Between avenues of lime trees, we travelled towards Fastov. I remembered my gypsy Zoyea. I imagined myself driving her in this car. It was not disloyalty to my rescuer to enjoy this fantasy. Mrs Cornelius had no sexual claims on me. I had none on her. She is the best friend I ever had. And all because I had visited a dentist in Odessa and been able to speak English! My luck since then was chiefly to stem from her. She became my mother, sister, goddess, guardian angel. And yet most of the time she hardly noticed me. I amused her. She had as much affection for me as a woman might have for a favourite cat. No more and no less. And, like a favourite cat, I survived to give her some comfort, I hope, in her old age. She wore very well. It was only, really, in the fifties that she began to decline and run to fat, though she had always been built on proper feminine proportions. I hate these skinny girls who try to look like boys. No wonder everyone today is a homosexual. We had thin girls in the twenties, but Mrs Cornelius was always feminine. I cannot say I have been as completely certain of my own sexuality as she, but for that, I suppose, I must blame Prince Nikolai Feodorovitch Petroff and perhaps even my cousin Shura. Unwittingly, Shura showed me that women are not to be trusted: they try too hard to please too many people. It is a man’s world. Those idiots who come mincing into my shop have no idea what I have witnessed. I understand every word, every hint, every gesture. The world did not begin in 1965. Perhaps it ended then. Affection, moderation, understanding; these are now only of value to the elderly. And the elderly are no longer respected. In Russia, if I lived there, they would be calling me an old bore:
The sailors were surprisingly good-natured about the trip. I think they enjoyed the motor-car. They had seen a great deal of the world. They had known what it was to risk their lives. They were, in their way, men of good will. They have not changed much, our Russian sailors. When I go to the docks for my vodka, as I still try to do, I meet them and speak to them. They are just as self-confidently tolerant and tough. They were fond of Mrs Cornelius. They flattered her with all sorts of purring Russian endearments, as they would flatter their sweethearts. She responded by blowing them kisses and sharing her food and cigarettes with them.
Scores of dead horses were piled alongside the Fastov road. They were stiffening. Some were still warm; you could smell them. There were human corpses as well, sprawled in the winter sun; young peasant bodies left behind as Petlyura had tried to leave me behind, to cover his escape. Petlyura had been another sentimentalist who betrayed all he claimed to stand for. As usual he had accused as traitors those he had misled; sacrificing them to his enemies when they had come to doubt his lies. They probably deserved their fate. Some still held their booty: a pair of women’s shoes, a length of cloth, an ornamental sword. But most had already been stripped by the followers of Marx and Lenin. We passed a black line of dead Orthodox priests. The line had fallen neatly against a snow-drift. Behind the drift was an almost identical line of birches. It was as if shadows had been reversed, for the sun was on our side of the trees.
There was blood, too, and that was black. The priests had been dead for some while. Their crucifixes had been cut from them, of course, as well as their rings, but otherwise their clothing was neatly arranged. Some pious woman had come upon them in the morning and attempted to give them a semblance of dignity. I remembered the church and the singing. The sweet girls’ voices. I think Catholic Petlyurists had shot the priests.
Mrs Cornelius avoided the sight. ‘Between you an’ me, Ivan,’ she confided, ‘I wasn’t expectin’ nuffink like this. It’s wot comes o’ bein’ English, I s’pose. It wouldn’t ‘appen over there. You wanna get ter London, mate.’
‘I had considered it.’
‘Yer might find me there a’ead o’ yer.’ She gave the sailor on the running board a cigarette she had already lit. She winked and laughed with him. it woz a soft spot fer sailormen got me inter me present predic, really, wannit?’
‘You’ve not been back to Odessa?’
‘Nar! I ‘alf-’oped, see, ter make ther Finlan’ train an’ go that way, like we wos talkin’ abart. But fings got orl wonky some’ow. An’ Leo can be a jealous pig. In spite o’ the fac’ ‘e’s not exactly single.’
‘Why not come with me to Odessa? The French are in control there.’
‘An’ a lot o’ bloody Bolshies, mark my words. I’ve ‘eard.’
‘Are you frightened they’ll do something to you?’
