I called for the bill. She had reassured me a little. But she was still innocent.
We took the carriage through the steep Kiev streets. There were lights of sorts burning, candles and oil-lamps. I wished we had been able to paint the town red in proper style, the old style, when Kreshchatik would have been full of electrics and gaslight; the pleasure gardens along the river would have had different coloured lanterns glowing in the trees. German bands would have played waltzes. Then I should truly have enjoyed my triumph and her enjoyment.
Esmé said she felt guilty. So many were now homeless, sick and crippled. I told her that I was not oblivious to the misery. I spent my own money freely, giving to beggars and to various church institutions, to organisations set up for the aid of the needy. Even the Jews of Podol knew me for one who could be relied upon to put a coin in a collecting box. Meanness has never been one of my vices. When I had money, I would give. And, of course, I was saving. I had a duty to my mother, to myself, to all those I loved, to make sure that political events would not affect them. The day would come when Mother would be too frail to work at the laundry. A man can live as he chooses, I said, so long as he is insured. Freedom is based on a sense of responsibility. That is what the Bolsheviks never realised. The only slogan I ever hoped to see strung out on a banner over any street was ‘Live and let Live.’
Esmé asked where I intended taking her next. I mentioned a popular cabaret. It had one of the usual names: The Purple Monkey or The Chartreuse Sioux. She asked if she might visit the flat instead, to have a quiet glass of tea with my mother and Captain Brown. Captain Brown would have had more than one quiet glass of vodka by now and if not asleep he would be singing some obscure Glaswegian shanty, but I understood that the high-life could be exhausting. I had no hesitation in ordering the carriage up Kirillovskaya to our own little street. Esmé’s instincts had been good. Suddenly I was at ease again. Here so little had changed: the woods and gorges, the mixture of houses, the distant barking of dogs, the quarrelling of couples. We might have been the two happy children who had attended Herr Lustgarten’s school. So little time had passed since we had tried out my first flying machine. Now her father was at rest and, oddly enough, my mother seemed mentally at rest.
Though I had a key, I knocked on the door. It was opened at once. My mother had seen Esmé earlier, before I had arranged the hotel, but she hugged her as if greeting her for the first time. ‘What a beautiful girl. You are still an angel. Look at her, Maxim!’
I looked at her. ‘Were you expecting us then, mama?’
She became flustered. ‘Was it a good restaurant?’
‘The best. You must come there.’
‘Oh, I always get too nervous. I have indigestion before I take a bite of bread!’ It was why I had given up trying to take her out.
Esmé sat down in her usual chair and removed her shoes. She hitched up her skirt and scratched a perfect calf encased in pale blue silk. I was used to women, of course, and most of them had no modesty at all, but I expected different behaviour from Esmé. This was stupid of me. She was, after all, amongst family and she had been serving at the Front. My mother put lumps of sugar and pieces of the fresh lemon I had bought that morning into Esmé’s tea. ‘I’ve brewed it strong. You’ve got used to strong tea, eh?’
‘Not any more.’ Esmé did not elaborate, it’s very good, Yelisaveta Filipovna.’ She looked at me, smiling. ‘The best thing to pass my lips all day.’
‘I have wasted a fortune!’ I said in mock despair. I settled down into a chair and accepted a glass of tea.
‘You are not eating properly,’ said my mother to Esmé. ‘The food is bad?’
‘Not as bad as what the soldiers get.’
‘Weevils in the bread, eh?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘you’ve become a critic!’
She shrugged. ‘They let us criticise now, instead of eating.’
Esmé was amused. ‘We’re all turning into revolutionists.’
‘We bend with the wind,’ said my mother. ‘What is the alternative?’
I knew her thoughts. My father had never learned to bend. He had stuck zealously to his religion of anarchy and violence. Strangely, now that chaos threatened on all sides, my mother had lost her anxieties.
Esmé made it clear she did not want to discuss the War, ‘at least, not tonight’. We talked about a letter my mother had received that day from Uncle Semya. It was one of several he had sent. All the others had gone astray. ‘He’s well. He says they’re making the most of the lull. They’ve taken a villa in Arcadia. Is that a nice place, Maxim? It sounds it.’
‘It was,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it still is.’ I wished we could all three be there at that moment, enjoying the warm, salty air of an Odessa evening. I yearned for that southern magic, the smell of rotting flowers mingled with brine, the simple fellowship of Shura and his friends which had appeared so sophisticated and now seemed pleasantly provincial. ‘Shall we all go there tomorrow? Take the train?’
‘Is there a train, any more?’ My mother brightened.
‘There has to be. It’s a main line.’
‘It’s a wonderful idea.’ But she was hesitant.
Esmé drained her glass. ‘I have to be back in two days. You could go.’
I became obsessed. ‘What about compassionate leave?’
Esmé was regretful. ‘Not fair. There are only a few of us.’
‘She has her duty, Maxim.’
‘Yes, mama.’
‘And I suppose we have ours.’ Mother collected the glasses. ‘Without me, the laundry would collapse. The ladies would receive gentlemen’s collars and the gentlemen would be going to bed in ladies’ night-dresses.’ She giggled. She had to pour herself another glass of tea and sip it before she could stop. We both laughed with her.
‘It’s like the old days,’ said my mother, and her face became set and sad.
‘The future will be better,’ I said. ‘We’ll buy a house of our own. On Trukhanov Island. We’ll have a yacht. We’ll sail up and down the Dnieper. We’ll have a motor and visit Odessa whenever we feel like it. And Sevastapol. And Yalta. And Italy and Spain. And Greece. We’ll take the waters in Baden-Baden, which by then will be part of Russia, and we’ll go to England for the Season. Paris will be our second home. We shall hob-nob with the famous. You, Esmé, shall be courted by dukes, by the Prince of Wales. I shall attract a circle of titled ladies who will fight one another for my affections. And you, mother, will be Queen of a Salon!’
‘I should become bored very quickly.’
‘I shall invent a new method of cleaning everything. A universal laundry. At the touch of a switch, you’ll make the whole world shine!’
‘I could run the Salon and this world-launderer at the same time?’
‘Why not!’
We laughed again. Those were moments which were to be amongst the happiest I have known.
My mother told me Uncle Semya was very pleased about my Diploma. If I needed any assistance finding a good job in Odessa he would be happy to offer it. He suggested, however, that there were opportunities ‘elsewhere’. She took him to mean I might find greater scope abroad. I wondered if he still wished me to travel to England. The thought excited me. Since I had become such a man of the world I could go anywhere with complete assurance. The passport remained one of my most important treasures. It was an ‘open’ passport, the hardest to obtain, particularly during the War. I could leave and enter the country at any time. I could visit all countries friendly to Russia. I could go to England, America, France. If peace were made, I could even go to Berlin should the spirit take me. At the age of seventeen I was a person of considerable substance. I already possessed virtually everything I had ever dreamed of save the resources to build my own inventions. I took Esmé back and on my way to my own hotel I continued my internal debate.