The Laughter of Carthage (37 page)

‘How far advanced is your Airship Company, M’sieu Mitrofanitch?’ Anäis pushed the chuckling Kolya back against his chair and bent across the table towards me. Naturally I had been introduced under the name I used in Petersburg.

‘I’ve some interest from the financial world, but nothing concrete as yet.’

‘You think it’s a good business venture?

‘It would take advantage of the increase in tourism since the War. The volume of passengers between New York and Paris alone has grown considerably. My ship would be far faster than a liner, in many ways smoother and safer. My designs are advanced, of course, but I’ve absorbed everything about airship construction I discovered during the War. Presently the Germans lead the field. The British plan to begin a commercial service in a year or two. In a matter of months we could be ahead of both: if the ship received appropriate publicity; a maiden flight, for instance, which crossed the Atlantic in record time.’

‘You’re fascinating, m’sieu.’ She sliced her liver. ‘And convincing. What do you think of it, Kolya?’

‘He’s a genius,’ said my friend simply. ‘I believe him capable of anything.’

The conversation drifted onto more general topics. Suddenly I was completely happy and consequently at my most charming. It was a very successful evening. We were eventually the last to leave Lipp’s. Both deities kissed me goodnight and Kolya took my address, swearing he would get in touch with me very soon. ‘We must never be parted again.’

It was only as I walked, whistling back along the Rue Saint-Sulpice I realized I had forgotten to tell Kolya of his dead cousin, Alexei Leonovitch, the pilot who almost killed me when he crashed his plane into the sea. Perhaps it would not be tactful, I thought, to introduce such a note at present. I could tell him soon enough.

As usual Esmé was asleep when I returned, but tonight her breathing was rapid and shallow. She had a temperature. I held her sweating little body in my arms and rocked her as she moaned: ‘Don’t leave me, Maxim. Don’t leave me.’ I brought her some water to drink, some aspirin to relieve the fever, then I lay beside her trying to tell her about my meeting with Kolya, but she fell back into delirious sleep again.

Next morning I went out to find a doctor. The nearest was in Boulevard St-Michel. Doctor Guilac stank of tobacco and rose-water. His walrus moustache was yellow with nicotine: he had a skin spotted like tortoiseshell, grey, thinning hair, over-polished boots and an old-fashioned frockcoat. After his examination of my girl, he told me firmly Esmé must have ‘real rest’. He gave me a tonic. He insisted she take it three times a day. She was anaemic, he said. She was suffering from nervous exhaustion, ‘But she is young,’ I told the old fool. ‘She is full of natural vitality. She’s a child!’

Doctor Guilac offered me a disbelieving glance. ‘Her ingestion of alcohol has been prodigious, I would say, and I hesitate to catalogue the drugs she has doubtless been taking. Someone should keep a responsible eye on your sister, m’sieu, if you will not.’

I could not tell him Esmé consumed no more drugs or drink than did I.

‘She’s suffering from a common complaint for these days,’ he continued disapprovingly. ‘Have you no parents she can stay with?’

‘We are orphans.’

He sighed. ‘I cannot judge you. But you need a wiser hand to guide you, m’sieu. I advise you to leave Paris. Visit the country for a month or two. Reconsider your way of life.’

I had asked for a doctor, not a priest. His moralising made me impatient. Nonetheless I thanked him politely, saying I would consider his suggestion, and paid him with our last money. As I sat by Esmé’s bedside, holding her warm, limp hand, which was moist with sweat, I wondered if I were being selfish. Should I demand she lead the same life as I? I had always been famous for my prodigious energy; the mark, I suppose, of an active mind. Others had rarely been able to keep up with me. It was probably unfair of me to expect it in Esmé. She was young enough to have no real sense of her own capacities. This collapse into an almost completely comatose state might well be her own way of resting. I determined to nurse her until she was recovered. Then I would review the situation, sure, once we had a fresh direction in our lives, matters would arrange themselves better. She had every reason for uncertainty. Instinctively she probably knew I was worrying about the Cheka. Moreover I had told her we were going to England and we were still in Paris. Her grasp of language remained rather weak. She might easily be homesick without wanting to tell me. There is no feeling of helplessness worse than watching someone mutter and sweat their way through a fever which has no obvious medical cure. I controlled my panic, however. I considered requesting another opinion. I decided, as soon as I saw him again, to ask Kolya to recommend a doctor: someone rather more eminent than this local quack. Depressingly this would almost certainly mean more visits to Seryozha.

