‘No need. I’ll join the next newspaper. They have dozens of newspapers and dozens of political creeds, but good journalists are in short supply.’
‘I have seen how they can destroy. Anyone.’
‘I’m facile.’ He shrugged, it’s those with strong needs who die, you see.’
‘You said you were going inland.’
‘Later. When things are more settled. Will they still kill me, then?’
‘Possibly.’
‘I can’t understand it, can you?’
‘I understand them,’ I said, ‘It is all the fault of the Poles.’
‘My sentiments exactly.’ He opened a small, green book. He showed me a line of poetry. I do not recall it.
What was my fascination for that intellectual Jew? Christ on the Mount? No, that is blasphemy. I loved him. I cannot feel disgust. I owed him nothing. I was an audience for him, I suppose. He was living alone in a house he had never been able to afford. He would soon be kicked out of it. He knew. I asked him if the trams were still running?
‘You know Odessa?’
‘I spent some of my youth here. I was happy.’
‘There’s a tram runs sometimes. A horse one. A steam one. An electric one. Depending what fuel’s available. It’s a long walk and you’re hurt. You could wait near the fountain, but I can’t offer much hope.’
‘I have relatives there.’
He shrugged. I did not want to leave him. He was gentle. I trusted him. Was he pretending to be Jewish, the way Tertz does? An affectation? I waited for him to touch me. He never touched me. I went with him to the tram-stop. My clothes were dry, from the sun. My pistols were clean. The whole resort was tranquil and decayed. Since then I have had a liking for deserted seaside towns. I used to go to them in the winter, with Mrs Cornelius, but, in those circumstances, she was never the best companion. She liked, she said, a bit of fun when she went to the seaside. Russians long for solitude. It is our only commodity now. Even that is being taken from us. They are trying to turn Russia into America; America, with its sentimental social conventions, destroying its culture, its language, its intellectual strength. America before the war was a very different place. It was harder.
I sometimes think there has been another War: the third. And that I am living after it. This is a sign, I suppose, of my old age. They say I am paranoid. But paranoia is only fear. And I am afraid. I try to warn them. They say I am afraid of the wrong things. How can that be, when I am afraid of everything? My head is full of possibilities. I do not care for life. I do not care if I die. I have never cared. But I have cared for what I carry in me. My honour. My gifts which God took back in return for the gift of Himself. It is knowledge and a generous spirit which is precious. I never understood people who did not recognise this. Mrs Cornelius would not talk about it. She liked me. She did not ever do me the disservice of telling me she loved me. Love grows from within. There is a coil in my womb. It is copper. It conducts electricity. It is cold. They put it there. It forbids love. Children are fond of me, are they? Why do they persecute me, if that is the case? Quartz sparks? Diodes? Printed circuits? Ask me any scientific question. I am afraid of betrayal. I have been betrayed. There was never enough love. The little I had was taken. Or did I lack an amplifier? No more grew in its place. I became strong in the company of that journalist, on the outskirts of the city of black, sleeping goats. The tram came. It was half-full of SR volunteers. They had the same uniforms as the Whites. I fitted in easily. They paid no attention to me or my companion who had decided, he said, to ‘see the action’. Half-way to Odessa the electricity was cut off. There were no horses for the tram. The soldiers decided to stay where they were. We walked into the twilight. The city grew larger. There were a few fires. It stank. My Odessa had become a cess-pit. Vandals had used it carelessly. The Reds had gone. The Whites had not yet arrived. I went with my friend to Uncle Semya’s house. It had been gutted. My room was a jagged hole. I asked at the only shop still open in the square. It sold ‘mixed meat’. All the trees had been cut down. The railings had gone for scrap. From Moldovanka came the smell of old smoke. They said that Uncle Semya had ‘sold up’. He had not been there when the house was burned. Someone had heard he had been caught profiteering and had gone to prison. This had already become a euphemism. He had been robbed and shot. And Shura? Conscripted. Dead. And Wanda? They did not remember Wanda. And Aunt Genia? They thought she might have gone to the Crimea. Quite a lot of people had left for the Crimea. The proprietors of the shop were planning to go themselves if they could get passage money and permission. They said they were not eligible for evacuation. They would have to pay a ‘private fare’. My friend was weeping as we came out. He had overtired himself, I suppose.
‘You’re a hard one to read,’ I said.
