Byzantium Endures: Pyat Quartet

  Work began that day on producing a suitable vacuum tube. We were hampered on every side. Desertions at the glass-works; promises of copper wire which failed to have any substance; engineers suddenly disappearing; Russian mechanics hearing of some Bolshevik or insurgent victory and trying to get to Odessa or Yalta before all escape routes were cut off. The chaos in the streets returned. Petlyura’s forces were melting away. The French were right not to trust him. In the meantime the bell-tower of St Andrew’s became the housing for my equipment’s alternative power-source: banks of Voltaic batteries, connected with heavy copper wire, operated by a monstrous Nife Switch. In the chamber below I discarded tube after tube, mirror after mirror. Power cables were carried through the sacred corridors and up the steps of that wonderful building, ready to connect to my machine when it was ready. The monks were bewildered, but had been convinced by Petlyura of the necessity for using the place in the war against the Bolsheviks. The tube was secured in a sturdy tripod frame of aluminium and wood and looked makeshift. The mirrors were large at the end nearest the tube and shrank to smaller sizes, tapering almost to a point. Quartz lenses would have worked much better. Some were being ‘requisitioned’ but did not arrive. We looked down over the Podol ghetto. I could almost see my own street, higher up the hill. As one of the soldiers remarked, ‘If we can’t wipe out Antonov, we can finish off a few Jews before we leave.’

  With the help of some cocaine, I worked rapidly at the device. Petlyura himself came to see me three times. On the third I was able to demonstrate some of the machine’s potential by directing the fluorescence onto a sheet of newspaper which almost immediately burst into flames. He was impressed.

  ‘But will it burn Bolsheviks?’

  ‘It’s a question of power,’ I said, it should have limitless capacity so long as it has enough electricity.’

  Petlyura seemed not to have slept. He was sallow. His eyes had a withdrawn look. ‘I shall give you the entire city, the entire Ukraine,’ he told me, ‘if it will work. This will offer the people heart. This will bring the soldiers back.’

  He had become desperate. I began to wonder what my next move should be. At the first opportunity I had my official car take me to Mother’s flat. There I warned her of the possibility of the Bolsheviks re-occupying the city. She laughed at me.

  ‘The Bolsheviks were here before. And we are still safe. So what is there to worry about?’

  ‘It might be necessary, mother, to go to Odessa. The French are in control there. We shall be safe in Odessa.’

  ‘Safe in Odessa?’ For some bizarre and mysterious reason she began to cackle.

  I waited until Esmé arrived and told her my news. It was getting late. I was due back at my equipment. I could not afford to offend Petlyura, especially since he was becoming obviously overtired. I gave her an outline of what was happening. I begged her to be ready to leave with Mother and Captain Brown, if he would go.

  She was confused. ‘The countryside is full of bandits. I have my work.’

  ‘There’ll be as much work for you in Odessa as here.’

  She saw the point. ‘When should we leave?’

  ‘It might be wise to go before me. I can send for you if things quieten down. I am working ...’ I held my tongue. ‘There is some hope.’

  ‘I will not go to Odessa,’ said my mother. ‘I have never been to Odessa.’

  I took my watch from my pocket: It was getting too late. ‘What harm will come to you? You can stay with Uncle Semya.’

  ‘Semya has been very kind. I don’t think Evgenia would like me there. She wrote a funny letter about you. And some girl. I burned it. She’s always been jealous.’

  ‘Mother, the Bolsheviks could take Kiev any day, unless my work is effective. I am asking you to be ready to leave. Once they are here, it will be impossible to get on a train.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Esmé agreed. ‘You should do as Max says, Yelisaveta Filipovna. We love you.’

  ‘My laundry,’ she said, ‘is my life. I would be foolish to go to Odessa. Am I to retire to a seaside datcha?’

  ‘You could,’ I said. ‘You would enjoy it.’

  ‘I would not.’

  I had no more time to coax her. ‘You must promise to take Mother and Captain Brown. When you get my message.’ I looked into Esmé’s wonderful blue eyes. I kissed her on the lips before leaving.

  Kiev was not so much a city under siege as one which seemed already to have fallen. Haidamaki had looted Podol with such efficiency they had hardly time for their normal pogromist activities. No fires were started, few Jews were killed, unless they seriously interfered with the business in hand. Shadowy groups of men with sacks and rifles dodged back and forth across the street as my motor, flying Petlyura’s official flag; rolled over cobbles which had not been cleared of snow for days. I was glad to return to the relative security of Kreshchatik. It was protected by more disciplined troops. At the half-deserted Savoy I quickly went to the main suite to report my progress to an anxious Petlyura who laughed, turning to Vinnichenko. The curtains were closed. Vinnichenko was peering through them like a spinster at a neighbour. ‘Are we going to hear any more of “co-operation” and “evacuation”?’ Vinnichenko shrugged. He was probably disappointed not to be able to greet Trotsky, Stalin and Antonov personally. Petlyura asked me, ‘How are things in the city?’

  ‘Troops are looting it, Supreme Commander.’

  ‘We should never have trusted the ones who came over from Skoropadskya.’

