless pieces of offal in their mouths; babies wailed their grief at having been born into such misery, men and women exchanged loud insults; the dogs looked up from their disgusting meals, growling and barking at nothing in particular. I tripped on some cobbles and bruised my knee. There was very little light except that which filtered from latticed windows or from behind threadbare curtains; the occasional yellow naphtha flare from a confectioner’s shop where veiled women gathered to purchase pastries, their only pleasure, while their men disobeyed the edicts of Islam and sought consolation in the grogshops or played backgammon on the greasy tables of the coffeehouses. I crossed at least two different cemeteries, for this was the city of cemeteries, and almost by accident, with the lights of Pera and Stamboul distant and unattainable, I reached the Roman Catholic church. It was an unremarkable, mock-gothic building, built in the English style and might as easily have been found in Worthing or Fulham. It was impossible for me to identify the streets and the church was deserted. There was nobody I cared to ask. Only a few cafés and bars were still open in the area and these were crowded with the usual riffraff. I knew it would be unwise to approach them.

I fell in behind a group of very old men in greasy European clothes who wore Turkish slippers on their feet. Each one carried a huge, mysterious bundle on his head. The procession turned a corner and began to ascend the steep lanes. A family group passed by, the women totally covered in black cloth, the men in fezzes and shapeless dresses. The leading boy raised a rush torch to light their way. I might have been in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. Rain was falling now and across the water Stamboul disappeared as if behind a discreet curtain. I hobbled back to the Grande Rue, understanding with perfect clarity that I was quite insane, yet incapable of freeing myself from the obsession. The single-mindedness which had allowed my genius to flourish at an early age, which had driven me safely through every danger, was abused in pursuit of a mere delusion. Did she really exist at all? Had she been a figment of my imagination, her face distorted by the café lights and my exhausted eyes into the likeness of Esmé? I had to find out. If I saw her again in different circumstances and she was not really Esmé, I would be satisfied. I told myself it would not be Esmé. The other possibility, that she was Esmé’s twin, was too fantastic.

Having calmed myself down, I returned home. There was a message from the Baroness. She was at Tokatlian’s. I would spend the evening with her. If only for a few hours, my Leda would surely help me forget this madness. I changed my clothes, groomed myself, and went directly to Tokatlian’s. She was seated at her favourite table on the second floor. She was plainly in some distress, but she became alarmed when she saw my wounded face. ‘What’s happened to you, Simka?’

‘Part of the job. I’ll be all right.’ I refused to discuss my cuts and bruises. There are few varieties of discretion which impress a woman more, yet almost invariably the simple cause of such secrecy is a man not wishing to admit being bested in a fight or otherwise made a fool of. To change the subject I asked after Kitty. The Baroness shrugged. Her daughter was bored. There were no suitable schools for the child and she could not speak the language well enough to take lessons with the German children’s governess. ‘She reads the few suitable Russian books we find. In the afternoons we walk in the park. Today we went up to the Russian embassy.’

I had heard it was bedlam there. She agreed. ‘People sleeping shoulder to shoulder in the old ballroom. No space left for the smallest baby. And fed like paupers from big soup tureens. It’s very sad, Simka. Those people are from the best families.’

‘They are alive.’ I had little sympathy for them. After all, I had issued many of them with their passports. This was better than anything they might have faced if they had stayed. ‘Unlike their Tsar,’ I added.

‘It depressed me terribly. And so many orphans. What would become of Kitty if something happened to me? There are thousands of human predators in this city. The police are useless. I was insulted twice, you know, on the way here. By Europeans! Nobody will accept authority. The British do their best, but one can’t always find the redcaps. And Marusya Veranovna’s taken to drink.’

