The Laughter of Carthage (89 page)

That night I sold almost the last piece of jewellery and took Esmé to the music hall. I was desperate to get a grip again on reality. When I was in her company nothing seemed of particular gravity. Mrs Cornelius would soon be in London and I could write to her there. She was in a much better position to get permission for me to enter the country. If I looked at it from certain angles, things could even seem as if they had improved for me.

On the other hand my Baroness, whom I saw the next afternoon, was growing increasingly distraught. Her anxiety made her less attractive. Rather than make love, she preferred to discuss her dilemma. She had still heard nothing from her husband’s family in Berlin. Her German hosts felt she had overstayed her welcome. Kitty needed far more attention, now that Marusya was gone. Was there some way she could earn money?

I could think of very little that was respectable. There were few openings for someone of her class. I myself was forced to disguise the way in which I earned what was after all a meagre living as a jobbing mechanic. I assured her, of course, I would continue my efforts to help her get to Italy or France. She had heard rumours that a full scale Civil War was imminent in Turkey. The nationalists grew steadily more vociferous. The Sultan’s rule was seriously threatened because he too willingly dealt with the British. The British, for their part, had made many political arrests and so increased the tension. Haidur Pasha was being reinforced. Count Siniutkin, she said, predicted more trouble soon. A large proportion of the Turkish army had refused to disband. Bashi-bazouki bandits in the hinterland terrorised villages, killing Turks, Greeks and Armenians indiscriminately. Constantinople herself might soon be attacked.

This last seemed highly unlikely. I told her the Allies could easily defend the city. The whole civilised world would lend aid, if necessary. A few brigands were no threat. Down the centuries she had held firm against entire nations of enemies. But Leda refused to be calmed. ‘It’s getting exactly like Russia. Can’t you see that, Simka? The whole horrible world’s going the same way! That’s why I worry about you. I don’t want to lose you.’

I laughed heartily. I was indestructible, I told her. Like Leonardo, I moved from city to city, always able to gauge the wind in time. Someone could be relied upon, no matter what my circumstances, to find my genius of value to them.

She was sceptical. ‘Then why are you still here?’

I had, I reminded her, my loyalties. Moreover she should take into account the murdering tendencies of the Turk. My Steam Car Company had been a mere day or two from reality when Mr Sharian was killed. ‘But I shall find another Mr Sharian.’

‘Oh, Simka, it is such a shame. You deserve better. You should not have to go cap in hand to Armenians. If I had the money you would never have to know this awful frustration. Somewhere I’ll get a job and keep us both. I am good at arithmetic. My husband always admired my accounts.’

‘You must think of yourself and Kitty first. I can always find honest employment.’

‘I have become a miserable burden to you. No wonder you see so little of me.’

‘I have distant relatives, don’t forget, in the city. One of them is thought to be dying. And my vocation, darling Leda, I have always said to be my first mistress.’

‘Mrs Cornelius went to Paris, I hear. I would not have left my own husband in such a predicament.’

I refused to listen to this petty criticism. ‘You always knew it was a marriage in name only. Mrs Cornelius had already spoken of her plans and I had insisted she go.’

She began to weep very discreetly. ‘I doubted you. I’m sorry. I will not be a check on your freedom, Simka. I’m not jealous, though I could not bear never to see you.’ Her expectations, I thought, were now even lower than the last time. She had become a realist. I felt renewed sympathy for her. ‘Actually, my darling, Mrs Cornelius begged me to go with her.’ I hoped this would make her feel better. ‘She was angry when I refused. I told her it would mean leaving you.’

The Baroness laughed and shook her head as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, ‘If only it were true.’

I was offended, but she did not seem to notice. I rose and dressed. The cheap room, which offered a special rate if you took it for a whole night, had no carpet on the wooden floor. I felt a splinter drive itself into my foot and I cursed. I pushed back one of the shutters to see while I eased the little shard free. Outside a mob was demonstrating. It was impossible to know, from the Arabic on their banners, what their grudge was. Leda pulled a dirty sheet to her shoulders. ‘Don’t be upset. You must look after yourself. I haven’t any illusions. I’m almost ten years older than you.’

