Byzantium Endures: Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  His plane almost hit the cross. Petroff flung the hour-glass down upon the golden roof of the church. He was laughing. I could see his teeth. His goggles made black cavities in his skull. He was white. His nostrils flared. Through my binoculars I saw the object strike the dome and smash; I saw marble break to fragments. Sand scattered like money. Then we were flying down on the dockyard guns. Maniacally I began to make notes on my map. There was a sudden lurch. I looked back. Petroff had been hit by shrapnel. It had ripped his coat and exposed a bloody mass of flesh. He continued to grin. Because of his goggles, I could not read his true expression. He saluted me with his wounded arm; then the plane climbed into Odessa’s blue-green sky and we were at peace. The engine cut out completely. We were drifting. Petroff called to me. I think he was delirious because he referred to me as ‘Colonel’ and spoke of ‘the Vanquisher’. His laughter became uncontrollable. He shouted ‘Goodbye’ and then re-fired the engine. Laughter and engine-note became one thing to my ears. We had started a power-dive towards the sea. I realised he intended to kill me. Something tore away from the plane. It was part of the upper forward wing, I think. Then we were spinning in silence. The engine made laughing noises. In my terror I tried to reason with Petroff. He was quite insane. His hatred of me, or of what he thought I represented, had overwhelmed his reason. I still cannot understand it. He was dead, or at least unconscious, hanging in his straps. I could not reach the controls. I released myself from my own harness and curled up. We hit the water and went through it as if we were still going through air. I began to drown. I thought my ribs were broken. I pushed myself towards the surface. Petroff and the Oertz continued to drop away below me. I could not swim properly. On a current which carried me in, I floundered, astonished, to the beach. I stood up and waded between slimy rocks. The beach sloped steeply and became grass. I had already seen a few houses. I was gasping. My ribs seemed undamaged. There was no sign of Petroff or the plane. That beautiful machine was gone forever. I do not think that they manufactured any more. My feet would not grip. I had to keep bending down to steady myself with my hands, yet I felt quite revived as, fully clothed, my pistols weighting my steps, I climbed up the beach and saw, on the faded promenade, a deserted bandstand. I had come ashore in Arcadia.

  * * * *

  EIGHTEEN

  CITY OF SLEEPING GOATS; city crime; city of bleating crows; the wide-boys lie sprawled in the alleys; the little birds sing untruthful songs. The synagogues are burning.

  Steel Tsar marching from the South-East; from the sloping city of goats; ancient ruins. Steel pressed them back to the ruins. To old, alien seas, washing rock that was rotten. Adrift from their homeland. Down into dishonour; bereft of God. Where could they go? These noble people had fought too long for their land; too long for memory. Why did they fight? Why do they not fight now, those Russians? The stars were destroyed. To hell with the yashmaks. The stars marched into that vast, dark sun. The sun set over Russia; and Chaos and Old Night reigned dreadfully. We were just learning subtlety. From the mountains, from the sloping city of goats and ruins, came the black, Georgian Tsar, wailing for a Russia his master had destroyed: praising the Devil but longing for God. Praying for the vibrancy, the silence, the secrets of old times; and yelling at pious eyes, at old beards, their stinking superstitions: their khans and their pharisees: and shooting in the back of the head any who reminded him, in word or deed, of what he had lost. Mad, steel man; spoiled priest, you brought a religion of vengeance and despair to Russia. Two heads, two souls, two wings. Doomed king of the crushing hammer, the reaping sickle. Disguised and deadly, those tools. I have seen the peasants with those weapons in their hands. They are the weapons of the brute. I have seen them advancing on the Jews. They were robbed of their innards and made a virtue of despair. They put a piece of metal in my belly. They bled me. They drank my blood. They polluted it. And the metal is a cold foetus, and I shall not let him come to life. Not until I die shall the world know what I carry; my little, dancing, agreeable, grinning tin doll. It threatens my whole being. I will not let him grow. I shall not let him jig. I shall not let him bow. In his turn he will not let me bend. Is this pride? Conscience? I have no conscience, save my duty to God. I have no duty to Man. Only to Science. I follow no flags. I am myself. Why do they make of me more or less? What can I not possess? God is my father. My father betrayed me. Christ is Risen. Why do they punish the people of the Lamb? The Greeks came in to the city of Odysseus. The French, the Australians, the British and the Italians. In those days they had recalled the nature of the Turk. They were still fighting him. And Islam was being crushed. Britain fell in love with Islam and let her rise again. Britain and her romantic stupidity, her Jewish prime-ministers, her bankers and her brothel-masters. She lied to me. She was not raped. Educational trains. Happy kulak husband. Dead husband. Oh, Ukraine, heartland of our Empire, bastion against Islam. Did you die with so much dishonour, turning on your own flesh, rending your own children, attacking all who loved you? The hyena laughs over your churches. The Greek went away from Odessa. He had been hiding in Moldovanka. The old houses were in the place they had been in before the war, but they smelled of moisture and mould. Nobody had bothered to come out as far as Arcadia, except a few Jews. It was a Jew who took me to a house which could not possibly have been his. It was too fine. It was in good taste. He walked easily and his sadness was open; his touch was friendly. He was quite young. He had a job writing for a newspaper in Odessa, but now he had lost it. He said the newspaper came and went, with different conquerors. And you are safe? I said. I am safe enough, he said, but I am fascinated by terror, aren’t you? It could be the end of me. I lay in a little white bed. The sheets were damp.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I have had my fill of it.’

