Byzantium Endures (41 page)

Ivan the Terrible is sometimes depicted as Russia’s Macbeth. Stalin was our Richard III. He killed millions. He sat on his own in a vast Kremlin kino watching Mickey Mouse films while Russia died at his command. He had been close to God once. Though he resisted with all his might, God was still in him, still working through him. He killed in the name of the Future as Cossacks killed in the name of Christ. But he could not rid himself of the ghosts: Bolshevik princelings who had died as Boyars died under Ivan. Stalin said Ivan should have destroyed all the Boyars. If Stalin had been given the span of Methuselah, there would not have been a single person, save himself, left alive. He would have had his peaceful heaven on earth. He killed in the hope of shutting every accusing eye. They say murderers cannot sleep. It is the other way about: those who cannot sleep become murderers. Cut off from their dreams, they translate harmless nightmare into horrible reality.

I had plans to make reality of my own dreams. While I worked as a jobbing mechanic I continued to develop a stream of inventions, drawing up detailed plans on proper graph paper, giving every sort of accurate specification. When I applied for work in Kharkov or Kherson, I would be able to make the best possible impression. The summer was a good one. From Saint Alexander’s I could look across at Darnitsa, where the big German POW camp was, and see the prisoners bathing. They were in dreadful condition. They had endured hardship during the fighting and we could not afford to feed them. They were eating lice. I had a plan for them. It involved interesting local industrialists in certain patents I had. The Germans could be used as workers to develop them. They would be happy to work for food alone. But materials were short as well as men.

I also had a particularly exciting scheme: a machine to concentrate light. This was an admittedly primitive precursor of modern lasers and masers which are revolutionising medicine and astronomy today. I planned to harness invisible light (what is now called ‘ultra-violet’). With proper equipment and more faith from those nervous Ukrainian businessmen, at that time interested in getting their money out of Russia rather than investing in our War Effort, I might have turned the tide of conflict. The machine had drawbacks and would have been difficult to transport, but would have done more to spread alarm amongst the enemy than the most dashing and effective of cavalry or tank charges.

Mother began to display an informed intelligence which surprised me. My simpler ideas induced quite specific questions. I told her about my compressed-air machine-gun and my pilotless ‘fire-ship’ dirigible which could carry an enormous bomb, be towed into position by aeroplane, released over its target, then deliberately shot down. I was pleased to explain to her what was involved. I had even more schemes than I had had in Petrograd. Now I possessed the time and confidence to clarify them. I anticipated among other things the communications satellite (for which I have never received a penny in royalties), the television, the radio-printed newspaper, the war-rocket and the transport-rocket. Domestic automata were another idea of mine (the Czech word for serf,
robot,
had not yet been popularised by the leftist writer Chapek). I was also working on a scheme for pilotless aircraft controlled from the ground by radio-signals. I realise now that I spoke too much and too freely. Not only in Russia, but also when in Germany, America and England, where many of my schemes were ‘borrowed’ by unscrupulous men claiming my inventions as their own and selling them, needless to say, to Jewish firms who are still making fortunes from them. I need not name names here. It is enough to say that Marx and Spenser did not invent, I think, the underpant.

Looking back on those strange Kiev days, I suppose I must have seemed a peculiar figure to people who knew me. My mother, however, was not at all disturbed by my entering our flat as a grease-spotted mechanic and leaving as a man-about-town. I was gaining experience in every way. Primarily I confined my activities to Podol. There was more than enough work in the ghetto. The Jews would do anything to keep their sweat-shops going. I rarely had to travel more than a few streets. The trams had begun to run roughly on time. It seemed to us that things were settling down.

In my white suit, my boater, with my silver-headed cane, I would take a Sunday stroll along the banks of the river. I would hire a carriage to go for picnics in the countryside with Mother and Captain Brown. Esmé returned on leave, looking exhausted and thinner than I remembered. For once I was able to be of use to her. Rather than have her suffering the discomfort of our apartment, I decided she must stay at a good hotel,
The Yevropyaskaya
on Kreshchatik. She was welcomed as a countess and received every courtesy. She was delighted. She hugged me and kissed me and said it was a wonderful present. She was pleased about my Diploma and full of questions. I could see she needed sleep so left her in that elegant summer room, full of silver and gilt and silk. I would call for her in the evening. Meanwhile I had a variety of clothes sent round to the hotel and ordered a four-wheeler to be outside by six o’clock.

At six she was wearing a perfect blue dress, a fashionable matching head-band, feathers, ‘tango’ shoes. She wore little makeup, and her large blue eyes looked lovely in their setting of pink and gold. I was proud to be seen with her as our carriage took us to Tsarskaya Square and one of the best restaurants in Kiev. She tasted course after course, but was unable to eat very much because of the excitement. ‘They told me everyone was starving at home!’

‘Not everyone,’ I said. ‘The food is simply not getting to the soldiers. So it has to be eaten.’ I told her I knew of people who made special trips to Moscow and Petrograd with just a couple of baskets of provisions. They came home almost millionaires.

‘Is that how you’re living?’ she asked.

‘Good God, no! I’m doing proper work.’ I was rather hurt by the suggestion. She became apologetic. I poured her more French wine and calmed her. ‘I’ve taken over Sarkis Mihailovitch’s business. The profiteers, you could say, are giving me my profits. But mostly they’re honest enough. Everyone buys and sells something. Have you seen the markets? Bessarabskaya? A Contract Fair going all year round! Peasants bring their produce to the city because no one can get to the country. They drive whole herds into Kiev. And you can obtain literally anything in the Bessarabskaya.’ I was too delicate to do more than suggest my meaning, but she understood. Working amongst soldiers had evidently given her a knowledge of the world.

