I said if the toothache got worse I would take Shura up on his offer. My family’s connections seemed to cut across all normal social barriers. This might not appear unusual in England or America, but in Russia in 1914 there was an almost infinite number of castes. Only in bohemian or intellectual circles could there be any mixture, and even here it was often strained. That was why I think Esau’s in Slobodka so impressed me. I was never to recapture that particular experience of comradeship. Doubtless I felt it as I did because I had no knowledge of any underlying tensions in the relationships there. I was, in a word, innocent. Nonetheless I lost preconceptions and prejudices overnight. I was not to learn common-sense for a few months at least I would grow up in Odessa.
‘He’s a Dutchman,’ Shura added, ‘though I’ll swear he’s a Hun in disguise. I hope no one finds out.’
‘You mean a spy?’ I asked. I had read the newspapers.
‘That’s a thought.’ Shura grinned, it’s not exactly what I meant. Come on. We’ve time to go to Fountain. You ought to see a bit of country. And I could do with the fresh air.’
‘I’d rather stay here,’ I said.
He was pleased with this. ‘You can come back again as often as you like, now that you’re known as a friend of mine.’
As we left, everyone was singing an ironic song about a Chinaman who had fallen in love with a Russian girl and, thwarted in his passion, had burned down her entire apartment building. This had actually happened a short while ago in Sevastapol. The Chinese have always been mistrusted in Russia. The irony was, of course, that they would be seen working hand-in-glove with the Jews during the Revolution: the Jews with their brains, the Chinese with their cruelty. We Slavs can be excused for our wariness of the Oriental, whatever his guise, for he has sought to encroach on our territory for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Shura took us to the tram-stop in a quiet, wide street. Eventually we boarded a Number 16 for Little Fountain. From a seat near the front Shura pointed out various places of interest, none of which I remembered. I have a memory for tram numbers and people’s names, but I can never remember much about cathedrals or museums. We left the long, straight streets behind us and entered more open country. Beyond it was the broad emerald sea. Shura said we should not have time to stay. We took the open-sided tram for Arcadia and went straight back on it. He had to get me home for supper and had some business at six. Innocently I asked him what his main business was. I thought I must have embarrassed him, but he remained cheerful enough, though vague, ‘I fix things up for anyone. But I work mostly for the family.’
‘For Uncle Semya.’
‘That’s right. To do his buying and selling, his importing and exporting, he needs information. I’m a sort of liaison officer.’
I understood how Shura’s connections with the bohemians and their connections with the underworld could prove useful for a businessman wishing to keep his finger on the pulse of the city. My admiration increased for Uncle Semya’s good-hearted pragmatism. Rather than force Shura to take a regular job in the office, he paid my cousin to be his contact with the people he obviously could not deal with personally. People who would not trust him even if he did approach them. I asked Shura how he had first found Esau’s. He said that it was instinctive; he had grown up in the area. He had had to earn his own living for years. His mother, like mine, was a widow. When he was ten, she had run off to Warsaw with a farm-implement salesman. She must have felt, as he put it, that he was old enough to live on his own. I commiserated, but he laughed and patted my arm. ‘Don’t fret for me, little Max. She was my only dependant. When she went, I became a rich man.’
I said nothing about Uncle Semya. It was obvious that our uncle had taken pity on Shura as he had taken pity on me. He made the most of Shura’s talents as he planned for me to make the most of mine.
As we went by the parks and lawns, the trees and fretwork datchas of Fountain, we smelled the last of the acacias. Unspoiled beaches, cliffs yellow with broom, like scrambled egg; the white gothic mansions of industrialists; the more modest houses of people who had retired to Odessa for their health. There were famous artists living there, too, said Shura.
In the square Shura left me outside Uncle Semya’s. He was anxious to keep his appointment. It was about five. I had time to wash and change into my more familiar clothes, speak a few words to Wanda and ask when we were to eat. She said about six. I could go downstairs to the parlour, if I wished, to see Aunt Genia. The window was no longer quite the lure it had been that morning so I decided to do as Wanda suggested.