  ‘You have been in there?’ He pointed towards Kiev.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘That’s what I shall have to do.’

  ‘They’ll kill you. You’re a Jew.’

  ‘Jews survive.’

  ‘Some do,’ I said. I had to be polite to him because he had helped me. Besides, I always had a soft spot for the cosmopolitan Odessa Jew who is a different type altogether: A Jew of the better kind, we used to say.

  He laughed as if I had made a joke. He laughed appreciatively, unlike Petroff; but I was thinking the whole world was convulsed. It was possessed. I became wary. And I had fallen in love with him, this southerner, this soft-mouthed sardonic Jew. I wanted him. I admit it. I am ashamed. I admit I trembled as he brought me broth, ‘It’s made of sea-weed,’ he said, ‘but it’s good for you. Not that you’ve been starving. Are all the stories wrong?’

  ‘I was with a tank unit.’

  He had dried my clothes. He had polished my guns. The silver was bright. They lay on the seat of the chair, with the military kaftan behind them. He had found a shapka to match.

  ‘You were in that plane,’ he said.

  ‘An observer.’

  ‘So they’re attacking.’

  ‘Well...’ I wanted to kiss his long hands. He fed me the soup with a dull wooden spoon. ‘Well...’

  ‘You’re not allowed to say, of course. There goes my job. As I guessed.’

  ‘You’ll get out?’

  ‘No need. I’ll join the next newspaper. They have dozens of newspapers and dozens of political creeds, but good journalists are in short supply.’

  ‘I have seen how they can destroy. Anyone.’

  ‘I’m facile.’ He shrugged, it’s those with strong needs who die, you see.’

  ‘You said you were going inland.’

  ‘Later. When things are more settled. Will they still kill me, then?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘I can’t understand it, can you?’

  ‘I understand them,’ I said, ‘It is all the fault of the Poles.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly.’ He opened a small, green book. He showed me a line of poetry. I do not recall it.

  What was my fascination for that intellectual Jew? Chri
st on the Mount? No, that is blasphemy. I loved him. I cannot feel disgust. I owed him nothing. I was an audience for him, I suppose. He was living alone in a house he had never been able to afford. He would soon be kicked out of it. He knew. I asked him if the trams were still running?

  ‘You know Odessa?’

  ‘I spent some of my youth here. I was happy.’

  ‘There’s a tram runs sometimes. A horse one. A steam one. An electric one. Depending what fuel’s available. It’s a long walk and you’re hurt. You could wait near the fountain, but I can’t offer much hope.’

