They will not admit that Russian humanity is their best publicity. Even the beggars on the trains, the dirty station-sellers, the gypsies, the poor, the murderers, the drunkards, are part of our ancient dignity. But what do they show the world? Science fiction. Tractors. Sputnik.
I wrote a letter to my mother and told her I would return to Kiev soon or would send for her. I told her to bring Captain Brown, if she wanted an escort; that I would pay. I asked one of the soldiers to see that the letter was put in the mail bag for Kiev. He accepted it and issued a receipt. I had done all that I could, for the meantime, in that area. My mother, at least, had seemed happy. I hoped that she was still happy.
By morning the telegram had gone to Nikolaieff, to the tanks. A reply stated that Captain Wallace sent his compliments. He was no longer in need of a Russian intelligence officer. He added that he was glad I had survived and he wished me luck. Two captains came out of their room and invited me in. They, too, they said, were with Intelligence. They said there was no record of me and apologised. A picture of the late Tsar was hanging on the wall. It was like old times. I became calm.
‘I worked in Kiev,’ I said, ‘and for a while was a liaison officer with Hetman Skoropadskya’s forces. Then I was employed on behalf of General Krassnoff’s Don Cossacks. I was gathering information at Bolshevik headquarters. I was responsible for anti-Petlyurist sabotage in Kiev.’ They wrote down what I told them. Times, they said, were confusing. I said I had had to destroy my military identification, but I showed them my diploma. I mentioned that I had been a friend of Prince Petroff and that I had been with the Prince’s cousin who had crashed in the sea. They asked me if I had done much civilian interrogation. It was dull, routine stuff. This was their main problem at present. I told them I had done nothing worth speaking of but I was willing to work in any capacity. I was given papers, a new uniform, a side-arm, a bread ration, a bunk in a room shared with only three others, and some bits and pieces of kit. I also had a pay-book but was warned that pay was erratic and one was expected to forage a little. There were shortages of every kind of equipment. I had become an Intelligence Officer in the Volunteer forces, attached to the 8th Army Corps. It would be my job to vet and to issue passes and other papers to those applying for them. I began work the next morning.
Within a week I had become rich enough to purchase some good cocaine. I can still remember the frisson as I took my first delicious sniffs. I was not alone. All the other officers joined me.
Odessa, it seemed to us, had begun to come fully alive again. The houses of pleasure, in a certain familiar street near the Quarantine Harbour, were in full bloom, with a host of fresh buds and petals, and roulette remained the favourite game of the sportsmen, mainly soldiers, who visited them. We would wear our dress uniforms when ‘on the town’ and I had mine at last. It was white and gold, with green and black insignia, made by a local military tailor. He was very cheap. While I was in his shop he offered to modify another fine uniform for which the customer had never returned. It was, he said, exactly my measurements. It was the dress uniform of a colonel in the Don Cossacks. I inspected it and told the tailor I would accept it as it was. Both were delivered two days later to Madame Zoyea’s, where I had taken up residence.
Madame Zoyea was young, plump and witty. Her colouring was the same as my gypsy’s from the canyon, but she would never tell me if she were the same girl and she would never let me make love to her, for all she seemed to hold a special affection for me. Perhaps she had a disease. Although it was impossible to recapture the old days completely, I was fortunate in meeting several friends from the past, including Boris the Accountant, who had married his girl. He was working for one of the few shipping offices still operating. As a result I came into frequent contact with him. He would do me favours and we would split the proceeds. He wanted me to help him get to Berlin and I was able to supply the necessary documents at a reduced fee. Boris told me that Shura was not dead, that he had deserted, spent some time in Moldovanka and then ‘gone East’, he thought. Wanda had become a whore, in common with almost all girls of her class, and had been killed during a fight. The child was being raised by relatives in a small port further up the coast. Uncle Semya and Aunt Genia had been arrested during Hrihorieff’s occupation and Boris thought they must have been shot ‘since so many of us were’. I put the past behind me and considered the future.
