Eventually it was my cousin Shura, not Wanda, who came for me. He looked rather more respectable this morning, in a shirt, a bow-tie, a grey three-piece suit. He carried a straw boater in his hand. He was a kind-hearted youth and had realised I would feel strange in the new city. He entered without knocking, leaning against the door-frame and winking as usual. Then he closed the door and asked if the clothes I wore (a perfectly good dark jacket and pair of knickerbockers) were what I actually preferred. I pointed out that I had little else. He said ‘something would be done’, then advised me to part my hair with an English parting, in the middle, and offered me his comb, which smelled of brilliantine. I accepted and made a poor attempt at the parting. He sat me down in front of my little dressing table and, tongue between his teeth, produced a precise line. Then he ran the comb thoughtfully through his own cropped locks and nodded his satisfaction. I put on pullover and jacket. ‘I suppose it’s fair enough,’ said Shura. ‘They expect you to look like a schoolboy.’
‘I am a schoolboy,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s why Uncle Semya sent for me. To see who he’s sending to school.’
Shura grinned cynically. ‘Of course he is, the old philanthropist.’
I became angry. ‘He is very kind. He has done a great deal for my mother and myself. He has faith in me. More real faith than my own father had!’
Shura softened. ‘You’re right. Come on, then.’
We passed a blushing Wanda on the stairs. She seemed as fascinated by Shura as I was. He pinched her cheek and whispered something in her ear. She groaned cheerfully and continued on her way.
We descended. We descended further. There were smells of food. We reached the tiled main floor of the house. Sunlight came through stained glass. It shone on hangings, on paintings, on hat-stands and mirrors. We moved towards the back of the house, past the parlour where I had met Aunt Genia, past the dining-room where I had eaten my first meal, and came to a mahogany door on which Shura, all of a sudden grave, knocked.
‘Come in.’ The voice was open, welcoming. We entered. ‘Maxim Arturovitch, your great-uncle, Semyon Josefovitch.’
I had expected a burly patriarch, a bogatyr with a long grey beard wearing a business suit. I encountered a small man with pointed features, a pointed beard, a linen jacket and trousers, a glossy collar under which a neatly-knotted old-fashioned black string-tie lay against the starched shirt-front. His hands had silver rings on them and a dab or two of ink. He seemed shy. He removed his glasses, which he flourished in his left hand as, with his right, he reached towards me through the room. He grasped my arm at the elbow, then gradually, in a series of stages, found my hand, which he pressed and shook. He was only a few inches taller than me. ‘My boy. My nephew. My niece’s only child. What a pleasure. Is your mother as proud of you as she should be? As proud as I am of her? I am your Great-Uncle Semya. Shura has told you. He has looked after you. He is a good boy. But you must teach him your learning. You are to become the wise man of the family, eh?’ He stroked his pointed beard with his spectacles, as if in delight at the idea. ‘You will go to Peter and be Jesus in the Synagogue, eh?’ Peter was what many people called St Petersburg. Great-Uncle Semya had a way of speaking which was more precise than most Odessan speech, but from time to time he would drop into an Odessan accent, as if for emphasis. ‘You will come back to us and be our voice. You have no vocation for law?’
‘I fear not, Semyon Josefovitch ... Science is - ‘
‘Quite so. A lawyer in the family is not to be. Not yet. But a scientist mixes well, of course. A professor comes into social contact with lawyers - and there you have what is almost as good as a lawyer in the family. Advocates in Odessa, little Max, are all scoundrels. It can be said, I suppose, of most professions. But once you are part of the intelligentsia, then you have access to the best scoundrels, eh? They admit you to their secrets they treat you as one of their own. You are the only intellectual we have. You are precious to us. You are to be our family’s pride. Do you like Shakespeare? Puccini? So do I. We’ll go to the opera and the theatre together.’ (He was as good as his word. I was bored, but it gave me an education in drama and music I would otherwise have lacked.)
I began to understand why Uncle Semya wished so much for me to do well at St Petersburg. All his other relatives were succeeding in various mercantile lines. I was the member of the family destined to pursue more abstract affairs.
‘Has Shura offered to show you the city?’ Uncle Semya asked. ‘He must. I would do so myself, but there is the office. Ships and tides wait for nobody. Soap must go to Sevastapol. Coffee must come from Rio. Even though the German mines threaten peaceful vessels. Not that the War is bad for business. Indeed, it is very good for business. If business can be allowed to carry on. Let Shura show you our Odessa. You will love it.’ He opened his jacket and found his wallet. He gave Shura a 10-rouble note. ‘Have a nice lunch somewhere at my expense. I shall see you this evening at dinner. Farewell. And do not overtax the brains while you are here. Save them for St Petersburg.’ He rolled the ‘r’ in each syllable with relish, as if he described some edible delicacy. And we were dismissed.
Outside my great-uncle’s study we found Aunt Genia. She had a pile of pale clothing in her arms. ‘You can’t go out in all that stuff. It’s too warm even now. Here are Vanya’s things. They’ll fit you. And he has his uniform.’ Her son was already in the army. She was a good deal younger than Uncle Semya. Wisely he had waited until his business was well-established before deciding to marry. I thought I would follow his example. My father, after all, had married young and no good had come of that.
With Vanya’s old summer clothes we climbed the stairs again. Under Shura’s eye I donned a chocolate-brown suit, a silky shirt with a soft collar, a panama hat. They seemed ineffably loud and tasteless garments to my Northern eye, but Shura sighed with pleasure. ‘Quite the dandy,’ he said. ‘Vanya used to cut a dash around here before they caught him.’
‘Caught him?’
‘For the army.’
Vanya was to be killed six months later. I was never able to thank him for his part in helping me fit into the life of the ‘Russian Riviera’
I left my knickerbockers hanging over the rail of my bed. Arm in arm with Shura I returned downstairs, sang out a farewell to Aunt Genia and Wanda, who were up to something domestic in the parlour, and sallied into the square.
From high above, the square had seemed like a fantasy land, a set for a musical comedy. Seen close-to it was even more magical. It had filled up since the early morning. Now there were stalls erected around the little central park where men in peaked caps and dark aprons strolled, chatting to one another. Fat women in red or blue headscarves piled bottles and boxes in intricate, vulnerable displays. Fruit and vegetables, some of them strange to my eye, and flowers and cloth added further colour. Large trees shaded green canvas awnings. There was a smell of horses, of sweetstuffs, of blood (as butchers spread wares on wooden slabs and waved away flies). Yet still the dominant smell was of ozone and flowers. Dogs barked at small boys with parcels who ran about apparently at random. A hurdy-gurdy man began to strap on his instrument. He was shouted at by a huge, round-faced woman in a Ukrainian blouse and went off without playing a note.
From far away I heard long moaning sounds and short hootings which could be the sirens of ships. Shura asked me if I wished to take the tram to the harbour or if I would rather walk. I told him I wanted to walk, even though I was anxious to reach the sea. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘then we’ll go through the old cemetery. It’s quickest from here.’ We turned a corner into a street. Though it was full of people complaining about the water-cart coming past and soaking their boots, it seemed almost hushed. Dazed, I turned next into a main street in time to see a squadron of cavalry, its lances decorated with little pennants, its red and blue hussars uniforms looking rather ordinary in that multi-coloured scene (I think they were part of a recruiting parade). We went through a gate into the stillness of the old cemetery: grandiose monuments of black marble, granite and limestone, huge mausoleums, ancient willows. As we got to the other side, Shura said it was possible to climb through a gap in the wall. But he did not want to spoil either his suit or mine. ‘I don’t very often come here, these days,’ he said, wishing to make it clear he had put away childish things.