The Vengeance of Rome (14 page)

I did not want to leave. I was home. I wept for Kiev and the days of my greatest security. I wept for Odessa and my greatest happiness. I wept for the future that was stolen from us. They all had guns. They were all greedy. They had become nothing but appetite and they fed on destruction. ‘Let me
stay,' I begged. ‘We cannot allow it to begin again. This is our chance. This is our chance to change the story. Let me stay.'

They took me to an ebony barge swaying on scarlet water. It smelled of flour and blood. They laid me down on the sacks. I could not swallow my grief. Little birds flew out of my mouth; tawny rats gnawed at my genitals. They put a piece of metal in my womb. It is a Star of David. ‘You will be well soon,' said the doctor. ‘You should rest. Your friend, signorina, is of a very highly strung disposition.'

‘He is a genius,' she explained. ‘An artist.'

A figure rose above my head. He carried a long spear which he plunged again and again into the flowing marble around the barge. I wanted desperately to see his face, but he would not show it to me. Dante, I sought my Virgil.

They said it was Charon and the river was the Styx, but this could not be. I was freed, I said. I have been made whole in the Land of the Dead and Anubis is my friend. They should not force me to make that journey again. It was not fair, I said. I have paid the price. I have answered the questions. I have done the deed. I am clean. I have eaten only clean food. I have put on only clean garments. I have purified my thoughts. I have purified my loins. I am redeemed. Let me stay. It is my home. Let me stay.

The black marble waters were silent. I lifted my head and looked down. A thousand golden eyes stared back at me, the eyes of beasts, unforgiving, ungiving, unkind. I wept for my lost future, for my despoiled past.
Gott herrscht, winkend, leitend, wie Wesen auch, die frei sind, handeln, herrscht für die Gegenwart und für die Zukunft! Spricht durch Tat auch, welche die Sterblichen tun, die Gottheit? Weg zur Freiheit?
I do not think so.

I looked for mercy. I found none. Only sympathy. The little girls lifted their voices. Their skirts were like fresh fallen snow, they were so pure.
Kyrie eleison!
What more must I do? I yearned to kiss his long hands. I cannot deny it—he was a Jew. He showed me a line of poetry. It meant nothing. Love grows from within. There is a coil in my womb. It is copper. It conducts electricity. It is cold. They put it there. It forbids love. Ask me any scientific question. I am afraid of betrayal. There was never enough love. We walked into the twilight. They had pissed on Odessa. You could smell it all the way to Arcadia. From Moldavanka came the stench of old smoke. ‘You're a hard one to read,' I said. I could scarcely stop myself from touching him. I wanted his gentleness. I looked for my childhood. Everything was rubble. I decided I must go to the station.

I cry out. My voice is amplified by the bridges and aqueducts. It echoes across the rooftops and comes down the alleys. I must reach the station.

We will get you there soon, they said. Be quiet now. You will wake the city. But my buttocks were alive with ancient pain. Grishenko's whip rose and fell. Brodmann watched in gloating triumph.

I must get to the station. I must get away.

Softly they reassured me but I could not trust those Jews. How could I?

The barge moved through darkness. Too late. We crossed a border. I heard distant laughter. The sky was full of flames and sparks.

They are burning us, I said. They are burning us to death. They have set fire to the
shtetl
.

Just a display, they said. A celebration.

I heard the shrieks and the bangs. I smelled the smoke. Not safe to stay, I said. I cried for my mother and for Esmé. I loved her so much. I wanted her with me. Why did she lie to me? They were all I ever wanted. But how I had longed to fly!

The city of Venus is destroyed. The city of Odysseus rises from the ruins of our common dream. The city of Venus sinks into legend but the city of Odysseus endures, a monument to the Age of Reason. Why could they not leave us alone? What was our crime? We are drowning in our own anger, I said. Nothing is solved. We are making fresh problems. Nothing is reconciled. Blood for blood, they said. Blood for blood. The black barges took the corpses to the coast. Black blood filled the rivers. The streams were viscous and became sewers full of entrails.

