Byzantium Endures (68 page)

We were working at our desks in that great office, which had once belonged to a shipping company. They would move along in their lines, rich and poor, old and young, trying to look confident, or humble, almost always in reverse to their station in life, and I would take some aside into the special interrogation room, where the business transactions were mostly done, and I would reject those who had not the means to get to their destination. It was a mercy: I knew of Ellis Island and what could happen there. I knew of Whitechapel and how refugees were courted by Jewish sweatshop owners and white-slavers. They would not have been worse off under the socialists. I did my best to be fair. We were not hard men. We were not cynical. We bled no one. Often we would let people through who had no business leaving.

On the day before Christmas Eve, during a difficult afternoon, I looked up at my next client. It was Brodmann, in his dark overcoat and his homburg hat and his spectacles and quivering lips. He looked older but more innocent. ‘Pyat,’ he said. I was easy with him. I had anticipated such a problem. ‘Brodmann.’ I looked at the application. ‘You are going to America.’

‘It is my hope. So you were a White all along?’ He became alarmed.

‘And you are still, then, a Red?’ I asked.

‘Of course not. They have reneged on everything.’ He sniggered. I lit a cigarette. I told him he had better go into the interrogation room and wait. I dealt with two young women who were planning to board a British ship bound for Yalta, then I left my desk and entered the small room. Snow was gathering against the windows and the skylight. I wished Brodmann the compliments of the season. ‘You’re not going to Germany, then? This application is to travel by train to Riga.’

‘From Hamburg I can go direct to New York.’ He was very frightened. I began to understand the power and the wonder of being a Chekist. I restrained that ignoble lust and sat down, hoping this action would stop him shaking. ‘I was never in Germany,’ he said, ‘It’s just my name. You know that.’

‘Your Red friends abandoned you.’

‘I was a pacifist.’

‘So you decided to leave the conflict?’ I was joking with him quite gently but he did not seem to understand that.

‘There is no more to be done. Is there?’ His shaking increased. I offered him a cigarette. He refused, but he thanked me several times. ‘Were you always with Intelligence?’ he wanted to know. ‘Even then?’

‘My sympathies have never changed,’ I said.

He gave me an adoring look, as one might compliment the Devil for His cunning. This made me impatient. ‘I am not playing with you, Brodmann. What do you want?’

‘Don’t be harsh, comrade.’

‘I am not your comrade.’ This was too much. I hate weakness. I hate the calling on common experience as comfort.

‘As a fellow Jew, you would help me?’

‘I am not Jewish.’ I stood up and pinched my cigarette out. ‘Is this the appropriate moment to insult me?’

‘I am not insulting you, Major. I apologise. I did you no harm. But in Alexandriya I saw...’ He became very white.

He had seen me whipped by Grishenko. I did not mind that. Why was he pursuing this? Then it dawned on me that he had seen me naked and had made a frightful assumption. I began to laugh. ‘Really, Brodmann, is that what you thought? There are perfectly ordinary medical reasons for my operation.’

‘Oh, for the love of God!’ He had fallen to his knees. He grovelled. I felt sick.

‘It will not do, Brodmann.’ I was losing control of myself. He was weeping. ‘Brodmann, you must wait. Think things through.’

‘I have suffered. Show mercy.’

‘Mercy, yes. But not justice.’ I was ready to let him go. I wanted him to go. Another officer, Captain Yosetroff, came in with a middle-aged woman wearing the same perfume as Mrs Cornelius. With some difficulty, Brodmann rose to his feet. He pointed at me. ‘Pyatnitski’s a Chekist spy. Haven’t you realised? I know him. He’s a saboteur, working for the Bolsheviks.’

‘The poor devil’s insane,’ I said calmly.

Yosetroff shrugged. ‘I’d like the room to myself for a little while, Major, if it’s possible.’

‘Of course. You’d better come back tomorrow,’ I told Brodmann.

‘It’s Christmas Eve. The office is closed. I read the notice. I’ve got to be on the Riga train.’

‘I had forgotten.’ I sighed. Yosetroff frowned. He apologised to the lady who grinned and scratched her ear. He stepped forward.

‘Can I help?’ Yosetroff’s neat, pale face blended thoroughly with his uniform so that it was almost indistinguishable. ‘Shall I take over?’

‘No need,’ I said.

‘He’s with the Reds. How did he come to be working here?’ Brodmann’s hysteria threatened both our lives.

Yosetroff hesitated. There was nothing I could say. I slapped Brodmann’s face with my gloved hand. I slapped it twice more. He was weeping as the guards came in at Yosetroff’s command. ‘Do you want him taken away?’ asked Yosetroff. It meant Brodmann would be imprisoned, possibly shot if his Bolshevik associations came to light. I owed him nothing. He had made his own mistakes. I nodded and left the room.

‘ ‘Ello, Ivan!’

Mrs Cornelius waved to me. She was dressed in high fashion and was on the arm of an evidently uncomfortable French naval officer. She had fresh papers. She waved them. She was delighted. ‘Thought I’d seen yer abart. Where yer bin ‘iding yerself?’

‘You were at Zoyea’s?’ I was still suffering from my encounter with Brodmann. He had been escorted discreetly out. ‘A few nights ago?’

‘That the ‘ore-’ouse wiv ther games?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yeah! Yore lookin’ smart. D’yer know me boyfriend? ‘E’s in ther navy. Francois ‘e corls ‘isself. Don’t speak very good English. Say ‘ow do, France.’

I told the naval officer I was enchanted to meet him. I asked which ship he was with. He was Second Officer on the
Oreste.
They were leaving for Constantinople tomorrow, with troops and passengers. There had been trouble with Kemal Pasha. We spoke French, of course.

