‘I always feel you’re with me.’ Her voice was small, sounding oddly ashamed. Her response was mystifying and yet touching. ‘You must try not to miss me,’ I said.
‘You’re not leaving me for good, are you Maxim?’
‘Never! We shall be married one day. When you’re legally old enough.’ I smiled. ‘Perhaps in America where the age of consent is lower. That might be best. Would you like to be married in the Wild West? With Indian braves for guests? In a little wooden church on the plains?’
‘That would be wonderfully romantic.’ She stood up. Suddenly shy, she took my hand. ‘Let’s go to bed now.’
Our evening was beautiful in the peace and delicacy of our love-making. It had been the same with Kolya. There is a kind of release when lovers are about to separate for a while.
Oh, Esmé, my sister. My wistful spirit. My ideal. I never wanted you to be a woman. They took you and forced your face into the dirt and horror of the world. You said you were awake at last. But what is wrong with a dream? It harmed no one. It leaves no stain. Why talk of death when it is inevitable? What drives these people to spread despondent news like rats spread plague? Why should we know fear? They tore me from beauty and hope. With whips and pistols they drove me from my childhood, into this unbearable, cold, futureless wasteland. Children are trudging through the mud of the twentieth century; trudge across the wreckage of the world, homeless and without love. Questo dev’essere un errore. Non mi dimentichi. Men ken platsn!
It poured all the way to Cherbourg: waves of light rain drifting like smoke across meadows and woods as the bluebells of France bloomed and the trees came to furious leaf. The train was warm. It smelled of coal and garlic and old women’s perfume. My brave little girl had stood with Kolya on the platform, waving a handkerchief, turning and smiling suddenly at my friend as if he had made a joke. He was frozen in black worsted, hat on head, hands in pockets, his white face expressionless as he watched the train pull out. Esmé, in red and white, leapt like a flag at a fete; she seemed still to be bouncing as the train curved and I lost sight of her. I was not at that moment much distressed. The prospect of travel as usual drove all other thoughts away. I refused to brood on that disaster which overtook my first real chance of public success. It would have produced unnecessary melancholia at best, insanity at worst. So I sat back in my seat, raised my hat to the three maiden ladies going to visit their sisters, to the dignified schoolboy sitting with Zola in his hand, and then took an interest in the countryside.
I looked on the bright side. I was, after all, Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, a citizen of France, a man of affairs, on my way to catch a ship. The scandal would be forgotten. My achievements would be remembered. Presently, I was well dressed, carried my patents in my luggage, together with my Georgian pistols. There was no need to waste time on regrets. I was a free man. I was twenty-one years old. I had experienced more than most people do in a long life. And in America my diplomas, my honourable War record, would be even more impressive than in Europe. The sisters, when they spoke to me, were plainly admiring of my bearing and my appearance. When the train arrived I helped them onto the platform before attending to my own affairs. With a whole entourage of porters I marched from station to docks. It was impossible to miss my ship. She dwarfed every building, every piece of machinery in the port. I had never seen a ship so huge. I stared upwards, trying to make out the details of her decks. Little white faces peered back from far away. The Mauretania was a massive wall of dark metal topped by terraces of white and gold: the monstrous nine deck’d city as Kipling described her. Having served creditably throughout the War she was back in private service again; still the ship for whom most travellers had the greatest affection, particularly now, since cowardly U-boats had sunk her sister, the Lusitania. Leading my porters, I ascended the ramp specially prepared for First Class passengers. Entering an arch as tall as any palace’s I was greeted by a uniformed steward who inspected my ticket then led me towards the First Class boat deck. In the harbour intrusive tugboat horns were contentious and ill-mannered beyond the fading mist. My ship’s brass, woodwork, impeccable paint and silvered metal, glowed with an inner radiance, as if she were a living beast. I never knew any security greater than I experienced on entering my stateroom.
Having tipped steward and porters and stopped to look through the porthole at Cherbourg’s roofs and steeples, I lay down on a wide bed. I lit a cigarette. I did not care if my voyage took a year or more. Momentarily there came a tremendous, unexpected pang, as I realised neither Esmé nor Kolya were here to share my impressions; but a little cocaine soon helped me pull myself together. I was determined to be positive, to enjoy every moment of my stay on board the floating city. After all, I had no clear idea of what I might have to deal with when I arrived. I washed and changed my clothes.
