The Laughter of Carthage (72 page)

My delicious mistress, already stripped to her petticoats, threw herself, a soft, sweet-smelling, purring, voracious creature, into my arms. Still wearing most of our clothes, we fucked on the counterpane. Then we undressed, entered the wonderful linen sheets which were freshly washed and scented with lavender, and fucked again. How I wished I might have fallen in love with her, forgotten every element of sense, worshipped her, allowed myself to rise to heights of euphoria, planned marvellous weddings and promised to be faithful until death as boys of my age usually did. Common sense would not have mattered. Leda would have enjoyed the romance as much as I. Her body was so soft, so vibrant, so powerful and in the midst of love-making the expression of ecstasy on her face made her look like a goddess, in whose veins ran fiery copper. Nobody would have been harmed by my falling in love. Her lust was magnificent. My lust was her equal. We had boundless energy. We hardly made use of the cocaine at all. Later, while I hid in her bedroom, she ordered wine and food for lunch. We gorged on cheese and cold beef and salmon. We guzzled French champagne; and when six-thirty came we ignored our decorous dining plans and fucked standing up on the deep blue and orange Turkish carpet, then she ordered caviare and white Georgian wine served in her suite and we gobbled that as greedily as we gobbled one another’s genitals. I was not in love. I could never love a woman, unless it was my mother or Mrs Cornelius. But she was in love and it pervaded everything; it made me gay. It almost made me forget Esmé and all I had lost. Leda said I must be the greatest lover in the world; we must never lose touch. I knew she dare not utter her real wish: that we should be together always. She only needed me to say the word. But I would not. I was already committed to my dream. With the Esmé I had known before the Revolution I might have fulfilled my destiny, for she had worshipped me uncritically from childhood. But Esmé was gone. She could not be replaced by this handsome, strong-willed aristocrat whose imagination and ambitions were equal to my own. Because she was used to power, Leda’s wishes would always be in some ways opposed to mine. There was no woman like Esmé. Without her, I must achieve my dreams alone.

The next morning, somewhat shakily, we returned to see if the ship were due to sail. Mr Larkin said he guessed we should be in port for at least another two days. Like children released from school, we all but skipped along the palm-flanked Promenade to observe the little Moslem boys playing tag and knuckle-bones on the stony beach, then, at the Baroness’s suggestion, we walked to the Alexander Nevski church, a building predominantly of blue marble, which had only been completed a few years earlier yet was the embodiment of Russian tradition, with its golden dome and spires. People entered and left the massive church at a surprising rate and it was my guess they prayed for lost relatives, even for the soul of Russia herself. We meant to stay only a few moments, merely to be able to describe where we had been when we returned, but the Baroness made us stay longer and I was grateful. In those days I had not discovered my Faith, yet I began to feel profoundly restful within those white marble chapels, beneath high, vaulted ceilings, amongst magnificent ikons. Here was evidence of the true spiritual quality of the Russian people, for each painted panel, set in alcoves throughout the church, was the work of a master. Coming to this tranquil shrine from the misery of Odessa and Yalta it was hard to believe that barbarism had so swiftly overtaken our country. (I heard later that after the British left Batoum, her Bolshevik masters argued amongst themselves about the function of the Cathedral. Some wanted it for stables, but there was noisy dissent from the Soviet’s Greek Orthodox members. After a great deal of impassioned argument these dissenters finally compromised. ‘We agree to your using the Cathedral as a stable. In turn, however, we must be allowed to use your synagogue as a lavatory!’)

Near the High Altar we came upon a life-size portrait of Christ standing on the water. He stretched a helping hand towards Peter, who was sinking. It was a prophetic picture of Russia. Peter, our patron saint, was sinking. And Christ was his only hope. This mural made a deeper impression on me than I realised. At that time I must admit I was impatient to return to the Oriental and our bed, yet now I can still recall the elaborate carved marble framing the picture. Christ stands surrounded by golden light. Peter is up to his waist in the waves, his hands stretched towards our Saviour. I remember the flowers and the crosses cut from stone, the little electric bulbs set at intervals along the curved top. All of it was virtually brand new. Doubtless the Bolsheviks demolished it and sold whatever was valuable, knocking away Christ’s helping hand.

