I told him my uncle’s name. I understood that I was expected. He seemed relieved and he ushered me in. He took me through two offices where girl typewriters and clerks were hard at work at small, wooden desks, and knocked upon a polished oak door. ‘Mr Green?’ he said.
‘Enter,’ said Mr Green in English.
As we came in, Mr Green moved away from his bookcase towards his large desk. This was inset with panels of green leather. He lowered himself into a matching padded chair, opened his plump mouth and said: ‘Dobrii dehn’ (Good afternoon) to me in Russian. I replied ‘Zdravstvyiteh,’ or ‘How do you do.’ He raised dark brows to the lisping, white-haired gentleman and said, ‘Does the boy speak any English?’
‘I speak a little,’ I replied.
Mr Green smiled and rubbed at his jowls. ‘Good. And French? German?’
‘Some of both.’
‘And Yiddish?’
‘Of course not!’ One might wish to learn Hebrew, but not that ugly patois combining the worst features of all tongues. Moreover, there was no need for it in Petersburg where Jews, in the main, were banned.
He laughed. ‘Surely a smattering?’
‘A few words, of course. How can one live in Kiev and not come to know them?’
‘And in Odessa.’
‘And in Odessa.’
‘Excellent.’ He appeared amused and distracted at the same time. He picked up a grey folder. ‘And we’re giving you the name of Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff. A good Russian name.’
‘I hope so,’ I said, ‘Is he a real person?’
‘Aren’t you real?’ Mr Green’s eyes held a wary kindness, as if I were an attractive animal likely at any moment to bite him.
‘His place at the Polytechnic...’
‘He gained it easily. With his gold medal.’
‘I hope you don’t think me over-inquisitive, sir. I wonder if you know a little more. After all, I’m supposed to be from Kherson where my father is a priest. I have never been to Kherson. I know very little about formal religion, my mother being a God-fearing woman but not a great church-goer.’
‘An Orthodox priest. That was a stroke of luck. You couldn’t get any more respectable, eh?’
‘I appreciate the respectability of it, sir. The mystery, however, is hard to fathom. Won’t I be asked questions?’
‘Of course not. Dimitri Mitrofanovitch was educated privately, at home, by his father. He was a sickly child. Just before he was due to take his place at the Polytechnic last term, he fell ill. Influenza. The unhappy lad was already tubercular, do you see? The priest was a relatively poor man and at his wits’ end. Your uncle’s friends in Kherson were approached for a loan to send the boy to Switzerland. They did better than that. They paid for the boy to go to Switzerland, to an excellent sanitarium where he may be cured. He will continue to study, of course. In Lucerne under your name. You come to St Petersburg under his. Everyone is catered for and everyone gets a good chance in life.’
‘It seems very complicated,’ I said. ‘And very expensive. After all, I don’t think I’m worth - ‘
‘You are worth it to your uncle, it seems. You’ll be of great help to him later. You can speak all these languages. You have a grasp of science. You are good-looking, charming, personable. You have a bearing about you. Why you could be the Tsarevitch himself!’
I was pleased.
‘But healthier,’ added Mr Green, and spread his hands. ‘Thank God.’
‘Where shall Dimitri Mitrofanovitch be living?’ I asked.
‘We had thought close to the Polytechnic. But that is such a long way from the centre and it would be useful if we could get in touch with you sometimes, or you with us. So we’ve found you lodgings not far from Nyustadskaya. It’s very handy for the steam-tram, for the Finland Station and so on. The tram will take you to the Polytechnic. What’s the address, Parrot?’
‘Eleven, Lomanskaya Prospect,’ said the white-haired Parrot.
It sounded excellent.
‘We’ll take you there immediately, I think.’ I had a vision of the fat Mr Green and the thin Mr Parrot escorting me through the streets, each carrying one of my bags. But ‘we’ meant a member of the firm. ‘Will you see to it, Parrot?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And the term begins in four days?’ said I.
‘Four days. Make the most of ‘em.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Mr Parrot will show you where the tram leaves and will give you details of which professor to see. I gather there’s some sort of oral entrance exam. A formality. We’ve spoken to the professor. There will be no difficulties. What’s his name. Parrot?’
‘Doctor Matzneff, sir.’
‘He was very obliging?’
‘He was, sir. His son left this afternoon.’
‘Straightened out, now. You’ll find Doctor Matzneff helpful to you, my boy.’ Mr Green beamed and patted my head. I wondered at these cryptic references. My uncle’s influence must be considerable. He had pulled strings in every department.
Rightfully I was up to gold-medal standard and had only been robbed of the medal by War and Herr Lustgarten’s departure. It was satisfying to know I had received my fair deserts. Uncle Semya was a great adjuster of rights. It was a relief that my professor would be favourably disposed to me. St Petersburg was no longer quite the threatening place it had seemed.
Mr Green gave me an envelope containing ten roubles. I would collect my allowance monthly. I should make careful use of it. The fares to the Polytechnic were about twenty kopeks a day, there and back. There might be opportunities to ‘make the allowance up to more’ in the future. I thanked him, put the money in my pocket next to Sergei Andreyovitch’s snuff box, and shook hands. Then I accompanied Mr Parrot, now clad in a maroon fur-trimmed greatcoat and top hat, to the ground floor. Here my bags were recovered and a cab called for us by the commissionaire. It was snowing. The hood of the cab was raised. It was already dark, but this part of the city was brilliantly lit. Once again I noticed that almost everyone in the street, civilian or military, wore some kind of uniform. We crossed a long bridge over the wide Great Neva, a forbidding stretch of ice. To my surprise I saw in the distance a tram apparently trundling over the surface of the river. Mr Parrot told me that it froze so hard it was possible to lay lines on the ice in the winter.
We entered an area much more crowded and familiar to me. I suppose it was poorer. Here were ordinary people, gas-lamps, open-fronted shops, crowded apartment buildings, stalls selling food, clothing, crockery, magazines, the smells of cooking, the sounds of street-musicians, children, quarrelling and laughter. There were flights of darkened steps, alleys, half-starved dogs. I was more nervous of the district than I might once have been: however, the street in which we found ourselves was fairly quiet and it was comforting to arrive at it. St Petersburg was not going to be an easy city, I thought, in which to find my feet. There were far wider gulfs between the classes. Even in Kiev, where there were many snobs, where poor people could find themselves driven from parks or certain streets, it had not been so bad. I was going to need all my confidence and might require the extra courage residing in my stolen snuff-box.
St Petersburg was to teach me much about the nature of wealth and poverty. Not only was it a city of extremes, it was a city of almost oriental decadence, of cruelty, of mindless authority. I was to realise why Tsar Nicholas was unpopular with so many middle-class people. The court was presided over by a crude, insane monk from Siberia who would come, just as in medieval times, to be murdered in cold blood by a group of aristocrats. They would poison him, shoot him and eventually push his body under the Neva’s ice to ensure he was dead. From Court to the meanest alley, the capital was rotten with superstition. Charm-sellers, occultists, mediums of every kind flourished. Their predictions filled columns in the most respectable newspapers. And all this in the twentieth century, when telephones and motor-cars and wireless sets and aeroplanes were in common use.