Had Esmé, I wondered, always been subject to such fits? Some form of epilepsy? Perhaps that was why her parents had seemed so glad to see her go with me. As soon as I could, I visited the nearest library and took out medical books. There was no suitable description of her case. She had been without her ‘coco’ for several days. Could she be suffering from withdrawal? I managed to get her to take a little cocaine, but it did no apparent good. My frustration with the medical profession, which to this day remains, frequently, in the Dark Ages, was never greater. I sometimes wish fate had allowed me to become a doctor. With my analytical and creative gifts I could have done much more, I think, than anything I achieved as an engineer. My abiding desire has been to help the human race; to be of use: to lift mankind out of ignorance and animalistic, reflexive behaviour, a little further towards Heaven. I shared a misconception of my time, believing social conditions were the chief cause of the world’s ills. I thought a technological Utopia would solve the misery of the human condition. I now believe most people suffer from serious chemical imbalances. We should be searching for the correct mixture of substances which directly feed the brain. Even I am not always as clear-headed as normal. It is probably the food. We know the calories and vitamins, but what of the minerals, the subtler materials we ingest? Tiny pieces of metal, which never affect us physically, could be entering the cortex, reacting, say with magnetism in the streets, with random electrical impulses. These metallic atoms might be more terrifyingly crucial to our daily lives than the Hydrogen Bomb itself. One day we feel like making friends with the world and the next we want to blow it up. This could be for instance why personalities change so radically during thunderstorms. I wish someone had given me facilities to research this field. I made every effort. I applied to London University some years ago, listing my qualifications, and prepared my paper
Electrical Emissions in the Atmosphere and their Effect on Human Higher Brain Functions,
hoping they would at least allow me to address their doctors. In the end I was reduced to paying a Jewish printer to run off a few hundred copies which I distributed in surgeries and clinics in the Kensington and Chelsea area. I had one or two letters about my theory, but they were from lunatics, from hippies who wanted to tell me the electrical discharges were really messages from flying-saucer people! I disdained to reply. Whether Esmé’s malaise was due to electricity or some other, as yet undiscovered, source, I do not know. At that time I could only nurse her. I got a woman in to make her soups and change the bedding until she should recover. Unknowingly, Seryozha paid for this service.

A few days later, I received a note from Kolya. He was in town again and would like to meet for lunch. He suggested Laperousse at one o’clock. I left Esmé tucked up in our bed with some water and a note telling her where I would be. In my new suit I went to meet my friend. I will not say that I stepped lightly, however, for I was still nervous of meeting Brodmann on the street and, moreover, had no great desire to bump into Seryozha. It seemed my fortune might be about to turn - but everything could be destroyed if either of those individuals found out the truth.

Kolya was wearing black as usual. He stood up to greet me as I crossed the cool, comfortable upstairs room of the restaurant. His double-breasted jacket gave him the air of a well to do merchant banker and made him seem if anything paler. He apologised for not bringing his wife, ‘I thought it would be nice to chat alone.’

I was only too glad of the opportunity. There is a special love which exists between men, a love which the Greeks knew and described, which excludes women. It is noble and it is Spartan, far removed from those sordid meetings in the public lavatories and backstreet pubs of Hampstead Heath and Leicester Square. Kolya and I were almost part of the same being. I shall not deny I worshipped him. Equally, I am certain he loved me. We formed a unity. He was happy with his wife, he said. She was delightfully intelligent and very pretty, as I had doubtless noticed. Unfortunately, doting on him as she did, she wanted to pay for everything and this was not an ideal situation for a man who had always controlled his own fate. However, she had expressed serious interest in my Airship Company and, if she could convince her father and some of his friends to back it, Kolya wondered if he might be made Chairman. Would I object to this? Of course I welcomed the notion. ‘I can think of nothing better!’

