The Vengeance of Rome

SIXTY

Some people will exploit the few who possess a genuine desire to connect with their own history. As clairvoyants prey on the bereaved, these cynics prey on lonely men and women. They assume the authority of the dead. Even I have been deceived, and I am the least gullible of people. I am always sympathetic to those who suffer. My life has been one experience of betrayal after another. Yet perhaps the worst occasion was only a few years ago. Not something of which I speak often, just as we do not speak of the camps. Nobody wants to know. Mrs Cornelius herself has never been told the whole story. ‘Not now, Ivan,’ she tells me with a shudder. ‘It puts yer off yer tea.’ Or else it spoils her mood or comes at a wrong moment.

I can give you the perfect example of this kind of self-delusion. Rather shocking, it made me see myself in a thoroughly different light. One should always review one’s own responses and ideas from time to time, for the sake of intellectual clarity as well as one’s moral well-being. One should constantly challenge one’s own presumptions. Die Götter der Finsternis haben ihre Streitmacht gesammelt. Sie reiten auf dem Wind, der nach Western jagt. Die Briten sind schuld. Sie lassen alles Böse herein. Sie dulden den Osten im eigenen Land. Man betrachte die Portobello Road. Eine Kultur kann Licht und Dunkel nicht ewig im Gleichgewicht halten. Persien wusste das. Was haben die Briten aus ihrem Weltreich gemacht? Einen leeren Namen. Und Karthago bleibt bestehen. Der Moloch wird seinen Feuerschlund öffnen: und die Briten werden hineinmarschieren, einen ihrer Songs auf den Lippen. Weg mit ihnen, sie haben es verdient! Es waren schwarz gekleidete Männer und Frauen; wahrscheinlich hatten wir Samstag. ‘Sind sie Jude?’ fragte ein junger Mann auf Russisch. Nennt mich Judas. Oder Petrus. Ich wollte es nicht bestätigen.

A few years ago a letter was sent to me at my shop. This event was in itself a rarity! Usually any correspondence comes to Portobello Road in buff-coloured envelopes and fails to spell my name correctly. But this was addressed in an educated Continental hand on a pale blue, square envelope of the best quality. Basildon Bond or something better.

The real surprise, however, lay within the envelope, for the majority of the letter was in Cyrillic, a fine, feminine Russian script so shockingly familiar that I raced through the closely written pages to the signature. The hand was that of Esmé Vallir, nee Loukianoff, my childhood sweetheart, my ideal. She spoke nostalgically of Kiev and South Russia, referring to events only she could know about. She had good news. My mother had also survived both Stalin and Hitler and was here in London staying in a hotel near the house of a family friend in Princelet Street, Spitalfields.

I am not sure if anyone could imagine the intensity of my response. Because of events in Kiev since I’d left, I had been forced to conclude that my mother was probably dead. Naturally I had made considerable efforts to contact her from time to time, especially through my cousin Shura. Eventually I despaired of restoring those links and privately mourned her. Indeed, I mourned her every day.

By 1969 when I received Esmé’s letter, I had become a successful businessman. No longer did I get oil under my fingernails. No longer was I reduced to repairing motorbikes and lawnmowers for Carpenters’, the big hardware store in Portobello Road. Some years earlier, with the help of Mrs Cornelius, I had opened my own premises just a few doors down from Carpenters’ themselves. In those days you had no trouble getting a lease. The rent was reasonable, and my goods were popular. Tourists came from all over the world. I was selling fine-quality furs and second-hand evening wear, also Guards’ and Marines’ dress uniforms which I bought very cheaply through the War Ministry. The collapse of the old empire, I must admit, put many fine costumes my way. Frank Cornelius’s idea was to call the place ‘The Spirit of St Petersburg’. That romantic and misleading epic Doctor Zhivago was soon to make Russian nostalgia very commercial.

From the beginning I specialised in furs. Foxes, stoles, bolero jackets, winter coats, hats. Thanks to television serials the girls were rediscovering the elegance of the previous century. I expanded as the fashion demanded. I sold not used clothes, but historic apparel. Heaven forbid I should end my days as an old-clothes man! This was a business requiring taste and a keen sense of the past. Film and TV companies came to rent from me. I did not buy every piece of tat which came my way. I attended auctions. I went to theatres which were closing down. To film studios. In my shop I was soon able to offer costumes from The Wicked Lady and Beau Brummell, from The Four Feathers, The Drum and Great Expectations. I continue to do good business with the music community.

