‘I’ll go and find out.’ She twisted ginger hair at her neck. ‘Madame’s in a good mood. M’sieu, too.’
I was to become used to the frequent use of French in Odessa. The city thought of itself as half-French already, though in fact the greatest number of foreigners had been German, publishing their own newspaper Odessaer-Zeitung. Many of the books I read while there were German. I also read the English Tauchnitz editions of W. Clark Russell, H.G. Wells and W. Pett Ridge.
Eventually it was my cousin Shura, not Wanda, who came for me. He looked rather more respectable this morning, in a shirt, a bow-tie, a grey three-piece suit. He carried a straw boater in his hand. He was a kind-hearted youth and had realised I would feel strange in the new city. He entered without knocking, leaning against the door-frame and winking as usual. Then he closed the door and asked if the clothes I wore (a perfectly good dark jacket and pair of knickerbockers) were what I actually preferred. I pointed out that I had little else. He said ‘something would be done’, then advised me to part my hair with an English parting, in the middle, and offered me his comb, which smelled of brilliantine. I accepted and made a poor attempt at the parting. He sat me down in front of my little dressing table and, tongue between his teeth, produced a precise line. Then he ran the comb thoughtfully through his own cropped locks and nodded his satisfaction. I put on pullover and jacket. ‘I suppose it’s fair enough,’ said Shura. ‘They expect you to look like a schoolboy.’
‘I am a schoolboy,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s why Uncle Semya sent for me. To see who he’s sending to school.’
Shura grinned cynically. ‘Of course he is, the old philanthropist.’
I became angry. ‘He is very kind. He has done a great deal for my mother and myself. He has faith in me. More real faith than my own father had!’
Shura softened. ‘You’re right. Come on, then.’
We passed a blushing Wanda on the stairs. She seemed as fascinated by Shura as I was. He pinched her cheek and whispered something in her ear. She groaned cheerfully and continued on her way.
We descended. We descended further. There were smells of food. We reached the tiled main floor of the house. Sunlight came through stained glass. It shone on hangings, on paintings, on hat-stands and mirrors. We moved towards the back of the house, past the parlour where I had met Aunt Genia, past the dining-room where I had eaten my first meal, and came to a mahogany door on which Shura, all of a sudden grave, knocked.
‘Come in.’ The voice was open, welcoming. We entered. ‘Maxim Arturovitch, your great-uncle, Semyon Josefovitch.’
I had expected a burly patriarch, a bogatyr with a long grey beard wearing a business suit. I encountered a small man with pointed features, a pointed beard, a linen jacket and trousers, a glossy collar under which a neatly knotted old-fashioned black string-tie lay against the starched shirtfront. His hands had silver rings on them and a dab or two of ink. He seemed shy. He removed his glasses, which he flourished in his left hand as, with his right, he reached towards me through the room. He grasped my arm at the elbow, then gradually, in a series of stages, found my hand, which he pressed and shook. He was only a few inches taller than me. ‘My boy. My nephew. My niece’s only child. What a pleasure. Is your mother as proud of you as she should be? As proud as I am of her? I am your Great-Uncle Semya. Shura has told you. He has looked after you. He is a good boy. But you must teach him your learning. You are to become the wise man of the family, eh?’ He stroked his pointed beard with his spectacles, as if in delight at the idea. ‘You will go to Peter and be Jesus in the Synagogue, eh?’ Peter was what many people called St Petersburg. Great-Uncle Semya had a way of speaking which was more precise than most Odessan speech, but from time to time he would drop into an Odessan accent, as if for emphasis. ‘You will come back to us and be our voice. You have no vocation for law?’
‘I fear not, Semyon Josefovitch … Science is— ‘
‘Quite so. A lawyer in the family is not to be. Not yet. But a scientist mixes well, of course. A professor comes into social contact with lawyers— and there you have what is almost as good as a lawyer in the family. Advocates in Odessa, little Max, are all scoundrels. It can be said, I suppose, of most professions. But once you are part of the intelligentsia then you have access to the best scoundrels, eh? They admit you to their secrets. They treat you as one of their own. You are the only intellectual we have. You are precious to us. You are to be our family’s pride. Do you like Shakespeare? Puccini? So do I. We’ll go to the opera and the theatre together.’ (He was as good as his word. I was bored, but it gave me an education in drama and music I would otherwise have lacked.)