Two hours later the bustle of the ship suddenly grew still. Anxious not to miss the experience I stepped outside my cabin just as the shorelines were let go. I went to join other passengers at the forward rails. Tugs were towing us slowly out to open water. The sun was dull, diffused, a splash of orange near the horizon. The sea was grey and white, alive with birds. The ship’s horns sounded a triumph, a farewell. When the hawsers were released, humming and hissing, they curled away and sliced into the waves, to be hauled in by invisible winches. The Mauretania dipped her prow, then rose gracefully. A breeze-borne spray striking our faces, we cheered with delight. Already there was a sense of comradeship between us, as there must always be on such a vessel. We moved into magical twilight. Slowly battery upon battery of electric bulbs blossomed everywhere on the ship. She was magnificent. She was a fabulous, unworldly apparition. She turned, this dignified aristocrat, towards the sunset and the West. I went below. I wished to put the final touches to my costume before dinner.
I inspected myself carefully as I tied my tie. I was not dissatisfied, for I was undeniably handsome. I had an excellent figure, my high forehead spoke of brains and breeding, my strong nose of aggressive but fair-minded confidence, my dark eyes of romantic sensitivity. I could mix easily with nobleman and intellectual alike. Straightening my back, I gave a final salute to France. I was more than glad to leave that land of haughty thieves with soft hands and old names. Now I was breathing the clean air of the ocean. This was the first time since leaving Odessa that I could resume my full title without fear of jealousy, cynicism or assassination. Tonight it would not be considered in good taste to wear uniform, but I would wear one tomorrow.
At length, in crisp and well cut evening dress, I strolled wide white and brass companionways. The drums and bass fiddle of an orchestra issued from the far off dining-salon. They were playing a waltz. I almost wept with relief. Raucous jazz, dazzling cubist colours, smart nonsense, Constructivist distortions, all were abolished here. This was the world of breeding and affluence I had always prepared myself, for, since a child in Kiev. Until now it had always been snatched from me by the hands of the ignorant mob or the over sophisticated bourgeois banker. I was, I will admit, in an elevated state of mind. I experienced feelings which I can only describe as holy. I felt I had attained something very close to a state of grace.
In the floating land of Mauretania I could now join my own. I had at last found a true spiritual home!
* * * *
THIRTEEN
A SCIENTIFICALLY ORDERED City State, Mauretania embodies the best of all possible futures. Every monitored function is perfectly designed to give her inhabitants maximum benefit and comfort. Providing protection from the elements, luxury, security and mobility, the metropolis of the future will also fly. She will locate herself geographically at the convenience of her citizens. She will be heated, lit and provisioned from a central energy source maintained to perfection by a benevolent Master Engineer. Social discipline will be achieved chiefly through good will. Citizens will know that transgressing her code will mean isolation or perhaps banishment to a less hospitable environment.
Mauretania is beauty and freedom: a
country where art, intellect and business success are properly honoured, where health, good looks and wit are the norm, where everyone is truly equal, having already earned the right to be here. Thus every man is a Lord and every woman a Lady. This future has conquered nature but continues to respect it, unhampered by the past’s banalities, yet remains conscious of its fallible humanity. The world will have control of all its affairs. A central board will govern through selected officers, allowing liberty to all prepared to live and work for the common good. The Grand Patriarch of Constantinople shall be head of a reunited Church. The black and yellow hordes of Carthage shall wither away within a few generations, by a natural process of inbreeding. Fair-skinned, athletic young men and women shall look down through clouds and see the gentle gardens of India, the vast cornfields of China, the game reserves of the Congo; their inheritance. Human nature will not have changed, but certain temptations and threats will vanish: with the voice of Carthage stilled forever, Islam and Zion shall perish as shall everything pagan and ignorant; unnourished it shall rot under the light of truth. Krishna and Buddha will be pleasant myths of a time before the New Dawn. The Jew, the Negro and the Tatar shall be no more than those goblins of prehistoric legend. Byzantium’s world of free City States shall eventually send settlements to new planets, crossing the darkness of interstellar space to spread humanity’s benefits over whole solar systems, filling the universe with the love of Christ. Velocità massima! shall be the cry upon the lips of our clear-eyed pioneers.