Reading Esmé’s letter surrounded by so much history was a powerful sensation. At that time I even had some Cossack and Hussar uniforms, though they too were theatrical, part of a consignment from a touring production of The Merry Widow which ran out of money in Swindon. The manager had appealed for help to Mrs Cornelius, then playing one of the matrons, and I had stepped in with an unrefusable offer that paid for the cast’s bus back to London. The uniforms and gowns were of very good quality and needed only a little modification to give them a thoroughly authentic appearance. The majority of them sold within a week. They provided the holiday I took with Mrs Cornelius to Hastings that year.

We stayed in some style at the Grand Hotel. By sheer luck I was able to make yet another ‘killing’ with some costumes from an ambitious pantomime which had not done as well as expected the previous Christmas. The ‘big heads’ were genuine Victorian, great vividly painted grinning things. I sold many of the Pierrot, Colombine and Harlequin costumes on to the Rambert Company who were still active in Notting Hill Gate. Several found their way into the Victoria and Albert Museum. Those were very good years for business and the arts, if not for science. But all that changed with decimalisation of the currency, a confidence trick on us all.

Esmé spent several pages explaining what had happened to her since we had last met in Makhno’s camp during the Civil War. (I was fucked so much I had calluses on my cunt.) Reading her beautiful writing, I began to experience genuine shame for judging her so harshly. What a puritanical fellow I had been! I had been young, deeply in love with her and highly idealistic. But in my disgust, I had been insensitive. She had seemed so hard and cynical. Of course, she had been trying to disguise her shame and outrage. What I had mistaken for aggression was nothing but a protective shell. The letter made all that so clear. Esmé spent only a few sentences explaining how she had escaped the anarchists and returned eventually to Kiev where she had become a schoolteacher. She had seen several of our old friends regularly. Her father had died during the first siege of Kiev, and poor Herr and Frau Lustgarten had been shot as alleged German collaborators during Hrihorieff’s brief occupation of the city. My mother continued to work as a laundress and a seamstress, Esmé said. They met about once a week. I, of course, was always their preferred subject of conversation. They were convinced I had escaped to England or America and made a great success as a scientist. ‘Never once did your mama believe you to be anything but alive and flourishing.’

I had written to my mother a number of times since leaving Odessa, but the letters had never been answered. Eventually I came to accept that she was dead, no doubt a victim of Stalin’s planned famines. Esmé herself had lost touch with my mother when she became the representative for a Georgian wine company in Odessa during the period of the New Economic Policy. Soon after Lenin’s death she realised things were not going to improve in Russia and while in the Middle East met and married a Palestinian Christian, Edouard Vallir, himself a successful wine merchant. Esmé had never gone home. She and her husband established themselves in Haifa and were very successful. Only after the State of Israel was declared did they find it necessary to move, first to Tunisia and later to Marseilles. Monsieur Vallir died a year after they received their French citizenship.

In 1955 Esmé Vallir sold the business and retired, but she continued to travel. During a visit to Jaffa she spilled some coffee on her blouse and ran into my mother working at a nearby dry-cleaner’s! ‘I knew her at once. She has hardly changed. Her face is as sweet and noble as it always was and she is still strong as an ox. She, of course, didn’t like to tell me her age, but I knew you had been born when she was seventeen, when that wicked father of yours ran off.’ Understandably, this was more than my mother had ever told me! In those days one did not speak of such things in front of one’s own children. My mother always sought to protect me from the cruelties of the world. Though she had hinted at it, my father’s relationship to a famous noble family would still have constituted a death warrant in those days.

My mother worked at the cleaner’s part-time. ’You know how she always preferred to occupy herself . . . She had some terrible experiences, Maxim. She almost died in the famine. Then the Germans sent her to Babi Yar. She escaped with two other women. They caught her again in Poland. They sent her to Auschwitz in 1944, and she would have been killed except she spoke several languages and was useful as an interpreter in one of the offices. She had been selected to die just before the Allies came. Luckier than most, eh? After over two years in a DP camp, she immigrated to Jaffa in 1948. She was extraordinarily fit, all things considered; you would think her ten or twenty years younger. No doubt her good health also saved her from the “selections”.’

