‘Helena, yes, m’sieu.’ She nodded rapidly as if I had displayed unusual perceptiveness and she wished to encourage me.
I took her gently by the arm and led her to the quietest corner of the café. ‘You will have absinthe? Or lemonade, perhaps?’
She understood my French and chose lemonade, proving to me that she was by no means a hardened whore, but a wholesome schoolgirl who had, by some dreadful mischance, become mixed up in this life. There was still time to save her.
Disdainfully ignoring the Syrian’s leering, conspiratorial wink, I ordered the drinks. ‘Do you recognise me?’ I asked her.
She frowned, then quickly put an embarrassed hand to her mouth. ‘Oh! The man on the tram!’
‘I alarmed you and I’m sorry. But you are the image of my dead sister. You can imagine my own shock. You seemed a ghost.’
I had not frightened her. She relaxed again, her curiosity, if nothing else, encouraging her to stay. She put her little head to one side, just as Esmé did, and said sympathetically, ‘You are Russian, m’sieu? Your sister was. . .?’She could not find the word. ’Bolsheviks?’
‘Just so.’
‘I am sorry for you.’ She spoke softly, yet in that same vibrant voice Esmé had always used when moved to emotion. Even her tiny, nervous gesture of concern was the same.
‘You understand why I searched for you? Do they really call you Helena?’
She hesitated, as if she wanted to give me her real name. Then caution returned. She inclined her head. ‘Helena.’
‘You’re Greek?’
She shrugged, attempting to resume a mask which was still unfamiliar to her. ‘We’re all something, m’sieu.’
I felt enormous tenderness for her. She was Esmé, my darling rose. I wanted to reach out there and then to scrape the coloured powder from her cheeks, revealing the lovely skin beneath. I wanted to touch her in kindness as I touched Esmé, whose love I took for granted, whose confidence I never doubted. Esmé worshipped me. They tore her from her destiny as they tried to tear me from mine. They perverted her soul. They made her commonplace: a child of revolution with a twisted grimace where once there had been a natural smile.
‘Your parents are still alive?’
‘Of course.’ She waved an arm outwards, towards the door. A copper snake flashed, green enamel eyes glittered. ‘Over there.’
‘What nationality?’
I think the question began to make her nervous. Sighing, she spread her awkward hands, covered in penny rings, on the table. ‘Roumanian,’ she said. Within the mask her blue eyes were candid. ‘They came before the War.’
‘Would you keep me company tonight?’
She lifted fingers to her inexpert coiffure. ‘It’s what I’m here for, m’sieu.’
I shook my head, then decided not to explain. I was terrified, still, that I would startle her, send her running to where I should never find her again. So I contented myself with, ‘So you’ve no special friend?’
There was a hint of assumed world-weariness, the suggestion of a play-acted sigh which reminded me of Leda’s similar responses. ‘Not yet, m’sieu.’
I ignored her pose and touched her hand for a moment. ‘My name is Maxim. I wish to protect you. Can I call you Esmé rather than Helena?’
She was puzzled by this, and not unamused. ‘If you like.’ Her expression was transformed to one of genuine sympathy. ‘But do not be sad, M’sieu Maxim. We are here for pleasure, no?’ She fell silent, peacefully content to drink and watch the other couples dance. She had the poise of Esmé, the same unstudied movements of head and shoulders, an identical air of self-contained amusement at the world’s antics. I wanted her in a wholesome dress, hair properly brushed and rearranged, but I was still too cautious to suggest anything of the sort, frightened she would take to her heels if I moved too hastily. At that age girls can be singularly whimsical. She seemed perfectly glad to be in my company, yet at any moment might resolve to leave with someone else or decide she hated the shape of my nose. She had not been a whore for long or she would by now be taking a merely professional interest in men.
‘What did you do before you started coming to La Rotonde?’ I asked her casually.
‘At -’ She pursed her lips. She was trying to be discreet. ‘I worked.’
‘And your parents?’
‘Father’s a carpenter. Mother used to go to the big houses.’ She pointed up towards Pera’s well-to-do suburb. ‘Now she can’t. So I come here.’
All this confirmed my growing knowledge that I had been selected by Fate to rescue her. She could not have had many men before the American sailor, if any. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I might be able to offer you a job. I’m considering employing a companion. It isn’t a trick. Ask anyone here. Any of the girls. Even the Syrian will vouch for my honesty. If you, for instance, were interested, I would see your parents and ensure everything was properly arranged.’
She did not completely understand. She nodded vaguely. From her bag she lifted a packet of bad-quality cigarettes, inexpertly fitting one into a cheap wooden holder stained to mock ebony. I stretched out a hand with a lighted match, glad she was evidently unused to smoking. I continued to be careful not to introduce the slightest note of criticism or morality. Young girls carry a weight of guilt as it is. Anyone who reminds them of it is likely to be regarded with hatred. I proceeded delicately. I joked with her. Laughter always takes women’s minds from their inhibitions and in that respect is both better and cheaper than champagne. She grew steadily more at ease and tried to translate a joke from Turkish into French and failed prettily, but caused us both to double up with laughter. I suggested she might enjoy a certain cabaret in the Petite Rue and enthusiastically she got up to come with me. The theatre was a long, low building, full of smoke, sweat and naphtha lamps, where gross, chuckling Turkish merchants watched the cavortings of third-rate French music-hall entertainers pretending to be belly-dancers and dandies. But she loved the comic dances and clung helplessly to my arm in a spontaneous frenzy of laughter at the antics of a pair of moth-eaten trained seals. Esmé and I were at the circus in Kiev. It was Spring. Captain Loukianoff had given us a little money; my mother had made us a packet of bread and sausage. It was the first time we had been out alone together in an evening. The great white tent was garnished with coloured lamps. Limelight blazed on the rich-smelling ring where bounding tigers disturbed the sawdust and half-dressed nymphs performed a golden ballet in the shadows overhead. Esmé wept for the melancholy elephant and was afraid the clown had really been hurt after his friend hit him with a bucket. When we left, the air bore the scent of fresh, damp grass and May blossoms. This circus was huge. It covered the entire bottom of the Babi gorge where later I should fly. I was looking for Zoyea, my gypsy girl, and hardly hearing Esmé’s excited voice. I was a fool not to acknowledge her love. I should have protected her better. She was too good. She wanted to be a nurse and help the soldiers to live again. The soldiers recovered and made her a whore.
We walked for a little in a nearby graveyard and she seemed thoroughly at peace, willing to act on any suggestion I made. I took her to Tokatlian’s, entering through the side-door. I did not want to be seen from the restaurant. There I arranged with Olmejer for my usual room while Esmé waited in the narrow, dimly-lit lobby. She was still laughing in recollection of the comedians and tried to restrain herself as she mounted the stairs. I told her to be natural. At this she snorted through her nose. I laughed, too. She was making me so happy. I opened the door of the room and showed her everything that was there. She gasped. Evidently, she had never seen such luxury. ‘First,’ I said, ‘we’ll walk a little more. The fresh air will be good for us.’ I took her away from the rowdy dazzle of the Grande Rue, towards the embassies and the little squares, the smaller, quieter cafés.