I was tired. I suggested we go at once to our room above the apartment. She rose with alacrity, all her morbid, petty little concerns forgotten at the prospect of satisfying her lust. I used her with gusto. She offered herself up to any game I suggested. Women, as I well knew, only become downhearted when they do not receive enough attention; and I gave my Baroness the best attention possible. That night, lying beside her, I dreamed Hernikof the Jew and I were together on the ship. It was a steamship, but it carried the triangular sails of an old Greek warboat. Hernikof was in rags. Blood poured from a dozen wounds. I think the Baroness and Mrs Cornelius were present. Hernikof was accusing me of his murder and I did not know if I were guilty or innocent. I asked the others there what they thought, but they were concerned with the ship’s course and had no time for me. Hernikof pointed at himself. He smiled and said he forgave me. I tried to push him overboard, shouting that I had no need of his forgiveness, but at least I should earn it if he died now. I wanted him to be quiet, but he gripped the rail like an owl with its prey and stayed where he was, smiling that terrible religious smile. Then Kitty ran up and held out her hand to him. He took it and gently she led him off. I was jealous. I wanted to drown him and Kitty of all people had rescued him. The Baroness woke me. ‘You’re sweating dreadfully, Simka.’ I was shivering. She rearranged the bedclothes over me. Her naked body aroused me. It was huge and solid, yet soft, and I loved its smell. We made love until dawn and so once again drove the image of Hernikof entirely from my head, while keeping the ghost of Esmé, too, at bay. Leda knew how to be reassuringly silent; a quality younger women do not have. But by morning, after we had revived ourselves with cocaine, the obsession gradually returned with full force. Rather hastily, telling her I had business with another military person, I arranged to meet her for lunch at our usual table. Then, when I was sure she was on her way home, I returned to La Rotonde.

In the café a few wretched Kurds were cleaning the floors and tables. The Syrian sat at the top of a stepladder, smoking a meerschaum and ostensibly supervising the Kurds. When I appeared he put the pipe carefully between his few black teeth and began to climb down. Without acknowledging me, he carried the ladder into the kitchens. One of the Kurds told me that no girls were expected for at least another hour. I asked him, in a dreadful mixture of languages, if they knew a little girl called Helena. She might be Polish, I said. To please me, they made a pretence of thinking. It was obvious they had no information and were embarrassed by my questions. Outside in the Grande Rue heavy rain poured down the gutters, rushed off roofs and filled the holes in the pavements. The streets became a mass of black umbrellas and oilskins. I sheltered under the striped, sodden canopy of the Cafe Luxembourg, then moved first to look in the window of Wick and Weiss’s well-stocked bookshop, then to stare at ornamental brass lamps and tables, poor copies of French Empire originals. Some of the cinemas and music halls had already opened. The occupying armies kept many such places going round the clock. The rain freshened Pera’s air, momentarily driving away the more unpleasant smells from Galata. Posters started to peel from the wooden sides of newsstands, from tobacco kiosks, pissoirs and tram shelters, as if the city were being magically prepared for a new layer of advertisements. A troup of Punjabis went up the steep hill at a trot, arms sloping. As in Batoum, the British had stationed great numbers of nigger soldiers in Constantinople, presumably because Moslems might be less likely to offend the Turks. It was a mistaken notion. Turks are more arrogant towards people they regard as their inferiors, particularly former citizens of the Ottoman Empire. I think they viewed the occupation of their city by blacks as a planned insult. It was bad enough for them to be bested by Greeks, but to be ordered about by Africans like the French Senegalese was inconceivably appalling to them. For all that they had fully earned every possible humiliation (their cruelty to subject races, particularly Armenians, was legendary) they still did not understand why they were being punished. In 1915, while the world was concerned with other things, they had marched some million Christian Armenians into the desert to die. Many still insist it was the logical thing to do (‘People forget those Armenians were very rich’). Your Turks remain the true descendant of bloody-handed Carthage. They never change. They join the United Nations to protect them when they invade Cyprus; they imprison innocent Christians; they bully and steal as thoughtlessly as any of their Hun forebears might have. History is not a book of rules, but its examples are too often ignored. By showing continued respect to Turks we are like that woman who believes repeatedly her brutal husband will reform. It is an indication of her optimism, but never a reflection of the man’s true character.

The rain eased enough to let me return to the Pera Palas where I bathed and changed. Then, with no word from Mrs Cornelius to make me alter my plans, it was time to go again to Tokatlian’s. I stopped at La Rotonde first. A few girls were there, and the redheaded Italian madame, but none of them had seen my Esmé. I said they would be rewarded if they discovered her for me, or could get her address. I believe they had the idea I wished to buy her and seemed very agreeable.