  ‘We should never have thought we could hold Kiev.’ Vinnichenko turned his back on us both. ‘We should have stayed with the peasants and not thrown in with Russians and Jews.’

  Petlyura clapped me on the back. ‘Do not let anyone tell you I have anything against your people.’

  I smiled, feeling my power over him. Was he trying to placate the Russian ‘Katsopi’ billygoats he had so despised? ‘You don’t hate us any more?’

  ‘It’s the peasants,’ he said. ‘Russians and Jews own all the shops, all the factories, all the machinery.’ His voice had begun to rise. He controlled himself, ‘Is the ray ready for final tests?’

  It could not be tested until I had more power. I thought it would be pointless to requisition civilian electricity and harm public morale until the last possible moment.

  Petlyura became immediately calm, as if responding to morphine. He stroked his moustache and gave me an encouraging wink. ‘Off you go, then, professor.’

  The Savoy echoed. Some of the mirrors had been removed, as if the entire building were being made ready for shipment. There were very few shops open in Kreshchatik. Many were boarded up. I was tempted to drift down to Bessarabskaya and find myself one of the really young girls who were now working there. I had developed a taste for them. I was certainly a better customer than most they could expect. But with some weariness I directed the driver to return to St Andrew’s and the tower, which was full of light, like a beacon in the darkness and confusion. Climbing the stairs to the top of the church, I heard distant noises from the city: gunfire, shouts and screams. All these had become familiar. I wondered if I would miss them if they ever stopped.

  Some new, larger tubes had been delivered. I admired the workmanship. The corporal who was helping me said that they would probably be the last we would get. I asked why.

  He grinned. ‘They looted the glass-works about two hours ago, that’s why.’

  ‘What do they want with glass?’

  ‘They thought they’d find gold.’

  I inspected my tubes. They were excellently made. I began carefully to unscrew the clamps holding the smaller tube on the swivel stand. I replaced it with a new one. ‘Gold?’

  ‘They guessed the Jews were making gold,’ said the soldier. ‘Because of the crucibles and stuff.’

  ‘The glass-works isn’t Jewish.’ I connected up the wires.

  ‘They got even angrier when they found that out.’ The corporal laughed.

  I stood back to admire the ma
chine. Once the mirrors were properly aligned and more power diverted, I thought it would be possible to try out the ray on one of the trees near the yacht club. It still stood, deserted, on Trukhanov Island, on the other side of the ice-bound river. I lit a cigarette and then, in a democratic mood, handed one to the soldier. He was impressed by the gesture. ‘Thanks, comrade.’

  ‘What about the Bolsheviks? Will we beat them?’ I felt it was important to know what a regular soldier, with some experience, thought. He was more reliable than Petlyura.

  ‘It depends. They’re nearly all Russians. They look down their noses at Ukrainians. It keeps them together. But Ukrainians can’t even agree on what to call their commanders.’

  I nodded. ‘They’ll side with anyone, it seems. The Hetman, Petlyura, Hrihorieff, Trotsky, Korniloff...’

  The soldier drew on the long paper tube. ‘This is good tobacco. Is it Turkish?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He made a gesture towards the suburbs and beyond. ‘Those poor bastards out there have nothing. They don’t believe in governments - nationalist, Tsarist, Bolshevik, Polish, French. They believe in freedom and owning a plot of land.’

  ‘To nurture their own gardens,’ I said.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Voltaire,’ I explained.

  ‘I know.’ He was amused. ‘That’s why they put me with you. I’m the intellectual of the division.’ He began to laugh, ‘I did a year at technical college before I was conscripted.’

  ‘You were at the Front?’

  ‘Galicia.’

  ‘You’ll fight the Bolsheviks when they attack?’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he said. He patted my tube. ‘This will fight the Bolsheviks, comrade professor. I’ll be running like fuck for the nearest train.’

  I laughed with him. We were of an identical mind.

  I left him on guard when I had lined up the available mirrors and tested the projector once more on a paper target. I had slept only a few hours during the whole week but I still did not feel like going to bed. I directed the driver to Bessarabskaya. He told me it was four in the morning. From all around I heard cackling laughter, breaking windows, the creak of hand-carts bearing away loot. We returned to the hotel where I found a message from Esmé. A train departed for Odessa in the morning. She would do all she could to be on it, but she needed extra papers, travel-permits. I telephoned a good friend of mine in the appropriate ministry. I was impossibly lucky. He, too, was not sleeping. Within an hour, I had documents for myself, my mother, Captain Brown and Esmé. I put my permit with my passport, summoned a soldier from downstairs, and sent him to Esmé. For once I was relieved that neither Esmé nor my mother were resisting me. I fell asleep suddenly and was awakened at noon by a nightmare in which I, several years younger, was writhing in the mud, the only figure on a vast, deserted battlefield. There were bullets in my stomach.

