We entered his hollow flat. Through all my childhood it had been a piece of the Britain I loved: trophies on the walls, English pictures and books. Even the carpets had seemed English. Now the captain had sold everything of value. I was appalled. I wished someone had warned me of his decline. He sat on a bare table and apologised. ‘Hard times. The War. Your mother works late at the laundry. They had to release half the staff. Others have gone off God knows where. Into the countryside, probably, to join the looting. The government’s trying to stop it. Could be worse. The first days were horrifying.’ He poured cloudy vodka into a glass. ‘A dram?’
I accepted. It looked poisonous. He said, ‘With luck things will soon be normal. Prince Lvov isn’t interested in Ukrainian independence and Kerenski wants us to go on fighting the Germans.’
I smiled and sipped the awful stuff. ‘You’ve been infected by politics, Captain Brown.’
‘It’s a political world.’ He slumped. ‘Esmé went to Galicia. Did she write?’
I was disappointed. ‘When did she leave?’
‘Two weeks ago. Mixed force. British motor division and Cossack cavalry. A lot of desertion. Hope the little girl’s all right.’ He became hazy. Again he wiped at his moustache as if bewildered by it. ‘They’re not kind to women are they? They conscripted peasants. And Mongols?’
I began to worry. ‘The nurses should be recalled.’
‘Won’t come back. Too noble.’
I explained to Captain Brown that I needed rest. Could he let me in downstairs? He regretted there had been an incident. He could not remember it clearly, but he had insisted afterwards that my mother take back his set of her keys. There was now a spare at the laundry. I did not have the energy to walk to the laundry so I remained seated on one of the captain’s last decrepit chairs. The vodka made me light-headed. I had no desire to greet my mother smelling of cheap alcohol, but the stuff jolted me awake whenever I began to doze. Captain Brown had lapsed into English. He was telling a story of Pathans on the North West Frontier, mixed with almost identical tales of the Malay Archipelago, and of coal-mines in Welsh valleys, where dynamite had caused subsidence, destroying villages. Dynamite was the common feature of all three tales: its misuse by people who did not understand it, its need to be properly placed, to be fitted with the correct detonators. Captain Brown kept confusing the various locations. Pathans appeared in Merthyr Tydfil and Celtic pit-men in Surabaya.
At length I heard a sound on the landing below. I went to the banister and looked down. My mother, straight-backed as ever, with her marvellous hair piled neatly on top of her head, wearing a smart, black overcoat, black dress, and black boots, was opening our door. ‘Mother!’ I descended.
She turned. She began to weep. She made no attempt to come to me. I was unable to move towards her. Perhaps she had reconciled herself to my disappearance or even to my death. Now she could not believe her son (elegant and poised, if rather tired) stood before her. Eventually I reached her and embraced her, kissing her hand as she kissed my forehead. She asked me if I would be staying for a meal. I assured her I would stay for some time. Shaking with emotion, she took me by the arm and led me into the flat. I found the place homely, simple and comforting. With a sigh I paused and looked around me. I smiled, it is good to be here.’
‘Oh, my dear son.’ Again we embraced.
She began to engage herself with the stove, with the samovar, with the soup-pot. Captain Brown knocked lightly on the door before dragging my bags in. I explained I had bought presents which had then been stolen. They commiserated. Captain Brown collapsed onto my mother’s couch. He said I had been lucky to arrive with so much. How were things in the capital? I said they were not good. Captain Brown had heard that Americans were arriving in huge airships with some kind of ray to kill thousands at a stroke, ‘It might conclude the War and let the Tsar restore order. The end of trench-fighting. But the buggers seem to have become attached to those holes in the ground. You’d think they were all bloody Welshmen!’ He laughed heartily at this obscure racial joke. My mother had not realised he had sworn. In her presence he never swore in Russian. One Russian oath is worth twenty Greek ones. In the company of men, Captain Brown could have won any argument in any tavern in Kiev by the sheer force and colour of his vocabulary. Now his head fell upon his chest and he began to snore. He had left his bottle behind but its effects remained with him for an hour.
