Yermeloff stood back, looking me over. ‘Wear the hat set high and to one side.’ He pushed it into position himself. ‘Don’t you know the expression: Beware of men who wear their caps over their eyes? A cap pushed up shows you to be a brave, open Russian, a daring Cossack needing no protection from anything. You say your father was a Zaporizhian. Didn’t he teach you this?’
‘He’s dead.’ How things had reversed. I brought myself a certain glory from what had been, until now, my shame. ‘He was a Socialist Revolutionary. An assassin. He was shot in 1906 for his part in the uprising.’
Yermeloff was pleased. ‘You really are what you say! You’re a puzzle, young major. A boy genius, a hardened socialist, and half a Zaporizhian Cossack. What was your mother?’
‘Her family was Polish.’
This seemed significant. He nodded his head but remained silent. I sat down again on the edge of the bed. He uncorked the bottle. ‘Take a small swig this time. I’m mean about vodka of this quality.’
‘You shouldn’t leave it untended. It could be stolen.’
‘Cossacks don’t steal from each other.’ He was sardonically serious. ‘Zaporizhians have their pride.’ He unbuttoned his coat, wiping at his neck with a piece of rag. ‘Would you dare steal from one?’
‘I’m not a thief.’
‘We’re not thieves. We forage, particularly in ghettos. We make appropriations, particularly from unguarded trains.’
‘I was taught to respect Cossack honour. You need not remind me of, nor should you mock at, true Zaporizhian ethics. Those men out there are scum.’
‘The Cossack hosts began as scum. When Moscow sought their help against the Tatars she made them into wholesomely romantic figures. They do the same to this day to trappers and cowboys in America.’
This was ridiculous. But it was best to say nothing. Yermeloff took out one of his black-and-silver flintlocks. He sighted along the barrel. ‘These are useless if you try to handle them like modern firearms. According to logic, it would be impossible to hit anything with one. That’s why these are mine. As some men can master a particular horse, I can master these. They are the symbol of my survival!’
I was unimpressed. Later, Paris and Berlin would be like nineteenth-century arsenals. Every ‘ataman’ would be selling his booty as family heirlooms.
The tent flap opened. Grishenko swaggered in. He had a coarse-featured girl with him. He said nothing, but Yermeloff buttoned up his coat and signed to me. We left. Grishenko chuckled and spoke to the girl in Ukrainian. Her answering giggle was ghastly. I would not have expected this sound from so experienced a whore.
Yermeloff looked at the sky. It was grey as the snow. He cursed, ‘I left the vodka. Grishenko’s bound to drink the lot.’
‘I thought Cossacks never stole from each other.’
Yermeloff walked ahead. Again he was the bully-boy. He said in a harsh voice. ‘Grishenko’s my friend. What I have is his.’
‘And what he has?’
Yermeloff stopped, then he laughed. ‘His.’ He came back to put an arm round my shoulder. I remembered Mrs Cornelius and her fox-pelts. I longed to see her Mercedes. I longed for Odessa and my mother and Esmé. Yermeloff led me towards the water-tanker. ‘We’ll try some of the ordinary.’ Bandits took no notice of me. I had reduced my outer appearance to the level of their own. A tin cup was passed from the crowd around the wagon. The vodka was no worse than that I had had on the train. Potoaki would by now be in Odessa, enjoying the benefits of the Rule of Law while plotting its destruction. The Revolution had been a work of modern art; convulsive, undisciplined, emotional and formless. Lenin and Deniken were trying to repaint it to their own tastes. Trotsky had been the catalyst for this whole war and how he enjoyed himself, standing on the roofs of trains, making speeches to soldiers from motor-cars, stalking ahead of his generals. What a fool that Jew looked to anyone with half an eye. A goose in the heron-pond. He was ridiculous in his glasses, his beard, his uniform. An irritating, self-opinionated buffoon. I could not see why Mrs Cornelius found him attractive, unless it was his power. He was a bungler. Almost every disaster after 1918 can be blamed on him. They called him the greatest general since Joshua: it is an insult to Joshua. Lenin loved him. They were two of a kind. Antonov was an intellectual but he knew how to fight. Mrs Cornelius should have taken up with him. But perhaps Antonov was too strong. She liked men, in those days, she could manipulate. She had a weakness for a fool. She liked them safely married. I do not think Antonov was married. I know nothing about him. Stalin probably had him killed in one of those trials. I avoided Russians between the wars. I would sometimes even claim to be Polish or Czech. I could not stand the sympathy of those who took up with émigrés; they made me self-conscious. I want to be myself; not the representative of a culture.
