‘Of course, victory’s all very well.’ said Barbolin, ‘but what about the works?’
‘What works?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you try playing the fool with us.’ Zherbunov reproached me, ‘Babayasin told us you were issued a tin today.’
‘Ah, you’re talking about the cocaine.’ I said, reaching into the obstetrician’s bag. ‘Works is a word with many different meanings. Perhaps you’d like some ether, like William James?’
‘Who’s he?’ asked Barbolin, grasping the tin in his coarse, broad palm.
‘An English comrade.’
Zherbunov cleared his throat dubiously, but for a moment Barbolin’s face reflected one of those feelings that nineteenth-century Russian artists loved to depict when they were creating national types - the feeling that somewhere out there is a wide and wonderful world, filled with amazing and attractive things, and though you can never seriously hope to reach it yourself, you cannot help sometimes dreaming impossible dreams.
The tension disappeared as though by magic. Zherbunov opened the tin, picked up a knife from the table, scooped up a monstrous amount of the white powder and rapidly stirred it into his vodka. Barbolin did the same, first with his own glass, and then with mine.
‘Now we can do the world revolution justice,’ he said.
My face must have betrayed an element of doubt, because Zherbunov chuckled and said: ‘This goes right back to the Aurora, brother, back to the very beginning. It’s called «Baltic tea».’
They raised their glasses and drained them at a gulp, and there was nothing left for me but to follow their example. Almost immediately my throat became numb. I lit a papyrosa and inhaled deeply, but I could not taste the smoke. We sat there without speaking for about a minute.
‘We should get going,’ Zherbunov said suddenly and rose from the table. ‘Ivan’ll freeze to death down there.’
In a state of numb torpor, I put the tin back into the bag. I hung back in the corridor, trying to find my fur hat, then put on Vorblei’s peaked cap instead. We left the apartment and set off in silence down the dimly lit staircase.
I was suddenly aware that my spirits were calm and easy, and the further I went, the calmer and easier they became. I was not thinking about the future, it was enough for me that I was not threatened by any immediate danger, and as we crossed the dark landings I gazed entranced at the incredibly beautiful snowflakes swirling in the air outside the window-panes. It occurred to me that I myself was like one of those snowflakes, and the wind of fate was bearing me onwards in the wake of the two other snowflakes in black pea-jackets who were stomping down the stairs in front of me. However, despite the euphoria that had enveloped me, I remained capable of a sober assessment of reality and was able to make one interesting observation. While I was still in Petrograd I had been curious about how the sailors managed to keep up those heavy bullet harnesses they wore. On the third-floor landing, where a solitary electric bulb was shining, I spotted several hooks on Zherbunov’s back which held his machine-gun belts together, rather in the manner of a brassiere. I immediately had a vision of Zherbunov and Barbolin preparing themselves for their next killing and helping one another with this difficult element of their toilet like two girls in a bathing hut. It seemed to me yet another proof of the feminine nature of all revolutions. I suddenly understood several of Alexander Blok’s new moods; some involuntary exclamation must have escaped my throat, because Barbolin turned around.
‘And you didn’t want to try it, you nelly,’ he said, exposing a gleaming gold tooth.
We went out into the street. Barbolin said something to the soldier sitting in the front seat of the car, opened the door and we climbed in. The car immediately moved off. Through the rounded windscreen of the passenger cabin I could see a snow-covered back and a sharp-pointed felt helmet. It was as though our carriage were being driven by one of Ibsen’s trolls. I thought that the construction of the automobile was most uncomfortable and, moreover, humiliating for the driver, who was always exposed to the elements - but perhaps this was a deliberate arrangement, so that the passengers could enjoy not only the view through the window, but also savour the inequality of the classes.
I turned towards the side window. The street was empty and the snow falling on to the roadway was exceptionally beautiful. It was illuminated by widely spaced street lamps; by the light of one of them I caught a glimpse of a phrase of graffiti boldly daubed on the wall of a house: ‘lenine est MERDE’.
When the automobile braked to a halt, I was already feeling a little more normal. We alighted on an unfamiliar street beside an entirely undistinguished-looking gateway in a wall, in front of which stood a couple of automobiles and several smart cabs. A little further off I noticed a frightening-looking armoured car with its machine-gun turret buried under a cap of snow, but I had no time for a closer look, for the sailors had already plunged into the gateway. We walked across an inexpressibly bleak courtyard and found ourselves facing a door surmounted by a protruding canopy with volutes and cherubs in the old merchant style. A small signboard had been hung on the canopy: ‘THE MUSICAL SNUFFBOX: LITERARY CABARET’.
There was light showing through the pink curtains drawn tightly across several windows beside the door: from behind them I could hear the plaintively beautiful note of some obscure musical instrument.
Zherbunov tugged the door open sharply, revealing behind it a short corridor hung with fur coats and greatcoats, which ended in a heavy velvet curtain. A man wearing a simple Russian shirt and looking like a convict rose from a stool to meet us.
‘Citizen sailors.’ he began, ‘we don’t…’
With the agility of a circus acrobat Barbolin swung his rifle around his shoulder and struck him with the butt in the base of his belly; the attendant slid down the wall and on to the floor, his hostile face suddenly expressive of weariness and revulsion. Zherbunov pulled aside the curtain, and we entered a dimly lit hall.
Feeling myself fired by an unusual burst of energy, I looked around. The place looked like an ordinary run-of-the-mill restaurant with some pretensions to chic, and the public seated among the dense clouds of smoke at small round tables was quite varied. There was a smell of opium. Nobody took any notice of us, and we sat at a small table not far from the entrance.
The hall was bounded on one side by a brightly lit stage, on which a clean-shaven gentleman in evening dress, with one bare foot, was sitting on a black velvet stool. He was sliding the bow he held in his right hand across the smooth edge of a long saw, one handle of which was pressed against the floor by his foot while the other was gripped tightly in his left hand, so that the saw bent into a trembling curve. When he needed to dampen the vibration of the gleaming strip of metal, he would press his bare foot against it for a second. Beside him on the floor stood a patent-leather shoe with a blind-ingly white sock protruding from it. The sound which the gentleman extracted from his instrument was absolutely unearthly, at once doleful and enchanting. I think he was playing a simple melody, but that was not important; what mattered was the timbre, the modulations of a single note that faded away over an eternity and pierced straight to the very centre of my heart.
The door-curtain at the entrance quivered and the man in the Russian shirt stuck his head and shoulders out from behind it. He clicked his fingers somewhere off into the darkness and nodded towards our table. Then he turned towards us, gave a short, formal bow and disappeared back behind the curtain. Immediately a waiter emerged out of somewhere with a tray in one hand and a copper teapot in the other (there were identical teapots standing on the other tables). The tray held a dish of small pies, three teacups and a tiny whistle. The waiter set the cups out in front of us, filled them from the teapot and then froze in motionless anticipation. I held out a bill drawn at random from my travelling bag - I think it was a ten-dollar note. I could not understand at first what the whistle was doing on the tray, but then I heard a melodic whistling from one of the neighbouring tables, and saw a waiter come dashing over at the sound.