The thought of my poor, brave mother, who had sacrificed everything for me, being humiliated and terrorised in one of those camps disgusted and infuriated me. The experience was bad enough when it happened to me, but I was young and male. Everything was so much worse for women, especially dignified older women of her breeding. If she had not escaped from Babi Yar, she would no doubt have died there. The Nazis had a chance to wipe out most traces of that camp. The Russians filled it in then forgot about it. Babi Yar was the same gorge I flew over when, to impress Esmé, I took my first aircraft into the sky. By the time the Allies arrived in Poland and Germany, it was too late to do much. In Auschwitz my mother spent four days hiding under a hut, with nothing to eat, waiting for liberation. When it came, said Esmé, my mother’s first thought was to ask after her son. She had always imagined me leading an army unit to her rescue! As I read I was moved to tears. Why did I feel I had let her down by not being there?

Knowing the name I had used in Russia, Esmé developed a habit of searching for it through the phone books of every city she visited. She usually found more than one Pyatnitski or Piatniski, but she doggedly asked the same questions. Only she, of course, knew certain things about us. Esmé particularly remembered that incident of the aeroplane. You flew down into the Babi Gorge and almost killed yourself! None of the others had been able to answer her on that issue.

In London years earlier Esmé came across my name in an old book, but I had moved. Not until she was on holiday in London again last year did she pick up a tourist magazine which published details of the Spirit of St Petersburg along with a photograph with my name, describing me as an ‘old Cossack aviator who fought against Stalin’. I remember the piece. It was fanciful, written by one of Mrs Cornelius’s sons. At the time I had been a little nervous at the amount of detail. Moorcock was involved in the magazine (London Spirit) during its brief existence. The 1960s threw up dozens of such publications.

Esmé had tried to contact me then. She was due to catch her flight back to St Malo, where she now lived. The magazine had not published my full address, but she dropped me a postcard anyway, she said. Though she had written in English, it might not have reached me. As soon as she was able, she got in touch with my mother suggesting the two of them visit London the following year and try to contact me again. They had planned to surprise me in the shop. Then they realised it might be too much of a shock. Esmé joked how she didn’t know how strong my heart was. My mother had an old friend from Kiev living at Princelet Street, Spitalfields, a private house. It might be a good idea for us to meet there. We would have time to settle, to talk, and, if things became too emotional, we could be left alone for a while. If, however, I preferred them to come to Portobello Road, or somewhere else, she would be happy to bring my mother.

Esmé’s delicacy of understanding impressed me. Merely knowing that my mother was alive and in England was enough to strike me dumb. I could hardly breathe as I sat reading behind my till, fanning myself with the pages, so distracted that I almost let one of those Czech hussies steal a green feather boa from the rack. Those girls are whores. They are skilled thieves. This is what communism has taught them.

Few can imagine how Esmé’s news affected me. Both the beloved women from my past, whom I had worshipped above life, whom I had given up for dead, were only miles away on the other side of the city.

Spitalfields was an unfamiliar and not altogether savoury part of London. I had been there once or twice to buy stock in Petticoat Lane when first starting my shop, but now auctions, theatres and armies supplied me with what I needed. It seemed another minor miracle that a friend of my mother’s had been over there without my knowledge.

I felt, I will admit, somewhat guilty. Perhaps over the years I really had not made sufficient effort to find my mother. God knew I had done a great deal. Even when convinced she was dead I had sent enquiries to the Soviet government and received no reply. I had not known what name she was living under. I could not tell the Reds too much. Brodmann’s shadow continually cast itself over my fate. One slip and I would be the victim of an assassin’s poison bullet. Anyone close to me was in equal danger. The thought of my mother being targeted for assassination terrified me. Esmé had foreseen this. She had lost none of her intelligence. She had been right to send a letter first. It occurred to me that I did not know if my mother was using an alias. Pyatnitski, while it had become familiar to everyone who knew me, was not our original name. That would be instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with the history of the Romanoffs! Another reason why I had been so cautious about communicating with her.

