A Void (23 page)

Of Turkish origin, mainly from Istanbul, living in a palatial

mansion giving out on Thanatogramma and Ailippopolis, this

Mavrokhordatos family (or Mavrocordato or occasionally Maur-

ocordato: its connotation, in a Balkan patois so unknown it's

thought by Saussurian linguists to contain an occult anagram-

matic capacity, is "clad in black armour" or "skilful in black

magic"), this Mavrokhordatos family, I say, would initially fur-

nish its nation's Sultan with a host of loyal icoglans (or vassals).

Thus Stanislas Mavrokhordatos's job was shaving Suliman. Con-

stantin was Ibrahim's doctor. Nicholas was a tardjouman (or

dragoman, as is said nowadays) who, for his particular patron,

Abdul-Aziz, would amass a million or so manuscripts, most

bought at a discount and all glorifying Islam. And his son, Nich-

olas junior, was Hospodar of Banat. In fact, it was said that

Abd-ul-Hamid would hold nothing back from him, for Nicholas

had a truly amazing gift for linguistic obfuscation and would

turn an innocuous communication into such hocus pocus that

nobody could follow it, notwithstanding many signs proving

that his calculations or translations had sprung from an old and

aboriginal canon.

Nicholas, who took as his coat-of-arms a burning Sphinx, was

his patron's right-hand man and had a vision of rising at court

to a rank of Vizir or Mamamouchi. All too soon, though,

Mahmoud III, furious at his Hospodar for usurping so much

authority, and mortally afraid of his laying down his law as far

as Stamboul, summarily got rid of him, whilst commanding his

troops to round up Nicholas's family and submit it to mass cruci-

fixion.

But, sustaining many hardships, that family of yours, Olga,

would cunningly slip through Mahmoud's hands. Arriving at

Durazzo, Augustin, your grandpapa from way, way back, all in

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from so much roaming about, thought it a good town in which

to start up as a notary and was soon publishing a monthly journal

notorious for promoting insubordination vis-a-vis his nation's

Sultan. "Albanians," ran his most famous proclamation, "a vic-

torious day will dawn! Kill all tyrants! Hold high a flag dripping

with Ottoman blood! Plough your furrows in it! And march,

march, march!"

Such agitation shook Durazzo to its foundations. Six oustachis

lay slain. "Down with Turks!" or "Down with Islam!" - this cry

was ubiquitous. Its flag was a gonfalon of whitish organdy with,

on its right-hand canton, just that flaming Sphinx that Nicholas

had had as his coat-of-arms. A national political party, Whiggish

in inspiration but anarchistic in its vocation, got busy mobilising

public opinion in its favour; and a man, Arthur Gordon, a distant

cousin of Byron, so it was said (and, as Byron was, both British

and a hunchback), would start galvanising an opposition to it,

composing a National Hymn that was sung by anybody willing

to stand up to a yataghan.

It took thirty-six months to rid Albania of its Ottoman mon-

archs: signing a pact at Corfu, it was to gain its autonomy at

last. Instantly arguing with Cavour about submitting this bud-

ding nation to a quasi-tutorial form of authority, Victoria would

appoint as Consul to Tirana Lord Vanish, a brilliant alumnus of

Oxford for whom Richard Vassall-Fox, third Lord Holland, was

an unofficial sponsor, introducing him at court and fully support-

ing him in his nomination. This Lord Vanish slyly sold Augustin

Mavrokhordatos, who had nothing but admiration for Victoria,

an official British policy of a colonial or half-colonial status as

most apt for Albania, worn out by Turkish domination and totally

unfit for "automancipation"; adding that it was thus important

to allow Britain to act quickly, whilst holding out, to any local

political faction suspicious of its assuming a quasi-dictatorial

authority, a possibility of participating in its civil administration,

and so gradually making Albania a dominion. But it all had

to go quickly, for, if not, it was obvious that Abyssinia or

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Austro-Hungary or untrustworthy Italy would jump at such an