At the restaurant I found the Baroness again enjoying the attentions of Count Siniutkin. They might have been lovers. He lifted his handsome, scarred face to smile pleasantly at me. It would have helped me at that time if the Baroness had transferred her affections, or at least shared them with another, but I think she was still faithful. Count Siniutkin, in very good form, greeted me warmly. We discussed the campaign in Anatolia. The Greeks were finding some resistance, he said, mainly from irregular units similar to those I had described in South Russia. I told him I had known Makhno personally; I had observed Hrihorieff at close quarters and Petlyura himself had tried to enrol me. Siniutkin named a couple of bandit leaders. He called them ‘condottieri’. The most famous and most worshipped was someone called Çerkes Ethem. He was to Anatolia what Pancho Villa had been to Mexico. ‘Similar circumstances seem to throw up similar types, eh? Meanwhile the French are being hit very badly in Northern Syria.’ I was not interested in Turkey’s internal squabbles and listened only from politeness. ‘They’re fighting old-fashioned issues with old-fashioned means,’ I suggested. ‘A bandit on a big horse can’t achieve a thing. Can it really matter who wins? Every single one is an atavist.’

‘Some are more progressive than others,’ Siniutkin insisted mildly. His blue eyes studied me. ‘Modern weapons, after all, demand modern bank accounts.’

‘Not necessarily, Count. In Kiev some seven or eight years ago I designed and built an excellent cheap aeroplane. Thousands of them could have been made for the cost of a hundred conventional machines. An entire army could be made airborne with my plane.’ I was not one to boast but I had my point to make. Siniutkin was genuinely interested. ‘This plane was a success?’

‘Very much so. My maiden flight was witnessed by all Kiev. You must have read about it, even in Moscow.’ I smiled ironically.

‘I have a vague memory, yes. But surely your machine could have been used in the War?’

‘I shall not list my frustrations now, Count Siniutkin. Enough to say the plans were submitted to the War Department in St Petersburg, together with several other inventions of mine, and the Tsar’s moribund bureaucrats did what they knew best. They ignored them. Of course I received no acknowledgement. But others were not so slow in seeking my help. One of my machines helped in the last defence of Kiev. Were it not for the cowardice of the nationalists, it would have turned the day. Petlyura thought so.’

Count Siniutkin had become enthusiastic. His features, in spite of the scar, were full of boyish excitement, ‘By God, Pyatnitski, you could make a fortune!’

‘That would be incidental. If I can in some way improve the condition of the ordinary man, I shall be happy. One must live, but first and foremost I am dedicated to the creation of a better future.’

‘I can see why you and Kolya were such friends.’ He was admiring. ‘Sometimes you sound just like him.’

‘We had much in common.’

‘I should have thought the Bolsheviks would have wanted you to stay in Russia. Even they understand the value of innovative engineers.’

‘I would never help Lenin or Trotski take the blood of innocents. Any reasonable government would be welcome to my inventions. But I refuse to serve tyrants.’

Siniutkin leaned towards me. His face had become earnest. ‘I wish you the very best of luck, Pyatnitski.’ He began to frown, then, and become abstracted. I think he had seen someone he knew downstairs. With a bow to us both, he stood up. ‘I hope to talk again.’

‘Little genius!’ The Baroness patted my cheek. She had disguised the bags under her eyes with powder. She wore a tiny hat with a fashionable half-veil and rather more perfume than usual. Perhaps through indirect association she was losing the appearance of a beautiful young matron and taking on the appearance of an upper-class woman of the world. ‘I think you have impressed our Count. I love to hear you talk your machine talk, though I understand hardly a word. But think how much better you would do in Berlin!’ I had caught, as usual, her drift and patted her hand. She sighed. it is very difficult with Kitty. The Germans resent my absence. I tell them I’m nursing an old friend, but they suspect the truth. We must leave Constant as soon as possible, Simka.’

‘I am due to meet a man this afternoon.’ I assured her. ‘I might have some news, in fact, by tonight.’

