‘You’re probably right. You’re both as likely to be Zaporizhians as not.’ Yermeloff was amiable. ‘He’s got about fifty titles, at the present count. More than Krassnoff.’ He enjoyed the cigarette slowly. He let it go out and then relit it from the waning lamp, ‘It’s strange how five years ago we were merely farmers or workers or even schoolboys. Infantrymen, cavalrymen. Now we’re all Cossacks. There must be enough of us to drive every Turk and Tatar over the edge of the world. But instead Christian kills Christian and socialists ram bayonets into the groins of socialists.’ He scratched his head and laughed.
‘You’re not a Cossack?’
‘I was with a Cossack brigade.’ He shrugged, ‘I can ride a horse. It’s enough. We’re fighting cavalry actions all over the place. Doesn’t it seem strange? Has some atavist engineered the whole thing for his private amusement? We’ve gone back in time a hundred years at least. Look.’ From the belt beneath his coat he drew two large and very beautiful flintlock pistols. I had seen old prints of Cossacks wearing them. They were black with elaborate silver decoration. Typically Caucasian, the weapons had buttons where triggers would normally be. There were flints in the locks. They looked as if they worked. ‘I got these out of a museum while everyone else was busy looking for gold and meat. I’ve shot two men with them now. One was wounded. One fell over and cracked his head. But he was killed. You use ball-bearings of the appropriate caliber. And I take them seriously. They’re loaded now. Think how many poor Jews’ arses they’ve been fired up!’ He balanced one in his gloved hand. ‘And they’re worth a small fortune as antiques.’
‘They’re not very practical, are they?’
‘They kill.’ He spoke in a baffled voice. ‘And if I wanted to make a run for it - I don’t know, to Berlin or somewhere - I could live for a month by selling them for the silver alone. I’ve seen two lots of men fighting, in the past week, with sabres and whips, just as in the days of Taras Bulba. Is it happening all over the world? Is it the Dark Ages?’ He seemed anxious to hear my considered opinion.
‘It looks that way,’ I said. ‘But the Entente forces still have aeroplanes and tanks. Even the Bolsheviks have a Spad. I saw it outside Kiev. Flying well.’
‘For how long?’
‘You really think it’s the end of civilisation?’
‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t be here. I want to learn how to survive. I want to become a successful savage. Can you see my point?’
‘It’s defeatist.’
‘So was deserting from the Galician Front.’
‘You deserted?’
‘With everyone else. I’m not an individualist, comrade. I’m a Zaporizhian Cossack, like you. I’ve thrown away my Tolstoi and my Dostoieffski. Now I sing dirty songs and make jokes about yids and I get drunk on bad vodka. I piss in a line with thirty other drunks all farting and swearing and boasting of the human beings they’ve killed, the girls they’ve raped, the horses they’ve stolen. I accepted civilisation as a gift. I never thought twice about it. Now I’m morally obliged to accept barbarism. I don’t intend to think about it. That’s the end of that.’ He got up and found a cup in which some grubby vodka still swilled. I refused it, so he drained it. ‘How did Grishenko get you?’
‘He held up a train. I was on it. I agreed to fix his truck. He let the train go and I was stuck. He promised to let me back on the train.’
‘He would. He’s a bastard. Nobody likes him or trusts him. They say he’s a Jewish spy, a Bolshevik spy, a White spy. He’s careless, you see, about who he robs. But he’ll succeed. This is his world. I model myself on him. We’re friends. He gave you to me as a sort of present. He knows I can read.’
‘He likes you?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. But everyone needs a friend and I’m Grishenko’s friend.’
‘And what do you think of him?’
‘He’s a beast. He has no morals. He has hatred instead of a brain. He has malice in place of a heart. I want to be like him. We’re both Sotniki at the moment, but he’ll rise. Hrihorieff’s already noticing him. The Ataman pretends to disapprove of him when the Bolshevik liaison people are about. But he doesn’t care. Grishenko’s a wolf. Hrihorieff’s building up a pack of them. Like Ivan’s oprishniki: a circle of iron, of snarling teeth. He’s bright enough to use current political catch-phrases, but he aims to become Tsar. When he does, I’ll be a wolf, too. The oprishniki were the only ones ever safe from Ivan the Terrible’s blood-lust.’
He seemed mad. ‘You could emigrate,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘The world’s the same all over. Russia was just the start. The War’s done it. Germany’s going. There are soviets in England. All the most civilised nations are breaking apart. It’s like an earthquake. It can’t be stopped. Maybe it’s natural. Maybe it’s something to do with the sun or the moon. What do you think?’
‘It’s not possible,’ I said with self-mocking earnestness, ‘to reach an analysis with such subjective data. But you’re not the first Russian to develop a philosophy based on despair. And you might not be the first to have been wrong.’
‘I can, as I say, only go by the evidence. Do you read modern poetry?’
‘It isn’t to my taste.’
‘Our poets predicted an age of blood and fire. The Apocalypse. Didn’t they identify themselves with the end of the world?’
I was not sure. There had been so many -isms and -ists in Petrograd I remain confused to this day. They are all forgotten, those Acmeists and Constructivists. They went mad or killed themselves or were killed by Stalin. As I said recently, I am personally nothing but a ‘Lisztist’. Naturally none of those ignoramuses in the pub followed a word. I begin to believe now that Yermeloff was right. The process has merely been slower, less dramatic and less interesting than he thought.
‘Will they let me send a cable to my mother in Odessa?’ I asked.
‘We’re a bit nervous of the telegraph, we savages.’ He bent to the lamp again, to relight his cigarette. ‘The message has to be of “military importance”.’
‘The Ataman’s still loyal to the Bolsheviks?’
‘Technically, yes.’
‘Then I’ll introduce myself as a comrade. I’ll say the matter’s political.’
‘He’s cunning.’
‘How old is he?’
‘About my age,’ said Yermeloff.
‘Forty?’
‘Thirty-five. Have I only aged five years? I must be adapting better than I supposed.’ He took no offence at my blunder, ‘I could get through it, yet, eh? I might even witness the re-invention of the wheel.’
‘Is Hrihorieff like Grishenko?’
‘He’s much cleverer.’
‘Why does Grishenko think everyone’s a Jew?’
‘That’s simple. He enjoys the sufferings of others. And nobody enjoys suffering more than a Jew. So Grishenko makes a whole damned circus of it. It’s a sort of conspiracy between both parties, I think.’
‘He believed me a Jew. He didn’t kill me.’
‘He’s not sure. He calls everyone a yid who looks a bit wrong to him. If they start to whine and grovel, he knows he’s right. It’s not complicated logic, is it? There’s no secret to it. He’s a savage dog. He can smell fear. If one wants to keep his good opinion, by the way, it’s as well to display as much savagery as he does.’
‘I can’t accept your cynicism.’ My head ached.
‘We all have ways of surviving. We have to find strong masters in a world like this one.’
‘Why not aim to be your own master?’
‘It’s the second rank which survives. I studied history. As a cadet. I was in the army most of my life.’
I had guessed. He had the stance and way of relaxing of a regular soldier; a way of economising on his own energy and that of others. God knows what passions really slept in him. But he would not allow them to wake up. It was his training. He was doing his job as best he could. Having no cause, no Tsar, no God, he desperately rationalised the situation by looking about for the most likely Tsar. That, at least, was my belief.