Cold Blood (30 page)

K
OBI WAS
no trouble. Not being a drinker, he had nothing in common with Muraviev's mercenaries. We found him on patrol—six men altogether.

I said to them, “Which of you wants to get rich with me in Kazan?”

How rich, they wanted to know; what artillery would they have in support; which regiments would they be up against...

I made a mistake here: I spoke Trotsky's name, not knowing that in Muraviev's news-sheet that very day there'd been a quote from the bastard promising five hundred roubles and the enjoyment of a countess to whichever soldier raised the Red Flag above the kremlin of Kazan.

The patrol didn't like the idea of fighting against men going for that sort of reward. They flinched, I saw it in their eyes. I asked them if they'd seen Blahos around. They shook their heads. They couldn't have cared less about Blahos. They were thinking about five hundred in cash and making a countess squeal and which side was going to win.

I was sorry I couldn't recruit them. Numbers make everyone more confident. I did a quick check. Kobi, Boltikov, Shmuleyvich and myself made four full-time operatives. Joseph and Stiffy would be wasted on the firing step but useful elsewhere. Jones was a doubtful asset. Xenia—nix. Mrs. D.—I'd score her half. She had guts. Anyway, not enough of us.

We got to Blahos's yard, which was exactly as Stupichkin had described. A dog wanted to give the game away until Kobi had a quick word with it. Now everything depended on Shmuleyvich
being able to get the armoured car going. I was relying on him: he was the fellow with engine grease down to the third layer of his epidermis. He viewed it thoughtfully.

“Well . . .” he said, stroking his chin.

I said, “You'll be pushing it or else.”

Nettled, he opened the bonnet. I was keen to have this machine. It had two swivelling turrets set on the diagonal to make the car slimmer and a rear access door to them. Maxim machine guns. There was a headlight on the roof. Boltikov thought the glass in the front slots was bulletproof. We walked round it several times. Narrow wheels, so probably for road use only.

Shmuley called softly to me. He'd solved the problem of how ignition could be achieved in an Austin-Putilov 50 h.p. engine which had no key. It had fuel, he said, it had reverse gear: he could get it turned round and out in a minute, no more. He reckoned it'd shift along at about thirty, faster than anything else in Strabinsk.

The big man looked at us, smiling. He spread his arms wide. It was hard to say whether the shadows on him were shadows or puddles of oil. “
Pochemu nyet?
Why not, boss?”

He grinned, his teeth strong like the gates to a fortress. “God be with Russia!” he exclaimed—and the armoured car burst into life, volleys of oily black smoke blasting from its exhaust and its metal sides rattling like a charity collecting box.

Boltikov and I jumped onto the running board one side, leaving the other one for Kobi and it was exactly as Shmuley had said. No one could have possibly caught us as we went rumbling through Strabinsk.

At the brickworks siding, nothing had changed except that Joseph had put the ramp down. Shmuley roared up it. He cut the engine. I opened the rear access door to see how we were placed for ammunition.

He was crouched there, very young, very white in the face, very afraid. It was Vaska, Blahos's nightwatchman.

I said, “How old are you?” He was sixteen.

“How tall are you?” He didn't know.

So I had him come out of the turret and when he unfolded himself, showing that he was a good tall fellow and ruined only by starvation, I signed him up. “Vaska,” I said, “you're mine. Go and get the biggest meal of your life from Mrs. D.”

Ten minutes later we were out of Strabinsk and going west— direction Kazan.

T
HE FIRST
trick Glebov played on me—but before that I have to say something more about Xenia, who by this time had been my lover for nine months.

Her nature was open—also firm. I never knew her say anything that didn't have a purpose. I don't remember her ever venturing onto speculative territory, not even in relation to her religious beliefs. God was there in the same way that gravity was: nothing further had to be said. All that interested her about Lenin and his policies was the effect they'd have on the price and availability of the basic foods and on the future of shops like Zilberstein's. The grand theories passed her by.

What I'm coming round to is that she was dull. She commanded no passionate arguments, had only niggling prejudices, wore no jewellery and had no feeling for bright clothes' colours—by this stage a blouse of birthmark purple was her sunniest garment. And here's another thing: she insisted on hanging her clothes up every night. Before she said her prayers, let's not forget to mention that too. Tidiness is good and our compartment was modest. Nevertheless there are excellent habits which pall on a man, such as constant telling of the truth, obsessive hygiene and hanging one's clothes up.