Esmé had included the number of the hotel where they were staying. As soon as I felt strong enough, I went round the corner to the phone boxes. To use my own phone would be foolish. I dialled the number and asked for Esmé’s room. After some time, the telephone was picked up. A tentative voice said, ‘Yes?’

I asked if that were Mrs Vallir.

A pause. ‘No.’

I risked a few words in Russian. ‘Will she be back soon?’

The woman answered more confidently. ‘Oh, yes. She has gone to pick up some theatre tickets. Another half-hour at most.’

My heart was beating horribly. Instead of replacing the receiver, I asked breathlessly, ’I am sorry, I am not sure of your name. Would you tell her that Maxim phoned?’

‘Maxim?’

I was almost in tears. ‘Mother?’

‘Oh, Maxim, my boy. So it is you.’

I tried to make a joke, but I knew my lips were trembling. ‘No one else, Mother. I’m sorry I could not get back to Kiev as I promised. You had to travel all the way to London to see me.’

She was weeping and even less capable of speech than I. Her words ran together, becoming hard to understand. She had missed me so much. Knowing that we would one day be reunited had kept her alive. Everything was now worth it. Esmé was a saint. Was I married? Did I have any children?

Knowing the phone might still be tapped, I paused to collect myself. I said I would ring the hotel in an hour. If it was convenient, I would meet her at her friend’s house in Spitalfields. It would save her another journey and would probably be more convenient for everyone. She began to give me the address, but I told her I already had it. ‘Even in London, it is best to assume the walls have ears.’

We were still both weeping when I put the phone down. I had to take control of my emotions before I left the phone booth. I could not afford to let those little ruffians see me in a weakened condition. An hour later I returned to the row of boxes. During the time I was gone someone had used the vacant one as a urinal. I tried the box next to it. Vandalised. Some child had attempted to get the money out of it. Another short walk brought me to Westbourne Grove and a phone good enough to use. By then I was in better control of myself thanks to the exercise.

This time I spoke to a younger woman. Her faintly accented English was excellent. This was, of course, Esmé. We arranged to meet that afternoon at Princelet Street. Then, if it seemed a good idea, we would go on to Liberty. According to Esmé, my mother had long dreamed of taking tea with me at the Ritz, but the Ritz was already full up. I said I preferred Liberty. Liberty was cheaper, better and never overbooked.

At my flat I dressed carefully and conservatively. I did not even tell Mrs Cornelius where I was going. I still had a faint suspicion I might be falling into one of Brodmann’s traps. I had not survived for so long without anticipating such things, the legacy of all those years.

A taxi for so great a distance was out of the question. Instead, I walked up to Notting Hill Gate and got the Central Line to Liverpool Street where I easily found a taxi to take me to Brick Lane.

We drove down the mean, narrow road, full of bagel bakeries, rag shops and kosher butchers. To be honest, Brick Lane was never an area which attracted me. The denizens had reproduced their original slums and shtetls. The cab turned into Princelet Street. Number 19 was about halfway along an old run-down row of eighteenth-century houses, typical of the time, with an arched doorway and two matching arched windows beside it. Above this were two rows of three windows and above them some sort of attic. Even compared to the nearby buildings the place had a distinctly neglected look. No doubt the home of an impoverished refugee, like so many in Notting Hill these days. The door was poorly painted, the knocker filthy with rust and dirt. I lifted it and let it fall; the interior sent back a hollow echo. Something seemed wrong. Was this indeed a trick? I was poised to turn and flee. Perhaps after all I should have brought one of Mrs Cornelius’s sons with me. Too late to change my mind. The door was opened by a smart, stocky woman of about my own age. Her hair and costume were clearly that of a person of substance. She smiled and swung the black door back, admitting me into a narrow hall. On both walls were arranged groups of fly-spotted photographs. The place smelled strongly of onions and cabbage. More of old Kiev came back to me. I hesitated. I removed my hat.