Leda and I walked for a while in the Cathedral gardens and left by a side gate in time to see a detachment of Punjabis marching down the Boulevard. I am certain the British used these troops the way the French used the Senegalese: as a warning of what to expect if the Reds were victorious. Asia had not let go of Batoum, even during that moment of respite. The Punjabis went past at the double, in their khaki turbans with the rifles over their shoulders, making for the harbour. As usual the Baroness failed to see their significance. ‘Don’t they look splendid,’ she said. That same remark might have been made by a woman in the eighth century as the Moors poured through the walls of Barcelona. (They doubtless felt they were returning home, for Barcelona takes her very name from a Carthaginian founder, Hamilcar Barca). When the Romans drove the Carthaginians from Europe as the Spanish, at great cost, eventually drove out the Moors, did they count that cost? In those days honour and religion meant everything. When Britain decided she could no longer afford her Indian mercenaries she marched them out of Russia, leaving her people prey to barbarian creeds, to the enemies of Christ. The West only waited a year or two before they began to sign Trade Agreements. The Trade Agreement is what destroyed the Chinese Empire. Genghis Khan knew its value. One might as well sign pacts directly with Satan and have done with it!

‘Russia will be saved. Russia will be saved.’ Leda murmured to me that night. But today I ask my Baroness, who probably died when Bolshevik bombs destroyed her flat in Brüderstrasse twenty-five years later, ‘My dear woman, whom I almost loved, when will that be?’ She lived over a Berlin antique shop, working for a Swiss specialist in ikons. I never knew if there was anything between them. The Swiss survived. He died of old age in Lausanne fairly recently, having become a millionaire from the profits on our ikons. She must have been fifty-seven. I bear her no ill will. I can still smell her. Indeed, I can smell us both. I feel the fine linen wrapping itself over our bodies, the depth and quality of the mattress; I taste the wine, hear noises in the street outside as soldiers keep the peace; the stars are clear and golden in a deep blue sky which outlines the palms; I see the lights of ships on the water, listen to the sirens and the nightbirds calling.

It took 20,000 British troops to maintain, in one small Russian city, an illusion that the past could be kept alive, or even rebuilt. Illusions cost their creators no small part of themselves. I am reminded of those familiar Arabian tales where magicians are drained of their soul’s substance by the very phantasms they conjure. The reward is never great enough to justify the price. Look, says the sorcerer, there is a griffon and there a dragon! I do not see it, says his audience. Look again! Ah, yes, now we see! (But the energy has drained from the illusionist into the illusion. He is suddenly a corpse.) In the years of their dying all Empires are sustained in this way. And what has the Communist illusion cost the Russian people?

I shall not deny that in our ignorance we were pleased enough, my Baroness and I, to enjoy the fantasy while we could. We ate, we made love, we stared at the goods in the shops, we visited bazaars, I purchased a little poor-quality cocaine; we pretended we were in love. But that same night a shock ran through the Oriental, like an earthquake. Aroused from half-sleep we went to the window. Red flames poured upwards from the darkness of the water and huge clouds of black smoke obscured the stars. A ship was burning in the oil-harbour, on the other side of the mole, close to where our own ship was moored. I could see there was no immediate danger to the
Rio Cruz.
Nonetheless at Leda’s suggestion I pulled on my clothes and went downstairs. A number of English officers were already in the lobby, some partially clad, some in dressing gowns. Their voices were loud and excited, though it presently emerged they were no better informed than I. Eventually, when a motorbike messenger arrived, one of the officers turned to another: ‘Sabotage, of course. The Reds got a bomb aboard a tanker.’ This was sufficient for me. I returned to the Baroness. ‘Our ship might now decide to leave earlier. We’d best be prepared for it. But Kitty is safe.’ The prospect of our idyll ending prematurely caused us to make love with increased passion.

