The Laughter of Carthage (2 page)

I sat drinking with Captain Paparighopoulos and was soon unable to feel the pain in my back. From time to time one of his staff would run up to the carpet shop requiring orders. He would give them airily after a while, quite as drunk as I was. But a certain order seemed to have reference to me and towards evening, he gripped my shoulder, pointing towards the roof of the wool exchange. He chuckled, handing me his fieldglasses so I could see better.

They had strapped my prototype onto the wretched Hassan. Helplessly I watched them pour petrol into the engine, spin the propeller and send the boy screaming and wailing from the roof to his death. Captain Paparighopoulos was highly amused. ‘I wished to help you test the machine.’ I tried to tell him it needed expert handling, but he refused to listen. It had been Hassan’s chance, he said, to fly either to freedom or to Paradise.

The machine was smashed to pieces. Through the glasses I saw the boy’s twisted, bloody body twitching in the wreckage. He deserved no more, I suppose, for his part in tricking me, yet it was an unpleasant sight and has remained imprinted in my memory. A thoroughly wasted opportunity.

A day later I was borne back to Scutari, first in the armoured train, then in a Crossley car, with all honours. On the train a Greek colonel acted as my host, taking notes as I gave him my information. Count Siniutkin would be arrested, he promised; also those who worked with him, Turkish and foreigners both. The colonel had a bronzed genial face and a walrus moustache. He looked like a good-natured Georgian patriarch. He told me I should go to Athens. Greeks respected courage and learning. I wish I had listened more carefully. When the Greeks had conquered Turkey, he said, they would secure the Balkans and the Caucasus until they could easily challenge Trotski himself. My mother, he promised heavily, would be saved. I believed him. How was I to know that secret treaties in Whitehall and Washington already sealed the doom of Greece, supplying them with unkept promises with which to go against Zaharoff’s eighty-pounders? Hellenic youth was to be crucified on Turkish bayonets stamped ‘Made in France’, torn on barbed-wire twisted by Roman Catholic women in the factories of Turin. It was once said of Lord Palmerston that if an individual behaved as he made his nation behave, he would immediately be ostracised by Society. Palmerston reduced English politics to their crudest, most self-serving, short-sighted level, then compounded it all by making a Jew his successor! His shadow fell across the conference tables and condemned half of modern Europe to death. They thought it more important to squeeze a few more marks from Germany than to preserve the ideals for which their kinsmen had died.

The Crossley took me directly to Haidur Pasha where again I was cleared by the British authorities. I attempted to give them my information, but they said they already had the Greek colonel’s report. I was to return home with very little to show for my adventures. I had discarded my ruined business clothes for a Greek army shirt and breeches, British shoes and puttees, a French greatcoat. I resembled any of those Russians presently falling back in growing numbers from Bolshevik ferocity. As I went down to the Scutari square, to the quays to board a ferry, I found myself in the company of several poor devils just evacuated from Yalta. They asked whom I had fought under and in what part of the country. I told them I was from Kiev, a liaison officer with the Allied Forces, though I had been a prisoner of Reds and Greens. They were half dead with fatigue, completely confused. They hoped to get to South America and join the Argentines, since there was obviously no hope for them in Constantinople. They knew this from relatives in the city. Their next step was to sign on a banana boat as soon as possible. Letters from comrades reported rich pickings and an easy life for trained soldiers in South America. As we stepped off the ferry I wished them luck, then, in trepidation, made my way on foot up the steep Galata streets until at last I reached the Grande Rue which, for no specific reason, I had expected to be changed. Incredibly, I had been away for no more than ten days. It seemed like months and I was frightened something had happened to Esmé. Without my protection she could have fallen victim to any one of the entrepreneurs prowling Tokatlian’s. Had not Count Siniutkin used the place as his headquarters? I was sure some white slaver had already priced her beauty. I therefore had a sense of gloomy expectation of disaster as, from the alley, I slipped through Tokatlian’s back entrance and up to our suite. I was convinced the Count had never sent my telegram.

Somewhere between Scutari and Ankara I had lost my keys. I knocked on the door of our suite, expecting no answer. My heart thumped. I was drenched in nervous sweat. From below in the restaurant, even though it was only four in the afternoon, came the sound of music, the hum of conversation. All I had to show for my adventure were a few sovereigns and a bruised back. My prototype was destroyed, my plans burned.

The door opened. Esmé was there. She gasped, began to cry, then smiled. After a second’s hesitation (doubtless because of my strange costume) she threw her little soft arms around my neck and enthusiastically kissed me all over my unshaven face. I shook with sudden relief. My fears had been groundless and all was well. Had she received a telegram? She said she had not. She had believed herself deserted. Then she guessed I must be dead. I should never have crossed to the Asian Shore, she said. The Turks were animals over there.

As I bathed and changed I told her something of my experiences. Although still unusually nervous, she was open-mouthed, reacting dramatically to every new piece of my tale. This attention, displaying her evident pleasure at my return, helped refresh me. Flinging myself onto our cushions, I asked her to bring us some cocaine and I sent downstairs for coffee and food. She prepared the drug in the way I had taught her. I saw our supply was extremely low; far lower than I liked it to get. I smiled tolerantly. ‘You’ve been a greedy little monkey!’ She flushed. Wearing only her white lace petticoats she looked as pretty and ordinarily wholesome as any well-bred Russian girl. Filled with love, I took her in my arms and kissed her. I was sorry I had not brought her a present, I said. She began to stammer a reply, then I pulled out the purse containing Ethem’s gold and threw it into the air for her to catch. ‘But we can leave whenever we choose.’ I was amused by her delighted response.