  ‘I have relatives there.’

  He shrugged. I did not want to leave him. He was gentle. I trusted him. Was he pretending to be Jewish, the way Tertz does? An affectation? I waited for him to touch me. He never touched me. I went with him to the tram-stop. My clothes were dry, from the sun. My pistols were clean. The whole resort was tranquil and decayed. Since then I have had a liking for deserted seaside towns. I used to go to them in the winter, with Mrs Cornelius, but, in those circumstances, she was never the best companion. She liked, she said, a bit of fun when she went to the seaside. Russians long for solitude. It is our only commodity now. Even that is being taken from us. They are trying to turn Russia into America; America, with its sentimental social conventions, destroying its culture, its language, its intellectual strength. America before the war was a very different place. It was harder.

  I sometimes think there has been another War: the third. And that I am living after it. This is a sign, I suppose, of my old age. They say I am paranoid. But paranoia is only fear. And I am afraid. I try to warn them. They say I am afraid of the wrong things. How can that be, when I am afraid of everything? My head is full of possibilities. I do not care for life. I do not care if I die. I have never cared. But I have cared for what I carry in me. My honour. My gifts which God took back in return for the gift of Himself. It is knowledge and a generous spirit which is precious. I never understood people who did not recognise this. Mrs Cornelius would not talk about it. She liked me. She did not ever do me the disservice of telling me she loved me. Love grows from within. There is a coil in my womb. It is copper. It conducts electricity. It is cold. They put it there. It forbids love. Children are fond of me, are they? Why do they persecute me, if that is the case? Quartz sparks? Diodes? Printed circuits? Ask me any scientific question. I am afraid of betrayal. I have been betrayed. There was never enough love. The little I had was taken. Or did I lack an amplifier? No more grew in its place. I became strong in the company of that journalist, on the outskirts of the city of black, sleeping goats. The tram came. It was half-full of SR volunteers. They had the same uniforms as the Whites. I fitted in easily. They paid no attention to me or my companion who had decided, he said, to ‘see the action’. Half-way to Odessa the electricity was cut off. There were no horses for the tram. The soldiers decided to stay where they were. We walked into the twilight. The city grew larger. There were a few fires. It stank. My Odessa had become a cess-pit. Vandals had used it carelessly. The Reds had gone. The Whites had not yet arrived. I went with my friend to Uncle Semya’s house. It had been gutted. My room was a jagged hole. I asked at the only shop still open in the square. It sold ‘mixed meat’. All the trees had been cut down. The railings had gone for scrap. From Moldovanka came the smell of old smoke. They said that Uncle Semya had ‘sold up’. He had not been there when the house was burned. Someone had heard he had been caught profiteering and had gone to prison. This had already become a euphemism. He had been robbed and shot. And Shura? Conscripted. Dead. And Wanda? They did not remember Wanda. And Aunt Genia? They thought she might have gone to the Crimea. Quite a lot of people had left for the Crimea. The proprietors of the shop were planning to go themselves if they could get passage money and permission. They said they were not eligible for evacuation. They would have to pay a ‘private fare’. My friend was weeping as we came out. He had overtired himself, I suppose.

  ‘You’re a hard one to read,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes. I am. Do you want to come with me while I find out which paper I am working for now?’

  I shook my head. He left. I was glad that he went. Such a relationship would have been impossible. He walked towards the Goods Station. Soldiers were coming in now. Horses and motor-vehicles pulled gun-limbers towards the docks. I went to look for Esau’s in Slobodka. It was rubble. I went to find the ironmongery shop where Katya lived. It was looted. There were broken shutters all over Moldovanka and hardly any people on the streets. Those few were, by the way they slouched, to be feared. I went to the St Nicholas Boulevard, by the church, and looked out over the harbour. There were no fashionable people here now. A French cruiser was coming in. They must have waited until they learned Odessa was in friendly hands. I found a fragment of blue-veined marble and put it in my pocket. Why had Petroff wanted to kill me? Had Kolya said something which his cousin had misinterpreted?