‘You won’t abandon us, my dear?’ This was overly dramatic. She had no easy means of expressing her real fears. ‘Of course not.’ I stroked her arm and handed her the menu. As we ate an inferior borscht and some stuffed cabbage leaves, my eye went rather too frequently to the street outside. Rain rushed down the plateglass windows distorting the appearance of the pedestrians, most of whom began to resemble those varieties of half-men who populate Classical mythology; then, once or twice, I was half convinced I had glimpsed Esmé. I knew I was behaving ridiculously, pursuing the phantom of what was almost certainly a creature of my own invention. I concentrated on my food, but the Baroness, noticing my agitation, asked casually after Mrs Cornelius. I made some conventional reply and tried to think clearly. I knew I was suffering from mild concussion and lack of sleep. I would be a fool to become the slave of such a ridiculous delusion and obviously I had made a mistake in La Rotonde. If I found Helena she would prove to have dyed hair, a swarthy skin, green eyes and be about twenty. But, for all this reasoning, my willpower was inadequate to act upon it and again I left Tokatlian’s hastily, having made some vague promise to meet Leda soon, and crossed the street to take up my familiar position at the Rotonde bar. Girls came in, shaking umbrellas and wet cloaks. Some greeted me. Some tried to sit with me. I dismissed them. The Syrian gargoyle emerged from his sleeping-quarters and scowled to himself when he saw me. I ordered a drink from him and won him over with a large tip. His wizened features relaxed; he looked up at me and offered me a smile of astonishing, almost convincing, sweetness. We were once more part of the same alliance, if not exactly friends. I sipped absinthe and watched the crowd. The band played a bizarre mixture of Turkish accordion music and American jazz; men and women stepped onto the tiny wooden dance-floor and moved like marionettes, jerking back and forth to inexpert syncopation, imitating some dance they had seen demonstrated only in a poor quality cinema-film. Sonia arrived, shook her head at me as a sign she had no information, then left on the arm of an elderly Italian officer. I dozed over my drink. I considered writing a letter to Kolya. I knew I should at least leave a message at the Palas, but convinced myself the boy would know where I was if he could not find me at Tokatlian’s. I walked into the little back room where the Syrian changed money at a disgusting rate and bought a few English sovereigns. To remain alert I sniffed up a large quantity of his overpriced cocaine before returning to the absinthe and boredom of cheap fragrance, soft shoulders, bobbed hair and shiny frocks. What I sought now was blonde curls and petticoats, pink skin and honest blue eyes.

The rain had stopped. I walked down the sloping streets to the coffee shop opposite the gate of the Galata Bridge and ordered a medium sweet demi-tasse while I watched the nations of the Earth come and go. On this side, the vicinity was full of street-sellers instilling impossible virtues to their pathetic wares; fat Turkish businessmen in fezzes and dark European clothes standing in groups, gesticulating as they occupied their time discussing unlikely bargains. Against my better judgment I bought some ekmek-kadaif, the ‘bread-and-velvet’ Turkish women found irresistible, a combination of flour and cream. There were probably at that moment in Constantinople more minds turned to the invention of new confectionery than ever considered the profound problems facing the future of their city. But perhaps Turks were best employed in this way. Another favourite of mine was called ‘the imam fainted’. Imam-bayildi was the most delicious dish I had ever tasted, and remains for me finer than any of the great concoctions of Vienna or Paris. I had eaten two of these by the time twilight came. It was at twilight that I had last seen my Esmé and I sat there in the superstitious hope she would re-emerge at the same time tonight. As ships assembled on both sides of the bridge, waiting for the pontoons to part as they did twice a day, mornings and evenings, I wondered how I might stow away, preferably on a British or American vessel. Every so often the regular ferries to Venice were subject to rigorous police checks; it was impossible either to go aboard or disembark without all kinds of paper authority. The time might come when I had to make urgent efforts to find my Bulgarian forger and commission appropriate sets of papers. Though I wanted to help the Baroness von Ruckstühl, it might be necessary, as she feared, to leave her here. She would quickly find another protector. Her circumstances were not as bad as most. The best of Moscow and Petersburg society was to be seen every morning crowded outside the embassy buildings of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, even Belgium. The French had a joke. They said you could tell how desperate a Russian was when he found himself having to choose between suicide and Belgium.

The flower of Russian blood was left to dry and dissipate on the bleak Lemnos shores. Professors of great academies, scientists, lawyers, artists of every kind, musicians and philosophers, were squeezed into the island camps to die of typhus or pneumonia. Royal princes crawled cap in hand before petty officials of a Germany they had meant to crush. One could not help be reminded of the ancient pagan conquests of great Christian cities, of Rome and Kiev and elsewhere, whose occupants had been forced to endure similar humiliations. Decent, devout Christians were exploited and misused, allowed to rot and perish. And the world pretended to sympathise while showing every sign of satisfaction. Tsar Nicholas and his government had been committed to outmoded institutions. Even Russian monarchists agreed on that. Now Russia’s surviving nobility paid a terrible price for their autocrat’s shortsightedness and folly, for their Tsarina’s lusting after a self-styled holy man whose advice produced some of the greatest strategic blunders of the War.