opportunity. Won round by Vanish's sophistry, Augustin put

into action a fairly crafty plot. British gold would flow into

Albania. Collaborationists would occupy crucial positions. Third

columnists would go foraging for information, or frankly digging

for dirt, in bistros and poolhalls. A plan of attack of an astonishing

sophistication was drawn up. But, with just two days to go to

D-Day, with a battalion of hussars loyal to Britain languishing

in an army camp in Brindisi, awaiting a signal announcing a total

invasion,
manu militari,
of Albanian national soil, Augustin was

caught out as a conspirator. A slip-up? A partisan talking off-

guard? A turncoat changing his mind? Or a traitor, a Judas,

informing on his companions-at-arms for thirty coins? Who

knows? It was all so long ago. What I can say, though, is that it

was to prompt an unholy commotion, for nobody in this world is

as chauvinistic as an Albanian. Furious crowds brought thirty-six

public officials to a kangaroo trial, found all thirty-six guilty,

rightly or wrongly, of participating in Augustin's coup, and

strung all thirty-six up on a gigantic scaffold.

As for Augustin, it would finish badly for him: first, a tanning

from a cat-o'-9-tails; following this, two days stuck in a pillory,

with half of Tirana's population cursing him, mocking him, hurl-

ing rotting fruit at him and urinating on him; now an iron clamp

was put around his throat; his skin was cut up in a thousand

ways; a gag was stuck into his mouth right down to his larynx;

finally, surviving asphyxiation, immolation and dowsing with

alcohol, his body was put alight.

Thanks (although "thanks" is hardly an apt word for so atro-

cious a plight) to his outstandingly robust constitution, Augustin

took about a month to succumb. His carcass was thrown to a

pack of wild dogs; but by that point it was so putrid no animal

would touch it.

In Durazzo, things would go almost as badly for all 26 sur-

vivors of Augustin's family. A hunt was on, with rabid nationalists

out for its blood, looting its mansion on four hair-raising

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occasions, gang-raping Augustin's poor old granny and mass-

acring his sobbing infants.

It took such fanatics just six months to track down and kill all

but a solitary Mavrokhordatos, a Mavrokhordatos, though, so

significant to Albania as a living symbol of his family's past insub-

ordination that his antagonists would go so far as to award a

million hrivnas to his captor. For this survivor was a first fruit

of Augustin's own vigorous loins: his son Albin (ironically, nam-

ing his son so patriotically was Augustin's own wish!).

Miraculously, though, Albin got out of Tirana by night and,

hiding out in a thick, dark, almost fairy-story wood, would lan-

guish in it for all of six springs and six autumns, a half-moribund

survivor, stoking up his loathing for that Albanian tyrant who

had slain his family but also, possibly primarily, for that British

aristocrat who, to his way of thinking, had drawn his poor papa

into a fatal trap.

But a day was to dawn on which, in a forlorn marabout, its

only, and occasional, visitor a farm boy with four mangy goats,

Albin dug up a stash of diamonds, gold doubloons and ingots.

And, in an unwitting imitation of Mathias Sandorf, using this

colossal capital to obtain satisfaction from his family's assassin,

Augustin's son would round up a gang of outlaws, which was

lavishly paid, as much as fifty-fifty a job, so that its loyalty to him

was total.

For his principal lair a rocky fjord was found that his gang

would punningly call "Fillbag Fjord", as Fra Diavolo, a Fran-

ciscan bandit who would hold up landaus and mail wagons and

fill his voluminous bags with booty, had had occasion to pass a

night or two on its banks.

Initiating a conscript into his gang, Albin first brought him to

his fjord, commanding him to drink six straight vodkas in a row.

Having drunk his fill, this conscript took an oath on a crucifix,

promising to do Albin's bidding right up to his final hour in this

world. At which point Albin would tattoo on his right wrist -

with a scratchy gold nib that would imprint a narrow whitish

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striation along a man's skin, not drawing blood but so sharp that

no amount of chafing could rub it out - an occult symbol that,

as it turns out, an Albanian cop got a look at during a raid,

although his drawing of it was so clumsy that nobody could

work it out. It was in fact circular in form with a dash running

horizontally across it; or, putting it simply, it wasn't dissimilar

to that signpost stopping cars from going along a particular road.