For a woman with such astonishing eyes, a fine figure and a good commercial mind, she didn't make the most of herself. Not in conventional ways, I mean. That was because of her vice. Sex was her secret, the means by which she kept on good terms with the world.

One evening after we'd left Strabinsk, I came late into our compartment. She was sitting on the edge of our bed, fully
dressed, holding in the candlelight a piece of foolscap covered with pencil jottings—figures for her planned shop.

I said something suggestive. I must have, I can't hold quiet before a desirable woman.

She looked up. “You feel that way too? I was hoping so. I've got nothing on under my skirt.”

I said, “Show me then,” hurriedly sitting down to unlace my boots.

She carefully laid her paper down out of harm's way. She stood upright on the bed. Crossing her arms, she pulled her skirt up to her forehead—then lowered it, peeping at me over its hem.

God! Her thick white thighs towering above me, her Hottentot's bush, her smooth belly, the dark noisettes of her nipples, those spanking green eyes—and yet she was so straight, so pedantic, so prudent in her character.

The fact is that within her sexual soul all these limiting factors had been wiped out. There was nothing there except balmy welcoming air which gave her flesh a sort of buoyancy. You could see it in her face too when you knew what to look for— the fullness of her lips in particular, and the way they strove to make contact. This was her secret, and it was impenetrable to everyone, both men and women, who lacked the magic key. It was why she didn't wear jewellery or fancy clothes: she didn't want to clutter up what was important to her and make it unrecognisable to those who might be attracted to her sexually.

I expect she'd had women in her bed as well. With that buoyancy went generosity and an absolute appreciation of the importance of dedicating some inviolable part of one's life to pleasure. In her case one part was consecrated to God, one part to screwing and the remainder to the struggle to remain alive. That was how she explained it to me.

So the “vice” was a form of genius. She knew she was rare among women.

“I can recognise lovers from some way off and they me. There are signs—in the way of walking, how the body is carried, that's the first one. I never pay attention to the clothes, only to the person's eyes. It's mutual. We pair off immediately. There, in the street. One of us will know a hotel in the neighbourhood that caters for our
type. Sometimes we don't exchange more than a few sentences. I never ask a man's name. I've never been disappointed.”

“Never?”

“Never. The best and only the best—oh, Charlinka, how lucky I've been. Not one man has wanted more of me than I've been willing to give.”

I can remember the conversation almost word for word. By then we were lying across the bed, both of us naked. My cock was splayed out across my thigh like a dogfish on the slab. She started to trifle with it.

Shmuleyvich had his foot down. The engine tugged, the greasy pistons acted and countered, the carriage swayed, rickety-tick rickety-tick. I looked down at her. Those exquisite lips came squirling up for mine.

“Only the best,” she murmured.

“Not for much longer. Top lovers will be executed by Lenin in the name of equality. We'd better hurry.”

“Will every man have to be equal to every other man? Is that what he means?”

“In all respects.”

“All?”

“I'll have an operation,” I said.

“Don't say that. I want you as you are.”

With perfect timing the train entered a tunnel. The rush of the wind changed tone and became hollow, boom-boom-boom, reverberating in my eardrums. We passed beneath an inspection shaft. For a second the noise emptied up it. Then with a sudden crack it was trapped again. Boom-boom-boom—and I entered the winner's enclosure.

Her breath just beginning to scurry, she grabbed at my buttocks, said, “But equality is stupid.”

“What a thing to say now—”

“I like to have something else to think about in the middle stages. I've taught myself to hold the pleasure back for as long as possible, to heighten it.”

“And when it arrives?”

“It's as if I'm in a canoe and suddenly I burst through a wall of jungle into the treasure cave. Whoosh—oh, Charlie, what you do to me—”

I was still on the long strokes. We were bucketing along, lurching and swaying but when we came to the place where the goods lines from the Kushka quarries joined, a real labyrinth of points, we had to hang onto each other to stop being thrown out of bed. Binding me with hoops of iron, she whispered:

“—entire shelves of treasure stretching as far as the eye can see, glittering and fabulous, lit by cunning little lamps and the light shuddering with the excitement of it all—and then I think of Solomon's cock, which I see as sharp and tawny, not like a Russian cock at all, not thick and juicy, and that keeps me under control—oh my God, Shmuleyvich, get that whistle ready—” then she said nothing more, being busy with her orgasm.