‘Maxim!’ Her smile was sweet as always. Awkwardly we hovered, unsure whether or not to embrace. At last I did my best to smile in return. I shook hands with her. Her poise and manner were distinctly French. She wore a deliciously floral perfume. Guerlain, I thought. I know these things from the women who come into the shop. I was not a bit surprised at feeling a strong attraction for Esmé.

Needless to say, she was not the bright little girl or the sober young woman I had known long ago, but she wore excellent makeup. Her well-cut clothes were flattering. She spoke good, educated Russian in a beautifully modulated accent such as I had scarcely heard in years. Again tears came to my eyes.

‘Good afternoon, Maxim Arturovitch.’ She was sweetly sardonic. ‘It seems the prodigal son has, if not returned, at least arranged to meet for tea. How are you, my dear?’

‘Well, thank you.’ Keeping control of myself, I kissed her on both cheeks in the Parisian manner. ‘Did you have a good journey, Esmé Alexandrova?’

‘We took a plane,’ she said. ’So much quicker! The first time your mother has flown. Unlike you, Maxim!’ Her grin was mischievously attractive. She had been the first person ever to witness me harness the power of flight, to soar over the towers and steeples of old Kiev. Oh, how she had loved me then! How often I had missed that love!

The house smelled of antiquity and grief, its rooms unlived in and musty. Yet in contrast to the prevailing atmosphere the front parlour was almost opulently furnished, with big armchairs, a solid table, a floral carpet, some heavy, blue velvet curtains. The wooden blinds were half shut to admit two bright bars of sunlight, one of which shone on fresh flowers in a large green vase, the centrepiece of the table. Around the walls were arranged an old-fashioned radio set, a bureau and a bookcase with dark, matching volumes. Over to the right in the shadows stood two stocky old women in black, neither of whom I recognised. One of them stepped forward holding out her arms. And we embraced. I began to shake. Esmé suggested we sit down. The other old lady murmured in what sounded like German. I heard a few words. She went to get us some tea. My mother sat down across from me on the sofa.

‘We can go on to Liberty as soon as you feel like it.’ Esmé stepped back. ‘I can order a taxi.’ I remained intensely aware of her floral scent. I noticed how the shafts of light caught her hair. She had good cheekbones, soft skin. She had aged well. ‘But if you’d rather stay here don’t worry. You aren’t disturbing anyone. Mrs Stein’s only here part of the week. She’s the caretaker. The house hasn’t been used for several years. Are you familiar with its history?’

Why should I be? I thought. I told her that I hardly ever came to this neighbourhood. ‘In London East and West are two separate worlds.’ I did my best to laugh. ‘You go through an invisible gate at Holborn.’

‘Mrs Stein tells us the place was once well known. They are trying to get a grant, she says, to preserve it. The house was the last of its kind in London, according to Mrs Stein, originally built to accommodate Huguenot weavers, but around 1870 they added on behind. It remained an ordinary house in the front. Perhaps a rabbi lived here. The addition was a tiny synagogue! You can still see all its decorations, prayer books and so on. The last members of the congregation either died or moved away. Mrs Stein has been telling us about it.’

This news confused me. Had Esmé converted to Judaism while in Palestine? This ordinary working-class front room was a synagogue? I saw no sign of such a building. Was this after all an elaborate hoax? Yet Esmé spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. Did she seem over-controlled?

‘A synagogue?’

She was awkwardly respectful. She gave a small, uncertain shrug. ‘Such places were common, apparently, in this part of London. Poor immigrants could not afford very large ones. The whole thing fills the little backyard! Incredible, eh? Do you want to look at it later? The rest of the house, of course, is just a normal dwelling. You can still see where the Protestants had their looms.’

The woman who I supposed was my mother shook her head, speaking in Russian. She smiled uncertainly. ‘No doubt they had to keep it secret. For fear, I would guess, of pogroms.’

‘Pogroms?’ I was completely at sea. ‘In London? The Jews were never threatened. You’re thinking of Mosley in the 1930s. But that came to nothing. The Jews were always tolerated in London.’

As I spoke Mrs Stein re-entered the room. She shrugged. ‘Pray to God it’s true. I heard things were all right in Leeds, but here —? Even today you are never surprised.’ She shared a complicit glance with the other two women.

I felt extremely uncomfortable. ‘So it is now a museum?’ I asked.