When it grew darker I left the waterfront to walk back through rubble, up stone steps and between buildings which jutted overhead at drunken angles, leaning in an insane geometry of impossible curves and corners. Somewhere a blaze started and from the Galata Tower, built for the purpose, came the frantic ringing of a huge bell. One of the city’s many private, self-appointed fire-brigades (usually incendiaries themselves) rushed by, a confusion of bare feet, fezzes, turbans, old donkeys, hoses and copper drums of water; a loutish group of cut-throats who looted as much as they saved.

I had just turned into the electric familiarity of the Grande Rue when I saw Mrs Cornelius’s head emerge from a motor-cab. She waved at me, shouting something I could not catch. I tried to run after her. She was angry, glaring back at me. ‘Unless yer pull yer bleedin’ socks up, Ivan, we’re never gonna git arta ‘ere!’ Then the cab turned down towards Tephane and disappeared. I did not know whether to follow her further, go to Tokatlian’s and the comforting bosom of my Leda, or try once more to see if Esmé had visited the Rotonde. Almost before I realised it I had passed through the doors of the café and was surrounded by warm commercial flesh and brutal serge. Always, since my Odessa days, I felt at ease in such environments. Perhaps it is because very little is ever expected of you in those places. You are tolerated in drinking clubs, working-class pubs and bordellos as long as you can keep your mouth shut and pay your way. You are at once amongst friendly company and anonymous at the same time.

Because the tables were all occupied, I made an effort to reach the bar and order absinthe as usual. I saw neither Sonia, the Syrian, nor ‘Helena’. I felt ridiculous, believing everyone there must be secretly laughing at me. I was wasting far too much time, as Mrs Cornelius had said. I should be laying out escape routes, preparing documents, checking tables of boats and trains. Nonetheless, I did not leave. I still hoped to see the girl just once more, to confirm that I had invented her likeness to Esmé, and besides I was already an expert at sitting still. In recent years, as cities fell and were recaptured, changed governments, revised their laws, I had learned to bide my time and wait for the right opportunity. I fancied myself a reptile, sometimes, a patient old lizard able to lie on his rock for days until his prey moved into range. If necessary I can abolish impatience, almost abolish Time itself, drifting into a kind of semi-conscious hibernation. This utterly inappropriate response to my situation’s present urgency began to possess me at La Rotonde. Finding the girl became of paramount importance. Rationalising, I told myself I could easily live and work in Constantinople. There were plenty of recently arrived entrepreneurs who would finance my prototypes and moreover I could always get work as a mechanic. In a villa overlooking the Sweet Waters of Europe I could live like a pasha. I should have fellow countrymen for conversation, hundreds of books and magazines published in Russian. I could not imagine cold, stern, dignified London being anything like this. I should not have my pick of so many young girls in England, either. By remaining here I could live a very quiet, aesthetic working life and when relaxing could taste all Constantinople’s many delights whenever I pleased. Such a routine suited my temperament; I was not merely a man of thought; I was moved by enormous physical passions and enthusiasms. I should become the principal architect for the new, gleaming, Christian city.

When I look back I can never logically see why I did not choose to stay and become one of Constantinople’s institutions. The severity of Atatürk’s first years hardly touched her. He said she was a Western harlot. He turned his back on her, refusing to let her be associated with his regime. He let her mosques fade with poverty or become museums for tourists, he refused to allow her educated men permission to work there, so they were forced to move to Ankara. But he did not actively trouble the city which brought all Turkey’s wealth to her. He never disdained the gold which continued to flow through his ‘Istanbul’. In spite of him, Constantinople remained the centre of the world. Atatürk raised his flag over the collection of mud huts that was Ankara, his new capital, imposing on his people all the puritanical severity he rejected for himself while he drank and whored his way to early death and so imitated, with ironic completeness, the hypocritical Sultans he had swept aside. Constantinople scarcely noticed and she did not much care; she was used to despots and their high pomposities; she had existed under them for at least three thousand years. I began to tell myself it might be sensible to live closer to Russia. It would be much easier to return home when the time came. I saw myself as the successful, triumphant prodigal of Odessa, stepping off a ship, greeted by a brass band and a cheering crowd, and bringing home Esmé, my childhood sweetheart, my bride.

