‘Will you give up the laundry?’ I asked. It was now a source of distress to me that my mother earned such an undignified living.
‘I am drawing a small rent on it,’ she said. ‘At present I am too ill to do much.’
‘You’ll make yourself worse by returning over-soon,’ Esmé agreed.
‘You should go to Odessa in the spring,’ I suggested. ‘It is wonderful there. The sunshine will make a new woman of you.’
This amused her. ‘You’re not happy with the old one?’
‘Not in her present condition. Stay at Uncle Semya’s.’
‘And be shot by Turks? This is the worst time to be visiting the seaside, Maxim.’ She was almost accusatory, as if I had suggested she put herself into danger. ‘We’ll wait, eh? Until after the War.’
‘It will be over by spring. See what a Russian winter will do to our enemies. We’ll thrive on it. They’ll die in millions in Galicia. The corn will be nourished on enemy blood.’
This raised a horrified ‘Oh, Maxim!’ from Esmé, a small groan from Mother and a chuckle from Captain Brown as he entered from the other room where he had been washing up. ‘You’ve become a Russian warrior, Maxim.’
‘We must all be warriors of some kind.’ I had read this in one of the newspapers. ‘Every Russian is a soldier, helping to bring Victory.’
‘Every Russian?’ Captain Brown winked at me. He had accepted my manhood whereas my mother still considered me the boy who had left Kiev in September. ‘What about Rasputin, eh? Do you think he’s doing his bit? If so, I’d like to help him.’
He was drunk. My mother exclaimed ‘Captain Brown!’ and suggested he go for a walk until he felt better. Esmé was blushing. I was surprised at the old Scot. Normally, drunk or sober, he was a gentleman. Perhaps his consumption of vodka had increased lately. With a murmur of apology he made a little bow to my mother and Esmé and left. He did not return for several hours. In the meantime I sat at the table and did my best, as I had done since my arrival home, to refresh myself on basic engineering principles. I had a place at the Polytechnic, but I would need to go through a preliminary oral examination when I arrived. I wanted to be sure of passing it. I continued to study at night while Esmé and Mother slept. My little store of cocaine got smaller, but my store of knowledge increased rapidly.
As I studied, ideas began to come back to me. These were projects I had set aside when I had left for Odessa. I developed a method of building underwater tunnels to link various parts of Petersburg divided by the canals and rivers; I toyed with the notion of bridging the Bering Straits to produce a direct land link between Russia and America; naturally new kinds of steel would be required and I considered different alloys. I was beginning, in short, to settle comfortably into my studious and creative mood again. Sometimes I would go for walks alone: to the gorge, now deep in snow, where Zoyea’s camp had been; to the Babi gorge, where I had flown. Once I visited the run-down house of Sarkis Mihailovitch Kouyoumdjian, only to discover he had given up his business. It was the matter of the bakery engine, apparently, which had made him decide to leave Kiev. Business had become harder to find, possibly because people were reverting to pre-industrial methods as the War progressed, and he had gone to Odessa not long after me. From there, I was informed, he had left for England. He had relatives, said an old female neighbour, in Manchester. I felt some remorse and asked her if she thought it was my fault. She shrugged. ‘He was afraid of the Turks. The moment they entered the picture he became nervous, you know. He saw a Moslem Khan on the throne of Kiev. So he went to the one country where he could be sure the Moslem presence would never be felt.’ (This is an irony. Manchester is now full of the Sons of Allah. They run local councils, lend money at inflated rates of interest, own most of the private housing.)
As my mother’s health improved she began to worry more about my impending trip. ‘Odessa was one thing,’ she said, ‘but Petersburg is another. In Odessa you had relatives. In Petersburg you’ll have no one.’
‘It’s not true, mother. Uncle Semya has given me the names of his agents. They are a respectable English firm. From Messrs Green and Grunman I’ll draw my allowance and I can go to them any time I am in difficulties.’
‘Petersburg is the centre of revolutionary schemes. Everybody knows that. Your father was never political until he went there. They started all the trouble. The arrests. The pogroms. It’s easy for them. They’re the sons and daughters of the rich. If they’re caught, they get exiled and have to go to live in Switzerland. But we get shot.’
‘I shan’t get shot, mother.’
‘You must promise to do nothing to put yourself under suspicion,’ Esmé begged me.
‘I’ve no time for Reds.’ I laughed at their fears. ‘Cadets or Social Revolutionaries or Anarchists. I hate them all.’ In those days the Social Revolutionaries, as opposed to Lenin’s Social Democrats, were regarded as by far the most fanatical radicals. Lenin, needless to say, hiding away in some luxury chalet, had never been heard of by anyone. It was only later, confident that his dirty work had been done for him, that he was paid to come back to Russia by the Germans and claim the Revolution as his own. People like that exist in all walks of life. They let the real workers exhaust themselves, then stroll in to take the credit.
