I was only with the Bolshevik prisoners for two days. They knew nothing about Odessa. I was taken from the barn by grinning Makhnovischini and told to go to a house they pointed to down the street. I had no escort. I still had pistols, papers, a few bank-notes in my pocket. I must have been utterly filthy. I had not changed clothes or shaved or properly washed for at least six weeks. I was nineteen years old. They laughed at me and saluted. To all who passed me I was ‘Colonel Pyat’. It was my salvation, my youth. The house was wooden, with typical Ukrainian gables, painted in a variety of light colours, with a veranda and a heavy double door. I opened the door. A soldier told me to go through the passage to the back. I walked along the passage. I assumed Makhno had sent for me. There was the sound of water. It was warm and quiet in the house. I heard a girl laugh. I knocked on the door. I was told to enter.
Esmé was naked. She was in the tin bath looking up at me and grinning. She held out soap-covered pink arms, exposing her breasts. Her golden hair was darkened by water. Her body smelled of clean skin and soap. She was shameless. I turned away. A girl in a grey dress was scrubbing Esmé’s neck. ‘He’s embarrassed.’ It had been a trick.
I sat down on a chair, near a screen. My back was to her. ‘How did you get here? Are the Anarchists in Odessa?’
‘The Whites have Odessa,’ she told me.
The grey girl began to whistle a folk-tune.
‘I never got there.’ Esmé stood up in the water. I heard her. I saw her shadow. The sun came through a window in the door. ‘We stopped at a station for food. I was taken by the soldiers. I was raped. I’ve been raped so often I’ve got calluses on my cunt.’ The grey girl spluttered and giggled. They had planned this, surely, to make me upset. But why should Esmé feel aggressive towards me?
‘Mother?’
‘Got off the train. Still in Kiev. With Captain Brown.’ Esmé’s voice was softer. I felt her come close. I stood up and went to the door. She wore a sheepskin. She smiled at me. ‘Max?’
I do not know why I began to weep. It was probably a mixture of exhaustion and vodka. I had wasted so much of myself trying to get to Odessa. I hated her as I wept. She stroked my face and I still hated her. I had suffered for her and Mother. Neither had been there at all. I had lied, endured terror, endured pain. I could have stayed safely in Kiev with Mrs Cornelius to look after me; with my mother. It was not Esmé’s fault, of course, but I blamed her then. ‘She never meant to go to Odessa,’ said Esmé. ‘She heard it was the last train. She said you wouldn’t come. She said she’d be all right.’
‘And you were raped?’
‘I’m not raped now. I have a respectable job with the education team. We take a train with food and books and clothes to the villages. The station’s about five miles away. I just came in. I heard about you. I asked to see you.’
‘You’ve changed,’ I said.
She was amused. ‘Look at me, Max. Do you want the bathwater? It’s still hot.’
Esmé had been my virgin sister; without vice or passion. My oldest admirer. My friend. My rose. And she spoke foul words and had no shame. She told me to bathe. I was still drunk and dazed. I let the women take off my clothes. I did not mind if they saw my stigmata. I have suffered much from Cossacks with their whips and little knives! And I let them wash me. Esmé was soft. She murmured to me as she soaped my head. They put something in the water. It stung. It killed the lice.