‘Not even that,’ said Esmé. ‘This room Mrs Stein keeps up. But the rest of the place has fallen into disuse. The Rodinsky family lived here until recently. Then they died or moved away. One, I gather, was mentally disturbed. This is Mrs Rodinsky’s furniture. A shame.’ ’

I was allergic to the dust. I coughed, wiping my eyes. Though the house had recently been cleaned, I felt a strong need to get back into the street. Such rooms always made me claustrophic. ‘Perhaps we should go straight on to Liberty?’

The old lady - my mother - brightened. ‘You find this place a bit depressing. So do I. We’ll go have our tea at the restaurant you mentioned. Mrs Stein won’t mind.’ Then she frowned. ‘But it would not be good manners ...’ She began to weep again. ’It is so wonderful to see you, my darling.’ She opened her arms, and I was again in her embrace, delighting in the maternal softness of her body, the warmth, her smell. My caution was leaving me. I hugged her as tightly as she hugged me. I had not known such affection since I was last in Kiev, promising to return as soon as possible. I could not control my sobs. ‘Oh, Mother!’ Only now did I understand what I had been suppressing for so long.

After a while she fell back into her chair, opening her patent-leather handbag and searching through the contents. ‘I brought a few things I have kept. I finally got a copy of your birth certificate through the agency in Tel Aviv. I thought it might be useful to you. There was, of course, nothing else saved. The Huns destroyed most of our district, and then the KGB and the partisans finished it off. They dynamited half the city, Maxim. How could Ukrainians do that? I couldn’t bear to go back. There’s nothing left of the Kurenvskaya. Podol is gone, as I said. And they blew up the Kreshchatik. That beautiful avenue!’

I knew of Kiev’s destruction. She was right. The Red Army had done as much damage as the Nazis. Between them they left only ruins. Like Nuremberg and Dresden, local people had reconstructed everything from old plans and photographs. Full-size replicas of themselves. I had often wondered if they then sent out for reproduction bakers, grocers and shoemakers to staff the rebuilt shops.

‘You wouldn’t recognise anything.’ The old lady dabbed at her face with a handkerchief she found in her bag. She handed me a folded piece of paper. ‘Here it is.’

‘Thank you,’ I said absently. ‘This will be useful.’ I had something I could send the genealogy people at last. I opened it. I was puzzled. What was wrong?

Frowning, I studied the certificate. I laughed then. ‘But what is this, Mother?’ I had no idea to whom the thing referred. ‘This is for someone called Moishe Aaronovitch Peskonechnya.’ The only resemblance to my own name were the initials. The similarity of sound had no doubt confused the authorities. She had not looked at the document properly. Her eyesight was failing. Slowly I folded it back up. I looked from the beaming Esmé to the weeping, smiling old woman. She nodded. ‘That was your father. Peskonechnya. A kosher butcher by trade. His father was a rabbi in Kersen.’

I was in a terrible position. Somehow Esmé had been deceived. This poor Jewish matron had honestly convinced herself that I was her son. Whatever the circumstances, I could not in conscience maintain the charade. It would be too cruel.

‘For a Moishe.’ I handed it back to her. ‘Not a Maxim!’

‘But that is what we called you.’ She was insistent, almost aggressive. ‘That’s your name, Moishe.’

‘I am afraid —’ Unwittingly, I was taking part in some ghastly charade. I was more than embarrassed. This old woman, no doubt out of desperate need, had imposed her son’s identity on me. Esmé had probably persuaded her that they had been acquainted in Kiev. Perhaps Esmé, too, widowed and lonely, followed a similar psychological imperative?

I could not speak. How could I disappoint the poor, old creature? How could I tell her that I was not Jewish, that the very atmosphere of that wretched little synagogue was rather distasteful to me? How could I show Esmé she had been deceived, was deceiving herself? Before worse happened and the emotional disaster was compounded something had to be done and done rapidly, to bring this sad affair to an end. I summoned my courage.

With gentleness and courtesy I was at length able to address the poor old Jewess. ‘Madam, with all respect, I regret that I am not related to you. I only wish I did have a mother like yourself. I long for my family. Much as I would like to be the one you seek, I cannot pretend I am he. I am not, you see, Jewish. I was born Russian Orthodox and remain in that faith to this day.’

