I decided I must go to the station. People would be travelling back to Kiev soon. It would be as well to get in the queue as early as possible. But the station, which had emergency oil-lamps burning, was so full I knew I would not have the strength to cope with it. I realised, too, that I had no real money. I tried to find some tanks, to seek the hospitality of my Australian friends. The tanks were probably still on the outskirts. I could hear artillery fire from the northern suburbs.
As usual flags and proclamations were the first priority. They were spreading over the city like cosmetics on a leper’s face. Military cars went by. Everything seemed very busy. The Volunteers and their Allied friends were in control and were feeling, as new conquerors always did, efficient. The ‘representatives of the true government of Russia’ were issuing orders not so different from those I had read before. There was a curfew for ‘all civilian personnel’. I was glad of my kaftan and shapka. I tried to walk with more of a military gait. I entered a small café in Lanzeronovskaya, near Theatre Square. There was to be a performance that night, judging by the comings and goings. It was, someone said, a sign of the Odessa spirit. ‘We live through anything - and enjoy ourselves through anything,’ said a waiter. He called me comrade by accident and apologised. It was difficult, he said, to remember who was who, these days. Had I come with the ‘new troops’? I had, I said. He asked me if I knew what had happened to the aeroplane which had been seen flying round St Nicholas earlier that day. Was it hit?
‘It was hit,’ I said. ‘I know, because I was in it.’
Naturally, I became their hero. I was bought whatever there was to buy. Vodka, bread, sausage. People of noble birth shook my hand. Bankers saluted me. There was music. I was getting some small satisfaction from my adventure. I was asked my advice on every topic and gladly gave it, since it was in the main very good advice. When I said I needed to get back to Kiev to find my mother, I was offered almost every form of transport. I made an arrangement to see some prince or other on the following day at his hotel. I lost the card. In a carriage owned by an industrialist from Kherson I drove through the dark and foul-smelling streets to a small, undistinguished hotel. It had been, he said, the best he could find. We knocked on metal shutters and were cautiously admitted. The industrialist was drunk. He introduced me as his brother to a sour-faced Georgian woman. She said that I would be extra. The industrialist laughed and said: ‘Panye, I was prepared to pay for a suite at The Bristol, so I do not think it will mean much if I have to bribe you for an extra blanket and a mattress for my brother.’ We were, he said, as we went upstairs, all brothers now.
I slept on his floor. He was still snuffling and murmuring when I left. I was hungry. I had no money of any value. I had no gold. I would have to sell the pistols. I went to the old market. There were finer pistols for sale at a few roubles. I walked until I reached Preobrazhenskaya and stopped at the doorway. The dentist’s name plate: H. Cornelius: was still there. I began to vomit in the gutter where the cabs had once plied for hire. I have never been so ill in that way. There was a weight on my head, perspective distorted, lights flickered, a searing pain in my buttocks and thighs, a chill in my stomach like a piece of iron. I was cursed as a drunk by passers-by. A woman in a fashionable dress screamed. I thought she was Mrs Cornelius. I reached out. A gendarme, who might have been released from prison that morning, came along and escorted me to a side-street. He had every respect for the military, he said, but I should choose less public places to make a spectacle of myself.
I was shaking. I sat on a step in the doorway of an abandoned shop and watched the cars and horses come and go. The city had achieved a peculiar radiance, like a half-resurrected terminal patient: they seem to gain health just before they die. I think it is because they begin to relax and become reconciled to making the most of what is left. When I was strong enough I walked to the harbour, but the Nicholas area had been for some reason cordoned off. I heard more shooting. I found a church. It was as crowded as the railway station. I squeezed in and let the other bodies hold me upright. I did not, then, know the words of the prayers or the responses, so I mumbled. The crucifix was displayed. The priests chanted. Censers were waved. White and gold. White and gold. But God was gone from Odessa and a black sun was setting over Russia.
I wanted some milk. This made me smile.
I had discovered that cocaine was impossible to obtain; or that it could be obtained in exchange for solid gold, nothing else. If there had been anything to steal in Odessa I would have stolen it. That evening, I went to the café where I had met my prince and my industrialist. The café was shut up. It had been, said a chalked notice, harbouring profiteers. There was a reminder that Odessa was under military law and that looting and profiteering would receive the death sentence. I was very hungry. I visited several newspaper offices, looking for my friend, whose name I had forgotten. Some of the journalists knew him but thought he had left Odessa or was ‘in hiding’ at his house. Had I tried there?
There were no trams running to Arcadia. I did not have any money for the fare. I prayed for the tanks or for someone who would recognise me. I was sure Mrs Cornelius would rescue me. Eventually I found myself outside a military headquarters in Pushkinskaya, not far from the Alexander Park, which was now a wasteland. I entered, introduced myself in my usual fashion, and said that I had become separated from my unit. I said I had been with the tanks. I was told that I might be able to get a train to Nikolaieff. The tanks were on their way to that city. They were needed to help put down an uprising. I asked if I could send a cable to Kiev. They said that unless I had a priority order I would have to wait. They were kind enough. They offered me a chair. I told them I had been the observer in the aircraft. They were sympathetic to learn of the crash. ‘The ridiculous thing is, we had more information than we could handle.’ It grew colder. It was almost September. I sat in the military post with some tea and a piece of biscuit and chatted with the soldiers on duty. I was all but starving to death. I had become quite used to it and almost enjoyed the sensation of euphoria and self-possession which comes. We made jokes together as I wasted away.
He came out of the city of ancient tiers to impose his will on what little was left of our Enlightenment. Revenging atavist, furious failed priest. He descended upon the city built at the command of the woman Voltaire advised: Catherine the Great. Odessa was founded on August 22, 1794, in the first era of modern revolutions: the Age of Reason. A city of Pushkin and Lermontov. The Bolsheviks have left their statues alone. They have put up new ones. They have named ships after them. Russia has become a Disneyland of Human Dignity. There is a deep insult, if you like. They name ships after writers who would have cried out against everything the Bolsheviks have done to our Russia. The Steel Tsar rode through our streets and he spoke quietly so that none should know how many he killed. The Germans rode through our streets. Odessa, built on Tatar foundations, built on Phoenician foundations, fell into dishonour. Carthage came in on a red tide.