By the next afternoon we were still at anchor, awaiting our cargo. A strong north-easterly blew, making us move in our moorings like a captive balloon. It did not matter to me where we were for I was stretched naked upon the body of a passionate baroness who stroked and scratched me while she whispered delicious, innocent obscenities into my ear. I discovered that she had all the astonishing passion of a virgin girl when to tell the truth I had expected to possess a cool, calculating and relatively experienced mistress: even a somewhat cautious lover.
The Baroness von Ruckstühl was neither cool nor cautious. Her experience had been limited, as was now obvious, but her will rapidly to learn all the arts of debauchery easily compensated for any awkwardness; indeed her awkwardness was itself attractive. I could not have asked for a more delightful understudy, as it were, for Mrs Cornelius. What was more, I reminded myself, as my greedy tongue licked her nipples and my fingers lightly touched her clitoris, she was well-connected; we could be of considerable use to one another. My depression vanished completely. As my first orgasm splashed across her thighs my future was suddenly golden again! For her part she was giddily amazed at my skills, if overly curious as to where I had acquired them. Zolst mir antshuldigen, as we say in Russia.
At the sound of the dinner bell we dressed hurriedly, grinning like happy dogs. I slipped from her cabin with my body singing, my brain full of tremendous new schemes, a thousand wonderful futures, a hundred fresh ideas for our love-making. And that night, during dinner, I was at my wittiest, so much so that Mrs Cornelius leaned over to wink at me and whisper, ‘Wassa matter wiv you, Ivan? ‘Ad a win on the ‘orses?’
Later my Baroness and I met on deck to share a parting embrace before retiring to our respective cabins. In the deep blackness beyond the lines of waiting ships we saw the occasional flicker of fire and heard a distant explosion. ‘Arsonists,’ I told her, ‘without a doubt. Red saboteurs. This is their idea of warfare.’
‘What cowards they are.’
I agreed. ‘The terrible truth, however, is that it is frequently the cowards who win the wars.’
She found this either too profound or too disturbing. After arranging to meet at exactly the same time in her cabin the next day, we went off in opposite directions.
I paused near the bridge to light a cigarette and watch the far-off flames as they subsided. When I looked up at the sky there was a figure suddenly on the narrow deck above me. It was pale and it plainly had no wish to be seen. A man, wrapped in a kind of shawl or short cloak, who coughed almost apologetically and nodded to me. I stared hard at him this time. Again the name came to my lips.
‘Brodmann?’
If it was Brodmann, he was more frightened of me than I was of him. I laughed. ‘What do you mean, up there, playing at ghosts?’
The man drew his shawl closer about his shoulders and disappeared out of sight. I walked swiftly round the deck, trying to reach the stairway down which he must climb if he was to return to his cabin. But he had been too quick for me. The door was shut and although this time I banged on it there was no light inside. Even when I pressed my ear to the louvred panel which, like mine, was stuffed with old newspapers, I could hear nothing.
I went to find Mr Thompson, to ask him when he thought we should arrive in Constantinople.
TWO
NEXT AFTERNOON four coffins came aboard: four long wooden boxes, probably of ammunition. We left Novorossisk with an additional trio of elderly Russian women, a deaf old man, a wounded British captain and his Indian orderly, an Italian Red Cross nurse. We now had one of the most curiously mixed groups of passengers any ship had ever carried. We would be continuously at sea for several days, heading into warmer weather. Our last Russian port of call was to be Batoum. In my new mood I began to look forward to Constantinople, to the prospect of travelling in Europe and settling in London. I wanted so much to be free of Brodmann (or rather the threat of what he represented). I wanted to enjoy the Baroness without the sense that my idyll might be interrupted at any moment. This, I now decided, might be achieved in Constantinople during the few days I would be there.
The delicious geometry of the Baroness blended in my imagination with the more severe geometry of the ship. Both struck me a; shuddering, powerful, uncertain beasts to be controlled with skill and delicacy. On that second day I introduced her to the pleasures of cocaine-sniffing. I heaped her with sensation upon sensation. She was greedy for everything I could offer. ‘It has been so long. I have missed so much.’ She was a huge, arrogant cat which had elected to place herself absolutely in my power. The more obedient she became in pursuit of her lust the more my affection for her increased; yet she never seemed to lose her identity. She remained the
Baroness von Ruckstühl; almost an ally to equal Mrs Cornelius. She called me her ‘mysterious, dark stranger’. She had heard the calumny, too. She said she would not care if I was a Jew and a charlatan; but she believed in me, in my greatness, in my destiny. She thought, she said, that race was of no importance at all. Ich verspreche lhnen! She was a woman of enormous, if specific, generosity.
I had some misgivings, of course. These were to do with my discovering the wealth of passion and sensuality I had unlocked in her; the considerable determination expressed in her feelings which, I feared, might at any moment go out of my control. It was not long, for instance, before her original intention of ‘a brief, illicit love affair’ began to transform into a desire for a longer, possibly more formal, liaison. Soon she suggested breathlessly it would be ‘wonderful if we could be together for a whole night’.
I had already planned to spend more time with her, but I could not help fearing she would choose to interpret a mere inclination as a declaration of fidelity. I had already made it plain to her that my career took precedence over everything else. I looked directly into her great blue-green eyes and said as tenderly as I could: ‘That’s impossible.’
She responded wistfully. ‘I suppose so.’ Yet it was obvious she was already considering another approach. As the end of our voyage drew near, she hoped for some sort of reassurance from me. I was touched by the way she turned her massive head to one side and let her shoulder fall. She was like an enormous schoolgirl. I embraced her, stroking her cheek. ‘Already there has to be considerable gossip,’ I said. ‘The more pernicious because Mrs Cornelius is still officially my wife. And you would suffer far worse from gossip than I.’
‘I don’t give a damn about their gossip, do you?’
It was true I did not much begrudge them their little crumb of scandal. It took their minds from their own troubles and within a fortnight I would be free of them. But it suited me to feign discomfort. ‘I do care,’ I told her. ‘These are times when a little bit of malice can cost you your life.’ Plainly it was up to me to keep a sense of proportion. Moreover, I was still thinking of Brodmann. He had the power to put me in front of a firing squad, should certain people believe him. Similarly, it was important to placate the Baroness. If she became vindictive she could embarrass me with the Allied authorities. Much better that the affair should be brought to a gradual, bitter-sweet conclusion, without anger or tears. Soon she and I would go our own ways. The entire voyage would be remembered as a passing interlude, a pleasant shipboard romance. The Baroness was bound to lose some of her infatuation for me when we disembarked. Nonetheless it was the first time I had enjoyed an affair with a woman denied pleasure for too many years and yet who was used to commanding authority. I was becoming fascinated by her.