‘Has Shura offered to show you the city?’ Uncle Semya asked. ‘He must. I would do so myself, but there is the office. Ships and tides wait for nobody. Soap must go to Sevastapol. Coffee must come from Rio. Even though the German mines threaten peaceful vessels. Not that the War is bad for business. Indeed, it is very good for business. If business can be allowed to carry on. Let Shura show you our Odessa. You will love it.’ He opened his jacket and found his wallet. He gave Shura a 10-rouble note. ‘Have a nice lunch somewhere at my expense. I shall see you this evening at dinner. Farewell. And do not overtax the brains while you are here. Save them for St Petersburg.’ He rolled the ‘r’ in each syllable with relish, as if he described some edible delicacy. And we were dismissed.
Outside my great-uncle’s study we found Aunt Genia. She had a pile of pale clothing in her arms. ‘You can’t go out in all that stuff. It’s too warm even now. Here are Vanya’s things. They’ll fit you. And he has his uniform.’ Her son was already in the army. She was a good deal younger than Uncle Semya. Wisely he had waited until his business was well-established before deciding to marry. I thought I would follow his example. My father, after all, had married young and no good had come of that.
With Vanya’s old summer clothes we climbed the stairs again. Under Shura’s eye I donned a chocolate-brown suit, a silky shirt with a soft collar, a panama hat. They seemed ineffably loud and tasteless garments to my Northern eye, but Shura sighed with pleasure. ‘Quite the dandy,’ he said. ‘Vanya used to cut a dash around here before they caught him.’
‘Caught him?’
‘For the army.’
Vanya was to be killed six months later. I was never able to thank him for his part in helping me fit into the life of the ‘Russian Riviera’
I left my knickerbockers hanging over the rail of my bed. Arm in arm with Shura I returned downstairs, sang out a farewell to Aunt Genia and Wanda, who were up to something domestic in the parlour, and sallied into the square.
From high above, the square had seemed like a fantasy land, a set for a musical comedy. Seen close-to it was even more magical. It had filled up since the early morning. Now there were stalls erected around the little central park where men in peaked caps and dark aprons strolled, chatting to one another. Fat women in red or blue headscarves piled bottles and boxes in intricate, vulnerable displays. Fruit and vegetables, some of them strange to my eye, and flowers and cloth added further colour. Large trees shaded green canvas awnings. There was a smell of horses, of sweetstuffs, of blood (as butchers spread wares on wooden slabs and waved away flies). Yet still the dominant smell was of ozone and flowers. Dogs barked at small boys with parcels who ran about apparently at random. A hurdy-gurdy man began to strap on his instrument. He was shouted at by a huge, round-faced woman in a Ukrainian blouse and went off without playing a note.
From far away I heard long moaning sounds and short hootings which could be the sirens of ships. Shura asked me if I wished to take the tram to the harbour or if I would rather walk. I told him I wanted to walk, even though I was anxious to reach the sea. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘then we’ll go through the old cemetery. It’s quickest from here.’ We turned a corner into a street. Though it was full of people complaining about the water-cart coming past and soaking their boots, it seemed almost hushed. Dazed, I turned next into a main street in time to see a squadron of cavalry, its lances decorated with little pennants, its red and blue hussars uniforms looking rather ordinary in that multi-coloured scene (I think they were part of a recruiting parade). We went through a gate into the stillness of the old cemetery: grandiose monuments of black marble, granite and limestone, huge mausoleums, ancient willows. As we got to the other side, Shura said it was possible to climb through a gap in the wall. But he did not want to spoil either his suit or mine. ‘I don’t very often come here, these days,’ he said, wishing to make it clear he had put away childish things.
Another big street, more like Kreshchatik it seemed to me. It was very wide and lined with trees (elms, I think). Luxurious shops, shaded by blue-and-white blinds; kiosks like miniature Gothic cathedrals; little wooden stands where veterans sold newspapers to fashionable ladies carrying sunshades of white brocade or Japanese silk. Horse-cabs - the open four-wheelers with smartly-uniformed drivers -