‘In that case we should go very soon.’ She was gravely urgent, it’s getting worse by the day in Constantinople. There are more and more murders. People of all kinds are disappearing. Not just girls. The Baroness told me for instance her friend Count Siniutkin has vanished. Swallowed by the Earth, she said.’

‘You’ve seen the Baroness? That’s good.’

Esmé paused while she concentrated on chopping the cocaine crystals. She nodded. She studied the white lines with unusual intensity.

‘Is she well?’

‘I think so.’ Her tone was offhand.

‘And Kitty?’

‘Yes, she’s well.’ This almost in a whisper.

‘You’ve been playing together?’

‘Not recently.’

‘I’ll see her for a few minutes later on. As soon as we’ve had something to eat.’

Esmé handed me the ornamental mirror with the exactly-made lines of cocaine on it. She was as usual extremely neat in this respect. I look the silver tube and placed it to my right nostril, sniffing hard. It was wonderful to be reunited with my drug in this way. At once I felt a fresh surge of enthusiasm and pleasure. The food was delivered, but we ate only a little. Esmé wanted to make love.

It was almost midnight by the time I climbed the staff staircase of the
Hotel de Byzance
to tap softly on the Baroness’s door. She opened it immediately, but was startled when she saw me. She did not look well. Her face was drawn, her skin coarser than usual. There were bags under her eyes. Her hair was brushed back, ready for bed. ‘Are you alone?’ I whispered. Kitty normally slept on the couch by the window. I made to enter, but Leda blocked me. She was beginning to sway. ‘Are you ill? Surely you haven’t caught typhus?’ My own guess was that she felt faint with the profound emotion of finding me alive. ‘Did you think I was hurt, Leda?’

I was amazed by her reply. ‘I had prayed that you were.’ She spoke in a violent, almost hysterical whisper. She made a dismissive motion with her hand. I could see over her shoulder into the room. Kitty was turning in her mother’s bed. I thought Leda did not want the child disturbed. ‘I tried to send a telegram, but I was a prisoner.’ Even as I spoke I felt my tone was overly apologetic. ‘Shall I see you tomorrow?’

She said in a small but far clearer voice, ‘I shall send you a letter.’

A little puzzled, I nonetheless made to kiss her on the cheek, whereupon she pulled back hastily, glaring. The whisper was vicious steel now. ‘They warned me you were a monster of deceit, but I would not believe them. I have never even heard of any action so vile!’

I was flabbergasted. ‘Has Count Siniutkin been speaking to you? If so, I must warn you he has already tricked me -’

‘I have not seen Count Siniutkin. He may have been arrested by the Turks.’ She was closing the door. ‘Please leave me alone. I do not wish to lose self-control over someone as worthless as you.’

‘Leda!’ I insisted on remaining. She came out into the passage now, wearing, the blue silk kimono I had bought her in the Grand Bazaar. ‘You look beautiful,’ I said. She pulled the door shut behind her. She had grown impressively red. I had never seen such fury in a woman. She hissed: ‘Maxim Arturovitch, I wish never to see you again. I did not intend to warn you of this, but I am seriously of a mind to inform the authorities against you. Even in this degenerate city there must still be left some decent people. That you deceived me so horribly, that you encouraged Kitty to play with your child-whore, is bad enough, but to have seduced the creature in the first place - and under my nose - to have invented such a despicable fantasy - is unforgivable!’

I was enlightened at last and my heart sank. I heard myself responding feebly, ‘I did not seduce her. She was a whore when I found her. I rescued her. You contradict yourself, Leda!’

‘And you manipulated Kitty and me into becoming part of that horrible pantomime of family life! What took place in your disgusting dreams? What did you plan for us?’

This was too near my true fantasies. I backed away. What I regarded as joyous and beautiful, this demented, puritanical, jealous Fury was determined to depict in the worst possible light.

‘I hoped at very least you had paid a high price for your infamy.’ She was advancing towards me now. I retreated as far as I could before I was stopped by the bannister, ‘I thought you still worthy of suicide. I hoped you had been tortured and murdered. I was relishing the prospect of the police finding your body in the Bosphorus and asking me to identify it. I intended to refuse, or tell them it was not your body, to make sure you were put in a communal grave with all the other scum of this filthy city. But here you are, a nightmare come true. You kissed me with lips that had touched her. You confirm people’s worst prejudices against you. I have not dared ask Kitty what went on between you when I was absent! That poor, innocent girl!’

‘I love Kitty like a father.’ I was whispering too, now. ‘Leda, you must realise I meant no harm. I did it for you. How did you find out?’

‘Hasn’t your little whore told you? She was convinced you had been killed. You had become a drug to her. She didn’t know what would happen to her. She had drunk too much when she found me. I said I would help her home. That was how I discovered your horrible love-nest. You were living with her in our special hotel! Oh, how you must have laughed at me! You’re not a human being. You’re the vilest of devils. It all came out, bit by bit, that night. She at least was repentant. But you - you show no remorse at all! Merely anguish at my discovering the truth, to the frustration of your plans. You are a discredit to your race!’

‘The appearance is far worse than the actuality.’ I spoke as calmly as I could. ‘It is all the result of a series of accidents.’

‘You have put my daughter at risk. You deny you’ve been making carnal love to a child no older than Kitty? That you betrayed all my finest feelings, cynically used my love and my best sentiments for your own perverse ends! How can you lie, even now? Oh, how I prayed your death was slow and painful!’

‘This is extremely unfortunate. Be assured, Leda Nicolayevna, my feelings, too, were of the finest. My darling, I am a father to Esmé, as I am to Kitty. My emotions are platonic, I swear. Anything else she told you is a child’s misunderstanding or a wild fantasy of her own invention.’

‘Maxim Arturovitch, you prove yourself still more despicable with every utterance. I have seen your clothes! Your bed! Your notes to her!’