‘And you manipulated Kitty and me into becoming part of that horrible pantomime of family life! What took place in your disgusting dreams? What did you plan for us?’
This was too near my true fantasies. I backed away. What I regarded as joyous and beautiful, this demented, puritanical, jealous Fury was determined to depict in the worst possible light.
‘I hoped at very least you had paid a high price for your infamy.’ She was advancing towards me now. I retreated as far as I could before I was stopped by the bannister, ‘I thought you still worthy of suicide. I hoped you had been tortured and murdered. I was relishing the prospect of the police finding your body in the Bosphorus and asking me to identify it. I intended to refuse, or tell them it was not your body, to make sure you were put in a communal grave with all the other scum of this filthy city. But here you are, a nightmare come true. You kissed me with lips that had touched her. You confirm people’s worst prejudices against you. I have not dared ask Kitty what went on between you when I was absent! That poor, innocent girl!’
‘I love Kitty like a father.’ I was whispering too, now. ‘Leda, you must realise I meant no harm. I did it for you. How did you find out?’
‘Hasn’t your little whore told you? She was convinced you had been killed. You had become a drug to her. She didn’t know what would happen to her. She had drunk too much when she found me. I said I would help her home. That was how I discovered your horrible love-nest. You were living with her in our special hotel! Oh, how you must have laughed at me! You’re not a human being. You’re the vilest of devils. It all came out, bit by bit, that night. She at least was repentant. But you - you show no remorse at all! Merely anguish at my discovering the truth, to the frustration of your plans. You are a discredit to your race!’
‘The appearance is far worse than the actuality.’ I spoke as calmly as I could. ‘It is all the result of a series of accidents.’
‘You have put my daughter at risk. You deny you’ve been making carnal love to a child no older than Kitty? That you betrayed all my finest feelings, cynically used my love and my best sentiments for your own perverse ends! How can you lie, even now? Oh, how I prayed your death was slow and painful!’
‘This is extremely unfortunate. Be assured, Leda Nicolayevna, my feelings, too, were of the finest. My darling, I am a father to Esmé, as I am to Kitty. My emotions are platonic, I swear. Anything else she told you is a child’s misunderstanding or a wild fantasy of her own invention.’
‘Maxim Arturovitch, you prove yourself still more despicable with every utterance. I have seen your clothes! Your bed! Your notes to her!’
‘It is not, however, what you think. You have condemned me hastily. I believe you will regret that.’ After my dreadful ordeal, I could stand no more. I drew myself up. ‘I shall not argue with you on this public landing. I intend to leave. If, when your senses are restored, you wish to speak to me, I would ask you to be good enough to send a note first.’ I raised my hat. ‘Adieu, Leda Nicolayevna.’
I believe the woman went so far as to spit at me while, with an appearance of calm, I descended her stairs. It is never pleasant to see a lady of good breeding driven to the manners and language of the gutter.
Considerably glad to be removed from the harridan’s nonsensical accusations, I returned to the relative tranquillity of my suite at Tokatlian’s where I found a frightened, guilty Esmé. She knew she had done wrong, but how could I be angry? Still dazed by my encounter, I sat down in my chair, stroking Esmé’s weeping head and trying very hard to make sense of my thoughts, for fresh plans were urgently required. The prospect of the Baroness out of malice reporting me to the authorities was alarming. I could probably prove I was not the one to have had initial carnal knowledge of the child. I hoped she might admit she had known at least one man before me. I could insist I was merely her guardian, that I had saved her from sin, but the scandal would certainly hinder me in obtaining a visa for England. I became decidedly anxious as the time went on. I did not sleep that night while I considered my few options. It seemed the whole world again conspired against me. Must I be punished simply because I had given my being in all generosity to two women, had in fact made both happy? I had anticipated the dangers of arousing the Baroness’s jealousy. Now I was proven wise in my judgment. She pretended to be a woman of the world, but I had always known better. If she acted in haste, she could cause me immense inconvenience. My liberty could be at stake. There was no threat of mine which might silence her, no offer she would not in her present mood reject. I knew deep despair. Beside me in the bed, little Esmé, the cause of all this, snored gently in girlish slumber.
