Byzantium Endures (65 page)

‘You disagreed with Kolya?’

‘On that alone.’

‘I supported him. I was with Kerenski, you know. We’re all guilty.’

‘Kerenski’s revolution cost me my academic career.’

He looked down at rainbow oil on the water. ‘We’re all guilty. But you and I have survived Kolya.’

‘Guilty? For what?’

‘For not listening to our hearts. Everyone possesses precognition, don’t you think? It’s just that we refuse to accept what we see.’

‘The future?’

‘In a tea-cup or on our palms. In the cards, or in a cloud.’

‘I am not superstitious. I regret I’m an unmitigated rationalist.’

‘Ha! And you’re alive, while Kolya’s dead.’ He called over to a group of mechanics who lay on the grass at the water’s edge. ‘We’ll be wanting the Oertz started up.’ Then his attention seemed drawn to some distant willows. 

‘We’re going now?’ I asked.

He grimaced. ‘Why not?’ He was abstracted. I thought he was unstable. ‘There’s something I want to do. For the future.’ I assumed he was thinking about death and meant to write a will.

‘You want to give it to me?’

‘What? If you like.’ He rubbed under his left eye with a gloved finger. He grinned, ‘If you like. You can’t see the future, then? And you a scientist!’

He had picked up some fragments of fashionable mysticism at the Mikhishevski ménage, perhaps from his sister Lolly, that ‘Natasha’ of happier days. ‘Come.’

I returned with him to the mansion and a small ground-floor room evidently shared by several people and which had formerly been a pantry. It still smelled of bread and mice. From under his mattress he drew an unopened bottle of French cognac. ‘You like this?’

‘I did once.’

‘Good. We’ll drink it. For Kolya.’

‘I cannot refuse.’

We sat on the ledge of the little window. There was an untidy kitchen garden outside. Two privates were trying to make something of it. They were working expertly, like peasants. Petroff uncorked the bottle and handed it to me. I drank sparingly, with relish. He took it from me impatiently and tilted his head back to drink nearly half the old brandy in a single swallow. War had evidently coarsened his palate. He gave me the bottle. I drank deep but there was still a fair amount left. He laughed that irritating laugh of his. I remembered it from Petersburg: universal irony tinged with tension and resentment. He finished the stuff off, but for a few drops, ‘It’s how airmen drink. We need it. Did you hear about those silly bastards who dragged their own planes on sleds for hundreds of versts to get to fight for Deniken? They were keen, eh?’

‘The drink doesn’t impair your control over the plane?’

‘It improves it. I’m the last member of the entire squadron.’

‘I know what it is,’ I was by now a trifle drunk, ‘to crash.’

‘You do?’ He smiled.

‘I designed several experimental planes. One went out of control while I was testing it. In Kiev.’

He drained the bottle. ‘That’s to the Wright brothers. Damn them to hell. And all inventors. Faust deserved no redemption.’

‘Shouldn’t you rest?’ I suggested. I could make neither head nor tail of his references.

‘Very soon, doctor.’ He searched under his mattress, ‘I’m sorry. That was the final bottle. Let’s go aloft now.’

Less nervous than if I had been sober, I followed him back to the lake where the Oertz was ready. Her propeller was spinning and she was pointing out at the long stretch of water. Mechanics, grateful for the breeze, held her by her tailplane and huge rear wings, as Cossacks might hold ropes on a fierce, unbroken stallion. The smell of oil was sweet. ‘You go forward,’ said Petroff. ‘Get in the front cockpit. You’ll find a harness. Strap in. There’s goggles and stuff, too. All you’ll need.’ He was tucking a bulky object, wrapped in a piece of calico, into his jacket. I wondered if it were a bomb. I was rather uncertain of my chances of reaching the cockpit. The fuselage was only wood and fabric. But I climbed through the struts on the rocking aircraft until I managed to lower myself into the small observer’s cockpit with its bucket seat and spring brackets where, in the other cockpit, the controls would be. There were binoculars fastened to the inside edge; a pistol in a holster, a map-case and a clipboard, some pencils and a pair of goggles whose rubber was frayed and hardened. Still in my kaftan, with my own Cossack pistols pressing to my hip’s, I settled myself and buckled on my harness, putting the goggles over my eyes. Petroff was behind me, now, signalling. The engine and propeller were, of course, making too much noise for him to bother trying to talk.