Not for nothing were our liners named after Roman countries, modern cities, provinces, sometimes whole nations: Places suddenly no longer tied to specific locations on the atlas. Free from the bondage of Space, we shall start to consider the bondage of Time. Nationality becomes a matter of individual application, just as the sailor selects his ship. And the choice is considerable: Umbria, Campania or Lusitania; New York. Paris, Stockholm, Rome, St Louis, Glasgow, Bremer; Oregon, Minnesota, California, Bourgogne, Lancastria, Saxony or Normandy, Great Britain, United States, France or Deutschland. Replacing old carthbound states they release us from all outmoded thinking, useless economic theories, decrepit moralistic behaviour. We are truly free because we possess complete freedom of movement. We wander in terraced parks and lush forests just as I wandered through the galleries and passages of Mauretania. We dine in comfortable surroundings where fountains arc; sweet music plays as we observe the passing world below. Elsewhere great undersea tunnels connect land masses, bear cargoes by automatic railway; orchards are tended by mechanical servants; herds of beasts live in controlled environments. Disease is conquered. We are escaped from old fears, from starvation and exposure. Perhaps even death itself is defeated. When I was young I read Jules Verne’s romance. The Floating City, in which he visualised a world very much like Mauretania. I, in turn, visualised its successors. Here, amongst my peers, my mind was unburdened, able to examine the most stimulating problems. I was never without a fascinated audience. Fired by my visions, some people even asked for my autograph. These educated, wealthy men and women were not easily impressed. From the second night aboard, which was the night I dined as a guest of the Captain, I wore my Don Cossack uniform with its discreet ribbon and became known as Colonel Pyat by most English-speaking passengers. By some friendly, lazy-minded Americans I was called ‘Max Peterson’. They found the Russian too alien for their ears but it was also their way of accepting me as one of themselves. I had no objection to Anglicisation. My interest, as always, was to adapt as quickly as possible to the host culture. Names were never of much consequence to me. It is what people are that matters, as one English gentlewoman wisely said during the voyage. She was a viscountess, connected to the finest families in Europe.
In her carved oak and mahogany, her wrought iron elevators, her open fireplaces and leather upholstery, the Mauretania represented the best of English good taste. It was easy to imagine oneself part of that country’s noble past. This atmosphere of security persisted even on deck in a high sea when she rolled magnificently, her bow lifting sixty feet before plunging down, burying itself in the waves, thrusting back mountains of water on either side. Crashing and creaking she roared with exultation at her own enormous strength.
As a man of science I was welcomed in the wheelhouse. Captain Hargreaves talked proudly of the ship’s wartime service, her long record as fastest Atlantic liner. He spoke of the sad murder of her sister ship Lusitania, struck by treacherous torpedoes off the Irish coast, a signal for the whole American nation to rise in arms and rush to fight the Kaiser. I was impressed by her huge steam turbines. She had only two main condensers but these could develop a million pounds of steam an hour. Her twenty-five boilers were stoked round the clock by hard-bodied, sweating men who never seemed to tire. ‘Liverpool Irish,’ said Hargreaves. ‘The only stokers to match them are Hungarians. Of course we have nothing but British crews since a British ship is legally a floating piece of our nation. That’s why Cunard never sought foreign capital, even in bad times. Cunard and England are synonymous.’ He was a proud old sea dog, not an easy man to impress. I was flattered by his interest in my ideas for larger and faster ships. Later I learned he sailed home on his last commission, so attached to his ship he died the moment she docked at Southampton.
Two particular friends (I think these originally christened me Peterson’) were, like me, young ex-army men. Captain James Rembrandt (‘as in Van Dyke’) and Major Lucius Mortimer, both fashionably dressed, personable and good looking: American gentlemen to their fingertips. We originally met in the first class smoking room. They taught me gin rummy and poker. I won quite easily and they said I was evidently a natural player, suggesting I give them a chance to win their money back the next evening. I agreed, though as it happened I had to cancel our appointment when I met Mrs Geldorf, who was travelling alone and needed a dancing partner for the ‘novelty ball’. Mrs Geldorf was dark, curly haired, a lady of about forty. She swore I was the handsomest boy she had ever met. She introduced me to Tom Cadwallader (‘I pack meat in Mississippi, but I used to pack a six-shooter in Arizona’). He told me of his early life fighting the Apaches and was curious to hear all my Cossack experiences. He invited me to join the company of George Stonehouse, an Atlanta lawyer with business interests all over the world. Mrs Geldorf told me Stonehouse was one of the richest and most influential millionaires in the South. A neat, small, soft-voiced man with terrier eyes and a way of chewing a cigar like an old slipper, he was excellent and humorous company. We shared many views in common. In my presence he told Tom Cadwallader they could do with more like me in the South. Cadwallader himself was short and fat with the ruddy complexion of the habitual drinker, but his little blue eyes possessed a steady candour at odds with the rest of his appearance. He and Stonehouse talked of their troubles since the War. Everything had been shaken up and things were even more problematical than before. The main difficulty seemed to be with Eastern agitators sent down to disturb the working people. Much of what they said was fairly meaningless to me. ‘Carpetbaggers trying to get in by the back door since we stopped them coming in the front.’ My visit to the South would illuminate me.
