Byzantium Endures: Pyat Quartet

  ‘Good,’ said the Cossack. ‘We’ll wait for it.’

  ‘There might be a crash,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Fine. We’ll be sure it stops then, won’t we?’

  ‘You’ll foul up the alliance,’ said Potoaki. ‘You’ll lose all our support.’

  ‘We’ve been doing fairly well without it. We need a few immediate supplies, a bit of ammunition. You might see us in Moscow before the spring’s out.’ He was glutted with provincial pride because of a few local victories. He was like those Vikings who attacked a town on the Seine and came home claiming they had sacked Rome. He made a noise in his nose and looked me up and down. ‘You’re an engineer. What sort?’

  ‘Most sorts.’

  ‘Know about motor-engines?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You can fix one?’

  I decided I had to ingratiate myself with this idiot or stand the risk of being shot. ‘All things being equal.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If no new parts are needed. I can see what’s wrong. If something’s missing I might be able to improvise. But if you’ve lost something crucial...’

  ‘We’ve got a truck,’ he said, it stopped. Will you look at it?’

  ‘In the common cause?’

  He shrugged. ‘Will you look at it?’

  ‘If you promise I get back on the train when I’ve done so.’

  ‘All right.’

  I did not know if he would wait for the fictional supply train or whether he would be afraid to face it. I returned my bag to my compartment. On a page of the notebook I carried I wrote Uncle Semya’s address. I put it in the suitcase. The other case had only clothes. This one was the most important, because it contained my plans, my designs, my notes.

  I joined the scowling Cossack. His men were already looting the train, watched by helpless Red sailors. Not only Jews were suffering, although these were getting the harshest treatment. A Hasid with a bloody crotch was spread-eagled, dead, half-way up the embankment.

  I followed the Cossack as he plunged towards the crest. Having slipped a couple of times, I was now covered in snow. I was shivering and uncomfortable. We reached the top. We looked down on a thin, earth road. There were some ponies standing there, attended by a young boy in a tattered sheepskin. Their breath looked whiter than the snow and there seemed to be a tranquillity here. Further along the road were three carts, harnessed to horses, and a motor-van. From the van came more vapour. German insignia had been partially scraped from its sides. It flew a red flag. The bonnet was open. Two Cossacks were arguing about what they could see inside. They spoke in dialect. As we approached, they fell silent. One of them removed his cap, then put it shamefacedly back on. Their leader said, ‘This is a mechanic from Moscow. He’ll look at it.’

  I could see immediately that the radiator hose had come loose. All it needed was tying back on with a leather thong. I decided to try to impress them. My life depended on it. ‘Who drives?’ A sickly fellow, the one who had removed his cap, raised his hand. ‘You start the engine,’ I said to his companion. The crank-lever was already in position. He began to turn it like a peasant winding a bucket from a well. At last the engine fired and immediately began over-heating. I enjoyed its warmth in that bitter air. I walked round and round in front of the truck, as if thinking deeply. I told them to stop the engine. I told them to stand back. They did this with alacrity. I took the hose in my gloved hands and replaced it. I asked for a thong. One was found. I bound the hose up, unscrewed the radiator cap and told them to put snow into a bucket and warm it on the engine.

  ‘Snow!’ said their leader. ‘The thing runs on benzine.’

  Even I was surprised by this ignorance. ‘Do as I say.’

  The two men found a large water container and began to pick snow up in their hands, cramming it in. When it had melted I told them to begin pouring it into the radiator. ‘Not too quickly.’

  Eventually the radiator was brimming over. I told them to start the engine again. As the truck spluttered and shook the leader yelled at me: ‘It hasn’t worked. What else is wrong?’

  Then the motor was turning. The Cossack who had cranked it jumped back. By the smell of the fumes, it was hard to know what kind of fuel they were using. The black smoke suggested it might have been unrefined oil. The truck began to roll towards me. The driver yelled and swung the steering wheel. Their driving was only slightly better than their knowledge of the internal combustion engine. A brake was applied. I picked myself out of the snow-drift. From behind the embankment I heard sounds and saw steam. ‘The train’s leaving.’