The machine suddenly moved forward at a rapid, almost maniacal, speed. It was like a bucking horse, an erratic sleigh-ride, at once exhilarating and alarming. Foul spray flew into my face. I almost drowned in it. The lake was stagnant.

The plane began to vibrate, to slew in the water, tipping to starboard. Then I saw ailerons move on the wings and we were rising over the green lake and the willows, banking steeply, and the brandy suddenly warmed my whole body, my mind and my soul. We were up, flying over the woods, the damaged house, the neglected fields; flying towards hills and the blue sea, a haze between sky and land. I saw the limans, with their abandoned resorts, glittering and shallow: columns of marching men; riders; motor-vehicles; gun-tenders and artillery. This was the Release of Flying. There is no greater pleasure. Why did people bother climbing mountains when they could gain so much more from this? The air was roaring and yet at peace; it is a combination of adventure and tranquillity no jet-setter will ever capture. A grey mist became the city. Odessa from the air, with her factories and her churches, her ports and railways, looked exactly as she had looked when Shura first took me there: exotic in her aura and golden in the sun; but so great was my experience of Escape that I did not care if I saw the city again for months. I was conscientious. I began to do my job. There were large groups of people on the docksides, filling the wide quays. There were few ships on the turquoise sea. There were pieces of large artillery. In the outer suburbs were guns, cavalry, infantry, but apparently few. The Reds were ill-prepared to meet Deniken. There came banging from below. For a moment the engine stopped and all I heard was the guns and the yelp of Petroff’s laughter. He dropped the nose. I felt groggy. We were being fired upon. The engine started again. Flak burst around us. Shrapnel tore at our canvas. It did no real damage.

Down into smoke and yelling murder went Petroff, flying low over office buildings, hotels, flats, while I scribbled on my maps. We went over the St Nicholas steps where I had gone on my first day with Shura. We flew round and round the dome with its huge ornamental crucifix, the cliffs on one side with their gardens and trees, the fashionable Nicholas Boulevard, the sea and its ships on the other; round and round, like a toy on a stick. This was stupid and risky. Petroff was still laughing. The guns from the docks continued to fire at us. Was he daring them to shoot us down? There were clouds of smoke everywhere. Petroff fumbled open his flying jacket and took out the object he had placed there. He held it in his gloved left hand. The calico fell away from us like a dead bird. It was not a bomb he held but a large hour-glass in a marble stand. I think it was Fabergé. The marble was white with pronounced blue veins. The glass glittered. The sand was silver. Petroff stretched out his hand, then banked even more steeply towards the dome. I felt as if I were going to vomit. Guns continued to bang. I could hear them through the engine-notes, as if far away.

His plane almost hit the cross. Petroff flung the hour-glass down upon the golden roof of the church. He was laughing. I could see his teeth. His goggles made black cavities in his skull. He was white. His nostrils flared. Through my binoculars I saw the object strike the dome and smash; I saw marble break to fragments. Sand scattered like money. Then we were flying down on the dockyard guns. Maniacally I began to make notes on my map. There was a sudden lurch. I looked back. Petroff had been hit by shrapnel. It had ripped his coat and exposed a bloody mass of flesh. He continued to grin. Because of his goggles, I could not read his true expression. He saluted me with his wounded arm; then the plane climbed into Odessa’s blue-green sky and we were at peace. The engine cut out completely. We were drifting. Petroff called to me. I think he was delirious because he referred to me as ‘Colonel’ and spoke of ‘the Vanquisher’. His laughter became uncontrollable. He shouted ‘Goodbye’ and then re-fired the engine. Laughter and engine-note became one thing to my ears. We had started a power-dive towards the sea. I realised he intended to kill me. Something tore away from the plane. It was part of the upper forward wing, I think. Then we were spinning in silence. The engine made laughing noises. In my terror I tried to reason with Petroff. He was quite insane. His hatred of me, or of what he thought I represented, had overwhelmed his reason. I still cannot understand it. He was dead, or at least unconscious, hanging in his straps. I could not reach the controls. I released myself from my own harness and curled up. We hit the water and went through it as if we were still going through air. I began to drown. I thought my ribs were broken. I pushed myself towards the surface. Petroff and the Oertz continued to drop away below me. I could not swim properly. On a current which carried me in, I floundered, astonished, to the beach. I stood up and waded between slimy rocks. The beach sloped steeply and became grass. I had already seen a few houses. I was gasping. My ribs seemed undamaged. There was no sign of Petroff or the plane. That beautiful machine was gone forever. I do not think that they manufactured any more. My feet would not grip. I had to keep bending down to steady myself with my hands, yet I felt quite revived as, fully clothed, my pistols weighting my steps, I climbed up the beach and saw, on the faded promenade, a deserted bandstand. I had come ashore in Arcadia.

