‘I’d hoped to find Prince Petroff, that’s all.’
‘Only exhausted and defeated anarchists come here. We share a common bond of bitterness and self-pity.’ He smiled, straightening his cap. ‘Maybe that’s why I mistook you for a Chekist. You don’t look crushed enough. Go in peace, comrade. But be careful. Your face is wrong for this kind of place.’ His mouth softened. ‘Your eyes have too much future in them. These cafés are citadels of a lost past. We don’t have the energy to take another step forward.’
I do not remember saying goodbye to him. I ran up the Rue Froidevaux, past the theatre. I was running not from Chelanak but from Brodmann. I was sure the anarchist was right. Brodmann was a natural candidate for the Cheka. He would delight in destroying me. At that moment I could have run all the way back to Rome. I had to be a fool so passively to have accepted Santucci’s lift. I had thought it would be easy to get to London from here. It would have been better to have remained in Constantinople. It was imperative, I thought, at least to get out of Paris, possibly to the South or to Belgium. From there we could choose Holland or Germany. I would sell all my clothes. Every treasure I had retained. I found myself in the Luxembourg Gardens with their thin, unfriendly trees. The place was far too exposed for me. I dashed into the Rue St Michel and its crowds, was almost hit by a tram and at last reached our alley. It had become a sanctuary. I was seriously out of breath by the time I got to the top of the stairs. Within, it was as gloomy as ever. Esmé, sitting up in our grey bed, read an old La Vie Parisienne and merely nodded as I entered. I went immediately to our little store of cocaine to pull myself together. She still had last night’s papers in her hair. She was turning into a slattern and it was my fault. Could Brodmann, I wondered, have come specifically to Paris to seek me out? The Bolsheviks had assassins in every major city. Their job was simply to wipe out those who had escaped them in Russia.
For once I was glad Esmé gave her entire attention to her magazine and did not see, thank God, my anxiety. How was I to tell her we must flee? She could only grow worse and it would be impossible to travel at any kind of speed with her an invalid and Brodmann in pursuit. He must surely be aware of my presence in Paris and since I had left my address everywhere in the hope Kolya would eventually be given it, Brodmann or one of his Chekist agents might discover it at any moment. I prayed they would spare Esmé. My first decision was to take my Georgian pistols to the expensive shops on the Quai Voltaire where tourists bought their old Louis XV chairs and Napoleonic medals, their carved saints looted from churches destroyed during the Siege. It was a short walk for me, along the Seine. I was bound to get enough for our rail fares out of France. However, I moved slowly. I felt I was renouncing the last vestiges of my heritage, selling my birthright, betraying a friend. But I had no choice. Refugees all over Paris were making exactly the same decision.
I believe I was singularly blessed in those days by a somewhat flamboyant and depraved Guardian Angel, the same who had started me into the bohemian Petersburg world and introduced me to Kolya. He now appeared, shrieking and waving his long, limp arms, on the Pont Neuf where it joined Quai de Conti. It was as if he had sprung from one of the grotesque buttresses of Notre Dame itself, dressed in a bright yellow cloak, green cravat, blue velvet jacket and white Oxford Bags. From habit, my first impulse was to avoid him; then I shrugged as he leapt across the roadway, cloak and trousers billowing like the silk of a deflated balloon, and seized me. He hugged me to his monstrous chest and breathed peppermint vodka into my face. He still had his exaggerated good looks, his theatrical speech and gesture. It was also obvious that his lust for me (first felt on the train when I was a boy travelling from Kiev to St Petersburg and the Polytechnic) was utterly undiminished. It was the ballet-dancer Sergei Andreyovitch Tsipliakov. ‘Your own Seryozha, my darling Dimka!’ He kissed me passionately on both cheeks and then again on my forehead. ‘Oh. Dimka! You are not dead! I am not dead! Isn’t it wonderful? How long have you been in Paris? You don’t look well.’ He held me firmly in his huge hands and inspected me. ‘I told you Paris was the place to be and you remembered! Wasn’t I a good judge? I came here in ‘16 with some of the other Foline members. To entertain the troops. And I’ve been here ever since. Lucky, too, don’t you think?’
I seemed to remember he had once been absolutely firm that I should stay in Petersburg. I wanted to know how he had managed to reach Paris when it had been almost impossible for Russian civilians to travel. ‘My dear, Foline is a genius. Heartless, selfish, thoughtless, but a genius. He talked someone into believing our performances would improve the morale of the troops fighting in Flanders. And they let us go. About half of us, anyway. They wouldn’t have me, dear, in the army. And I didn’t pout about it. A tremendous piece of good fortune. We’re loved by everyone in Paris. I’ve had offers from Diaghilev and from that plagiarist Fokine. Not only did he steal Foline’s name, he’s stolen almost all our repertoire. But it doesn’t matter. There are hundreds of marvellous composers here, as you know. Where are you off to, Dimka dear?’
Having gathered that Seryozha was doing well, I had begun to consider my ideas. Perhaps I could borrow the money I needed, or at least sell him some shares in my Airship Company. I told him I was merely out for a stroll, whereupon he insisted we must go to a nearby café, L’Epéron. ‘I was on my way to it anyway. It’s marvellous there. Everyone’s so handsome and beautiful. Do you feel like an omelette? They have wonderful omelettes.’
We strolled past box after box of secondhand books lining the embankment then back up to Boulevard St-Michel, as crowded as always. Seryozha seemed to know half the people in the street. L’Epéron was one of those huge, modern places which had become so fashionable since the war. A glass enclosure filled the best part of a block and inside it was crowded with dirty, long-haired, bawdy self-styled painters, writers and musicians. I was only grateful the stage inside was presently unoccupied by the inevitable jazz band. We had to share a table with two obvious homosexuals who to my chagrin immediately assumed I was Seryozha’s catamite. But I was prepared to suffer even this if it meant escape for me and Esmé. Seryozha, for my benefit and for that of half the vast café, began to boast of his achievements on the dance stage, what the Parisian critics had said of him, how Diaghilev himself had tried to lure him away from Foline. This, too, I endured patiently, nodding and smiling; the price I paid for the omelette, which was large but mediocre. My acquaintance ordered a whole bottle of anis which he insisted we drink. I had forgotten his taste for alcohol. By the time we rose to leave I was fairly drunk and had agreed to go back with Tsipliakov to his rooms in Rue Dauphine. As we walked unsteadily over the cobbles I asked if he had seen anything of Kolya in Paris. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I was seeing him fairly frequently about six months ago. He always dines at Lipp’s in Boulevard St-Germain. Do you know it? Not to my taste. Country food, mainly. But he has a sentimental attachment to peasants, as you know.’ He stopped, took out his key, opened a huge courtyard gate and ushered me ahead of him. On the other side of the courtyard a flight of steps led to the door of his flat. It was spacious and light, but he had the taste of a kulak. Little nick-nacks were perched on every surface: china pigs, china roses, candlesticks, gold vases full of garish flowers. It was heavy with stale perfume. ‘Take those Japanese cushions,’ he said. ‘You’ll be most comfortable.’