I have had exactly that happen to me, with my inventions. Thomas Alva Edison’s reputation was based on the brainchildren of his assistants. Since this commonly happens in the scientific field, it is not surprising it should also happen in business and in politics. Many Germans have told me that Einstein stole all his ideas from his pupils. There is a young man in the pub who tells me he wrote all the Beatles songs and received not a penny in royalties. Even Sikorski’s much-vaunted helicopter experiments were preceded by the Cornu brothers’ successful French attempt of 1907: but you did not read much about them in the Kiev newspapers two years later. In the worlds of science and politics it is the man who has the most luck, seeks the most publicity, meets the right people, who gives his name to cities and to great companies. I am reconciled to obscurity, but at least these memoirs will set the record straight.
Obscurity seemed impossible to the boy who told Esmé of his plans for the future; of his visions of great, elegant skyscraper blocks rising above the ruins of the slums; towns with moving pavements and covered streets, with aerial transport, food dispensers, genetic selectors ensuring that all children were in perfect health. We were developing the technology. That was how we should use it.
Esmé for her part talked of when she would be old enough to become a nurse. ‘It will be too late, soon,’ she said, ‘the War will be over.’
‘Pray for that.’ What would she do in the event of peace? She would still go into nursing, ‘I want to do something useful with my life.’
I squeezed her hand in gratitude as we sat on a bench in the winter sunshine, looking down over Babi gorge, ‘In the meantime you are keeping a brave woman alive. I owe everything to Mother, Esmé.’
‘When one only has a single parent, one appreciates them so much more,’ she said.
I agreed. She had become sad, thinking of her dead father.
‘He was a brave man,’ I said.
She became bleak. ‘Brave enough. But will there be justice in this clean, scientific world of yours, Maxim?’
‘Justice is a scarce commodity,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘You could be a great teacher.’
I had considered this, ‘I might decide to run my own laboratory, with assistants to whom I can pass on my knowledge.’
‘I shall become your resident nurse.’
‘We shall each do our best, in our different spheres, to improve the world.’
It was rare for me to make the mistake of believing knowledge could be used in the service of sentiment. It is no more the job of the nun to be ‘of the world’ than it is for a pure scientist to design more efficient soup-kitchens. It is mere intellectual arrogance to believe that science can cure human ills. But in Esmé’s company I was often t
emporarily infected with her own feminine sentimentality. And I am the first to admit that without such creatures, the world would be an even less tolerable one than it is.
On my birthday I received suitable gifts from my little family. Books, pencils, paper, a rare German pencil-sharpener and a proper attaché-case, all of which I should need in Petersburg. My mother wept and coughed and lay on her couch, looking at me through sleepy eyes and begging Esmé and Captain Brown to tell me to be sure I did not fall in with Reds and loose women.
I told her they were very strict at the Polytechnic Institute. I had looked it up on the map. It was not even in Petersburg proper.
The next day I had a letter and some silver roubles from Odessa. My uncle told me to make the most of myself in Peter, to meet the right people and to make a good impression on my professors. He told me I should be known there as Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff and he enclosed a passport in that name. My own photograph was on it. This was a shock. Because of the War he had evidently had to pull strings, but I had not expected to enter the Institute under an assumed name. I might have to use this name for the rest of my life. It would be on all my diplomas. I had not at this time become used to the idea of changing names as one changed clothes. The Revolution soon familiarised me with that particular procedure. I knew from Shura that many people had identity papers in different names. Some had changed a dozen times. But these were criminals, radicals, who were forced to do such things. The passport was authentic. Uncle Semya reminded me to let my mother know the name I would be using.
I could not speak of this at once either to her or to Esmé. I put on my English topcoat and wandered out towards the park. Here, on the hill, I thought the problem over. I could see how it had all come about, of course. With the War on, places at the Polytechnic were hard to come by. Many Ukrainians wished to study in Petersburg. Obviously there were too many applicants. Presumably this Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff had given up his place so that I could go. Possibly he had died. He might have joined the army. There were a dozen possibilities. If I wished to learn I should have to learn under a pseudonym. It would make no difference to the quality of that learning. Perhaps later I could admit my real name and get my diplomas properly inscribed.
I have hated hypocrisy and deception all my life, yet all my life I have been victim to it. That is the terrible irony. Here I was having to live a lie not because I had done anything wrong, but because my Uncle Semya had been willing to go to any lengths to ensure me a good education. I had learned that the world is made up of lies.
I informed my mother. She was not surprised. She had had some hint, she told me, in Uncle Semya’s recent letters. Kryscheff was a good, respectable name. It had a ring to it.
I think that she was distressed, however. It could have been part of her general distress. In some ways it was bad for her that I had remained so long at home. Even Esmé was of the opinion that although my mother’s spirits and health had improved her nerves had deteriorated.
On my last evening, Esmé and I went for a walk. I told her that I was to pose as Dimitri Mitrofanovitch and that she must keep the secret of my real name. That secret was my parting present to her. She smiled and said she would treasure it. She was not especially puzzled by this sudden change of identity, either.
We held hands, like brother and sister, and Esmé reassured me that she would look after Mother, that I must dedicate myself to becoming a great engineer. If I became famous as Kryscheff, what did it matter? My mother would still be proud and I would still be able to look after her.
