Because she was frowning I thought I had offended her. Then the frown became a wink. She said seriously: ‘They’re bloody shit-scared, Ivan. Leo an’ the ovvers, more than these bleedin’ fugs ‘oo don’t care ‘oo they kill. It’s like tryin’ ter stay on top of a bloody eruptin’ volcano, innit? They carn’t get ther stopper back in. Shoutin’ at it don’t exactly ‘elp! So they’re tryin’ dynamite, right?’ She screamed with laughter all of a sudden. ‘Pore buggers!’
‘A volcano expends its energy with less loss of life,’ I said.
‘Not in bloody Bali.’ Mrs Cornelius was smug. ‘They orl run up ther bloody ‘ill an lie darn in front o’ the bloody lava. If it gets enough o’ ‘em, they reckon, it’ll stop.’ She drew a handkerchief from a muff on the seat beside her and blew her nose. ‘I read that,’ she said with some pride, ‘in ther
‘I have never seen it.’
‘Me neither. I could do wiv a nice read. It was a lot less borin’ fer me before all this broke aht, yer know. ‘Ow long’s it bin? Two years? Well, just over a year since the Old Man - ‘e don’t like me. neither - nearly bungled ‘is larst chance. ‘E won’t give an ounce o’ credit to Antonov, will ‘e?’
I scarcely understood her. She was so immersed in the internal gossip and politics of the Bolsheviks she assumed everyone took her meaning.
‘Never met such a bunch o’ self-important buggers. They orl ought ter be given little kingdoms of their own. No wonder I carn’t keep me eyes off ther bloody sailors!’ She sighed. ‘Well, it woz fun while it lasted. While they ‘ad nuffink ter do but talk. I’ll be glad ter be art of it, an’ no mistake. Yer goin’ ter Blighty?’
‘I hope so.’
‘I’ll give yer me address in Whitechapel. Somebody’ll know if I’m back an’ wot I’m up ter. But, I tell yer, Ivan, I’ll be up West first charncet I get.’
With these cryptic words she stretched across me, all soft fur and French perfume, and opened the door of the car. As I began to climb out, she fumbled with gloved hands in a reticule, removed a pamphlet printed on coarse paper, and with a pencil slowly wrote down a single line. She gave me the pamphlet. ‘Don’t mind if I wave bye-bye from ‘ere, do yer? I’m not goin’ in that bloody snow if I can ‘elp it.’
Two sailors shouldered their rifles and took my bags from the box at the back of the car. Between them I walked in dirty slush to the carriage nearest the locomotive. A variety of desperadoes, male and female, regarded me from misted windows. The sailors dumped my bags on the metal steps. Stumbling through the door I found I was in a sleeper. The compartments, however, were fairly full and there would be no way in which I would be able to stretch out. The majority of the people were dressed as peasants and industrial workers. There were one or two ‘intellectuals’ in dark overcoats similar to my own. My natural inclination was to join these. I had stored my luggage (including a small hamper from Mrs Cornelius) before I realised I had made a serious mistake. I would not be able to answer their questions or understand their references. They had made space for me. They were calling me comrade. I shook several hands and then went back to the carriage door to wave to Mrs Cornelius. Fox-fur arms saluted me. The car was already turning. One of the sailors now sat next to her, grinning at his friends and at me. I heard a faint ‘Keep yer pecker up, Ivan!’ and she was gone. I was left with the cursing Cossacks, the pallid Chekists, the weary sailors. I returned to the relative security of the compartment and was offered a flask of vodka. I accepted it and sipped. It was raw moonshine; the kind they brewed in Shulyavka, the foulest slum in Kiev. I expected to go blind instantly and it affected my vocal chords as the arak had done in Odessa. The man who had offered it, a round-faced Ukrainian with a bushy red beard and thick spectacles, laughed and said, ‘You’re used to better, eh?’
I managed to say I was not a great drinker. This gave him further amusement. ‘Then you can’t be a Katsup. What are you? A Moslem?’
I considered claiming I was from Georgia or Armenia, but the problem there was that someone else in the carriage might know those areas. I shook my head and said I was from Kiev. I had spent some time in Petrograd and elsewhere.
‘I’m Potoaki,’ he told me. It was a name with Polish resonances, but that was not strange in Ukraine. ‘You?’
‘Pyat.’ It was what Mrs Cornelius had christened me. It simply meant ‘five’ in Russian. I thought it gave me exactly the right air. I had decided how to play my game.