She came in alone, and at first I had become so accustomed to discounting the inventions of my wishful eye I almost ignored her. Tonight she wore faded blue velvet, at least two sizes too large, and had bundled her hair beneath a peacock aigrette. All her cosmetics and tawdry wardrobe could not disguise her. Barely able to contain myself, I felt my head begin to beat sickeningly as my glass went down on the counter with a crack. My heart was painful against my ribs, but I held myself in rein, watching her out of the corner of my eye. Uncertainly, clutching a little sequinned evening bag to her chest, she picked her delicate way between the customers. I was trembling violently as I rose slowly to my feet; then step by wary step I moved towards her, as a dying man might approach an oasis he fears must be a mirage. I was now directly in front of her. She stopped. I bowed. My mouth was bone dry, but I mustered all my charm and appeared, I am sure, outwardly calm, even a little distant. ‘Would you care for a drink, young lady?’ I said to her in English.

She frowned, puzzled: ‘I am a Catholic.’ She spoke halting French with an accent I could not place. She thought she was answering my question. This brought a gentle smile to my lips, whereupon she smiled back. It was Esmé’s same, flashing parting of the mouth and widening of the eyes; her whole face coming alive at once. She realised she had misunderstood me and said something in Turkish. I shrugged and made a pantomime of apologetic obtuseness. I knew such unbelievable joy. I had not been mistaken. This was Esmé’s twin. She laughed. It was Esmé’s unselfconscious laughter, full and musical. ‘You call yourself Helena, do you not?’

‘Helena, yes, m’sieu.’ She nodded rapidly as if I had displayed unusual perceptiveness and she wished to encourage me.

I took her gently by the arm and led her to the quietest corner of the café. ‘You will have absinthe? Or lemonade, perhaps?’

She understood my French and chose lemonade, proving to me that she was by no means a hardened whore, but a wholesome schoolgirl who had, by some dreadful mischance, become mixed up in this life. There was still time to save her.

Disdainfully ignoring the Syrian’s leering, conspiratorial wink, I ordered the drinks. ‘Do you recognise me?’ I asked her.

She frowned, then quickly put an embarrassed hand to her mouth. ‘Oh! The man on the tram!’

‘I alarmed you and I’m sorry. But you are the image of my dead sister. You can imagine my own shock. You seemed a ghost.’

I had not frightened her. She relaxed again, her curiosity, if nothing else, encouraging her to stay. She put her little head to one side, just as Esmé did, and said sympathetically, ‘You are Russian, m’sieu? Your sister was. . .?’She could not find the word. ’Bolsheviks?’

‘Just so.’

‘I am sorry for you.’ She spoke softly, yet in that same vibrant voice Esmé had always used when moved to emotion. Even her tiny, nervous gesture of concern was the same.

‘You understand why I searched for you? Do they really call you Helena?’

She hesitated, as if she wanted to give me her real name. Then caution returned. She inclined her head. ‘Helena.’

‘You’re Greek?’

She shrugged, attempting to resume a mask which was still unfamiliar to her. ‘We’re all something, m’sieu.’

I felt enormous tenderness for her. She was Esmé, my darling rose. I wanted to reach out there and then to scrape the coloured powder from her cheeks, revealing the lovely skin beneath. I wanted to touch her in kindness as I touched Esmé, whose love I took for granted, whose confidence I never doubted. Esmé worshipped me. They tore her from her destiny as they tried to tear me from mine. They perverted her soul. They made her commonplace: a child of revolution with a twisted grimace where once there had been a natural smile.

‘Your parents are still alive?’

‘Of course.’ She waved an arm outwards, towards the door. A copper snake flashed, green enamel eyes glittered. ‘Over there.’

‘What nationality?’

I think the question began to make her nervous. Sighing, she spread her awkward hands, covered in penny rings, on the table. ‘Roumanian,’ she said. Within the mask her blue eyes were candid. ‘They came before the War.’

‘Would you keep me company tonight?’

She lifted fingers to her inexpert coiffure. ‘It’s what I’m here for, m’sieu.’

I shook my head, then decided not to explain. I was terrified, still, that I would startle her, send her running to where I should never find her again. So I contented myself with, ‘So you’ve no special friend?’

There was a hint of assumed world-weariness, the suggestion of a play-acted sigh which reminded me of Leda’s similar responses. ‘Not yet, m’sieu.’

I ignored her pose and touched her hand for a moment. ‘My name is Maxim. I wish to protect you. Can I call you Esmé rather than Helena?’