‘The British are trying to take over the whole thing,’ he said bitterly. ‘They are acting in a very vulgar manner.’

I was amused. The quarrels between these allies was reminiscent of the Crimea. But I remained grave. I heard Brodmann squealing ‘Treachery!’ as he passed by outside. ‘And you are kindly giving Mrs Cornelius a passage on your ship.’

He shook his head. ‘We are already full. She will be meeting me in Constantinople. I have spoken to the captain of a British merchantman. He has agreed to add a few more passengers. We had to arrange Mrs Cornelius’s papers, of course. She was good enough to ask me to escort her here. It is a pity we were not acquainted before.’

‘A great pity,’ I said.

Mrs Cornelius nudged me. ‘Stop it, the pair o’ yer. Manners! Tork English!’

We both bowed. My CO had entered the room and was looking thoughtfully at me. I said to Mrs Cornelius very rapidly in English: ‘I have papers. Can you get me aboard the British ship?’

She could tell I was anxious. She smiled and put a girlish, beringed hand on my forearm. ‘We got married, didn’t we? Yore me ‘usband. It’s ther
Rio Cruz.
Yer’ll need a licence or summink.’ She once more became the lady. ‘Delighted to meet you again, Major Pyatnitski.’ I clicked my heels and kissed her hand. I saluted the Frenchman. My CO, Major Soldatoff, signalled for me to come over. I did so with alacrity. I had been impressing him with my military discipline for a couple of months. He was an old Okhrana man, not naturally suspicious, but very sensitive to discrepancies of any kind. He had a seamed, ruddy face of the Great Russian type, with a white beard and moustache. He wore a dark uniform. I entered his office. He closed the door. He offered me a chair and I sat down. ‘Brodmann?’ he said.

‘A Red,’ I said. ‘I met him in Kiev, I think. When I was doing sabotage work. I told him I was on his side, of course.’

‘He says you’re Cheka? That you were a link between Antonov and Hrihorieff.’

‘I let him think that. At the time.’

‘I shall have to look into this, Pyatnitski. But it is routine, naturally.’ Obviously he was in no way seriously worried. He was almost apologising. ‘You’re a good interrogation officer and we need everyone. The Reds are coming back and they’re much better organised. We’re a little worried about spies.’

‘I understand completely, sir.’

‘There’ll be an enquiry. An extensive one. I don’t want to waste a man guarding you. Will you promise to stick near your quarters until the morning?’

‘I am lodging,’ I said with embarrassment, ‘at Zoyea’s.’

‘I know that. You won’t need to leave, then, will you?’ He was like an uncle. ‘Brodmann’s accusations are heard every day. I’ll have him properly questioned tonight. It could be he’ll admit he knows nothing. If that’s the case, it shouldn’t take long for you. You’ll be back on duty by the afternoon.’

‘It’s a holiday,’ I said with a smile.

‘All the better. After Christmas.’

I thanked him civilly and left. Walking through the snow towards Madame Zoyea’s I stopped to buy a bundle of cigarettes from a ragged young girl. For some reason I gave her a gold rouble for them and thanked her in English. She replied in the same language. I was amused. ‘You speak it excellently,’ I said.

She was flattered. She was shivering worse than Brodmann had shivered. She had been attractive. In other circumstances I might have spent more time making her acquaintance. There was something about vulnerable young women which brought out the best in me. It was almost love. She told me her husband had been a White officer. The Bolsheviks had shot him. She was supporting her mother. There were many young women like her in Odessa, selling small things from trays. She had a quality of the sort Esmé had once possessed. I supposed she would lose it, if the Reds came again. The Allies were already regretting their enthusiasm for the Volunteers. They were horrified by what they took to be our moral weakness. It was, of course, only our despair. The British hate despair. They will do anything to fight it, even going so far as to let socialists hold the reins of power in their own country. The Americans share the British hatred but have so far resisted socialism. It will come, no doubt. The French have a healthier reaction. They are merely disgusted by poverty. Disgust was at the heart of their colonial policy. It enabled them to withdraw from Indo-China with rather more honour than the Americans. But, to the British, despair and moral weakness are synonymous. It took me some years to discover this fact.

At Madame Zoyea’s I packed two suitcases. I had jewellery and gold. I had never, of course, recovered my other baggage, with my plans, my designs, my hopes. All I had was a blood-stained diploma and a dirty passport. I should have to begin all over again. I did not relish being put off in Constantinople, but even that city would be safer for me now than Odessa. And I was no longer poor. Sooner or later I should have had to leave, anyway. In about two months the Bolsheviks would return. I should have become a victim of the Cheka.

In the large suitcase went my uniforms, including the one I had been wearing. I dressed in civilian clothes and put on an expensive fur coat. My pistols were still with me, in the pockets. Both coat and pistols could be sold if necessary. I had a file of forms, including marriage certificates. It was an easy matter to forge the appropriate information. I asked Madame Zoyea to come to me. I told the maid that the matter was urgent. Within half-an-hour the proprietress was there. She was not surprised by the signs. I put on a good fur hat which matched the coat. I gave her fifty gold roubles. My passport and papers were, of course, in perfect order. I asked her to tell any callers I was engaged with one of her girls. I wondered if she could arrange a discreet cab for me, to take me to the docks at about five in the morning. She agreed and she kissed me. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘I think you were bringing us luck. What will happen when the Reds come back?’

I showed her my file of spare papers. ‘I’d advise you to make use of them for yourself and as many girls as you can. They’re all pre-stamped you’ll notice. They merely need names and dates.’