He had sent a telegram to Odessa. Because of the War it had not arrived until I had left. I was to have waited near the gate of the platform where he would meet me. He had no transport, so we continued to walk along the Stolypinskaya together. He insisted on carrying my bag. He said he had been waiting several hours, because of the train being so late. He thought I must be exhausted, but of course I had been far more comfortable than had he. He looked older. His face had become almost a modern artist’s idea of a face, all in bright reds and blues. But I was glad to see him, even if he did smell of vodka. My mother had been desperately ill. Between them he and Esmé had nursed her to health. Now she was ‘sitting up and complaining’, drinking soup and no longer ‘getting ready to meet the Reaper’. I had had no idea, of course, that she had been so ill. I assumed her influenza to have been relatively mild. But there had been something of an epidemic in the poorer districts. Many had died, said Captain Brown. Esmé had not written to tell me this because she had not wanted me to worry. He had written to Uncle Semyon asking that I not be informed of the danger. She was much better now and anxious to see me. He commented on my fine clothes - ‘a little too smart for Kiev, eh?’ - and on my complexion which was at once healthier and ‘more mature’. I had cut down radically on the cocaine. I now no longer used it daily. The supply in my luggage might be the last I was to find for some time. I must treasure it.
We took a Number 10 tram up to our district. The streets of Podol below looked meaner and dirtier, even with the snow, and the people were wretched compared to those I had known in the Moldovanka. My dislike of Jewish poverty, Jewish passivity, Jewish greed, Jewish pride, welled within me, but I suppressed it. I had been shown kindness, too, by Jews. There were, I’ll argue to this day, Jews and Jews. In aggregate, however, they can be depressing. Our little street was piled with snow-drifts taller than me. Through them channels had been cut to doorways, and along the middle of the road. It seemed horribly seedy. I felt depressed as we turned into the building where I had spent most of my life. We climbed stairs smelling of cabbage and over-brewed tea, of kvass and sour dumplings. We entered the apartment and its oppressive darkness - the blinds were half-drawn - where my mother lay on her couch pulled close to the black iron stove. Esmé, pale and weary and as sweet as ever, ran forward to take my hand, leading me to my mother. Mother coughed the most horrible racking cough I have ever heard. She spoke in the croaking tones I had learned to recognise from past illnesses of all kinds; it was her ‘ill’ voice.
‘Maxim, my dear son. Such a joy! I thought we’d never meet in this world again.’
I embraced her, letting her kiss me on my face while I kissed her cheeks. She smelled strongly of embrocation. She was swathed in layer upon layer of bodices and blouses and shawls and I must admit that I was, after the style and good living of Odessa, just a little repulsed. The room was extremely warm. I broke free, in the end, and patted her head. She winced. I stopped patting and said to Esmé, ‘You have been so good. I was sorry to hear of your father. You are a princess.’
She blushed. It was almost as if she wished to curtsey to me. ‘You’ve become so manly, Maxim. Your manners! A prince, at least.’ She spoke with slight irony, but I was flattered.
A great, expressive cough came from where my mother was propped. ‘He must eat!’
‘I have the broth ready.’ Esmé disappeared into the next room and came back with a pot which she placed on the stove, ‘It’s warm. It will not be long.’
I looked miserably at the old familiar pot. The smell from it was no longer appetising. The pot had sustained me since I was weaned. It had been filled, as it were, by my mother’s sweat. I recalled the turnips and onions and beets and potatoes which had gone into it. And I longed for that spicy, tasty, Odessa food. The variety of bortsches, and yushkas, the kuleshnik, the schipanka, the zatirka, kulish and rassolnik, the herrings and boiled sturgeon and sardines, the roast meats with sauerkraut and prunes and buckwheat hash.
‘You must be hungry,’ said my mother.
‘I ate on the train,’ I said. ‘There was a lot of food. I’m not hungry. Don’t worry.’
‘There’s meat in the soup,’ she said. ‘Chicken. You must eat.’ She began to cough again, from the chest, her eyes watering.
‘I’ll eat later,’ I said, ‘I brought you a present.’ I was embarrassed because I had nothing special for Captain Brown. I produced the black and red shawl I had bought for my mother.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Real silk. Is it from Semyon?’
‘It’s from me,’ I said, ‘I earned the money.’
‘Earned? How?’
‘Bills of lading,’ I said. ‘A profit on cargo.
‘You’re going to work in Semya’s office?’
‘This was a private matter,’ I told her. ‘Here Esmé. What do you think?’
