I still worked as a mechanic. I kept my tools and overalls at Mother’s. Esmé was relieved to see the evidence of my honest work. She continued with her nursing. She now served at the Alexander Hospital, not very far from where I lived. Occasionally I was able to give her lifts in a cab. When cabs became scarce, we sometimes shared a tram-ride. As fuel and lubricating oils disappeared, my Podol customers began to go out of business or adapted to more primitive manufacturing methods. I would shortly be in the position of a doctor whose patients were all dead, so I cast around for larger game. It was not hard to find. Some of the main engineering firms, a few stores with private generators, hospitals and public offices, all needed me. This was far more to my taste. Gradually I became a diagnostician until I did little of the ordinary physical work myself. There were other freelance engineers in Kiev in those days: people who had been invalided out of the army or had taken a ‘ticket of leave’. My knowledge of more sophisticated machinery was at first almost wholly theoretical. It did not take me long to get experience, though at cost, sometimes, to the customer. Soon I exchanged my overalls and tools for a sober dark grey suit, a grey homburg and grey overcoat with a fox-fur collar. I must have looked ridiculously young in that fine suiting, but I knew what I was doing and could easily instil my own confidence into those seeking my help. Sometimes a machine had nothing wrong with it. Its operators had simply lost heart. I was able to cure it with a few mystic passes and taps. I told my mother how my career was improving. She wondered if I were not moving ‘too far, too fast’. But I was getting what I could while I could. There was no telling how long our Ukrainian Republic would stand. Both Bolsheviks and Germans were greedy for Ukrainian corn and raw materials.
I gave my mother the best holiday of her life. We had a Christmas Eve dinner in a room at a fine restaurant where I managed to get her to take a glass or two of champagne. She enjoyed herself immensely. The waiters treated her like a queen. Esmé and Captain Brown sang Christmas songs and we exchanged gifts. It was marvellous. I never feel guilty about my mother. When it was possible I compensated her for much of her suffering. That night she knew a taste of heaven. As we drank liqueurs I told them my great plan. I was going to start a proper business. No longer just a consultant, I would be head of a firm of engineers.
‘Whatever happens to Kiev in the future,’ I said, ‘there will certainly be a demand for us. We shall design new factories, install machinery, give advice. If Ukraine booms, we shall boom. If she is in trouble, we shall help her in her trouble.’
My mother seemed taken aback. Her face clouded. ‘And what will you call yourself?’
‘All-Ukraine Engineering Consultants,’ I said, it has a suitable ring to it.’
She became reconciled. Esmé grinned at me as if I had somehow pulled off a coup requiring both nerve and intelligence. ‘And your own name?’ she asked.
‘Pyatnitski for the moment.’
‘Your father...’ began my mother. But then she nodded, it would be better. You’ll be careful?’
‘The times have changed,’ I said. ‘I have changed with them. I was born to be part of these times.’
‘You’ve an eye for the future,’ murmured Captain Brown from behind his champagne. He toasted me. ‘A Happy New Year to you!’
My mother began to cry. Almost at the same moment Esmé began to chuckle. It was a strange experience. I did not know to whom I should respond. At length I went to comfort my mother. ‘Why are you crying?’
She said she was crying from happiness.
TEN
THE BOLSHEVIKS SOLD RUSSIA OFF and Ukraine again became a Republic. I remained in prison where the Reds, for reasons of their own, had put me. The Rada did not see fit to release me. I had done nothing. Eventually I was able to explain myself to the Varta security police of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskya; to help them identify the genuine trouble-makers. Then I was free. Trudging back over the bridge I saw my rescuer himself, leading a parade. Skoropadskya looked every inch the Cossack, with his white riding coat, white shapka, silk trousers, decorated red boots, English stallion and silver-hilted sabre. The Germans believed he had his hand on the pulse of Ukrainian thought. He was an infinitely better alternative to the socialists and anarchists. He was able to police Kiev with our German allies and restrict the bandit-gangs of the rural areas. These killed Uhlans as cheerfully as they killed Varta. The Exalted and Glorious Excellency, Pan Hetman Skoropadskya, as he was called in official proclamations, had half the intelligence and twice the swagger of Mussolini. But he had sweeping Cossack moustaches and he shaved his head in the old Zaporizhian fashion. He reminded us of what Cossacks had stood for: self-reliance and courage. My only quarrel with the Hetman was his apparent wish to destroy all signs of the modern world. The three terrible weeks of Bolshevik occupation had lost me a good many of my best business connections. So many had been killed. But the Germans were interested in keeping our factories going. Skoropadskya could not afford to alienate them.
It was obvious that the Hetman was a sentimental romantic with a theatrical gift for holding military displays in which his ‘Free Cossack Host’ (many of them recruited from the dregs of the city and not true Slavs, let alone Cossacks) paraded with grey- and blue-uniformed Austro-Hungarians, Germans and Galicians. This made a change from street-meetings, which were banned.
I found myself naturally falling in with the Germans who were in the main practical, good-hearted fellows. The peasants were the chief cause of all our frustrations. The Germans had been promised grain. But the canny Ukrainian defeated our attempts to wrest it from him. He had learned to hide whole fields of corn, whole herds of cattle, as easily as he had hidden away his gold and his icons. German requisition teams, with official orders from Hetman Skoropadskya, searched barns and houses and found not so much as an egg. Used to threats, the peasants would confuse them, display their poverty, claim that Makhno’s guerillas or Hrihorieff’s bandits or some other force had already taken everything. It was an easy claim to make. Makhno in particular was displaying considerable ingenuity in his attacks. He flew the black banner of Anarchy and seemed to come and go faster than an express train. A favourite trick was to dress in Varta uniforms, claim he was chasing himself, enter a Varta garrison and then shoot down the occupants. To many he had already become a Robin Hood or Jesse James and dozens of legends were current about his daring exploits. It was forbidden to mention him in anything but a bad light in the newspapers. More folk heroes were not needed in Ukraine. There was a need for order, proper transport, proper communications.
In Kiev, at least, there was now a semblance of Law. German businessmen began to come to the city to trade. I was able to discuss my new company and what it could do. It was important to increase production for export and home consumption. I mentioned new British and American machinery likely to outstrip anything we had. I discussed plans for new plants, new kinds of generators, new manufacturing machinery. This impressed the far-sighted Germans. They were by this time hard-pressed themselves. Many of them confided to me they thought Germany might not win the War. There would be a need to build their country up again very rapidly if it were not itself to fall into the hands of socialists. They suggested I consider locating a branch of my firm in Berlin. The sooner our countries were back to normal the sooner the Reds would be thwarted. Through my business friends I made the acquaintance of top-ranking officers and through these I came to meet the elite of Kiev society. I would now give my name automatically as Pyatnitski: I had been born in Tsaritsyn, my family had been killed by peasants in 1905, I had been brought up by relatives in Kiev, Odessa and Petersburg. This was, of course, fundamentally the truth. To have mentioned our rather ramshackle suburb to the crème de la crème would have raised too many eyebrows and closed too many doors. My mother’s family, of course, had been well-born, so I had an innate ability to mix with the very best people. Many of Kiev’s nobility were envious of my ‘Petersburg manner’. They attempted to imitate it. Quite often people made gestures I had made only a moment or two before, or repeated little remarks of mine. I considered adding the title ‘prince’ to my adopted name, but this would have been inappropriate, given the volatile political situation.