A Bostonian, Mrs Geldorf laughed at them. The Civil War was over ‘but silly old fogeys go on fighting nonetheless’; she seemed to enjoy these arguments. They called her a ‘gol-darned Yankee’, yet were evidently fond of her. Their rivalry, similar to that between Ukrainian and Great Russian, was meant in fun. It was well bred and never offensive and this was the tone everywhere aboard our ship, whether I spoke to Lord and Lady Cooper, of the famous beer concern, or Sir Humphrey Thin-Garbett, the well known QC. We formed what Mrs Geldorf called ‘Our Clan’, which also included Sir James Maggs, MP for Kerry, and his charming wife and daughter, Mr and Mrs Wilkinson of South Audley Street, London, who were couturiers. Sir Laurence Lane, the Shakespearian actor and Gloria his beautiful actress bride, William Browne, the industrialist film producer; Mr and Mrs Dewhurst, land owners from Croydon; Mrs Gladstone, widow of the famous
Chancellor, Mr and Mrs Steenson, garden manicurists from Chicago, and Mr Fred T. Halpert who had made his fortune, he said, with a new type of screw. He and I had many interesting conversations, but my ideas were beyond him, as he frequently and admiringly admitted. To Mr Browne I gave the address of Mrs Cornelius, telling him she was one of the finest actresses on the London stage. He promised that as soon as he returned to London he would write and offer her an audition. He thanked me for my kindness in recommending her.
Meanwhile, missing Esmé and frustrated by the absence of feminine company, I discovered consolation in Mrs Helen Roe. This thin, red-headed lady, recently divorced from the tennis player, was on her way back to New York. She would stay with her parents before visiting California for, she said, a long rest. There was a possibility she would go to Florida instead. Since her interest in me was more than platonic, we passed several energetic nights together, though her tendency to sob loudly while at the same time calling upon me to ‘push harder you foreign bastard’ could be disconcerting. However, she gave me her New York address and this, together with other invitations I had received, meant I would not be completely friendless upon arrival in America.
Mauretania is a land lacking only forests and rivers, but some day her namesake shall have even these. There are shops and services to suit every need; cinemas, theatres, sports, lectures and exhibitions. There are bars, of course, and Americans patronise them with urgent gusto since the sale of alcohol at home became illegal. The days are ordered by a succession of meals; one exists in a timeless and opulent dream, with every need catered to by well mannered stewards anxious to discover one’s smallest desires. Press reporters sail back and forth on her, hardly ever landing, save to deliver an article, for she is a world with a thousand brilliant stories. Discretion frequently vanishes out of sight of land. The affairs of Mauretania’s citizens are of absorbing interest to the less privileged, for whom a voyage aboard a great liner shall always be an unrealised ambition. These buoyant worlds, able to distinguish the orbit of their choice, the epitome of glamour and breeding, are the ideal symbol of success. A society which refuses such symbols has neither standards nor progress. They offer the promise of a future we could all share. The finest combination of modern technology, they encourage almost every human creative talent to its greatest expression. No wonder the worth of a nation is measured by the number of great liners sailing under its colours. That is why the governments of the world bestow such considerable honour upon their leading shipowners. Prestige is not lightly won. Prestige is both the measure of a country’s power and the uses to which she puts it. The past and the future merge. The best of both worlds can, after all, be ours. The little, whispering, wicked voices of Carthage shall not touch us here. We are our own free nation. We ascend to the upper air, leaving the land to the brutalised, the ignorant and the depraved. Let them slaughter one another into non-existence. Down there the weary arms of helmeted half men rise and fall, hacking at the flesh of their fellows; a black smoke rolls into the valleys and the churches are burning. There are no trees which are not withered, no water that is not poisoned. Starving children crawl through mud which stinks of blood and urine while their dying mothers spread unwholesome legs for gangrenous soldiers, sobbing for life already lost. We, however; have escaped the Apocalypse, by virtue of our honour and our foresight. Russia shudders in suicidal agonies; Germany shrieks in chains; England stinks of untreated wounds, while France at last looks in the mirror and sees her cosmetics cracking, peeling to reveal the hideous canker beneath. But we have found the sky and populated it with civilised steel, with silver wings and golden domes. We can only weep for those below who are trapped in a terrible folly. We weep for them. To do more would be dangerous. If the mob scents weakness (and generosity is perceived as weakness) it strikes.
The Laughter of Carthage - [Between The Wars 02] Page 33