Our yacht sailed slowly along the island’s rocky coast. Very occasionally we sighted a small beach or a cove, but nothing good enough for landing until the boat turned a headland, entering the mouth of a long, narrow bay flanked by carob trees, pines and wild olives clinging to tall cliffs of pink stone. In the wooded hills high above were the roofs and walls of large white houses, their balconies engulfed by bougainvillea and hibiscus, oleanders and geraniums, looking exactly as they might have done in Roman times.
Ahead of us was a little fishing harbour, with brightly painted hulls bobbing at the quayside, their red and yellow sails reefed, their prehistoric eyes winking in the sunlight. I would not have been surprised to see patricians in togas and sandals leaning out to look at the new arrival. Shura came to stand beside me and sniff, as if at the ozone. ‘Good, eh, Dimka? That’s the smell of money, my dear! We are entering the Port of Andratx. Only the most exclusive people spend their summers here.’ The harbour was indeed a mixture of disparate vessels, though workaday fishing ketches predominated, with magnificent private schooners taking second place in the magical tranquillity of the tiny bay.
Shura was pleased with my delight. ‘It’s like Cassis, only better. Hardly anyone knows about it.’
We anchored offshore at the far western end of the harbour and rowed one of our boats up to the quay, whose cobbles smelled strongly of fish. I slipped in blood and innards as I stepped ashore and was caught from falling by a grinning ape with lively brown eyes who might have been a minor Tuscan deity. He shouted some amiable observation at me in what seemed a barbaric mixture of French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese and laughed enormously when I tried to thank him in Spanish. Shura took my arm and led me over the cobbles to the little road that led up into the town. ’Come and meet some pals of mine. They’ll love you. I know you’ll take to them.’ He nudged me in the ribs. His grin was full of its old charm. I remembered those wonderful first months in Odessa, when he had dragged me all over the Moldava Quarter, introducing me to the best circle of friends I have ever known. Through him I had gained my first sexual experiences, discovering the harsh realities of this world as well as her pleasures. If I had an opportunity to return to an almost perfect point in my past it would be to Odessa before the folly of World War engulfed us in the stink of fear and a taste for gunpowder. With her warm and welcoming streets Odessa was a breathing, brilliant entity. Jews, Moslems and Christians lived in wonderful harmony. Only rarely did the roar of Cossack cavalry echo through the streets. The stories have been much exaggerated. Odessa respected all faiths and all men of faith. She had no fear of the alien. She welcomed him. She had her mighty cathedral, her tolling bells, her confidence in the strength of Christ. She could afford to tolerate and even encourage a diversity of people. She was everything that was best in the Russian heart. The joyous writers came from Odessa. Only when they went to live in Moscow did they grow gloomy. They tell you such lies about places. Odessa was, in comparison to most modern cities, a paradise of peace and cosmopolitanism. They make you think Belfast is nothing but bombs and gunplay, but everyone says it’s the boredom that’s the worst of it. I am always amused when Americans, who are used to living with thousands upon thousands of murders every year in their own country, become nervous of visiting a place where one or two minor outrages have been reported. If I could relive at this little Balearic port just a fraction of the happiness I had known in Odessa, I would be enduringly grateful both to friends and to God.
And so it was.
Shura’s ‘pals’ included many famous stars of literature and the entertainment business who chose what the natives called Port d’Andratx as the perfect location for their luxury hideaways. The little town built up above the quay was dominated by an eighteenth-century church of local stone, topped by a clock and a conventional angel, doubtless their domestic saint. The perfect whiteness of the houses was broken by oddly fashioned chimney pots and slates, their soft curving lines in gentle contrast to the ultra-modern vivid yellow and blue Egyptianate Hotel Bristol which was patronised chiefly by the yachting crowd. They had colonised the fishing port in recent years, bringing with them a glamorous lifestyle and easy habits of spending and were revered by all but the most committed socialist. On warm nights the Bristol’s were usually the only lights still burning at dawn.
Andratx was the haunt of Continental film stars like Rose Blanche and Corinne Sweet, Pola Negri and Elfrieda Juergen, of politicians like Primo de Rivera and magnates like Vickers and Zaharoff, of international writers such as Felix Faust, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Lester Dent, G. H. Teed, W. Somerset Maugham, Dornford Yates, Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Erich Maria Remarque, Howard Marion Crawford and Charles Hamilton, most of whom had their own yachts. In those days the world valued its tale-spinners and rewarded them accordingly. Now, by virtue of a beneficent state rather than any honest work or public acclaim, only fawning lapdogs of the establishment can afford such pleasures. The predictable result of the so-called National Health Service.
We dined every evening in the harbour restaurant next to the Bristol. Shura, the debonair man of affairs, always knew at least half the people at the other tables. He was forever up and shaking hands with some fantastic prima donna, some painfully shy écrivain or distinguished member of the Fascist Legion who bore Mussolini’s greatest honour on a discreet lapel. Spanish officers, mostly of the aristocratic class, were as happy as anyone else to pass the time of day with Shura, introducing him as a close confidant of Stavisky, that ‘master rogue’ as the papers would call him as soon as he was safely assassinated. They would enquire after Stavisky’s business exploits and adventures as if they were following a popular serial.
Clearly Stavisky’s power extended further than I had ever guessed. Shura’s claims of watertight political connections (which he guaranteed he would employ to correct my record in France as soon as possible) were entirely authenticated. Through Shura I was privileged to join the inner entourage of a post-war prince, who comprised all the traditional virtues of a great Russian seigneur, an outlaw lord, a man of substance and influence. Stavisky’s empire stretched from the Black Sea to the English Channel and beyond. His decisions determined the fate of small nations and large governments.
Shura was genuinely popular in the port. He never discussed his boss’s affairs in front of me. He always took his colleagues aside for any business exchanges. I think he still felt protective and affectionately sheltered me from the sordid world of politics and commerce. For the moment I was content to rest under his brotherly concern and to indulge myself in his circle’s singularly fine cocaine. As the Bedouin tribesmen had done in the desert, Shura treated me as a kind of mascot. He admired me as a dreamer and an artist. I am not even sure he really believed my stories of my life since I had last seen him, yet he was surprisingly familiar with my screen work and boasted to acquaintances how I had been a Hollywood star. He was, however, amiably reluctant to watch the films that were proof of this. He said he had enjoyed them when they first came out. In the end I would talk to him as one would talk to a cat, for relief and comfort and to sound out ideas, while he listened to me with abstracted good humour much as if a favourite pet made comforting, uninterpretable noises. Occasionally he grew mysteriously irritable with me.