I began to understand why Uncle Semya wished so much for me to do well at St Petersburg. All his other relatives were succeeding in various mercantile lines. I was the member of the family destined to pursue more abstract affairs.
‘Has Shura offered to show you the city?’ Uncle Semya asked. ‘He must. I would do so myself, but there is the office. Ships and tides wait for nobody. Soap must go to Sevastapol. Coffee must come from Rio. Even though the German mines threaten peaceful vessels. Not that the War is bad for business. Indeed, it is very good for business. If business can be allowed to carry on. Let Shura show you our Odessa. You will love it.’ He opened his jacket and found his wallet. He gave Shura a 10-rouble note. ‘Have a nice lunch somewhere at my expense. I shall see you this evening at dinner. Farewell. And do not overtax the brains while you are here. Save them for St Petersburg.’ He rolled the ‘r’ in each syllable with relish, as if he described some edible delicacy. And we were dismissed.
Outside my great-uncle’s study we found Aunt Genia. She had a pile of pale clothing in her arms. ‘You can’t go out in all that stuff. It’s too warm even now. Here are Vanya’s things. They’ll fit you. And he has his uniform.’ Her son was already in the army. She was a good deal younger than Uncle Semya. Wisely he had waited until his business was well-established before deciding to marry. I thought I would follow his example. My father, after all, had married young and no good had come of that.
With Vanya’s old summer clothes we climbed the stairs again. Under Shura’s eye I donned a chocolate-brown suit, a silky shirt with a soft collar, a panama hat. They seemed ineffably loud and tasteless garments to my Northern eye, but Shura sighed with pleasure. ‘Quite the dandy,’ he said. ‘Vanya used to cut a dash around here before they caught him.’
‘Caught him?’
‘For the army.’
Vanya was to be killed six months later. I was never able to thank him for his part in helping me fit into the life of the ‘Russian Riviera’.
I left my knickerbockers hanging over the rail of my bed. Arm in arm with Shura I returned downstairs, sang out a farewell to Aunt Genia and Wanda, who were up to something domestic in the parlour, and sallied into the square.
From high above, the square had seemed like a fantasy land, a set for a musical comedy. Seen close-to it was even more magical. It had filled up since the early morning. Now there were stalls erected around the little central park where men in peaked caps and dark aprons strolled, chatting to one another. Fat women in red or blue headscarves piled bottles and boxes in intricate, vulnerable displays. Fruit and vegetables, some of them strange to my eye, and flowers and cloth added further colour. Large trees shaded green canvas awnings. There was a smell of horses, of sweetstuffs, of blood (as butchers spread wares on wooden slabs and waved away flies). Yet still the dominant smell was of ozone and flowers. Dogs barked at small boys with parcels who ran about apparently at random. A hurdy-gurdy man began to strap on his instrument. He was shouted at by a huge, round-faced woman in a Ukrainian blouse and went off without playing a note.
From far away I heard long moaning sounds and short hootings which could be the sirens of ships. Shura asked me if I wished to take the tram to the harbour or if I would rather walk. I told him I wanted to walk, even though I was anxious to reach the sea. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘then we’ll go through the old
cemetery. It’s quickest from here.’ We turned a corner into a street. Though it was full of people complaining about the water-cart coming past and soaking their boots, it seemed almost hushed. Dazed, I turned next into a main street in time to see a squadron of cavalry, its lances decorated with little pennants, its red and blue hussars uniforms looking rather ordinary in that multi-coloured scene (I think they were part of a recruiting parade). We went through a gate into the stillness of the old cemetery: grandiose monuments of black marble, granite and limestone, huge mausoleums, ancient willows. As we got to the other side, Shura said it was possible to climb through a gap in the wall. But he did not want to spoil either his suit or mine. ‘I don’t very often come here, these days,’ he said, wishing to make it clear he had put away childish things.
