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.