A band started to play. It was Gypsy music, very sad. Esmé began to relax. She was immensely beautiful now, in her prime as a girl. I still considered her a sister. I could not regard her as a sexual partner. I wished her to keep her virginity. I could now help her marry well. I was a brother and a father to her. I wanted to do for her what her father would have wished. A number of my friends and business acquaintances saw us together. I was winked at more than once and when Esmé was not in earshot I was congratulated. I explained nothing. It suited me to be seen with her. When the War was over I would need to give dinners to great industrialists. Esmé would make a perfect hostess. I could employ her in my firm. I had begun to evolve what the Germans call ‘a lifeplan’. I would model myself as far as possible on Thomas Edison, the American inventor and entrepreneur. My name would become as famous throughout Europe as his was in his native land. It would become a synonym for progress and enlightenment, possibly mentioned in the same breath as Galileo and Newton. But I would be practical. I would keep control of my own patents. I spoke to Esmé of this and of certain details I had already worked out. ‘You will be a full partner,’ I told her. ‘It is only fair. Your encouragement, and mother’s, made me what I am.’

She looked down at her plate and she smiled a little, ‘I had aspirations to become a doctor,’ she told me. ‘I think I have a vocation.’

‘And perhaps Captain Brown could become a laundress!’ The humour was meant to be harmless. The image of my feminine Esmé in mannish suits, carrying a doctor’s bag, was ludicrous. ‘Why not? Anything is possible in the New Russia!’ I parodied a popular phrase of the Provisional Government. I changed the subject: ‘There’s talk of mutiny. Will you be safe at the Front?’

She looked up and laughed spontaneously. ‘Safer than walking up Kreshchatik. Dear Maxim. The soldiers are like children. You get the odd agitator, of course. But their loyalty depends on respect. If they like an officer, or a nurse, they’ll do anything for them. Conditions are unspeakable. They’re so grateful if you merely wipe the sweat from their foreheads. They’re honest, decent, Russian lads.’

‘All the virtues you mention can become vices overnight.’

She did not want to listen. She frowned and shook her head.

‘Children can turn against you,’ I said.

‘We’re their nanyanas. They trust us. They know we suffer as they do. They know we volunteered to help them.’

I called for the bill. She had reassured me a little. But she was still innocent.

We took the carriage through the steep Kiev streets. There were lights of sorts burning, candles and oil-lamps. I wished we had been able to paint the town red in proper style, the old style, when Kreshchatik would have been full of electrics and gaslight; the pleasure gardens along the river would have had different coloured lanterns glowing in the trees. German bands would have played waltzes. Then I should truly have enjoyed my triumph and her enjoyment.

Esmé said she felt guilty. So many were now homeless, sick and crippled. I told her that I was not oblivious to the misery. I spent my own money freely, giving to beggars and to various church institutions, to organisations set up for the aid of the needy. Even the Jews of Podol knew me for one who could be relied upon to put a coin in a collecting box. Meanness has never been one of my vices. When I had money, I would give. And, of course, I was saving. I had a duty to my mother, to myself, to all those I loved, to make sure that political events would not affect them. The day would come when Mother would be too frail to work at the laundry. A man can live as he chooses, I said, so long as he is insured. Freedom is based on a sense of responsibility. That is what the Bolsheviks never realised. The only slogan I ever hoped to see strung out on a banner over any street was ‘Live and let Live.’

Esmé asked where I intended taking her next. I mentioned a popular cabaret. It had one of the usual names:
The Purple Monkey
or
The Chartreuse Sioux.
She asked if she might visit the flat instead, to have a quiet glass of tea with my mother and Captain Brown. Captain Brown would have had more than one quiet glass of vodka by now and if not asleep he would be singing some obscure Glaswegian shanty, but I understood that the high-life could be exhausting. I had no hesitation in ordering the carriage up Kirillovskaya to our own little street. Esmé’s instincts had been good. Suddenly I was at ease again. Here so little had changed: the woods and gorges, the mixture of houses, the distant barking of dogs, the quarrelling of couples. We might have been the two happy children who had attended Herr Lustgarten’s school. So little time had passed since we had tried out my first flying machine. Now her father was at rest and, oddly enough, my mother seemed mentally at rest.

Though I had a key, I knocked on the door. It was opened at once. My mother had seen Esmé earlier, before I had arranged the hotel, but she hugged her as if greeting her for the first time. ‘What a beautiful girl. You are still an angel. Look at her, Maxim!’

I looked at her. ‘Were you expecting us then, mama?’

She became flustered. ‘Was it a good restaurant?’

‘The best. You must come there.’

‘Oh, I always get too nervous. I have indigestion before I take a bite of bread!’ It was why I had given up trying to take her out.

Esmé sat down in her usual chair and removed her shoes. She hitched up her skirt and scratched a perfect calf encased in pale blue silk. I was used to women, of course, and most of them had no modesty at all, but I expected different behaviour from Esmé. This was stupid of me. She was, after all, amongst family and she had been serving at the Front. My mother put lumps of sugar and pieces of the fresh lemon I had bought that morning into Esmé’s tea. ‘I’ve brewed it strong. You’ve got used to strong tea, eh?’

‘Not any more.’ Esmé did not elaborate, it’s very good, Yelisaveta Filipovna.’ She looked at me, smiling. ‘The best thing to pass my lips all day.’

‘I have wasted a fortune!’ I said in mock despair. I settled down into a chair and accepted a glass of tea.

‘You are not eating properly,’ said my mother to Esmé. ‘The food is bad?’

‘Not as bad as what the soldiers get.’

‘Weevils in the bread, eh?’

‘Sometimes.’