Esmé’s eyes widened. How I hated to shock her. But the truth had to be faced. I reached towards her. ‘Esmé, you have through no fault of your own brought two strangers together. You have been betrayed by your need to make your desires real. I understand that yearning all too well. Believe me, I wish it were otherwise. After these miserable decades . . .’

‘Maxim,’ she began steadily, ‘this really is your mother. You must remember her. And no matter how you and your circumstances have changed, you cannot deny your heritage!’

‘Heritage,’ I said. ‘I have never once denied my heritage. I am a Russian Cossack, descended from Russian Cossacks. I am not a fool. I know my own Slavic blood. My real mother told me everything. My father was related to the Romanoffs and served them as a captain of cavalry. I myself have served in that same cavalry! Believe me, if I could tell you differently, I would. Madam, I wish you nothing but good. I hope you will indeed one day be reunited with your son.’

At that moment Mrs Stein came uncertainly back into the room, the tea things shaking on the tray. ‘Is there something wrong?’

The old woman Esmé had mistaken for my mother was sitting down again. She was gasping, as if drowning. ‘Moishe,’ she said. ‘We always called you Maxim, I know. It was better. But you are Moishe, believe me.’

All my life I have been threatened in this way. And now here it was happening again with this old woman claiming to be my own mother, trying to achieve what Cossacks and Nazis had so often tried to do and failed.

I owed it to everyone to tell her the truth. ‘I am a member in good standing of the Bayswater Greek Orthodox congregation,’ I told her as calmly as I could. ‘That has been the case for years. I sympathise with your need to find your son, madam, just as I can understand how you persuaded my friend Esmé that you were a woman from her past in Kiev. Believe me, I cannot blame you. We have lived through dreadful times, and we would change them for the better if we could. All of us yearn to restore the past. But I have my own problems. I find this very hard to say. Like you I have borne a great deal. I, too, have been through the camps. Emotionally, I can take very little more.’

‘Maxim,’ Esmé was trying to be calm and rational, ‘you can’t deny your own mother. No man would do such a thing. Certainly when there is no longer a need. You don’t have to be afraid now. All that is over.’

‘Need?’ I replied. ‘When was there ever a need? I speak of truth. And I speak of falsehood. What is over? For years I have longed to see my mother, just as I longed to see you. You cannot know how many years I spent praying that we could be reunited. My mother did so much for me as a boy. She sacrificed herself. She had such wonderful ambitions for me. She saw to it that I was educated. She encouraged me in all my dreams. Do you think I would not recognise my own flesh and blood? But this lady is neither my flesh nor my blood. She is a poor, deluded old creature whom you met in Jaffa by chance in a dry-cleaner’s. You both knew Kiev, I’m sure she no doubt lost a son years ago, this Moishe. But whatever else she told you, one thing is certain. She did not tell you the truth. I she thinks she sees a resemblance in me to her son, she is deluded.’

The woman was muttering in Yiddish. Still sobbing she rose and came towards me, trembling arms outstretched. I could stand no more. Apologising to Esmé, I fled that nightmare. Something in the woman’s eyes reminded me of Hitler.

I walked most of the way home. I believe Esmé took the woman back to Jaffa the next day. She wrote me a note. It had a baffled accusatory tone. I hardly read it. I had disappointed her. Esmé’s taste for sensational self-deception probably came from reading too many Victorian novels. I blamed her experiences in the Civil War. What decent girl could emerge from that ordeal with her mind intact? I would have been so happy in my old age to enjoy friends and relatives from those days, but surely it is better to be alone and sane than complete one’s final years in the comfort of lies?

Sadly, I made a choice many of us are forced to make when age threatens memory, when death is no longer our enemy but our only friend.

I said as much last night in the pub to Mrs Cornelius.

She shook her head and winked.

‘I’ve got ter ‘and it to yer, Ivan.’ She smiled admiringly into her port and lemon. ‘Yo’re one in a million, an’ no mistake. Bloody amazin’! I sometimes wonder if yo’re real!’

Only she truly understands me.

She is my muse. My inspiration.

Mein Engel.