They washed me with their hands, one in grey, the other naked but for a worn sheepskin. ‘I thought it was you,’ she said. She had been fucked so often she had calluses on her cunt. I shivered. I was still weeping. I became very cold. I shivered. I was swaddled. Esmé took me to a dormitory where there were two rows of empty beds. I had a fever, she said. A mild form of typhus. I don’t know. Where have you been? Everywhere, I told her. With the Bolsheviks? With that Brodmann and his gang who came? I was away. No, I said, I was only with them because I was searching for you. I thought you were in Odessa. Are you an Anarchist, Esmé? She said she did not have to be. She was a nurse. She worked on the education train. There were two doctors, both Jews, who also helped. Seamstresses. It was a community, she said, in which some sort of order flourished. Though it was protected by Makhno’s bayonets. Soon these would go. Why? Because the Whites were advancing. The Don Cossacks were on their way and Makhno had let too many units help the Reds. But it would be a while yet, she thought. Who raped you? I asked her. Many, she said. Who? It was true, she said, a Cossack whipped you. The beast. Did Brodmann rape you? I asked. That swine! She said no. Makhno? He saved my life, she said. It was not much of a rape. It was a token. His wife knows what he does. She tries to stop him. He feels bad afterwards. He’s drunk. His men expect it of him. Not here, but out there. The ones here know him and his two brothers. He should not have raped you, Esmé. It was a token. You should have been there when the first one happened. I trembled. I felt sick, but all there was in my stomach was vodka. It returned as bile. Esmé! Esmé! I can nurse you for today, she said. It was good I came here. Who else? Raped me? She laughed. Lots. It’s silly. It’s over. I’m doing my job again. I have a boy. He wants to marry me. It was quiet in the dormitory. There was no one there. I was confused. She stroked my whole body. My new, clean, body. She held my cock. She stroked it. I began to relax. I love you, Esmé. I love you, Max. She stroked my cock. She stroked my nipples. She stroked my face. She put ointment on Grishenko’s marks. She told me I would be better. She loved me. Esmé. Raped by Jews and Bolsheviks, yet still you were full of pity. We could have been married as Mother wanted. Lived in that village. Where are you? You said I had a fever. I did not know you left while I slept.
A week later she returned. Now the dormitory was filled with dozens of wounded men. She was tired. She was slatternly. She was a slut. She helped the others more than she helped me. I was her own brother. She nursed the very men who raped her. I was sweating. Without vodka, which had controlled it, the fever increased. Those Jews had poisoned me. They put a piece of iron in my stomach. I had been ill for months. I was dying. She soothed the others, just as if they were me. Mrs Cornelius would not have done that. She would have left me alone. They had poisoned me. I had been right to mistrust them. I had been a fool. The men made too much noise. They stank of gangrene, of blood and cordite. They were hideous.
I was taken with them, in carts to a train. I saw Esmé in the crowd. I think she was looking for me, but could not see me because of the other bodies. Then she was gone.
Such practices are common in Egypt. My cities are silver. They rise into a brazen winter sky. Through them I shall celebrate the glory of God. Wagner has crossed the desert. Anubis is my friend.
I THINK THE GIRL in grey had mended my clothes. They were clean. Everything was in order. I had a different coat. My pistols and papers were still there. Yermeloff’s gifts were in deep ‘gun-pockets’ in a dark blue kaftan. The chill was still in me. There was firing. We were taken from the train and put in ordinary peasant waggons. Makhno had disappeared. Riding a horse, someone said. Makhno rarely used a horse, because of a wounded ankle which made it hard to mount. The others went with him. Hulyai-Polye had been taken. I do not know which side was victor, White or Red. Perhaps both. They came and went.
