Byzantium Endures: The First Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet Page 18

  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 rôle 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 à 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 carriage 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 frockcoat. 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. Commentallez-vous?

  ‘Ah, bon! Très bon!Etvous?

  ‘Très bien, merci, m’sieu.’

  This ludicrous schoolroom exchange continued until names were presented.

  ‘Je m’appelle Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff,’ I told him.

  He was Sergei Andreyovitch Tsipliakov and he was, he said, a day behind the rest of his ‘gang’. To our mutual relief, we returned to Russian.

  ‘Gang?’ I said, amused. ‘Are you a bandit?’

  He laughed for some moments. It was artificial, trilling. A stage laugh. ‘You could call me that. Can I say “Dimka”?’ It was the diminutive of Dimitri. He had dropped formalities rather more rapidly than I might have preferred, but there was nothing I could do. He was, after all, a far more experienced traveller than I. I agreed. ‘You can call me Seryozha,’ he said. ‘We’ll be pals on this trip. After all, we’ll be intimates for a long while. It’s freezing, isn’t it?’

  I found the compartment rather warm. Again I decided it would seem more sophisticated if I remained silent, offering no opinions until I had the measure of my companion.

  ‘My gang’s the Foline Ballet.’ This explained his dandified clothes, informal use of first names and the gesticulating hands. I had heard of the Company. I had seen it advertised in Kiev. I felt flattered to be sharing a coupé with so eminent a personage. I said that I had been in Odessa for some months and had not had time to see a performance. He said they had been terrible. It was a
n awful stage, he said. But they had gone down very well. Was I, then, from Odessa? Or had I been travelling?

  I said I had travelled a little.

  ‘We’ve been all over the world,’ he told me. ‘Do you know Paris? You must do. And London?’ He made a face. He did not think much of London. ‘Philistines,’ he said. ‘New York is so much more cultivated. You wouldn’t believe it, would you? All those cowboys! But then you’ve been to New York?’

  I could not deceive him by so many thousands of miles. I shook my head.

  ‘You must go there as soon as possible. Away from all this War. They appreciate art in New York. They are so starved of it, you see, poor things.’

  I had become almost as captivated by S.A. Tsipliakov as I had been by Shura. I was flattered by the attention, by the friendly and direct warmth of my companion. I went with him into the dining room. He bought me breakfast and insisted I have a glass of champagne.

  We returned to our coupé and sat side by side on my bunk while he told me of his adventures abroad, the disasters and triumphs of their company (a small one but highly regarded in the capital). He complained that the ‘awful War’ had cut down badly on their travelling. That was why they had been in Kiev. They had been scheduled to go to Berlin at Christmas. ‘We’d been so looking forward to it, Dimka, mon ami. Christmas in Berlin. The lovely decorated trees, the Christmas songs, the gingerbread. The Germans invented Christmas as far as I’m concerned. It’s all so wonderful. Tinsel and velvet and everybody so happy.’ He blamed the whole war on a few Prussians and ‘those greedy Austrians’. It was not, he thought, the fault of the Hungarians. ‘They love music and dancing and all the arts. The Austrians think the waltz is the highest thing anyone can aspire to!’

  He complained he could not even go to France, except in uniform. He rang for the steward and ordered a bottle of Krug. It was with almost fainting astonishment that I found the order accepted. Within a quarter-of-an-hour we had an ice-bucket from which emerged not Krug, but the dark green neck of the finest, sweetest Moét et Chandon. ‘It’s almost impossible to get Krug in Russia any longer,’ he said. ‘Luckily the railway companies have some champagne. If you want to drink it, you must travel everywhere by Wagon-Lit!’ He laughed, rolling the bottle in the ice. ‘Every capital is closed to us, for one reason or another. Of course people in the provinces are only too pleased to see us. We play to full houses wherever we go. We’re probably making more money here than we ever made in the rest of Europe. But it’s so dull. I like amusement, Dimka. I work hard on stage so I must find proper ways of relaxing. What do you think?’ He lifted the bottle from the bucket. I held out my glass.

  With a flourish, my new friend filled it. ‘We’re going to have a wonderful time. Happy New Year.’ He drank his glass off in a single movement. He sighed and was about to speak when the guard knocked on the door and opened it. He had coarse, red features, greying moustaches, a thick, dark uniform covered in gold braid. He saluted. ‘I’m very sorry, your excellencies. I was asked to keep an eye on the young gentleman by his parents. Any problems, just call for me.’ He closed the door.

  Seryozha scowled. The guard was ‘an interfering old fool!’ I was flattered by so much attention. My ‘parents’ must have been Captain Brown. Doubtless he had tipped the guard to look after me all the way to Petersburg.

  Outside, the snow continued to fall and Seryozha and I continued to drink. He told me about Marseilles and Florence and Rome and all those ‘wonderful warm places we shan’t be able to visit for months’. As he got drunk, his speech became looser. Luckily I was used to it. Indeed, I found the strain of being a gentleman somewhat relieved by Seryozha’s company. I giggled at his jokes and told him some of my own, at which he laughed as heartily as he laughed at his. ‘We should have some music,’ he said. ‘What a pity the other members of the troupe took the earlier train. We have so many wonderful people who can play the guitar and the mandolin and the balalaika and accordion, you know. We could have a little party. With girls. Do you like girls, Dimka?’ He smiled and put his large arm around my shoulders. ‘I suppose you are a little too young to know what you do like, eh? But you have the feelings?’ He winked.