I lowered my foot to the floor. Affection and understanding suddenly returned. Crossing to the bed and kissing her, I promised I would see her very soon.

By the following day, however, Esmé had become ill. A cold had become something more serious, perhaps influenza, and the doctor’s prescriptions were costly. Obsessively, I nursed my child, brought her nourishing food from the restaurant, did extra work at the docks and continued my quest for another backer. Her tiny face, in a frame of sweat-drenched blonde hair, smiled bravely back at me whenever she was awake. Again I had no time for the Baroness. The cards I had ordered were delivered:
The European and Oriental Steam Automobile Company Ltd.
I distributed these widely. I saw no point at that stage in alienating Turkish interests. The steam cars were for the world. Did it matter, in the long run, if the finance for their development came from the Orient or the Occident? The money was better spent on cars than on guns! I had many false hopes in that period.

Esmé grew well and was gay again. I began seeing Leda occasionally. The spring came. I took Esmé into the hills. We ate
Imam-bayildi
under fragrant mulberry trees while we watched goats and sheep graze. The sun was silver in a pale grey sky and the walls of the villages were washed with faint lilac, pink or yellow. Shrubs were starting to bloom. The distant sea was tranquil. Constantinople’s dignified seaside suburbs were nothing like the yellow houses of Kiev’s outskirts. The scenery was more exotic, more evidently Islamic. Yet my childhood was completely revived: that confident, egocentric childhood when I was beginning to realise my unusual capacities and give proper detail to my dreams. Esmé listened to me as Esmé always listened, and I described the glorious promise of the future. She would gasp. She would grow round-eyed. She would remark on my cleverness and anticipate a marvellous career for me, with herself as my loyal companion. Then she would indulge her own fantasies, of the kind of house we would own, when we were rich, how many servants we should have and so on. She supplied everything I had taken for granted from the first Esmé. But this Esmé I did not take for granted. I had lost one and could never bear to lose another. She had my daily attention. I made certain she was entertained, was healthy, had the food, the clothes, the toys she most desired, that our love-making was to her taste even when it was not to mine. I knew the dangers of being over-solicitous and tried to avoid them. Esmé realised how much I loved her, what she meant to me. She accepted my concern as her right, the care of a real father.

Constantinople became gradually more familiar to me while, with the changing of the seasons, she also grew more magical. By now I had friends around the docks, acquaintances who were engineers on the vessels sailing regularly to and from the city. I was of service to many émigrés still inhabiting Pera. These continued to increase, for the Red Army pushed our Volunteers further back. Some Russians presently fought beside the Greeks in Anatolia. Others had been recruited into the brigand gangs taking advantage of the War. Everywhere groups of renegades joined the service of petty chieftains. There was an entire unit of ‘Wolfshead’ Cossacks helping to establish the regime of a Chinese warlord. Others had gone to Africa to join the Foreign Legions of Spain and France. Some white officers were even lending their expertise to the pirate khans of Indonesia. They had thoroughly turned their backs on our cause. So many Russian mercenaries were little more than children; as a trade they knew only battle and would rather sell their swords to Islam than live on Christian charity. The Allies, caught up in their own political machinations, had no time left to help our Russian Army consolidate. Generals departed for America daily, apparently to lecture on the Terrors of Bolshevism, but actually to join relatives in Toronto and Miami. The Baroness von Ruckstühl was lucky. In April she became a receptionist at the
Byzance.
We met twice a week in her little room at the very top of the old hotel. Kitty received private lessons on those evenings, from a Madame Kron, attached to the American school. We still spoke of leaving. She continued to apply for a visa to Berlin, but both of us considered ourselves fortunate compared to the thousands of wretches reduced to hanging around the Galata Bridge or the harbours, selling ikons and furs to grinning soldiers and sailors.

