Down into smoke and yelling murder went Petroff, flying low over office buildings, hotels, flats, while I scribbled on my maps. We went over the St Nicholas steps where I had gone on my first day with Shura. We flew round and round the dome with its huge ornamental crucifix, the cliffs on one side with their gardens and trees, the fashionable Nicholas Boulevard, the sea and its ships on the other; round and round, like a toy on a stick. This was stupid and risky. Petroff was still laughing. The guns from the docks continued to fire at us. Was he daring them to shoot us down? There were clouds of smoke everywhere. Petroff fumbled open his flying jacket and took out the object he had placed there. He held it in his gloved left hand. The calico fell away from us like a dead bird. It was not a bomb he held but a large hour-glass in a marble stand. I think it was Fabergé. The marble was white with pronounced blue veins. The glass glittered. The sand was silver. Petroff stretched out his hand, then banked even more steeply towards the dome. I felt as if I were going to vomit. Guns continued to bang. I could hear them through the engine-notes, as if far away.
His plane almost hit the cross. Petroff flung the hour-glass down upon the golden roof of the church. He was laughing. I could see his teeth. His goggles made black cavities in his skull. He was white. His nostrils flared. Through my binoculars I saw the object strike the dome and smash; I saw marble break to fragments. Sand scattered like money. Then we were flying down on the dockyard guns. Maniacally I began to make notes on my map. There was a sudden lurch. I looked back. Petroff had been hit by shrapnel. It had ripped his coat and exposed a bloody mass of flesh. He continued to grin. Because of his goggles, I could not read his true expression. He saluted me with his wounded arm; then the plane climbed into Odessa’s blue-green sky and we were at peace. The engine cut out completely. We were drifting. Petroff called to me. I think he was delirious because he referred to me as ‘Colonel’ and spoke of ‘the Vanquisher’. His laughter became uncontrollable. He shouted ‘Goodbye’ and then re-fired the engine. Laughter and engine-note became one thing to my ears. We had started a power-dive towards the sea. I realised he intended to kill me. Something tore away from the plane. It was part of the upper forward wing, I think. Then we were spinning in silence. The engine made laughing noises. In my terror I tried to reason with Petroff. He was quite insane. His hatred of me, or of what he thought I represented, had overwhelmed his reason. I still cannot understand it. He was dead, or at least unconscious, hanging in his straps. I could not reach the controls. I released myself from my own harness and curled up. We hit the water and went through it as if we were still going through air. I began to drown. I thought my ribs were broken. I pushed myself towards the surface. Petroff and the Oertz continued to drop away below me. I could not swim properly. On a current which carried me in, I floundered, astonished, to the beach. I stood up and waded between slimy rocks. The beach sloped steeply and became grass. I had already seen a few houses. I was gasping. My ribs seemed undamaged. There was no sign of Petroff or the plane. That beautiful machine was gone forever. I do not think that they manufactured any more. My feet would not grip. I had to keep bending down to steady myself with my hands, yet I felt quite revived as, fully clothed, my pistols weighting my steps, I climbed up the beach and saw, on the faded promenade, a deserted bandstand. I had come ashore in Arcadia.
EIGHTEEN
CITY OF SLEEPING GOATS; city crime; city of bleating crows; the wide-boys lie sprawled in the alleys; the little birds sing untruthful songs. The synagogues are burning.
Steel Tsar marching from the South-East; from the sloping city of goats; ancient ruins. Steel pressed them back to the ruins. To old, alien seas, washing rock that was rotten. Adrift from their homeland. Down into dishonour; bereft of God. Where could they go? These noble people had fought too long for their land; too long for memory. Why did they fight? Why do they not fight now, those Russians? The stars were destroyed. To hell with the yashmaks. The stars marched into that vast, dark sun. The sun set over Russia; and Chaos and Old Night reigned dreadfully. We were just learning subtlety. From the mountains, from the sloping city of goats and ruins, came the black, Georgian Tsar, wailing for a Russia his master had destroyed: praising the Devil but longing for God. Praying for the vibrancy, the silence, the secrets of old times; and yelling at pious eyes, at old beards, their stinking superstitions: their khans and their pharisees: and shooting in the back of the head any who reminded him, in word or deed, of what he had lost. Mad, steel man; spoiled priest, you brought a religion of vengeance and despair to Russia. Two heads, two souls, two wings. Doomed king of the crushing hammer, the reaping sickle. Disguised and deadly, those tools. I have seen the peasants with those weapons in their hands. They are the weapons of the brute. I have seen them advancing on the Jews. They were robbed of their innards and made a virtue of despair. They put a piece of metal in my belly. They bled me. They drank my blood. They polluted it. And the metal is a cold foetus, and I shall not let him come to life. Not until I die shall the world know what I carry; my little, dancing, agreeable, grinning tin doll. It threatens my whole being. I will not let him grow. I shall not let him jig. I shall not let him bow. In his turn he will not let me bend. Is this pride? Conscience? I have no conscience, save my duty to God. I have no duty to Man. Only to Science. I follow no flags. I am myself. Why do they make of me more or less? What can I not possess? God is my father. My father betrayed me. Christ is Risen. Why do they punish the people of the Lamb? The Greeks came in to the city of Odysseus. The French, the Australians, the British and the Italians. In those days they had recalled the nature of the Turk. They were still fighting him. And Islam was being crushed. Britain fell in love with Islam and let her rise again. Britain and her romantic stupidity, her Jewish prime-ministers, her bankers and her brothel-masters. She lied to me. She was not raped. Educational trains. Happy kulak husband. Dead husband. Oh, Ukraine, heartland of our Empire, bastion against Islam. Did you die with so much dishonour, turning on your own flesh, rending your own children, attacking all who loved you? The hyena laughs over your churches. The Greek went away from Odessa. He had been hiding in Moldovanka. The old houses were in the place they had been in before the war, but they smelled of moisture and mould. Nobody had bothered to come out as far as Arcadia, except a few Jews. It was a Jew who took me to a house which could not possibly have been his. It was too fine. It was in good taste. He walked easily and his sadness was open; his touch was friendly. He was quite young. He had a job writing for a newspaper in Odessa, but now he had lost it. He said the newspaper came and went, with different conquerors. And you are safe? I said. I am safe enough, he said, but I am fascinated by terror, aren’t you? It could be the end of me. I lay in a little white bed. The sheets were damp.