The Laughter of Carthage (36 page)

It was raining by the time I got to Lipp’s. In contrast to the street the restaurant’s ornamental brasswork and plate glass was cheerful. It was an old-fashioned family restaurant on two floors, catering to a wide clientele, many of them Jewish. Somewhat nervously I pushed through the revolving door and presented myself to the head-waiter. The place was already crowded. He asked if I had made a reservation and when I admitted that I had not, he shook his head. I could tell he might have allowed someone else in but he did not much like my looks. Depressed, I walked out into St Germain. I remained in a succession of shop doorways for an hour or two, watching Lipp’s entrance in the hope of seeing Kolya. Eventually I went home. My clothes were becoming too shabby but if I were to wear either of my uniforms I should become a sitting target for the Chekist assassins. I decided I must have a new suit.

Next morning, just before noon, I went to visit Seryozha again. By now I had a clearer idea of how to resist his advances. When he opened the door he was still bleary, but he brightened when he saw me. He wore a multi-coloured silk kimono which he did not bother to tie at the waist. Doubtless he hoped the occasional glimpse of naked thigh or genitals would increase my desire for him. I was already familiar with both. I remembered them vividly from the train, when he had the top bunk and I the lower. I had no means, however, of guarding against him when he kissed my lips (his own stank of stale alcohol) and squeezed my waist before padding over to the bureau to find his cocaine, offering it as another might offer coffee. Naturally, I accepted. Now, gradually, he remembered our last encounter. ‘How was your visit to the doctor, Dimka? Are you completely cleared up now?’

‘Almost. The best treatment is some kind of lotion, but he says it’s expensive. The other treatment’s slower.’

‘You’ve been sleeping around too much, Dimka. I always knew you had the makings of a little whore.’ Reaching back into his desk, he opened a drawer. He took out some more money. ‘Will this pay for the lotion?’

I controlled my rage at the insult, but the rage itself helped me accept the money without conscience. Let the pervert think what he liked! I would never sleep with him. There is such a thing as love between men. I do not deny I have experienced it. But whereas any reasonably good-looking woman is worth making love to, if only for an hour or so, a man has to be outstanding in every way and there has only, really, been one such man in my life, just as there have only been two true loves amongst women. I spent a little time with Seryozha, learning about the Foline and its plans for touring, his quarrels with the management (‘They say I drink too much. I say who would not drink too much with those leaden-footed ballerinas to heave about the stage!’) He asked where I was living. There was nothing to be gained from lying. I told him Rue de la Huchette. ‘But that’s a squalid place! Those awful little restaurants. You have to take your own bread and your own knife and fork into them! Oh, my dear Dimka, that’s dreadful!’

It was not politic to mention Esmé. ‘I was on my way to England,’ I said. ‘Travelling with a friend. The friend decided to go on without me, taking virtually everything I owned, including most of my documents.’

He was suitably horrified and sympathetic. This gained me an extra line of cocaine, since he now remembered not to touch me. ‘Oh, my dear. As soon as your trouble is cleared up, you must move in with me. I’ve tremendous amounts of room, as you can see. You could have your own bedroom. Your own dressing-room. Honestly, you’d be so welcome. You know how much I’ve always liked you, Dimka.’

I pretended to be delighted at the prospect. ‘That’s wonderful, Seryozha. I’ll go round to the doctor now and see if he has the lotion. It must only be a matter of a couple of days.’

‘You poor thing! I had no idea you were suffering so dreadfully. What happened? Were you picking up women? Or Belgians? They never know if they have lice or not, in my experience. That’s my rule in life, Dimka dear. Never have anything to do with women or Belgians - and be careful about American transvestites, too. They don’t change their underwear. But then you know Pigalle, down there, do you?’

‘Don’t worry. I’d have no part of them. In this case, however, I think a Turk was the culprit.’

‘Oh, well,
Turks!’
And Seryozha shuddered. I had mentioned the almost inconceivable knowing that to him a Turkish louse must somehow be even more disgusting than any other kind. ‘You poor, poor thing. Were you raped?’