  I did not immediately open my eyes because I thought for a second I was in Odessa again, listening to the sound of the Arcadian surf. My eyes were filled with yellow light, like blood. I realised that the sun was out. It was the first sunshine I had seen for a long time. I rolled over and looked about me. My apartment was insane. I had not noticed before that it was so untidy. Yellow blood from the sun. It ran in a series of canals, cut across the steppe. It ran swiftly and could not be navigated or crossed. The booming continued. It was, of course, artillery fire. It might have been our own. It had become impossible to distinguish friends from enemies. They battled over Kiev. They came and went. They all said they were saving us. Some cities are fated to become symbols. In those days we lived symbolically in a symbolic city. The mad universe of the Symbolists had for a while become reality. Had all those people I despised in Petrograd been prescient? Or had they created this world because it was the only environment in which they felt at ease. It was a madman’s world. Someone was standing in the room. A young corporal in a Cossack coat. He held his sheepskin hat in his gloved hands. I think he said the situation was urgent. Yellow blood still filled my eyes. I got up. I was wearing my clothes.

  Hannibal’s Numidian cavalry drove deeper and deeper into Spain, that pious land; drove deeper towards the shrine of the Holy Virgin. And the steppe was broken by black trees. Burning bronze ran through the Kiev gorges. And I was on fire: and my mother’s black clothes were on fire. ‘A train?’

  Cossack: ‘They thought you’d been killed. The enemy is close. You are needed, Pan.’

  He spoke with a strong Polish accent. My Polish was weak. Mother had taught me once. And I had listened to her nightmares.

  ‘Has the train left? The morning train for Odessa?’

  ‘The emergency train. Yes.’

  ‘Was it well-protected?’

  ‘Armoured, I think.’

  I went with this Polish Cossack. There were little girls singing a huge chorus in my mind. Pure, Russian voices. There is no sound like it. And still I blinked away the sun’s blood. It was Liszt. I had heard it at the Opera House in Odessa with Uncle Semya. Dante. I could not. My mind was weak. Something had attacked it as I slept. There is no purer sound than that of little Russian girls singing. Magnificat anima mea Dominum! Into Purgatory. So much for the Divine Comedy. I was surrounded by them. Had I wronged them? I could not have wronged anyone. I took what others would have taken. I am no priest. I have never claimed it. It was at the Albert Hall. I should never have gone. Layers and layers of red, all circling down to the hell on the stage; that Bolshoi chorus. But I was lonely. I had lost everything. Some would have adopted a dog. I was tired of dogs. We had had too much of dogs in my Russia. And children never trusted me. Did they know? I am not an uneducated man. The Cossack put me in a red carriage and I was taken up the hill to Andreivska. That red hell of the Albert Hall. I remember the lights. The little girls in their white dresses. They had to take me home in the end. I wanted to hear those voices, even though they sang in Latin.

  Rome and Rome and Rome. They said Britain was the New Rome. All she inherited was the patrician. Moscow inherited the priest. Rome and Byzantium, Kiev and Moscow. The voices are still as sweet and I did them no damage. I was clean. I was cleaner than the others. We got to the church and Petlyura himself had arrived. He was furious. ‘Sleeping, comrade?’

  ‘I worked late into the night.’

  ‘And so has this fellow?’ It was the soldier with whom I had shared a cigarette. He looked bleak. Petlyura had evidently been screaming at him. There were various generals standing about in coats and elaborate frogging. Some had no insignia. Some had removed their epaulettes. I had learned to recognise such signs. It was almost as good as waving a white flag. From below in the church the priests were holding a service. It was the Kiev part-singing of Diletski. I think it was Khvalite imyagospoderi, aliluya! It was an omen, I thought. Church and Science were coming together to destroy the Red Jew.

  ‘My machine is as good as ready,’ I said with dignity, i was awaiting instructions.’

  ‘Antonov’s forces are moving in from all sides.’ Petlyura scowled. ‘We’ve no time to set up further stations. This is the only one we can use. Tonight we shall direct it over there.’ He pointed roughly towards my own home. I was glad Esmé and my mother had gone. There was no more sun. I blinked at Petlyura. He said. ‘You are certain the light is invisible?’

  I reassured him.

  ‘It will weaken their morale. It will give us time to put the rest of our plan into action.’

  ‘You are going to counter-attack?’

  ‘Look after the scientific matters, professor.’

  The soldier glanced cynically at me. I avoided his eye. I wanted no trouble. My head was aching. I had forgotten my cocaine. I asked permission to return to the hotel for medicine. ‘Have some of mine,’ said Petlyura. He handed me a small golden box containing cocaine. I was not surprised. That entire Revolution, that entire Civil War, was fought on ‘snow’. It was the fuel, far more than politics or gunpowder, of the entire affair. Revived, I noticed the soldier smil
ing at me in an insolent way. ‘You think I don’t know what I’m doing?’

  ‘I think you might be the only one who does, comrade.’

  Petlyura said sourly: ‘You could be shot, corporal.’

  ‘I think I stand a fair chance of it today, comrade Supreme Commander.’ The corporal had no fear because he had become so tired. I felt sympathy for him. We were being outmanoeuvred. Even Scipio had needed an army to destroy the Carthaginian elephant. It was all sunshine in those days. The battles were fought in heat, not snow. Only Hannibal had known snow, and that was the kindly snow of the Alps, not Russian snow. Ragnarok come again. Entropy. There is so much evidence in Russia. We are lucky to have our brief moments of warmth and life. It is why we worship God.