  ‘You’ve just saved your life.’ The leader grinned. He was pleased to see the truck running. ‘Thank God, if you like. What’s a trip to Odessa worth now? You’ve just been saved a trip to Hell. I don’t know what you thought you were: yid, Katsup or Bolshie. But you’re now an official engineer with the host of Hetman Hrihorieff, serving under Sotnik Grishenko. Aren’t you proud?’

  The bandits were coming back, grinning, waving and displaying their dishonourable booty. The stuff was thrown into the truck. I was made to climb aboard with the rest of the loot. I found myself in a tangle of stolen goods, machine-guns, ammunition, salted pork and two small girls who giggled when they saw me and offered me some herring. I accepted. It might be the last food I would get. The girls murmured at me in their thick accents. They were survivors from a village fought over by Reds and Nationalists. The truck moved off. Sotnik (Captain) Grishenko rode up close behind us. He had a look of self-satisfaction on his hard features. ‘Fix the canopy, if you like. You’ll be warmer. Don’t eat too much. That’s food for a lot of soldiers.’

  ‘Where the hell are we going?’ There was no point in my remaining polite.

  ‘Don’t worry, yid, you’re in safe hands.’

  I shouted back at him. ‘I’m not Jewish. I’m travelling on Party business.’

  ‘Then you’re on Jewish business, aren’t you?’ He was pleased at his wit. He whipped his horse into a trot and was gone. I looked out at the bleak, uninhabitable hills. The line of yellow mist had joined the land. I tried to see smoke, either from the train or from a farmhouse where I might seek refuge. But there was nothing.

  All I had worked for was in a suitcase in a carriage full of Bolsheviks who would steal it without a scruple. My mother and Esmé might be waiting at the station and learn of my fate. There was nothing I could do except hope we passed through a town. I would try to escape and send a telegram to Odessa. I shifted myself into a more comfortable position against a machine-gun tripod. In the end I was forced to rest my elbow on a side of pork. It became colder. I lowered the canopy, but let a corner flap. I would be able to see if we reached a good-sized settlement.

  I was in the position of an enslaved magician. While I was able to perform simple tricks for these barbarians, they would keep me alive. I had been horrified by the bandit’s assumption that I was Jewish because Cossacks felt no conscience at all about killing Jews. Accuse a Slav of being a Jew and you take his breath from his body, the saliva from his mouth, the soul from his eyes. I do not fear death. I have God and I have my honour. My pride has gone. They laugh at me in the market. They call me names, even Jew. They steal from my shop and put their greasy hands on my clothes, and they sneer and ask stupid questions. Mrs Cornelius screamed at them and made them leave. The young girls are so sweet. They buy the white night-dresses and the little blouses and the silk knickers and they are so beautiful. They should sing the ‘Dante’ of Liszt to the music of harps. Lament for exiles; lament for Dante in his exile and his greatness. Lament for Chopin, who could never come to terms with his own Slavic spirit, and who also became an exile. I should like to die in Kiev, looking at lilacs and chestnut trees. The Bolsheviks have probably cut them all down to make their motorways. It is all flats. It is like the flats around here. That is your socialism. The rationalists destroy our world. Where we see beauty and the boundless wonders of science, they see only tidy shapes; their flats. Give me
the old Russian rutted track across the broad steppe. Give me that again and I shall forget God’s gifts of Science and Prescience. The people do not want Prometheus. Prometheus is burdened by knowledge.

  The road did not improve. The truck had no real suspension. It veered frequently. The driver used vodka as a substitute for experience. He needed courage, considering the speed at which he was driving and the condition of the road. Horses and carts vanished behind us. I would have a better than average chance of escape if I jumped clear then. But I would have frozen to death. I had no proper clothing. I had no map or knowledge of the area. I was not even sure which province this was. In spite of the noise from the truck, the discomfort and the fighting of the two little girls, towards evening a sense of peace came. The truck began to slow. I looked through the flap. To my elation I saw we passed through a fair-sized village. I eased myself towards the canopy and was about to squeeze out when the truck stopped. I was thrown amongst pork and machine-guns. The little girls squealed and giggled. I asked them if they knew where we were. They could not understand Russian. My bad Ukrainian baffled them. They had had no education at all. If they had been sent to school, they would have known Russian. It was the official language. Voices came from the twilit street. I drew back the canopy and jumped out. I faced two men wearing blue jackets with gold frogging. For a moment I thought they were officials and was relieved. Then I realised they also wore bandoliers. One had a sailor’s cap. The other had a fur hat with ear-flaps. They were heavily bearded, with a slight oriental appearance. They were bandits.