‘One day I’ll tell you of my adventures in Constantinople, Seryozha. Is it all right to come back at the same time tomorrow?’

‘Of course, my darling. Or later tonight, when I get home. No. Not tonight. Yes, the morning. Just after twelve. Wonderful.’

I went straight to the outfitter in Rue de Turenne. Happily my figure, except when it inclines to plumpness, has always been good: the ideal ‘standard’ for a man. I had no difficulty in selecting a three-piece suit, a fresh shirt, some collars, a tie and some shoes. Seryozha’s money - including that which remained from the previous day - covered the bill. I wore the clothes when I left, my others wrapped in a neat parcel.

Back at Rue de la Huchette I drew a few stares from the local clochards as I entered our miserable doorway and climbed the stairs. Esmé was no longer in bed. She sat in her dressing-gown at the table, slowly writing on a form torn from a magazine, ‘It’s a competition,’ she said. ‘The prize is a holiday for two in Egypt.’

I did not tell her the magazine was out of date. She needed to keep her hopes up quite as much as I. She had not noticed my new suit and in a way I was grateful.

That evening when I went to Lipp’s I took a cab and found that although the restaurant was quite as full as the day before I was now fitted into a corner of one of the long tables upstairs. This did not quite satisfy me, since regular and favoured customers tended to use the ground-floor restaurant. I ate sparingly of the food, which was more German in some ways than it was French, although I developed a relish for their asparagus, so that although my bill was relatively small I could leave a generous tip. Such things impress waiters. The news is swiftly carried to their fellows. I wanted to be certain next time of getting a seat downstairs. When I left, I looked about for Kolya, but he was not there. On my second visit I would ask the head waiter. But before I could come back to Lipp’s it meant going through the distasteful business of seeing Sergei Andreyovitch. My tale of the doctor and his lotion could not last me for more than two further visits before I must either succumb or run. Again I waited outside Lipp’s for a while. It was midnight before I went home. Esmé was asleep and did not wake when I got in beside her. I went immediately to sleep.

Three more visits to the increasingly impatient Seryozha, three more meals at Lipp’s. Seryozha had warned me he could not keep lending me money for ‘treatments’; my doctor seemed to be charging me without curing me. Seryozha knew a very good doctor, his own, whom he felt would be sure to help me. On the fourth visit I was forced to tell him I was cured but, on the excuse that I was still very sore, managed to avoid the worst of his passion, though his self-control (never his strongest virtue) was severely tested. There was little else I could do. I needed the money if I was to find Kolya and if I did find my friend, then anything would have been worth while. Soon, after a week or so, my main problem became how to refuse moving in with Seryozha, who also wanted to see where I lived.

I was sitting at a downstairs table, near the door, at Lipp’s one evening, considering my plight and trying to imagine a valid excuse for not going to Seryozha’s when he returned from the theatre. As I lifted my first piece of asparagus to my mouth a tall, handsome man, dressed entirely in black save for his linen, came through the revolving glass. On his arm was an equally startling woman. The head waiter approached them with obvious pleasure. When the man turned his wonderful eyes towards me he frowned slightly, then grinned broadly like a schoolboy. My heart leapt. The head waiter was already pointing towards me (I had by now asked after my friend). Prince Nicholai Feodorovitch Petroff had never looked better. I was ecstatic. My body trembled. I could hardly rise to my feet. My asparagus fell to the floor. I was weeping. He was laughing. We embraced. ‘Dimka! Dimka! Dimka.’ He patted my shoulders. He kissed me on my cheeks. I became so excited I believe I flushed, breaking into a light sweat. ‘Oh, Kolya, I have looked for you everywhere.’