The cabarets had taken on a distinctly Russian air in parts of the Grande Rue. Noble princes and princesses who before the War had learned a few tasteful folk dances and little else, now performed them for drunks to the sound of out-of-tune balalaikas, while disinherited Cossacks nightly displayed their skill with pistol and whip. Counts gave riding lessons. Countesses taught drawing and music. The Tsarist upper crust had become a troupe of beggars and third-rate circus performers half a million strong. To be Russian in Constantinople was to be a laughing stock. One preferred when possible to claim another nationality. On occasions I was Polish or Czech. Sometimes I let people think I was British, French, even American. Similarly, the Baroness carefully retained her German style, though sometimes she dropped the ‘baroness’ (since every other Russian had a title) and became Frau von Ruckstühl. Because of my dark looks, I was frequently taken for an Armenian, and it was not always practical to deny it. I knew a few phrases from Sarkis Mihailovitch, chiefly technical terms, and these proved useful to me. Armenians are not Jews, whatever people say. They were very friendly to me and some even called me ‘the nephew of Kouyoumdjian’. They began to ask me to take on the more complicated jobs, almost always ensuring I had the entire fee for myself. Five or six steam engines belonging to the ferry boat owners soon became familiar exasperating acquaintances. I learned a great deal about marine machinery and steam engines in particular. Whenever I could I experimented, making little improvements to my automobile designs.

In the evenings Esmé and I would hire a carriage and a driver. We would tour Stamboul or take the little white coastal roads winding beside the pure turquoise of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. The sky was equally blue, a colour I had once believed the fanciful invention of painters. We ate well, in restaurants overlooking wooded bays and tiny fishing ports. Listen to languorous Turkish music we watched the sun set on impossible landscapes. Spring mists diffused the light, especially at dawn and dusk, and we saw the hills of Scutari and Stamboul quiver in copper-coloured haze. Constantinople was a jewelled treacherous beast. She could fascinate you with her beauty, then strike you down suddenly, to suck out your blood and your soul. Her attractions were potentially fatal. I earned good money as a mechanic, had a worshipping child-bride, a mistress who was equally devoted, but must always remember that my true vocation was to be found in the more vigorous West.

The Allies grew increasingly uncertain of their rule. Peace talks continued. Europe was divided up, her future settled by her victors. The Byzantine city became an embarrassment to them. We heard more of Mustafa Kemal and his henchmen, of nationalists active in the capital. Many French and Italian military people thought Constantinople should remain Turkish rather than Greek. The Greeks, they argued, were just Englishmen in white skirts. The British alone gave genuine support to the Greek cause, supplying them with munitions and ships. Britons considered themselves the true inheritors of an Homeric tradition, thus in helping Greece, they reinforced their own self image. But could it be wrong to want control of the Straits while Islam and Bolshevism threatened to join hands in the Caucasus and Anatolia. Together they would form a Red Horde more ruthlessly effective than any Tamburlane or Attila directed against Christendom. It was not madness to predict the Antichrist’s army one day massing against us. Having fought and won a great battle, the Allies were exhausted but tomorrow that battle would seem as nothing. The mountains were bursting; from scarlet fire galloped the very armies of Hell. Into the fray came swaggering Carthage. The citadels of civilisation were attacked on every front. The West must entrench herself, restore her energies!
The
real enemy was still alive and on the march!

These condescending young men, with their beards and tartan shirts, come into the shop trying to put Labour Party posters in my window. They have no idea what they were rescued from. The Communist and the Oriental remain serious threats to everything held dear by the West. Those decent men and women voting for Adolf Hitler did not believe they voted for tyranny. They were hoping to contain the spread of evil. Hitler’s greatest mistake was to make a pact with Stalin. His ordinary followers felt a wavering of their faith in him. The Third Reich truly began to crumble when it lost its internal morale and its supporters abroad. Some innocent people were caught up in the great struggle and did indeed suffer an unjust fate, but most who exaggerate the evils of Hitlerism and speak melodramatically of a ‘Holocaust’ are the very ones who thought they had a right to enrich themselves by exploiting their host nations. I am not a political person. Even in my present circumstances I believe in decency and the Fellowship of Man, in good will and tolerance. As a youth, my idealism was even more pronounced. I believed that Turks were open to reason, that they would be grateful to be left alone in Anatolia. I even sympathised with aspects of their struggle. My trust, as was to happen frequently in my life, was abused.