Another big street, more like Kreshchatik it seemed to me. It was very wide and lined with trees (elms, I think). Luxurious shops, shaded by blue-and-white blinds; kiosks like miniature Gothic cathedrals; little wooden stands where veterans sold newspapers to fashionable ladies carrying sunshades of white brocade or Japanese silk. Horse-cabs—the open four-wheelers with smartly uniformed drivers—izvoshchiks, we called them—in which you could recline, if you wished, like an Oriental prince—stood at kerbs waiting for customers to come from hotels, restaurants, shops and offices. In those days there were almost always more cabs than customers. These days there are more cabs, but almost anyone thinks they can use them. I have seen working-class women with four or five children hailing London taxis.
The streets of Odessa went on forever. By the time we caught a glimpse of the sea, between two tall buildings, I was almost exhausted. Then we climbed iron steps and stood on a railway bridge looking out towards the harbour and saw green water and all the ships, and I became incapable of speech.
Shura was certain I was disappointed. ‘Wait until you see it further up. That’s where the pleasure boats are. Look back.’
I turned to stare at the curving expanse of the great stone mole which stretched, it seemed to me, for miles out to sea. I looked beyond the mole to the horizon. It went on and on, as wide, as holy, as the steppe. The rest of the world became suddenly far away and at the same time more real to me. Beyond that horizon lay China and America and England and the ships I saw (some were warships coaling up) had been there, could take me to them. I saw little tugs chugging about the harbour, turning the green water white; the indolent smoke of the big liners; the red hulls of the tramp steamers; all through a luminous network of cranes and derricks.
‘I’ll admit,’ said Shura, ‘that it’s probably just what I’m used to. I grew up with it. That’s why I love it.’ He began to move across the bridge. ‘We’ll go to the steps. You’ll be impressed with those. And we could take a tram down to Fountain or go to the limans. Have you heard of the limans?’ I knew of Odessa’s salty inland lagoons where the well-to-do went for their health. But I had no wish to see them. I wanted only to stand on that bridge, while trains grunted back and forth below my feet between the main railway station and the harbour station, and dream of Shanghai and San Francisco and Liverpool as I had never dreamed. I was reluctant to take even one more step forward until pulled by Shura. ‘Listen, there’s lots more. Better.’ I did not, at that moment, have the will to speak and reassure him, but I let him drag me along, down to the harbour, past sheds and warehouses and the noble funnels of the great ships, past another mole and an entirely different harbour (Odessa had many), past all the fascinating machinery of loading and unloading, of coaling and repairing, past stores which sold tackle and provisions, until later the road alongside the sea became a promenade, with trees and green-painted wrought-iron instead of cranes, and it was possible to make out another harbour, where little yachts and paddle-steamers sailed rapidly about. Shura brought me to the bottom of the famous granite staircase, scene of the distasteful ‘Odessa Steps’ episode in a Bolshevik film called Warship Potemkin.
To me it looked like the stairway to heaven. Behind us was the Nicholas Church, with its golden dome. I wanted to carry on along the harbour, but Shura insisted we cross to the right-hand side of the steps. Here a small ticket-office accepted four kopeks for us both and admitted us into a little funicular carriage. As soon as the guard thought there were enough passengers to justify the ascent, we began to move up the cliff. I watched the sea become greener and the horizon grow wider as we climbed to the top and emerged into the warmth and privilege of the Nicholas Boulevard. Here, Shura said, the fashionable people of Odessa were always to be seen during the summer. Here were restaurants and hotels looking out to sea. Immediately below was the Coaling Harbour where two frigates and a gunboat of the Imperial Fleet flew an impressive number of colours. On one side of us were neo-classical buildings and on the other were trees of the pleasure-gardens. We heard the sounds of a band. Private carriages came and went. Elegant ladies and gentlemen strolled the promenade. The noises of the harbour were muted, almost courteous.
I was very glad now that I wore Vanya’s suit, for here everything was light: white silks and ostrich feathers and pale frock-coats and cream-coloured uniforms. The steps actually did lead to heaven.
‘Now we go down again.’ Shura took my arm. Slowly we descended past souvenir-sellers, newspaper-vendors, hawkers of toys and photographs. Shura bought us ice-creams and pointed far away to the right. There was Fountain, with its summer datchas and its parks. You could look in one direction at the sea and back in the other at the steppe. But the ‘really rich pickings’ were on our left, the limans and health-resorts. ‘There are lots of silly old ladies who have nothing to do but cash cheques all day, or get someone to cash them for them. There are casinos, too. I have friends in the casinos. We’ll go there one evening.’ In the distance were more fine buildings, churches and monuments (Odessa was full of them) and more green spaces. ‘A lot of really rich people live up there. They live in impregnable fortresses. They’re only vulnerable when they go strolling on the Nickita, or go shopping in Wagner’s.’