We gathered ourselves, still weeping and smiling, and he introduced me to the woman. ‘The Princess Anäis Petroff, my wife.’ I felt no jealousy. She had eyes of black plush and skin as white as Kolya’s, like new ivory. His hair remained pale blond, almost the colour of milk, while hers was raven. Her tawny evening frock had a summer cloak of pale fawn thrown over it. They were impossibly attractive: a pair of storybook lovers, the Prince and Princess of Fairyland. I kissed her hand and in my confusion knocked the rest of the asparagus to the floor. Amused, Kolya waved for a waiter to pick it up. ‘You’re dining alone?’

‘As I have dined night after night in the hope you would come.’ I shrugged, embarrassed by my own revelation. ‘My companion is not well.’

He was sympathetic. ‘Is your companion Russian?’

‘By origin, yes. But I met her in Constantinople.’

‘So you’ve been in Turkey, eh? Lots of adventures, Dimka? Join us at our table!’

We moved to the back of the restaurant, to a more secluded area. I was brought a new plate of asparagus. Kolya ordered their hors d’oeuvres. He told Anäis I was his oldest friend, his dearest companion from the days before the Revolution, that I had inspired his poetry and informed his sense of the future. Again I felt the blood rise to my cheeks. It was not wrong to love a man, particularly a man like Kolya, a sort of god put amongst mortals to make them aspire to perfection. He asked for my news. I told him briefly what had befallen me since I returned to Kiev, that I believed the Cheka was even now looking for me in Paris.

‘And I thought I had suffered!’ He had been in Paris for two years. A year ago he had met and married Anäis, who belonged to an old French family. He still hoped to get to America, but continued to have problems obtaining his visa. He suspected this was because of his service with Kerenski - or rather his political affiliations at the time he joined the Government. ‘But how do you pass your time in Paris, Dimka?’

‘Chiefly in seeking a backer for my new company. And I go to the cinema a great deal.’

‘That has become our passion, too. We have just seen
Otets Sergii.
Do you know it? I believe the director’s in Paris now.’

‘His name is Protazanov.’ Anäis spoke a soft French which was not Parisian. It was both melodious and humorous. Her lips were always smiling. She very evidently worshipped Kolya as much as I did. Perhaps because we had this passion in common. I liked her a great deal.

‘I scarcely ever see Russian films these days.’ I admitted. ‘They are too painful.’

Kolya poured white wine for us. ‘I understand. Have you a favourite director?’

It could only be Griffith. I spoke of
Birth of a Nation.
Where other films were concerned, I thought in terms of actors and actresses. Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton. Mary Pickford. I had seen everything of theirs.

‘You must love Harold Lloyd!’ Anäis was delighted. ‘Isn’t he wonderful! So frightening! So funny!’

‘And Fern Andra or Pola Negri, don’t you find them as attractive as all these Americans?’ Kolya was sardonic. ‘Really, Dimka, you’re becoming an Americophile! I thought you hated the place. Is that where you plan to go?’

‘I’ll content myself with London. Do you remember Mrs Cornelius? She has agreed to help me when I arrive. But I’m also having visa problems. Perhaps if I were alone it would be easy, but my friend Esmé has no papers at all.’ He knew of my original Esmé. I told him a little of the meeting in Makhno’s camp. ‘She is the image of her. Esmé repurified.’

Anäis said: ‘Perhaps you could have her adopted by a nice English family.’

Kolya laughed at this. ‘You’re being cruel, Anäis. We’ll put our heads together and see if we can come up with a solution. Your father has business connections in England. Could he help?’ He turned to me. ‘Anäis’s father’s a Captain of Industry, a holder of the Legion of Honour and an ex-Deputy! You see what grand circles I move in now, Dimka. Yet I can’t get permission to go to the United States and teach Russian. I am, instead, a leech.’

Anäis was disapproving. ‘When hostilities finish in Russia you’ll be able to claim at least part of your fortune.’

Kolya winked at me. ‘Do you think so, my dear? Russians have become everyone’s penniless guests. Poor relations to the rest of the world. People will soon lose patience with us.’ The waiter began to serve us our main course.