The maintenance of this secret apartment over Tokatlian’s meant selling jewellery intended for London. The Pera cocaine was good, cheap and plentiful. Nonetheless Esmé proved a voracious user. Once they have overcome their prejudice and sampled it, most women develop an authentic passion for the drug. Some would even claim it is above all a woman’s drug. The deterioration of my finances was rapid and did not take long to become obvious. I had not paid my bill at the Palas and quite rightly Mrs Cornelius had refused responsibility. She had left Russia with much less than I. Accordingly I began to consider selling either my knowledge or my abilities. During the Civil War I had learned to survive very well in Kiev, and had become a successful businessman. Now I must attempt to do the same thing in Constantinople. It was Esmé’s habit to sleep most of the day, so I would go down to the docks where under the old arches I found dozens of motor repair shops. I became friendly with several people specialising in boat engines. I helped them out whenever they needed me and in a short time became not only assured of work, but had several important contacts amongst small ship owners who plied the Bosphorus, Aegean and nearer shores of the Black Sea. The majority of these owners were either Greek or Armenian. I eventually met cousins of my old mentor Sarkis Mihailovitch and was treated thereafter as a family friend. They, too, were mechanics. Few Turks ran such repair shops. Turks tended to feel they lost face if they let their hands get oily or even attempted to understand the mysteries of the internal combustion engine. They had lived on the backs of others for centuries. Up to now they had employed German and Britons to build their machines for them while the lesser races of the Ottoman Empire were ordered to maintain them. The British had built the underground funicular which ran between Pera and the Galata docks. The Germans had built the tram system. No Ottoman was responsible for a single innovation. Even the designs of the mosques were copied from the Byzantines. When a class or nation is reduced to a reliance on pride and slaves, it gives up the right to rule. They had no claim on Constantinople. Byzantium’s true inheritors could construct the machines needed to run a city which Roman engineers had given fresh foundations. The ancient warrens of two thousand five hundred years were a tribute to the simple fact that to survive was to embrace and understand new technology as it emerged. Working in the harbours of the Golden Horn, where galleons of Venice and Chinese junks had met regularly in the course of trade, I could watch flying boats land and take off: Macchis and Porte-Felixstowes flying from Italy and Gibraltar, taking important military personnel back and forth. I longed to pilot one of those machines, at least until I built my own. They were a reminder of what the West meant to me. They revived my imagination. They made Europe real again. Even the most magnificent ships could not convey this ambience. The planes flew to their home bases within hours, coming and going so casually. I dreamed of flying Esmé and myself to freedom, to Genoa or Le Havre. I would build a more sophisticated version of my first machine and escape with her on my back, a flying prince and princess, those staples of Oriental legend.
I was touched when Esmé told me she dreamed one day of keeping house for me, of becoming my wife. I was only seven years her senior. When I reached thirty she would be twenty-three. There was nothing wrong with a man of twenty-five marrying a girl of eighteen. We planned like children, knowing little of normal domestic life. Esmé was admiringly curious of my designs, sitting silently as with set-square and slide rule I worked on a plan for a new steam engine which would use rapid heating chemicals, suitable for powering a motor car. Naturally, she could not follow the mathematical formulae but the symbols themselves fascinated her. For hours she would stare at them like a cat, her eyes following my pen as it formed them on the paper.
We continued to dine in obscure backstreet cafés. She wanted to cook for me, she said. She named Turkish and Roumanian dishes. Contemptuously she said the restaurants could not prepare them properly. She had been educated at a charitable convent school until she was ten. For a time she thought of becoming a nun. Then her father’s fortunes worsened. The Turks had grown unwilling to employ Christians in their War Effort. So Esmé herself had looked for work. During the War there had been few jobs. She tried to be a domestic servant like her mother, but most of the usual employers, the well-to-do Greeks, or people attached to foreign embassies had left the capital. Now, with so many refugees, the competition was impossible. Two friends of hers had gone to work at Mrs Unal’s. They told her money was good in the brothel once you were used to the hours. I guessed Esmé had been so obviously innocent Mrs Unal had sent her away. Even in Pera and Galata there were laws of sorts. The British did their best to maintain them, though much of their time was taken up settling disputes between different groups of Allied servicemen and attempting to discourage Turkish police from demanding bribes. Esmé said she even thought of returning to Roumania and finding cousins, but she had been her parents’ only support. They would die soon. In the meantime she had to care for them. To ease her conscience, I had already promised them a few shillings a week.
The von Ruckstühl correspondence grew hysterical. Those intolerable Germans wanted her to leave. Marusya Veranovna had disappeared. Kitty was heartbroken. There was no money. Had I ‘dropped’ her? Reluctantly, I arranged to see her. In my room at the Pera Palas I actually enjoyed myself with her. I felt a return of spontaneity which had vanished during my time with Esmé, for it is hard not to treat a little girl as a delicate toy. Leda had become inventively lascivious. All her fantasies and frustrations had given her time to explore her range of lust. With genuine emotion I told her how much I had missed her. ‘But you are always in Scutari,’ she said. ‘Have you a woman there?’ I reassured her. ‘It’s because the influential Turks live in Scutari.’
‘Are you a spy, Simka? When I told Count Siniutkin you were a flyer who served with Intelligence, he said you must be a secret agent.’
‘All you need to know, darling Leda, is that I am a Russian patriot. I hate Trotski and his gang. I really should not say more.’
‘Then your work is dangerous? I am so selfish. It’s the anxiety. I feel it more for Kitty than myself. But I shall have to find a job.’
When she left I offered myself the luxury of an hour in the bath alone and tried to collect my thoughts. I was indeed living fairly dangerously, though not as the Baroness guessed. In spite of my work, my savings were almost exhausted. Somehow I had put myself in the position of deceiving three women and, worse, I had diverted from my ‘life plan’. I had to find a way to resolve all these difficulties. Changing into fresh linen, I went downstairs to the bar and to my delight saw Mrs Cornelius. She had on a new soft silk frock of pale blue and sported a navy blue ‘picture’ hat. She was not in the least surprised to see me, but I believe I must have blushed under her searching eye.
‘Afternoon, Ivan,’ she said. She was distant and disapproving. ‘Ya got me note, then.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m this moment returned from Scutari.’ I was anxious to win back her good opinion. ‘I’m working. Trying to earn some money by doing mechanical repairs for the Turks.’
‘Where the ‘ell’ve yer reelly bin? Silly little bleeder. Unless ya pull yer socks up, yore gonna be in an ‘orrible mess. I carn’t ‘elp yer.’
‘You’ve already done more for me, dear Mrs Cornelius, than anyone.’ I spoke feelingly and with dignity. ‘If I am keeping you here, then you must travel on alone. I will join you as soon as I can.’