* * * *

EIGHTEEN

CITY OF SLEEPING GOATS; city crime; city of bleating crows; the wide-boys lie sprawled in the alleys; the little birds sing untruthful songs. The synagogues are burning.

Steel Tsar marching from the South-East; from the sloping city of goats; ancient ruins. Steel pressed them back to the ruins. To old, alien seas, washing rock that was rotten. Adrift from their homeland. Down into dishonour; bereft of God. Where could they go? These noble people had fought too long for their land; too long for memory. Why did they fight? Why do they not fight now, those Russians? The stars were destroyed. To hell with the yashmaks. The stars marched into that vast, dark sun. The sun set over Russia; and Chaos and Old Night reigned dreadfully. We were just learning subtlety. From the mountains, from the sloping city of goats and ruins, came the black, Georgian Tsar, wailing for a Russia his master had destroyed: praising the Devil but longing for God. Praying for the vibrancy, the silence, the secrets of old times; and yelling at pious eyes, at old beards, their stinking superstitions: their khans and their pharisees: and shooting in the back of the head any who reminded him, in word or deed, of what he had lost. Mad, steel man; spoiled priest, you brought a religion of vengeance and despair to Russia. Two heads, two souls, two wings. Doomed king of the crushing hammer, the reaping sickle. Disguised and deadly, those tools. I have seen the peasants with those weapons in their hands. They are the weapons of the brute. I have seen them advancing on the Jews. They were robbed of their innards and made a virtue of despair. They put a piece of metal in my belly. They bled me. They drank my blood. They polluted it. And the metal is a cold foetus, and I shall not let him come to life. Not until I die shall the world know what I carry; my little, dancing, agreeable, grinning tin doll. It threatens my whole being. I will not let him grow. I shall not let him jig. I shall not let him bow. In his turn he will not let me bend. Is this pride? Conscience? I have no conscience, save my duty to God. I have no duty to Man. Only to Science. I follow no flags. I am myself. Why do they make of me more or less? What can I not possess? God is my father. My father betrayed me. Christ is Risen. Why do they punish the people of the Lamb? The Greeks came in to the city of Odysseus. The French, the Australians, the British and the Italians. In those days they had recalled the nature of the Turk. They were still fighting him. And Islam was being crushed. Britain fell in love with Islam and let her rise again. Britain and her romantic stupidity, her Jewish prime-ministers, her bankers and her brothel-masters. She lied to me. She was not raped. Educational trains. Happy kulak husband. Dead husband. Oh, Ukraine, heartland of our Empire, bastion against Islam. Did you die with so much dishonour, turning on your own flesh, rending your own children, attacking all who loved you? The hyena laughs over your churches. The Greek went away from Odessa. He had been hiding in Moldovanka. The old houses were in the place they had been in before the war, but they smelled of moisture and mould. Nobody had bothered to come out as far as Arcadia, except a few Jews. It was a Jew who took me to a house which could not possibly have been his. It was too fine. It was in good taste. He walked easily and his sadness was open; his touch was friendly. He was quite young. He had a job writing for a newspaper in Odessa, but now he had lost it. He said the newspaper came and went, with different conquerors. And you are safe? I said. I am safe enough, he said, but I am fascinated by terror, aren’t you? It could be the end of me. I lay in a little white bed. The sheets were damp.