The Greeks wept for their stolen souls. They took our future to replace it with an illusion. So many false promises. The black barge carried me through tall canyons. Little birds filled my mouth. I could no longer tell them the truth. The spear thrust at the water. Cruel eyes stared back at me. I discovered no warmth in her breast. I told her that she must escape. She did not understand. It is no longer safe here, I said. Her white arms enclosed me. She tried to make me sleep but I struggled. I could not afford to sleep, I told her.

I asked her to find Mrs Cornelius. Mrs Cornelius can help. My guardian angel. But she could not hear me. We will take you home, she said. You will be safe there. But how could she be telling me the truth? There was no home here any longer that was not dangerous. The dark rivers led only to the Land of Death. They must turn the boat. There was red flame on the horizon. Thick, grey smoke boiled through the canyons and engulfed us. I began to freeze. I am dying, I said. I will die without my past. But the past was dead.

I was lifted in the arms of the boatman. I looked up into his face. Full of distant pity, the face of the Jew in Marrakech stared at me. He had stared until the rats ate his eyes.

They always eat the eyes first, I said. They want no witness to their infamy.

We thought we were cleansing Russia of her sin, cleansing her of the evil within. History is a traitor. Virtue is mocked.

I struggled. But the Jew was too strong for me.

He is the Turnface. That which I execrate is dirt. I eat it not, that I may appease my Genius. Let me not drink lye. Let me not advance blindly into the Netherworld. I am both Man and Woman. I am my own child. I bear my own child. I am the child of myself, which is both Man and Woman. I am created in purity. The Turnface carries my child to the shore. He places me in the Land of Death. When I call to him he is already upon the water, his spear piercing the dark surface below which the Beast swims. By killing myself I can escape the Beast. The Beast has no soul. The Beast cannot follow into the Land of Death.

I am carried through deeper darkness. There are galleries and cloisters which murmur with rage. They are hung with rotting canvases. The fabric disintegrates, falling into rags upon the filthy flagstones. Rusting chains support lamps clogged with the dust of decades; their brass is covered with a patina of betrayal, of ruined dreams and lost causes; all the lies which coagulate here have turned into material filth. No fires burn, yet the shadows slide and twist within the walls. Faces plead from the crumbling plaster.

‘You are safe,' she says. ‘You are home.' But she does not understand. The Turnface has taken me from my home. Now I am alone in the Land of Death. Must I pay another price? How much must I pay and for how long?

I was carried into the citadel of decay. Nothing is allowed to live. They cared for nothing. They valued nothing. They lived only for power and public glory. Their houses are filled with shame. Their houses fill with excrement. They forget their history and their honour. All they once valued, they now despise. They betray their own souls and for that there is no forgiveness.

Those naked youths drift on a bloody river and the girls scream beneath the starving bodies of their captors. The Turk grins to see his victory. Constantinople has fallen. Tsargrad has fallen. And we, protectors of her ancient virtue, we too have fallen, unwept, unburied.

We too have fallen.

She touched her fingers to my mouth. She stroked my eyes. You are safe. You are home. Sleep and you will be well.

But if I sleep I will die.

Something Americans do not understand.

She is soft against me. As if she can pour her own life into me. She cools me with her tears. But I know her strength. It is almost gone. And then I will be alone. I must get to the station. I must escape. We must find the City.

We will go to Rome, she promises. As soon as you are well. You have a fever. You have caught a chill. We will get you something to make you better.

The old man looks down on me. His face is framed by his cowl. He speaks in a low voice, but I cannot understand his language. He uses a dialect. Perhaps it is Etruscan. His blood has dried in his veins but his mouth is sweet. His eyes contain baffled love.

He sings to me. He sings a song they sang in Ur as the first stones were laid. He sings a song of birth, as if he tries to coax the child from my womb. But my child is the child of Death. My child is dead.

He sings. He places his lips upon mine. He breathes the air of centuries into my withered lungs. He blows dust into my eyes. He blows dust into my nostrils. He blows dust into my ears. But still sleep will not come. To sleep is to die, I explain. Not here, he says. Here you are safe. But I am not safe. How could I be safe in this place where all is decay and the very stones rot, collapsing to atoms before the advance of my enemies? I witness an illusion. I see no substance to this house save the substance of corruption. Worms feast upon the library. Worms feast upon memories. Lice infest the carpets. When you tread on them you sink in the pile of luxury. Only when you lift your feet, hanging with maggots, do you understand how you have left your prints in living matter.

