Having made the boast, I became determined to fulfil it. I could not bear to make a fool of myself in Esmé’s eyes. She was by now a most beautiful young woman, with long, fine golden hair and huge blue eyes. She had pale skin, and that strong, full body typical of Ukrainian women. Yet I still did not see her as anything but an old and trusted friend, though I was by no means free of sexual desire. My main excitement lay in ambling along Kreshchatik at night and ogling the expensive whores who strolled up and down the boulevards. Alternatively I could go in the afternoons to Kircheim’s Café, a famous emporium of coffee and cream-cakes, and look at the young beauties who came there for treats with their mothers. There was more than one dark-eyed schoolgirl who returned my impassioned glances, yet there was none to compare with my wonderful lost Zoyea. A yearning for her still took me to the gorges where the gypsies had once camped; but they camped there no more.
Since I first conceived the idea of a flying man, similar projects have been successful, but in those days the principles of power-weight ratio were not fully understood. Moreover the engine I was to use was not properly suited to the task. I had promised Esmé that I would make my first flight by the next Sunday. I did not tell my boss, who had laughed at me when I had proposed the invention, but the only engine available at this time had come from his workshop. It was part of a repair: a small petrol engine normally used to drive a motor-tricycle belonging to one of Podol’s largest bakery concerns. The motor was in excellent working order and had only been removed while Kouyoumdjian made some adjustments to the chain and rear wheel. A minor job. I now realise that it was completely wrong of me to borrow the engine, particularly one belonging to so important a customer, but my promise to Esmé was paramount in my mind.
When Sarkis Mihailovitch left me to lock up, as he often did, on the Saturday night, I took a small trolley and went to fetch the rest of my equipment. I had prepared the frame which would strap onto my back and give proper clearance for the air-screw. This propellor was fitted over the existing driving-cog on the motor. My greatest aesthetic thrill had come after I had finished carving it. I had built the frame of wood, covered in treated canvas, for wings and for the double tailplane section which would fit on my feet. By keeping my ankles together I believed I could perform the function of a conventional tailplane. I tested the engine and had the satisfaction of seeing the screw spin properly. It was gone midnight, so I left everything ready for the morning and returned home. My mother was in a state of great excitement. She had become convinced I had been murdered. She worried so much about me because there had, in fact, been a child murdered quite close to us. It had been a ritual murder performed by a band of fanatical Zionists and I do not believe they ever caught the Jews responsible. The body had been hidden in a cave in a gorge and its discovery, as I recall, had resulted in a particularly rigorous pogrom. I very much regret the grief I caused my poor mother with my escapades, but she never could understand that certain sacrifices are required not only of those who themselves advance the cause of science, but of those who share our jives.
Early on the Sunday morning I met Esmé and took her to the workshop. There she helped me load all my equipment onto the hand-cart and we trundled it to the Babi ravine, which, being wide, was the most suitable for my experiment. I had to reassure Esmé several times that the flight would be quite safe. There was a certain amount of danger, of course, because this would be the first test, but I expected no real problems. With her help I struggled into the frame and strapped on the wings. I stood at the top of the cliffs, on a path which led to a small ledge and a bench where courting couples would often stop. I planned to run along the path until I came to the ledge and thus give myself a good launch over the gorge (which had a small river going through it). It was a wonderful morning. Esmé wore a white dress and a red pinafore. I wore my oldest clothes. There was mist coming up from the ravine and the sun shone through it. Above us the sky was a perfect, pale blue, and in the distance the smoke from Podol’s tireless factories drifted across the glinting domes and spires of the churches. The morning was very still. As I instructed Esmé how to throw the propellor into motion, the Sunday bells of all our places of worship began to ring at once. I made my first flight to the sound of a hundred pealing tunes!
I remember the way the motor’s shriek drowned the bells. Then I was moving. I ran in long strides down the path. Esmé kept pace with me for part of the way, but fell back. Then I had reached the ledge and had spread my arms, brought up my feet - and began to fall...
The fall lasted only a few seconds. A movement of my hands and I was gaining height again. I rose higher and higher above the gorge until I could see the whole of Kiev before me, could see the Dnieper stretching back into the steppe, could see it rushing down towards the Zaporizhian rapids on its way to the ocean. I could see forests, villages and hills. And, as I floated downward again, I saw Esmé, red and white, looking at me in wonderment and admiration. It was Esmé’s face which distracted me. Somehow I lost control. The motor stopped. There was the noise of rushing air. There was the sound of a scream. Then the bells began to toll again and I was dropping helplessly towards the river at the bottom of the gorge. My thought before my body struck the water was that at least I was to die a noble death. A second Icarus!
TWO
THE NEWS OF MY FLIGHT had appeared in all the Kiev papers. I had soared over the city for several minutes. This flight was witnessed by many people on their way to Church that Sunday morning. Until the Bolsheviks conquered Ukraine my achievement was a matter of record: I had dived and pirouetted in the clear sky; I had been seen over St Andrew’s, St Sophia’s and St Michael’s. I remember a drawing of me in one of the papers, in which I was shown as perching on the green central dome of the Church of the Three Saints. These records were destroyed by the Cheka’s mad desire to simplify the past in the hope that this would, accordingly, simplify the present which so bewildered them and was so much at odds with their over-rationalised creed. If I had been a Communist or a member of their revolutionary youth or some such thing, the story would be quite different. As it was there was more than one worm in my apple. I was pulled out of the river by some soldiers who had seen me fall. I awoke briefly (the propellor had dropped forward and stunned me as I landed in the water) to hear one of them laugh and say: ‘The little Jew was trying to fly!’
My last words before returning to oblivion were: ‘I am not a Jew. And I did fly.’ Of course it was a strange coincidence, I suppose, that so many Jewish souls were to fly to Heaven from this very gorge where the Germans set up their notorious death-camp during the Second World War. It is worth noting here that it was by no means only Jews who died in Babi Jar: Slav soldiers and civilians were killed in their thousands, as well. As usual, of course, the Jews receive the full credit for martyrdom while the others are forgotten. They are masters at publicising their miseries.
Esmé, sliding down the gorge and tearing her dress in an effort to save me, found the soldiers lifting me from the water. It was she who told them where I lived and they carried me back to my mother who immediately fainted and had to be revived by an already somewhat intoxicated Captain Brown, who, a few moments before, had been enlisted to search for me.
One piece of good luck was that the motor was undamaged and was recovered an hour or two later by Sarkis Mihailovitch. I had sustained a broken head, a broken arm and a broken ankle. But I was elated. I had flown! I had proven myself. I would try the experiment again as soon as possible, though next time I decided to employ a smaller child - who would be lighter than myself - and train him to attempt the flight. In that way I could observe what happened if anything went wrong.