  There were still crowds on the quays. There were limousines and carriages. All that remained of Russia’s decent people were here, hoping to leave. I saw them fighting. I decided I must return to Kiev, bring my mother back by force if necessary and get her to Yalta. In those days Yalta was considered permanently safe.

  Diseased children gathered around me. I think they were threatening me, but they were too weak to do much. I laughed at them and gave them my Petlyura money. Let them spend that, if they could. They began to tug at me. I was too tired to play. I was busy. I had to think. I drew a black and silver pistol and they ran away. I returned the pistol to its pocket. A group of soldiers was coming towards me. They asked for my papers. I told them I was Major Pyatnitski and that I was working for Military Intelligence, I would rather not be seen talking to them. They believed me and went on. There was some firing from the harbour but it hardly lasted a moment.

  I decided I must go to the station. People would be travelling back to Kiev soon. It would be as well to get in the queue as early as possible. But the station, which had emergency oil-lamps burning, was so full I knew I would not have the strength to cope with it. I realised, too, that I had no real money. I tried to find some tanks, to seek the hospitality of my Australian friends. The tanks were probably still on the outskirts. I could hear artillery fire from the northern suburbs.

  As usual flags and proclamations were the first priority. They were spreading over the city like cosmetics on a leper’s face. Military cars went by. Everything seemed very busy. The Volunteers and their Allied friends were in control and were feeling, as new conquerors always did, efficient. The ‘representatives of the true government of Russia’ were issuing orders not so different from those I had read before. There was a curfew for ‘all civilian personnel’. I was glad of my kaftan and shapka. I tried to walk with more of a military gait. I entered a small café in Lanzeronovskaya, near Theatre Square. There was to be a performance that night, judging by the comings and goings. It was, someone said, a sign of the Odessa spirit. ‘We live through anything - and enjoy ourselves through anything,’ said a waiter. He called me comrade by accident and apologised. It was difficult, he said, to remember who was who, these days. Had I come with the ‘new troops’? I had, I said. He asked me if I knew what had happened to the aeroplane which had been seen flying round St Nicholas earlier that day. Was it hit?

  ‘It was hit,’ I said. ‘I know, because I was in it.’

  Naturally, I became their hero. I was bought whatever there was to buy. Vodka, bread, sausage. People of noble birth shook my hand. Bankers saluted me. There was music. I was getting some small satisfaction from my adventure. I was asked my advice on every topic and gladly gave it, since it was in the main very good advice. When I said I needed to get back to Kiev to find my mother, I was offered almost every form of transport. I made an arrangement to see some prince or other on the following day at his hotel. I lost the card. In a carriage owned by an industrialist from Kherson I drove through the dark and foul-smelling streets to a small, undistinguished hotel. It had been, he sai
d, the best he could find. We knocked on metal shutters and were cautiously admitted. The industrialist was drunk. He introduced me as his brother to a sour-faced Georgian woman. She said that I would be extra. The industrialist laughed and said: ‘Panye, I was prepared to pay for a suite at The Bristol, so I do not think it will mean much if I have to bribe you for an extra blanket and a mattress for my brother.’ We were, he said, as we went upstairs, all brothers now.

  I slept on his floor. He was still snuffling and murmuring when I left. I was hungry. I had no money of any value. I had no gold. I would have to sell the pistols. I went to the old market. There were finer pistols for sale at a few roubles. I walked until I reached Preobrazhenskaya and stopped at the doorway. The dentist’s name plate: H. Cornelius: was still there. I began to vomit in the gutter where the cabs had once plied for hire. I have never been so ill in that way. There was a weight on my head, perspective distorted, lights flickered, a searing pain in my buttocks and thighs, a chill in my stomach like a piece of iron. I was cursed as a drunk by passers-by. A woman in a fashionable dress screamed. I thought she was Mrs Cornelius. I reached out. A gendarme, who might have been released from prison that morning, came along and escorted me to a side-street. He had every respect for the military, he said, but I should choose less public places to make a spectacle of myself.