That's the only mark one makes upon Time, he says.

That is all you leave for others to follow.

No, he said. There is more. You must stay. You must go back.

I told him to withdraw. He had made himself my enemy. I could no longer trust him. My only chance is to get to the station. My only chance.

He was sorrowing when he went away. I believe he thought he was helping me.

Then her softness took the last of my strength. But I did not care. She had promised to help me find the station.

I still have no real memory of leaving the Palazzo da Bazzanno. Maddy Butter, in scarcely any better condition than I, accompanied me to the railway terminal. Fiorello da Bazzanno himself came to wave us goodbye. He regretted he could not let us have the keys of his flat. He had already loaned them to another friend. But a call to Signora Sarfatti in Rome had been enough to secure us a lovely little cottage off the Via Nicola Porpora near the Zoological Gardens. He knew it. We would find it a miniature paradise. He
would join us in the capital as soon as the festival was over. He was solicitous. ‘My dear friend! Your travels have exhausted you, and I was too thoughtless a host to notice. You will rest in Rome, and when I get there we shall relax together. Then, I insist, you must meet Il Duce. He will not want to let you go!'

My experience of the previous night had certainly depleted my nerves. I could hardly lift my head to thank him. I was scarcely aware of my surroundings. Everything had taken on a phantasmagoric quality. The contrasts were stronger, the angles were sharper, the shadows more dramatic. It was as if, dazed, I was watching a Technicolor film in which the brightness had been dramatically heightened.

Our first-class compartment was everything I remembered from the great days of the Russian Imperial Railways. The company had paid considerable attention to the decor. Glowing mahogany was inset with brass and walnut, upholstery was rich black and gold. Deep armchairs had their own tables, electric lamps and service bell. We found magazines and newspapers in all European languages, a small library of books in Italian, French, English and German, a fresh-air system, iced water and a thoroughly stocked bar. For all her experience of Pullmans, Maddy had never been on a train like it. She was delighted with everything. The sensation of luxury began to lift my spirits a little, too.

I had no desire to take a last look at Venice. Instead, I drew the curtains and closed my eyes, glad to sleep. The train drew away from the City of St Mark, slowly gathering speed and turning west towards Padua on the first stage of our journey to Rome.

I hardly noticed the passing of the first few hours until the grey-haired steward arrived to make up our beds. Chatting to us, he laid out the crisp sheets with expert skill. Did we have everything we needed? Did we wish to have a light supper served in our compartment? Clearly the signor was a little unwell. Was there anything he could do for us?

We thanked him and ordered a supper of salmon and salad which we washed down with a little champagne and a glass or two of excellent wine. The meal cleared, I laid out several generous lines of cocaine to speed our recovery. I know of nothing like that life-sustaining drug for replenishing lost energy. In this alone Freud and I were agreed.

When we had savoured
la neve
we opened our curtains to look at the dark hills and occasional lights of the evening landscape. Maddy wept, held me in her arms and told me how concerned she had been for me. ‘Those people almost
killed
you! If it hadn't been for that doctor, heaven knows what might have happened.'

I considered what his motive had been. She was surprised. Still the innocent American, she thought the Jew had acted out of nothing but kindness. I agreed that this was possible. I had experienced the phenomenon before, in Russia.

‘You spoke much of Russia last night,' said Maddy Butter. ‘I could hardly understand a word. But sometimes you used English. Sometimes French. German, I think. I couldn't make much sense of it.'

Anxious in case I had inadvertently betrayed a trust or been indiscreet, I asked her what I had said.

‘You spoke of Odessa and Kiev, of your mother. You were going to meet her in London. She is with a Mr Green. Who is Esmé?'

‘Esmé is dead,' I told her.

‘You cared for her. Was she your sister?'

I nodded. ‘Killed by anarchists in Ukraine, 1921.'

‘And Kolya?'