We returned in the morning. On board ship Mr Larkin was completely confused. The
Rio Cruz
was covered in oily filth and her crew worked demonically to clean it off. A French frigate, at great risk to herself, Mr Larkin told us, had towed the tanker out to sea and beached her on a sand-bank where she now burned harmlessly. Foul smoke drifted over everything, settling like swarms of flies. Mr Larkin’s face was half-mad. ‘That’s not the worst of it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You knew that chap Hernikof, didn’t you? His body was dumped by the gangplank last night. He was stabbed in at least six places. It was ghastly. He’d been stripped naked. There was a Star of David carved into his chest and someone had cut the word “Traitor” into the flesh of his back. I’ve never seen anything like it. God knows what madman did it. He had contacts in Batoum, I gather. It could have been one of them. Turned against him, perhaps. Reds? Whites? Zionists? I don’t know. The military police aren’t optimistic. They have so much on at the moment.’

The Baroness was leaning heavily against me, almost fainting. There was no blood in her face at all and her eyes were glazed. I supported her as she clutched my arm.

‘What’s more,’ Larkin was oblivious to her reaction, ‘Jack Bragg’s missing. He went ashore yesterday afternoon and didn’t return last night. There’s a general search out for him. We still don’t know if it’s connected with the Hernikof business.’

‘I must help the Baroness to her cabin.’ I spoke gently. ‘Mr Hernikof was a friend of her late husband.’

Larkin blushed. ‘Leave your bags. I’ll get a rating to bring them to you.’

Leda was almost in shock. After I had settled her in her bunk I told Kitty and the nanyana she had mild food poisoning and went to the saloon to find some brandy. On the way back I bumped into Mr Thompson, emerging from the engine-room. ‘Morning, Pyatnitski.’ He wiped grease from his hands. ‘Sorry about the news.’

I indicated the cognac. ‘The Baroness has taken it badly.’

‘Well, at least you seem to be bearing up. It’s probably nothing to worry about.’

The significance of his remark, which seemed a little offhand, escaped me until I left Marusya Veranovna with the Baroness and went down to my own cabin for a restoring sniff of cocaine. It was evident Mrs Cornelius had not spent the night in her bunk. I sought out Mr Thompson. He stood leaning on a bulkhead watching seamen swing the loading booms over the ship’s forward hatch. They were taking off guns. ‘Have you seen my wife, old man?’

The Scotsman was surprised. ‘I thought you seemed very casual. You didn’t know she hadn’t returned? She was due back last night, for dinner. I gathered she’d met you somewhere in Batoum.’ He glanced down at the deck, making a pattern in the film of oil with the toe of his boot. ‘Well, it was the obvious assumption. Then, when you came aboard...’

‘She wasn’t staying ashore?’

‘Not as far as we knew.’ He was a bright red. ‘Look here, I’d guess she got into some sort of minor trouble. And Jack Bragg became involved, perhaps tried to help her. We’ll know soon. But it’s early days yet to start worrying too much.’

I was interested in neither his speculation nor his reassurances. I ran back to the gangplank, down to the quay where the purser stood talking to one of the burly Marines. ‘Are the police looking for my wife, Mr Larkin?’

Larkin tightened his thin lips and polished his spectacles with a grey handkerchief. ’Well, we’ve told them all we can, Mr Pyatnitski. I thought you must know where she was. She went off cheerfully enough yesterday to do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. I knew you had business in Batoum and thought perhaps you were meeting her. We weren’t too worried.’

‘But you’re worried about Bragg?’

‘Jack had his orders. He was supposed to be on duty last night.’

Presumably because he had made a fool of himself with the Baroness, Larkin was still embarrassed, very red about the neck. He cleared his throat. ‘Why don’t you try the MP Post at Number Eight dock. They might know something by now.’

I dashed along the quayside, my heart pounding from the double stimulus of cocaine and adrenalin. I was panic-stricken. If I had not realised it before I now knew that I cared for Mrs Cornelius more than anyone. Without her help my chances of reaching England would be alarmingly reduced.