  ‘Fraternal greetings, comrades.’ I spread my arms wide, as if to embrace them. ‘Pyatnitski. Engineer and mechanic.’

  In Russian one of them said dully, ‘What?’ I repeated myself, word for word. A man in a clean, grey great coat and regulation cap came striding up. He said cheerfully, ‘They don’t know any Russian except military stuff. They can take orders, poor bastards, but they can’t follow a joke. They’re from Volhynia. They’ll understand Polish.’

  I thought it best not to mention my Polish. Knowledge is often of most use when kept to oneself.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  He was amused. ‘Purgatory. We’ve taken over the town as our base. Who are you with?’ He was clean-shaven and spoke with an educated accent. He signed for the truck to pull over towards a church being used as a storehouse.

  ‘I was going to Odessa. Grishenko asked me to fix the truck, so I obliged. Is there anywhere I can send a telegram?’

  ‘Someone’s repairing the wires. They’ll be working by morning. At least as far as Ekaterinoslav.’

  It would be possible to catch a train from Ekaterinoslav. Sotnik Grishenko and his men came plodding up on weary ponies. ‘Trust you to be hob-nobbing with Jews, Yermeloff!’ He dismounted and yawned.

  Yermeloff laughed. ‘He said his name’s Pyatnitski.’

  ‘He’s got papers to prove it, too.’ These were drawn from the dirty sleeve. ‘See?’

  Yermeloff could read. In the bad light he looked at them and shrugged. ‘They’re good papers. Are you on your way out of Russia?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ I reached for my passport. Yermeloff hesitated, glanced at Grishenko, then gave it to me. I put it in my pocket. ‘I’m working for the Party.’

  ‘You’re from Moscow?’

  ‘No. I’m from Kiev. I’m as good a Ukrainian as anyone. I want Ukraine to have her old pride back.’

  Grishenko snorted. ‘Well, Katsupi and yids stick together. Good luck with him, Yermeloff. But don’t let him escape, eh? We’ve uses for him. He muttered a spell over our truck and she’s as good as new.’ He crossed to the church and, leading the two little girls by their hands, entered the doors, like, a father on his way to worship.

  Yermeloff said, ‘You needn’t be afraid. I have Jewish comrades.’

  ‘I have Cossack blood,’ I told him. ‘It is my misfortune if I look Jewish to you. Is everyone who is not fair-haired, pink-skinned, a Jew? Is your leader a Jew?’

  ‘Everyone’s a Jew to Grishenko. It makes killing them easier. You don’t really talk like a Jew. I apologise.’

  This well-educated man might be useful as an ally. I accepted his apology in the hope of encouraging his protection. The trouble with brutes is that they are suspicious of Reason yet become aggressive if you shout at them. God knows what their lives are like as children.

  We had arrived at a house on one side of the broad, muddy, unmade streets, some distance from the church. It was a small house, built around a courtyard in which two ponies and a goat were tethered. ‘Are you really an engineer?’ Yermeloff asked. ‘Or were you just lucky?’ His cool eyes looked into mine with an expression of the mildest curiosity. He laughed. ‘I was a lieutenant in the Tsarist army. I’m a captain with our Ataman. Would the Bolsheviks make me a general, do you think?’

  We entered the doorway. A black-clad woman of indeterminate age shuffled ahead of us along a dirty passage. The walls had patches on them where ikons and pictures had been. ‘That’s our hostess.’ Sotnik Yermeloff called out to her, is there any tea left, pani?’ She went into her room. Bolts were pulled. He was philosophical. ‘She pretends to be deaf. You’d be surprised how many deaf people there are in this district. Everywhere else we’ve stayed, too. At least three-quarters of the population. They go deaf at about nine years old. Before that, they’re dumb.’