  I assured him I had the feelings. He squeezed my shoulder and then my leg. He suggested we order a further bottle of champagne ‘to keep us warm’. He rang the bell. The guard answered it. Seryozha said impatiently, ‘I wanted the steward.’

  ‘He’ll be along soon, your excellency.’

  But an hour passed and the champagne was finished before the steward arrived.

  ‘Another bottle of this,’ said my friend. ‘Better make it two.’

  The steward shook his head. ‘All the champagne is gone.’

  ‘We’ve hardly been travelling an hour!’

  ‘We’ve been moving for three, your excellency.’

  ‘And you’ve run out of champagne?’

  ‘I’m very sorry. It’s the War.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a wonderful War, isn’t it, when artists are no longer allowed to take the few pleasures left to them? You give the public everything and what does it give you? Champagne-rationing.’

  ‘It’s not our fault, your excellency.’

  ‘Then bring me a bottle of brandy.’

  ‘There’s no brandy available in bottles. We have to keep our stocks for the dining-cars.’

  ‘You mean if we wish to have a drink, we must dine?’

  The steward took out his pad. ‘Shall I book you a table?’

  ‘You had better.’ Seryozha stood up, looming over both of us. He flexed his legs, his arms. ‘I shall be in agony by morning.’ He reached into the pocket of his frockcoat which he had flung on his bed. ‘Can’t you get us just one bottle, steward?’ He produced a silver rouble. The man looked at it as if he saw his child dying and was unable to save it. ‘There is no way, your excellency.’

  From where I sat, I noticed the shadow of the bulky guard behind him. He was keeping an eye on the steward to make sure he was not bribed.

  ‘It’s all right, Seryozha,’ I said. ‘We’ve had plenty of champagne. More than most people will be getting for a while.’

  The dancer slumped down again, waving the steward away. ‘When shall we have dinner?’

  ‘From five o’clock on, your excellency.’

  ‘Then make it at five.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And ensure we get an apéritif.’ ‘I hope so, your excellency.’

  Seryozha rose in anger, but the steward scuttled off down the corridor. ‘Dimka, my dear, we must all suffer a little in the cause of the War.’ He gave me a strange look from beneath hooded, shadowed eyes. ‘You do not blame me?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I did my best.’

  ‘I saw.’

  ‘I think I’ll rest for a while, until dinner. Why don’t you do the same?’

  I was feeling sleepy. I agreed it might be a good idea. Seryozha clambered to his bunk. I could see his bulging outline immediately above my head. I lay, in my shirt and trousers, with my jacket and waistcoat neatly hung up, trying to sleep. But the general atmosphere of excitement which I had experienced a few moments earlier now gave way to something akin to depression. I had been looking forward to that second bottle.

  A moment or two later I heard a rustling from Seryozha’s bunk. He was now sitting cross-legged, judging by the shape in the mattress overhead. A little time passed. I heard him give one quick sniff and then another. It was a familiar sound. I got up—in time to catch him unawares—and sure enough he held a short silver tube to his nose. It extended to a little boxlike a snuff-box. Deprived of his wine, Seryozha had resorted to cocaine. He looked at me and put the apparatus away. ‘You’ve caught me taking my medicine.’

  ‘You have a headache?’ I spoke with deliberate innocence.

  ‘Just a small one. The fizz, you know. And then that awful experience with the steward.’

  ‘You should sleep.’

  ‘I don’t feel sleepy. Do
you?’

  ‘I’m quite drowsy.’ This was not entirely true. I thought it politic.

  I hoped to be offered some cocaine. I still had a little more than a gram in my luggage. I had decided to save it for an emergency, when my studies demanded. Now I had found a new source. I determined not to lose touch with my ballet-dancer. I must be sure to get his address. From him I could contact a source of supply. One of my secret worries would then be quieted.

  Seryozha put out a soft hand and rumpled my hair. ‘Don’t worry about me, my dark-eyed beauty. I’m feeling better already.’

  I pulled away. At the time I had very little experience of the ballet fraternity—but some instinct warned me. I believe the guard and steward must have guessed Seryozha’s intentions and had done what they could to thwart him. People today think that Seryozha’s is a modern aberration. It has always been with us. Virtually everything characteristic of the present day—every vice, political theory, tyranny, argument, art-form—had its origin in the Russia of my own time. The degenerates of St Petersburg set the tone, one could say, for the entire century.

  I dined with Seryozha because I had agreed I should, but I drank sparingly, almost calculatingly. When we came to retire he let me undress in the little wash-room. I put on my nightshirt and climbed into bed. He disappeared into the wash-room. I heard normal sounds of ablutions. Then he came out.

  He was quite naked. This was not unusual amongst men in those days, who always bathed together nude. What alarmed me was the size of his penis swinging a few inches from my face as he seemed to have trouble climbing into his bunk. The train had begun to move a little faster, but this was not why he found himself floundering over me, his warm, stiff private parts striking my neck and shoulder. He made a great show of apologising. I, of course, in my confusion, told him I did not mind. He sat on the edge of my bunk as if to recover, steadying himself with a hand on my arm. ‘Oh, Dimka. What a shock! Are you feeling all right?’