In the gloom of a nearby hotel room we opened champagne to toast our coming together again. I could smell his body through his beautiful clothes. I had longed for him more than it was possible to admit, but till now my emotion had been suppressed. He said he, too, had missed me. There is nothing wrong. Christ says there is nothing wrong. It is spiritual, above all else. They accuse me of what their dirty minds invent. My life is my own. I am not their creature. How can these insinuating dwarfs understand my agony? They put a piece of metal in me. They move a magnet behind a card, trying to shift me in the direction they think I should go. But I resist them. I despise their pettiness, their unimaginative morality. It is not based on any true ethic at all. I am above those judges and magistrates. There was no purer love. No purer joy. I was helpless before it. Who could blame me? Their metal turns and twists in my womb, but I shall never conceive that demon-child, no matter what they say or do.
Ich vil geyn mayn aveyres shiteln. Ich vil shiteln mayn zind in vasser. Ich vil gayn tashlikh makhen.
What do they know with their accusations? Even more than his body, I loved his mind, giving myself up to both as I now give myself to God alone. I deny everything. I have done nothing wrong. I am my own master. My blood is pure. I did not let them make me a Mussulman. I was strong, accepting all blows. I did not challenge their lies, save through my actions. I kept silent and was true to myself. Let them believe what they want. They failed to keep me in their camps. They knew it was unjust. They called me vile names, hating me because they said I was perverted. But how could they know? The words were not there: they were dumb and I thrilled with the heat of my salvation. I conquered through the power of my brain, my God given gifts. Kolya knew what this meant. He never accused. He was Christ’s messenger; an angel. He was Mercury. He was silver intelligence, the essence of true Russian nobility, yet like me a victim. They took his power. We were beaten down like corn in the rain. But steppe-nourished corn is hardy; it grows back even before the ashes of the fires have dissipated. Kolya said the meeting was fated. We should both find ourselves again. The wings are beating; that white metal sings. All those cities have failed me, yet I cannot hate them.

Within a week the Company documents were being prepared. A dozen cultured faces with soft mouths and important eyes bent heads and dipped pens until I emerged christened, once more, as Professor Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski, Chief Designer and a leading shareholder of the Transatlantic Aerial Navigation Company of Paris, Brussels and Lucerne: Chairman, Prince Nicholai Feodorovitch Petroff; President, M. Ferdinand de Grion. Anäis’s father had been immediately impressed by what I had shown him. France, he told me soberly, would benefit from the folly and the distress of the Bolshevik beast.

Esmé and I moved to wonderful rooms across from the Luxembourg Gardens. We had the clothes we desired and ate dinners in ancient halls, attending dances in tall civic buildings. My darling rose began at once to bloom. That doctor was a fool. She needed the very opposite of country air. Like me she was nourished by what the city offered. Deprived of it she began to fade. For her sake, however, I did not take her everywhere, but made sure she rested, or found some means of entertaining herself while I visited the clubs of France’s leading men of business. Sometimes I took my huge scrolls of linen paper to a little hotel in Neuilly where, undisturbed, Kolya and I discussed the details of our adventure. With a regular salary I was relieved of my previous anxieties, though Brodmann and Tsipliakov still occasionally haunted me. Now I had powerful friends they would be circumspect, those two, about bothering me. Esmé encouraged me to go out alone; she said she could see it did me good. She was content to remain in our apartment and read or sew. I could now purchase the best quality cocaine. Kolya had abstained from the drug, he said, since Petersburg, but was more than willing to resume an affair with what he called his ‘cold pure mistress of the Moon’. He admitted how bored he had been, how my company brought him back to himself. ‘Even before the ship is built, I can feel myself flying again!’ He was writing poetry, too, but, as he told me with a laugh, he still burned it almost before the ink was dry. ‘Poetry is too indiscreet, expressing inappropriate sentiments for a man of affairs.’ On land to the north of Paris owned by Anäis’s father a giant shed was going up. Mechanics and all necessary varieties of craftsmen were hired. And I became a celebrity.