  We came to a square room with a stove in it. The stove had been decorated with primitive paintings. Most of these had peeled away or been blackened by soot and time. Three other officers, all in different uniforms, sat at benches around the stove. They shared a large piece of meat which they passed from hand to hand. There was black bread. Some vodka.

  ‘Do you mind if this comrade joins us?’ Yermeloff went close to the stove. They looked at me. One of them, with a dark half-beard and scarred forehead, chuckled. ‘Not at all. Have some bread. Have some pork.’ I had already had the herring and I did not look forward to mingling spittle with these ruffians. They probably had at least three kinds of venereal disease. I contented myself with a large piece of rough bread and a can of thick, acrid tea which had been left on the stove. I was offered no vodka. I had become very tired. I had had little sleep for nights and no opportunity of a reviving sniff of cocaine. I said I wished to urinate; was there a place? ‘In the yard with the horses. The real privy got damaged last night. We tried to pull Yuri out because he’d been in too long. But we pulled through the wrong hole.’ I left these jolly fellows and returned to the yard. It was so cold that any desire to answer the call of nature was instantly dismissed. With the house-door shut behind me, I stood looking at the ponies. The goat was now in the corner, being milked by a crazed-looking girl.

  I reached surreptitiously for my cocaine, found a small ‘single-dose’ packet I had hidden, dragged out my handkerchief and pretended to blow my nose. It is not the best method of taking cocaine, but it was the only one available. I emptied the packet into the handkerchief. I sniffed first through one nostril, then the other, until I had inhaled everything possible. It was a large amount. I had come to over-use the drug while working on the Violet Ray. Even this dose had only a minimal effect. I still felt slow and drowsy. But my head had cleared a little.

  Nobody knew what was going on in Ukraine in those days: armies came and went, won and lost battles, looted towns, were termed glorious allies, barbaric enemies, treacherous comrades - often within the same hour: bandits, Cossacks, Anarchists, Bolsheviks, Nationalists. The words were meaningless. The loyalties of the various armies were, as we say in chemistry, highly volatile. I could not know if Hrihorieff (who had already fought with Skoropadskya and Petlyura) was with the Bolsheviks or not. He could be pretending to be with them; he could be pretending to be against them. He could be pretending to parley to gain time for his men out on raids. It was the essence, I suppose, of guerilla war. Our land had become worse than the Western prairies at the time of Custer. It was even more savage and with no single governme
nt in control. The Seventh Cavalry might well arrive; but it could be in league with the Indians or working on its own account, like Quantrill in the American Civil War.

  The oil-lamp in the room was burning low as I came back. All the soldiers with the exception of Captain Yermeloff had huddled down into rags and stolen shirts and were going to sleep. Yermeloff unbuttoned his greatcoat. He tried to roll a cigarette out of newspaper and tea-leaves. I slipped two of my papyrussa from my pocket and offered him one. He was grateful. We lit the cigarettes. It is a twentieth-century ritual, this exchanging and lighting of cigarettes. It requires proper analysis by those who study human behaviour. We sat down together against the wall nearest the door. Yermeloff put the lamp between us. It was cold. The other soldiers had taken the best positions near the stove. ‘Where’s your main host?’ I asked.

  ‘Hrihorieff? His headquarters. Alexandriya. We’re a foraging force.’

  ‘My father was a Zaporizhian Cossack,’ I said. ‘So I have blood-ties with the Ataman.’

  ‘You’re probably right. You’re both as likely to be Zaporizhians as not.’ Yermeloff was amiable. ‘He’s got about fifty titles, at the present count. More than Krassnoff.’ He enjoyed the cigarette slowly. He let it go out and then relit it from the waning lamp, ‘It’s strange how five years ago we were merely farmers or workers or even schoolboys. Infantrymen, cavalrymen. Now we’re all Cossacks. There must be enough of us to drive every Turk and Tatar over the edge of the world. But instead Christian kills Christian and socialists ram bayonets into the groins of socialists.’ He scratched his head and laughed.