My fellow interrogators and I were all doing excellent business. None of us was too happy about the system of vetting people and issuing passports. Our attitude was simply that we could not blame anyone for wanting to leave. Red or White, they would at least be clear of Russia. We worked in a large room which was always full and, even as winter advanced on the city, always stuffy. We worked hard. We were conscientious enough. Our main job was to check for too much gold being taken out and to consult a list of people wanted for questioning. As Christmas approached, I began to make plans for leaving both Odessa and my job behind. I had my real work to start. It was obvious that I should be hampered at home. I would go abroad, send for my mother when the time was right, and make my reputation either as a teacher at a Western university, or as an engineer and inventor, perhaps in France or America. The cocaine had restored me to my old optimism, judgement and vigour. I was able to work during the day, calming, consoling, making arrangements for people, weeding out the undeserving from the mass of petitioners; and I was able to play at night.
Once, at the roulette in Zoyea’s, I was drinking a glass of bad anis when I thought I saw Mrs Cornelius, in an Erté frock of gold and black, pass through the room. But I had become used to hallucinations by then. Esmé, my mother, Captain Brown, Kolya, Shura, Katya, Grishenko, Yermeloff, Makhno, even Wanda and Herr Lustgarten, seemed to appear in crowds from time to time. My money was on the black. I lost it.
I asked after an Englishwoman amongst my companions. I asked Zoyea. She shook her plump head and said that Englishwomen did not frequent such establishments. She was amused. ‘Very few English men come here. They have an Empire which speaks English, just so they can feel at home wherever they go.’
East is East, says Sir Rudyard Kipling, the poet, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet: but they met in South Russia, in my Ukraine; the borderland, the no-man’s-land, the marches where the Heroes of Kiev fought for Christendom as no other Heroes fought before. Russian chivalry was destroyed in Ukraine in 1920. The mother-city was raped; the Mother of God was cast out. Later the Germans came. I think the X-rays are wrong. There is a piece of shrapnel in my stomach. It is a war-wound. But so much for doctors and their socialist health schemes. Why should they care for an old foreigner? They used to be kinder to us in France. I met Willi. Colette offered me a position. I knew them all. But these days everyone is ignorant. I hated Gertrude Stein. At least I knew her name. Bely and Zamyatin? Who speaks of them today, even in Russia? I used to like the early stories of Nabokov-Serin, though I could not always understand them. He had talent then. Later he went mad and looted his peers because no one outside Russia knew about them. That was why he decided to write in English. And his Russian became coarsened. Gerhardi, apeing the worst of our people, was never my cup of tea. As I stamped passports and approved documents, I thought I was cleansing Russia of decadence. Who was to guess I should still be suffering from that particular delusion?
History is a traitor. Human goodness institutionalised becomes a vice. The corrupt forces of cynicism attack. Virtue is mocked. Rationalise and destroy. My faith is in God and scientific analysis. What is race but the sum of geographical and social stimuli inducing a state of tribal shock? It can last for thousands of years. Diversify and survive. Serin became self-conscious of his own Russian being; that is where he went wrong. Fear Carthage. I am weak. My temperature is rising. There is no snow here. Stalin’s and Hitler’s racial experiments were too simple-minded. We must interbreed at once. But the thought of the result is terrifying. I am terrified. I do not deny it. As terrified as Man was when he conceived the idea of creating fire. Prometheus, the Greek, the Lord: Prometheus is betrayed. Christ is crucified. When shall he rise again? Byzantium must be purified. Banish guilt: it is the viper in the bosom of chivalry. Russia is betrayed and in turn betrays. Fear Islam. Fear Zion. Fear vengeance. Rome is in peril. Fear ignorant priests and stupid scientists. Fear politicians. Fear old Carthage. They come into my shop. They laugh at my voice. They hurt me. I hate them. I will not bargain. I would rather give them that antique schmutter. Let them mince in the robes of their elders and make a mockery of wisdom. They are unlettered and careless. They have no love. They think of nothing but themselves. This is the Age of the Ego. I blame artists, politicians, psychologists, teachers, for encouraging them. They cannot bear the sight of God. Even when they go to Church it is not to worship: not in their English churches where no one is allowed to weep eyen the most dignified of tears.