I could not quite come to understand what Shura meant. Was he envious of the rich? Did he have revolutionary sympathies? He never displayed them openly. Perhaps it was the way all Odessans thought and spoke?
Shura led me back into the city. I had hoped to eat lunch in one of the small cafés overlooking the harbour. He told me that they were too expensive. The food was poor. ‘We’ll go to one of my regular places. You’ll meet my friends.’ This prospect alarmed me. I had never been able to mix very well with other people. But my mood was far more relaxed than usual. I walked with Shura through pink sunlight admiring all the advertisements, even those which suggested I join the army. Most of the foreign signs were in languages I could read, though some were in Greek or in Asian script which was meaningless to me, in spite of my Podol-learned smattering of Hebrew. Odessa seemed at once the oldest and most modern of cities. Like New York she combined all nations in one. The streets were crowded with soldiers and sailors from the harbour. There were French, Italians, Greeks and Japanese. There were also some Turkish sailors, mainly from merchant ships, together with Englishmen of all ranks. The Turks and Japanese stuck together in larger numbers. They were regarded as the next best thing to German belligerents in a town so closely involved with the War. We were not so far from the Galician front and since our initial successes in East Prussia we had had some setbacks.
The city was, in Shura’s words, ‘a bit too full’, but it meant good business for the natives. The black market was booming; the whores were ‘having to take on three customers at a time. They’d take on four if they had bigger belly-buttons.’ So innocent was I that I had absolutely no idea, then, what he meant.
We dashed through crowds of Frenchmen who were far more bewildered than I. Because of Shura I had begun to feel as if I had always lived in Odessa. We jumped for our lives in front of screaming two-car trams, caused Steiger horses to rear, made old ladies shout after us, and we laughed at all of them. We ogled the crowded windows of the Magasin Wagner
(Odessa’s Harrods) and flirted with the flower-girls there, then we left the more fashionable streets and entered a labyrinth of smaller alleys. This was a ghetto. Tiny shops sold second-hand boots and tools; Jewish butchers and bakers advertised in Yiddish; tailors and funeral parlours and circumcision salons (as we called Jewish grog-shops) were side by side. There were washing lines and yelling children and garrulous old women and bargaining, black-clad Hasidic men, and rabbis and beggars and a richer mixture of junk, canned goods, peasant carvings, German toys, ready-made clothing, hardware goods, poultry, live birds, fishing-gear, musical instruments, cooked food than I have seen before or since. Like the Jews themselves, the district repulsed and attracted, was frightening and romantic, comforting and disturbing, and if I had been alone I would never have dared enter it.
Into one of those dingy little Slobodka basements Shura ducked with me and through a battered door we entered the noisy, smoky gloom of a tavern. There were old travel posters decorating the walls, all of which had been scribbled on with sardonic comments. On the floor were the remains of fancy tiles. At the far end was a tiled counter with a monstrous samovar and two jugs for dispensing vodka or grenadine. Behind this sat an ancient, bearded Jew with his hand on an iron cash-box and a permanent expression of mixed ferocity and benevolence. He was dressed almost entirely in black, save for a collarless grey shirt, his waistcoat buttoned in spite of the smoke and heat. Shura greeted the Jew in tones of bantering familiarity and got no response save a slight inclination of the head. There were women and girls here, as well as youths and men, all dressed in the flashy Odessa styles, eating exactly the same dishes—a thick bortsch, lamb-knuckle (kleftikon), a shashlik in tasty, greasy sauce, with macaroni and black bread. There was also a plate of peppers, pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, known as a salad. There might have been other kinds of food sold in ‘Esau the Hairy’s’ as the place was known, but I never saw it eaten and never had the nerve to order it. A thin-faced, haughty black-eyed Jewess brought Shura and me bowls of bortsch and some bread almost as soon as we had found a place to sit. I was a little nervous; my mother had never liked me to associate with Jews, but they seemed to accept me quite readily and I was prepared to live and let live. Indeed I must say I felt almost at home amongst Odessa’s Jews who are really a different race.