By the next morning I had managed to fit myself into the role and was D. M. Kryscheff boarding the Wagon-Lit which was to carry me in the comfort to which I had become accustomed to the capital.
Uncle Semyon had sent the ticket together with a sheet of instructions as to where I should go and how I should behave in Petersburg. He was anxious I should act like a gentleman in every aspect of my life. He was prepared to spare no expense to this end. I was deeply touched by his kindness. My mother was overjoyed. She had been too ill to see me to the station and for this, I must admit, I was somewhat grateful. It would have been humiliating to have been seen with a sickly, weeping mother coughing out her last goodbyes. Instead Esmé and Captain Brown came. They helped me with my luggage, saw that the porter took it to the appropriate compartment.
I was over-excited. I had never slept in a special Wagon-Lit coach. As I entered the coupé I saw that the top bunk was already occupied. I was to share with another gentleman. This was usual, unless one were very rich, and I had known there would be very few spare places on the train. Almost the whole of it was occupied by high-ranking military men and their families. Never had I heard so much drawling, well-bred Russian spoken - or so much French, for that matter. The girls spoke French in preference. I think they even liked to pretend they were French. Their accents gave them away. I could tell this, even though French is not the language I speak most fluently. It is the language of love; the language which these same girls would be speaking in a few years time as they tried to attract Bolshevik protectors on the streets of Petrograd and Moscow.
The compartment astonished Esmé. She had never heard of such things. She had expected, she told me, a row of cots, side by side in the carriage: a mobile dormitory. She discovered next door the little wash-basin, with its polished wooden top which could be a table when the basin was not in use. Even the lavatory was disguised to look like a chair, its livery matching the rest of the coupé. The whole effect was of dark pink and white, glowing in the snowy light from the windows. The upholstery was the colour of a confection later sold in Paris as Fraises a la Romanoff, presumably because it had been popular with the Tsar. The sheets were the purest white and the blankets matched the upholstery. There were small sets of drawers and tiny wardrobes. My fellow-traveller had already established himself. A smell of cologne filled the compartment and he had hung up an elaborate Arabian dressing-gown. I read the notices on the door. They were in Russian, French and German. They drew my attention to the bell, which could be reached from where one lay in bed, and to the various services available. We were required not to smoke in bed and to call the attention of a guard at the slightest hint of fire. The list included all the usual rules of rail travel.
Captain Brown said the compartment compared favourably with the best he had experienced (‘in India and elsewhere’) and that he would have enjoyed coming with me. Esmé agreed and said she envied me. I was now used to a certain amount of comfort, but to Esmé this carriage was more magical than anything she had ever seen. She could not stop touching the blankets, the sheets, the fixtures. She was almost mesmerised by them and asked me, ‘Was this what it was like at your uncle’s?’ I laughed, ‘It wasn’t, so different.’
She looked at me as if I had been elevated to the ranks of the gods. ‘You must do well at the Polytechnic,’ she said seriously, ‘It is a great honour, Maxim.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘Dimitri,’ I reminded her gently. ‘All this depends on my being Dimitri Mitrofanovitch, son of a priest from Kherson.’ (These details were in my papers.)
‘I hope you don’t meet any clerical friends from Kherson.’ Captain Brown patted my arm. ‘Make your mother happy, boy. It was her letters got you this. If she hadn’t bent her knee to your uncle... Well, he’s the only decent member of that family. I thought my own was bad enough, but at least they don’t pretend I’m dead.’
I had not heard this before. ‘I don’t understand you, Captain Brown?’
He smiled sympathetically, ‘It’s all right, boy. You’re not to blame and neither is she. They disapproved of your dad. Made themselves judge and jury. It’s the religion, I suppose.’
I was to hear no more. The guard shouted that visitors should leave the train. Whistles began to blow. Captain Brown patted my arm, Esmé kissed my cheek. I returned the kiss and made her blush. They stood outside the window of the coupé, smiling and nodding and making gestures until the whistle blew, the carria
ge jerked, and I was once again steaming towards the white landscape of the steppe.
This time my home-town was, in turn, obliterated by the falling snow. The train rushed into the silence of frozen lakes, stripped silver birches, pines, little stations whose telegraph cables were hung with icicles; old, grey, huddled villages where peasants dragged sledges containing babies, firewood, milk-churns, and the white, howling smoke of the train was the only warmth to fall upon that whole, cold landscape.
A large young man entered the compartment. He was flamboyantly dressed in a high-collared shirt, a lilac cravat, black silk waistcoat, tight-fitting trousers and a frock-coat. His fair hair was pomaded and piled into waves on his large, handsome head. He had wide blue eyes and a thick-lipped mouth of a sort I would normally mistrust. But he was very friendly in his greeting. He held out his big hand to shake mine. He bent his body forward in a pose which seemed familiar. He must be, I realised as he spoke, connected with the stage. ‘Bonjour, mon petit ami.’
His accent was gushing, exaggerated. I replied with a dignified: ‘Bonjour, m’sieu. Comment allez-vous?’
‘Ah, bon! Très bon! Et vous?’
Byzantium Endures: Pyat Quartet Page 16