She was puzzled by this, and not unamused. ‘If you like.’ Her expression was transformed to one of genuine sympathy. ‘But do not be sad, M’sieu Maxim. We are here for pleasure, no?’ She fell silent, peacefully content to drink and watch the other couples dance. She had the poise of Esmé, the same unstudied movements of head and shoulders, an identical air of self-contained amusement at the world’s antics. I wanted her in a wholesome dress, hair properly brushed and rearranged, but I was still too cautious to suggest anything of the sort, frightened she would take to her heels if I moved too hastily. At that age girls can be singularly whimsical. She seemed perfectly glad to be in my company, yet at any moment might resolve to leave with someone else or decide she hated the shape of my nose. She had not been a whore for long or she would by now be taking a merely professional interest in men.

‘What did you do before you started coming to La Rotonde?’ I asked her casually.

‘At -’ She pursed her lips. She was trying to be discreet. ‘I worked.’

‘And your parents?’

‘Father’s a carpenter. Mother used to go to the big houses.’ She pointed up towards Pera’s well-to-do suburb. ‘Now she can’t. So I come here.’

All this confirmed my growing knowledge that I had been selected by Fate to rescue her. She could not have had many men before the American sailor, if any. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I might be able to offer you a job. I’m considering employing a companion. It isn’t a trick. Ask anyone here. Any of the girls. Even the Syrian will vouch for my honesty. If you, for instance, were interested, I would see your parents and ensure everything was properly arranged.’

She did not completely understand. She nodded vaguely. From her bag she lifted a packet of bad-quality cigarettes, inexpertly fitting one into a cheap wooden holder stained to mock ebony. I stretched out a hand with a lighted match, glad she was evidently unused to smoking. I continued to be careful not to introduce the slightest note of criticism or morality. Young girls carry a weight of guilt as it is. Anyone who reminds them of it is likely to be regarded with hatred. I proceeded delicately. I joked with her. Laughter always takes women’s minds from their inhibitions and in that respect is both better and cheaper than champagne. She grew steadily more at ease and tried to translate a joke from Turkish into French and failed prettily, but caused us both to double up with laughter. I suggested she might enjoy a certain cabaret in the Petite Rue and enthusiastically she got up to come with me. The theatre was a long, low building, full of smoke, sweat and naphtha lamps, where gross, chuckling Turkish merchants watched the cavortings of third-rate French music-hall entertainers pretending to be belly-dancers and dandies. But she loved the comic dances and clung helplessly to my arm in a spontaneous frenzy of laughter at the antics of a pair of moth-eaten trained seals. Esmé and I were at the circus in Kiev. It was Spring. Captain Loukianoff had given us a little money; my mother had made us a packet of bread and sausage. It was the first time we had been out alone together in an evening. The great white tent was garnished with coloured lamps. Limelight blazed on the rich-smelling ring where bounding tigers disturbed the sawdust and half-dressed nymphs performed a golden ballet in the shadows overhead. Esmé wept for the melancholy elephant and was afraid the clown had really been hurt after his friend hit him with a bucket. When we left, the air bore the scent of fresh, damp grass and May blossoms. This circus was huge. It covered the entire bottom of the Babi gorge where later I should fly. I was looking for Zoyea, my gypsy girl, and hardly hearing Esmé’s excited voice. I was a fool not to acknowledge her love. I should have protected her better. She was too good. She wanted to be a nurse and help the soldiers to live again. The soldiers recovered and made her a whore.

We walked for a little in a nearby graveyard and she seemed thoroughly at peace, willing to act on any suggestion I made. I took her to Tokatlian’s, entering through the side-door. I did not want to be seen from the restaurant. There I arranged with Olmejer for my usual room while Esmé waited in the narrow, dimly-lit lobby. She was still laughing in recollection of the comedians and tried to restrain herself as she mounted the stairs. I told her to be natural. At this she snorted through her nose. I laughed, too. She was making me so happy. I opened the door of the room and showed her everything that was there. She gasped. Evidently, she had never seen such luxury. ‘First,’ I said, ‘we’ll walk a little more. The fresh air will be good for us.’ I took her away from the rowdy dazzle of the Grande Rue, towards the embassies and the little squares, the smaller, quieter cafés.

The worst of the bustle fell behind us. We were in a little park, almost a zone of silence, some monument to a dead pasha, and could clearly see the million tiny lights of Stamboul from where we stood. At length I paused and drew her into the shadow of a gnarled, sweet-scented cypress. ‘Are you hungry, Esmé?’

She looked directly up into my eyes. She seemed startled, as if all at once she realised how profound my feelings were, how significant to both our destinies this encounter was. Gravely, she composed her little face. Her expression was candid and serious.

‘Oui.’