‘You are Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff?’
‘I am, your honour.’
‘You expect to study here, under me?’ He sounded deeply weary. For no good reason I felt sorry for him.
‘I hope so, your honour.’
‘You seem a polite young man.’
‘I wish to become a great engineer, your honour. I am delighted to have the opportunity ...’
He turned slowly, his sad eyes staring into mine. ‘You have a genuine wish to study here?’
‘It has been my ambition. All my life.’
Perhaps he was used to interviewing students who had failed to be accepted by better-class academies, who regarded the Polytechnic as a last resort. He grew a little more cheerful, though it was obvious he was not by nature a happy-go-lucky man.
‘Well, well.’ He sat down behind his desk. I remained standing, my cap in my hand. ‘That, at least, is a relief. I am probably as puzzled as you are, you know.’
‘Puzzled, your honour?’
‘You did not come here under conventional circumstances. You came on my recommendation. All being normal, you would not have a place here at all.’
‘I think I am qualified, your honour.’
‘That is commendable. And more than I hoped for. Do you wish me to examine you?’
‘I am ready, sir.’
He took a sheet of paper from his drawer. Reading from it he asked me straightforward questions on various scientific and engineering principles. I answered them easily. At the end of the session there was a faint smile on his face. ‘You are right, Kryscheff. You are perfectly well qualified for your place.’ I wondered why he was so surprised. He shrugged. ‘Since you’re here there’s a possibility you will benefit. But for what purpose?’
‘I wish to be a great engineer, sir. To bring Russia many inventions. To increase her fame and her prosperity.’
‘You are an idealist?’
‘I’m no radical, your honour.’
‘That, too, is a relief. My son ... Well, you were told, eh?’
‘No, your honour.’
‘Well, then, it’s confidential. Between your Mr Green and myself. My son was not as sensible. I was grateful to Mr Green for helping ... He has been very kind. I am glad to return the favour.’
‘Your son is in trouble, sir?’
‘He’s travelling abroad.’ Doctor Matzneff sighed. He rubbed at his moustache. ‘There are hot-heads at this Institute, Kryscheff. You would do well to avoid them.’
‘I shall, your honour.’
‘We all come under suspicion. Particularly with the War. It’s not as bad as nineteen-five or six, but it is still bad. People have been shot, Kryscheff.’
‘I know that, your honour.’
‘And exiled.’
‘I have an abhorrence, your honour, of politics. The only paper I read is Russkoye Slovo.’
A deeper sigh than the last. ‘Read it and believe it, Kryscheff. All you need otherwise are your textbooks, eh?’
‘My views exactly, your honour.’
We shook hands. He looked forward to seeing me in his class next day. I took the steam-tram back to my lodgings behind the Finland Station. I would discover from fellow students that Doctor Matzneff had been a radical in his youth. His son had followed in his footsteps. My uncle’s agents had probably bribed officials to commute a prison sentence to one of exile. That was how I came to have a special mentor at the Institute.
Uncle Semya and his associates were responsible for more philanthropic acts than many public charities. It is encouraging that not all ‘secret brotherhoods’ are revolutionaries, Freemasons or Zionists. In the spiritual teachings of Gurdjieff (himself an Armenian), Blavatski (a Russian) or even the Christian-Jew Steiner (an Austrian), we learn of groups sometimes called ‘the White Ones’: great, wise men and women party to the wisdom of the ages, who try to help mankind without ever interfering with the course of history. For a while I was a member of the Theosophists, then the Anthroposophists, and lastly a Gurdjieff group I briefly attended in London. Naturally, I cannot speak here of what I learned. It is against all their laws. I saw a man only recently who broke the Code of the Gurdjieffschini. He was mesmerised in a telephone box and has not woken up since (we shared a hospital ward for a few weeks when due to a typical administrative oversight I was thrown in with the senile patients). I will not go so far as to suggest that my Uncle Semya belonged to this ‘White Brotherhood’, but he formed part of a network of international businessmen I simply call ‘the men of good-will’. It was thanks to them, and they existed in all civilised countries, that I received my higher education. And if I received it under a false name, well, that is all part of the necessity for secrecy, I think.
I was already becoming used to being Kryscheff and so adaptable was I in those days that sometimes I all but forgot my original name. I was soon Dimka to Madame Zinovieff’s daughters, Olga and Vera, and even the good widow herself would use this term of affection. I did not mind it when we were alone, but found it embarrassing when the other guests were present. I tended to keep myself to myself both at home and at school. Marya Varvorovna’s address was still carefully preserved but I did not find time to see her. My regular trips on the tram were my only relaxation. On these I read fiction, usually H. G. Wells or Jack London in the cheap, red editions published by a London firm and sold in the English bookshop in Morskaya. They could sometimes be bought second-hand from street-stalls if one were lucky. A good deal of my money went on such luxuries, but they were well worth it.
Sometimes, too, I bought books in German and French. Many of the best engineering texts were in German and many of the best books on aviation were in French. And so my various languages improved imperceptibly, for I had no one on whom to try them out.
For my first year I led an impeccably dull and studious life. A major event would be an occasional visit to Nevski Prospect, still the longest and widest street I think I have ever seen, to look in the windows of the big stores, with their magnificent collections of goods. I would visit the covered bazaars which are such a feature of Russian life (they have started the idea in the Portobello Road now) where one great building houses dozens and dozens of small kiosks and stalls. Usually I accompanied the Zinovieffs to the shops: sometimes to the kino or the theatre; sometimes to a small café where we would have coffee or tea and cream-cakes à la Viennoise.
I had hardly needed any of my own store of cocaine, let alone what had been in the snuff-box (it was kept in ice on the window-sill to preserve its efficacy). My studies were comparatively easy. The oral examinations with Dr Matzneff had taken on the nature of friendly chats. Russian examinations are almost always oral, which is why we have such good memories for conversations and events. My professor had become increasingly well-disposed to me. He realised I was not only a serious student of science, but a clever one. I made very few friendships with other students. Most of them did not seem to like me much. I had once or twice been asked if I were of ‘foreign blood’. When I said I came from Ukraine, I was even asked if I were not a ‘half-Jew’. I became sensitive on the subject. Jews were only allowed beyond the Pale of Settlement by special permission. I had received no such permission because I needed none. I was a true Slav, through and through. This gave offence to the few Jewish students. Happily I escaped any major upsets because some of the other pupils sided with me and drove the Jews back into their little enclave.