We took the carriage through the steep Kiev streets. There were lights of sorts burning, candles and oil-lamps. I wished we had been able to paint the town red in proper style, the old style, when Kreshchatik would have been full of electrics and gaslight; the pleasure gardens along the river would have had different coloured lanterns glowing in the trees. German bands would have played waltzes. Then I should truly have enjoyed my triumph and her enjoyment.
Esmé said she felt guilty. So many were now homeless, sick and crippled. I told her that I was not oblivious to the misery. I spent my own money freely, giving to beggars and to various church institutions, to organisations set up for the aid of the needy. Even the Jews of Podol knew me for one who could be relied upon to put a coin in a collecting box. Meanness has never been one of my vices. When I had money, I would give. And, of course, I was saving. I had a duty to my mother, to myself, to all those I loved, to make sure that political events would not affect them. The day would come when Mother would be too frail to work at the laundry. A man can live as he chooses, I said, so long as he is insured. Freedom is based on a sense of responsibility. That is what the Bolsheviks never realised. The only slogan I ever hoped to see strung out on a banner over any street was ‘Live and let Live.’
Esmé asked where I intended taking her next. I mentioned a popular cabaret. It had one of the usual names:
Though I had a key, I knocked on the door. It was opened at once. My mother had seen Esmé earlier, before I had arranged the hotel, but she hugged her as if greeting her for the first time. ‘What a beautiful girl. You are still an angel. Look at her, Maxim!’
I looked at her. ‘Were you expecting us then, mama?’
She became flustered. ‘Was it a good restaurant?’
‘The best. You must come there.’
‘Oh, I always get too nervous. I have indigestion before I take a bite of bread!’ It was why I had given up trying to take her out.
Esmé sat down in her usual chair and removed her shoes. She hitched up her skirt and scratched a perfect calf encased in pale blue silk. I was used to women, of course, and most of them had no modesty at all, but I expected different behaviour from Esmé. This was stupid of me. She was, after all, amongst family and she had been serving at the Front. My mother put lumps of sugar and pieces of the fresh lemon I had bought that morning into Esmé’s tea. ‘I’ve brewed it strong. You’ve got used to strong tea, eh?’
‘Not any more.’ Esmé did not elaborate, it’s very good, Yelisaveta Filipovna.’ She looked at me, smiling. ‘The best thing to pass my lips all day.’
‘I have wasted a fortune!’ I said in mock despair. I settled down into a chair and accepted a glass of tea.
‘You are not eating properly,’ said my mother to Esmé. ‘The food is bad?’
‘Not as bad as what the soldiers get.’
‘Weevils in the bread, eh?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Mother,’ I said, ‘you’ve become a critic!’
She shrugged. ‘They let us criticise now, instead of eating.’
Esmé was amused. ‘We’re all turning into revolutionists.’
‘We bend with the wind,’ said my mother. ‘What is the alternative?’
I knew her thoughts. My father had never learned to bend. He had stuck zealously to his religion of anarchy and violence. Strangely, now that chaos threatened on all sides, my mother had lost her anxieties.
Esmé made it clear she did not want to discuss the War, ‘at least, not tonight’. We talked about a letter my mother had received that day from Uncle Semya. It was one of several he had sent. All the others had gone astray. ‘He’s well. He says they’re making the most of the lull. They’ve taken a villa in Arcadia. Is that a nice place, Maxim? It sounds it.’