In spite of my desolation I forced myself next morning to hurry directly to the British Embassy. I somehow managed to drive my way through the crowd outside and from sheer panic was able to reach the front hall. I had been of great help to the British. They had been able to arrest a master spy on my information. I had a wife in England. I had served with the Australians. All this was explained to those soft-faced boy-policemen who backed my path. Yelling over the imploring din outside, I outlined my predicament: I had been involved in valuable espionage in Anatolia. I had more names to link with Siniutkin. But now my life was in danger. I was carrying plans, I said, of great importance to the British Government. By the time I stopped, my brown suit was drenched with sweat and impassively they told me to submit my request in writing. I began to demand to see someone in greater authority. It was at this stage that one of the soldiers said I should piss off back to whatever rathole I came from. Now I was not only insulted by officials, but was being set upon from behind by desperate Russians and foreigners close to hysteria. In their efforts to secure some privilege they made revolting beasts of themselves. There was nothing for it but to go down to the docks and look for my Armenian friends. I was seeking a person whom I had already met. They directed me to a certain grubby coffee house near the Quarantine Harbour.
After I had trudged up and down hundreds of alley steps, passed under scores of lines bowed with threadbare washing, avoided the droppings of dogs, donkeys and Turks, I eventually reached a shop in the half-basement below a great tottering wreck of wood and brick which had once been painted green. In French its faded lettering boasted housing Alfasian’s Famous Tropical Bird Emporium. From within, the occasional squawk or mutter of a parakeet echoed in an emptiness suggesting Alfasian’s was not a thriving concern. The broken planks of the steps down to the coffee house were slippery and rotten. In my haste, I almost fell into the basement area. The interior was packed with Armenians and Albanians smoking their long meerschaums and staring up at me from dreamy, suddenly cautious eyes. At the oilcloth-covered counter I asked for Captain Kazakian. A large, thickset man wearing a filthy American navy cap rose in the shadow of a cubicle and motioned with his cigarette. I recognised him and went to join him at his table. ‘You’re the Greek who fixed my boat so well,’ he said in Russian. ‘Well, friend, what can I do for you?’
I told him I remembered his mentioning how he frequently took tourists back and forth to Venice; that he would sometimes carry the odd passenger who perhaps did not have all his proper documents for entering Italy. Noncommitally, he nodded. ‘You have a friend in trouble, Mr Papanatki?’
‘Myself and my sister. We must leave at once. When do you next plan to sail?’
He sighed. ‘The competition has been terrible this season. And before that was the damned War. The bigger people are taking all the tourist trade from me. I’ll only be able to return from Venice with, say, half-a-dozen passengers. They will scarcely pay for the running costs.’ He looked miserably at me. ‘Therefore, it would have to cost, for the two together, a hundred.’ By the figure he meant gold. I had that in sovereigns. ‘You can take our trunks and so on?’ I asked him. ‘Of course,’ he made a generous gesture with his hand. ‘Trunks. Suitcases. Cats and dogs. No extra charge.’ He laughed as he saw my relief. ‘I’m not short of space on board. At the moment I’m half empty.’ We agreed where we should meet and what procedure I should follow. It was to be at the ‘Little Quay’ near the Tephane Docks. I left the coffee house beginning to feel I had accomplished the most important part of my escape. The streets stank of damp and decomposing spices. I was oddly intoxicated by the time I reached my next destination, a grog shop near the Tower, behind which my Bulgarian forger had his office. Another fifty pounds bought me crude exit visas as well as reasonably made British passports for myself and Esmé. The documents would be of no use for entering England itself, but would prove helpful in countries less familiar with the originals. I gave my name as Cornelius and supplied him with the necessary particulars, including photographs which I had prepared some time before. While I waited he made up the passports, peering through a gigantic magnifying glass as, in the light of a naphtha lamp and muttering admiringly at his own handiwork, he bent over an old, chemical-stained mahogany table.