On occasion an outlaw was caught; and his captors had no

doubt at all, notwithstanding that our Albanian cop's drawing

was fuzzy and indistinct, that a curious whitish symbol on his

wrist was proof of his links with Augustin's diabolic son. In six

springs, though, a trio of his companions, at most, was caught

in this way, whilst Albin had around thirty oudaws, on and off,

at his disposal!

His cohorts would mainly attack official visitors from Britain.

That nation's consul in Tirana saw his mansion blown up again

and again, and any yacht flying a Union Jack in Durazzo harbour

ran a risk of rotting in it for good.

As for Cunard's famous Titanic, if it sank - or, should I say,

was
sunk — it was on account, not of any ghasdy glacial collision

by night, but (and this is no myth but a fact I'm willing to

vouch for) of Albin's misdoing, for on board ship, discussing a

possibility of constructing a gigantic rolling mill in a suburb of

Tirana, was an important Anglo-Albanian consortium with capi-

tal from Barclays Bank.

A busy train colliding with a coach, in Quintinshill, a town

not far from Hamilton, halfway from Huntingdon to Oakham,

on 6 August 1918, was proof for Scodand Yard (which instandy

got into a panic) that Albin could actually, if such was his fancy,

attack his rival within his own country. But it was not known at

first that his motivation in carrying out such acts was just for a

bit of fun, or, in his own words, "for a holiday", as, for all his

banditry, it was his custom to insist on a month off in six, going

to Britain, a country that was an abomination to him, for its rain

- soft, drizzly rain that was soothing to his unhappy soul.

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His action finally driving his British antagonists out of Albania,

in 1919 Albin would turn on his compatriots, making raids on

shops and banks; but, in a country still without any form of

industrialisation, his pickings would usually amount to a handful

of scrawny, hungry lambs for which nobody would pay a ransom.

His capital was dramatically low and his day-to-day bankroll was

now starting to contract.

Not far from Fillbag Fjord, though, was a canyon in which .

would grow in profusion a strain of poppy found only in Albania.

Noting it instantly, and righdy too, as an opportunity for making

colossal profits, Albin found out from a compliant pharmacist

how to turn it into laudanum and, by fumigating that, would

obtain a satisfying form of opium.

Now, as anybody who knows will inform you, opium isn't

worth a brass farthing if you can't control its distribution. And

though such a circuit of distribution was in position, starting

from Ankara, going on, Balkanwards, via Kotor, Dubrovnik or

Split, to Rimini, and from Rimini to Milan, a major crossroads

for all this flourishing traffic, it was a multinational or possibly

supranational organisation (consisting of thirty "big shots" who

would appoint its Mafia, its Cosa Nostra, including Lucky

Luciano, Jack "Dancing Kid" Diamond, Big Italy, Bunny "Gun-

fight" Salvatori and so on, plus six minor affiliations of various

rankings) which had total control of it.

Albin, who was no fool, saw how stupid it was to try and horn

in on such a tighdy knit association; and, with all his usual cun-

ning and daring, took a risk on finding his own dumping ground,

contacting an unsavoury individual who ran a carnival stall in

Milan and who was, so rumour had it, a small fish in that big

Mafia pond, and proposing his opium to him at a discount.

Six months passing in this fashion, and his traffic growing

almost daily, Albin thought it important to appoint in Durazzo

an assistant to run transportation liaison, with opium arriving

from Fillbag Fjord by car, moving to Chiogga on a dinghy and

Milan on a Po canal boat.

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So, in Tirana, Albin got to know a man of whom much was

said (notwithstanding that his total rascality was a byword among

Albania's criminal class) of his unfailing loyalty, tact, intuition,

imagination and lightning-quick wits. This man was (and if you