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I was not distracted, now, by notes from my mother. I did make use, though, of Esmé’s free time. With her strawberry-blonde hair and her superlative taste she made a perfect hostess for my special evenings. Everyone complimented me on Madame Pyatnitski if they were under the impression we were married, or on my ‘fiancée’ or on my ‘cousin’. To intimates I let it be known she was my half-sister. I think that spiritually she was my sister through and through. It was no lie to claim a little blood, too. We had mingled it, often enough, in our childish games. Esmé found enjoyment in what she called my ‘farces’. She would cheerfully lend her energy and her imagination while always insisting that her world outside was ‘real’. This was because she was a nurse and saw so much of the disease, malnutrition and physical destruction. Gangs of homeless children, bezhprizhorni, were beginning to become a serious problem. They had the courage of the pack, the hunger of starving dogs. Cripples and wounded in the streets were impossible to count. Beggars were given public handouts but there were far too many for the system to accommodate. A strong police force was badly needed. Haidamaki militia were inclined either to sudden savagery or absolute laziness when it came to maintaining the Law. There were attempts to recruit former police officers back into the service. But this was only partially successful. In time, Petlyura might have modified and improved conditions, and even rid himself of the hampering burden of nationalism. He did not hate Russia, he said. He hated the ‘enslaving institutions’. He also, I know, hated the Orthodox Church. He had been raised a Catholic, like so many Ukrainians, and here was a fundamental difference few were anxious to touch upon. We were witnessing a low-key religious war. One of my Petlyurist friends actually expressed it best in a joke at his own expense: ‘Some say that a Jesuit is just a Jew who happens to have been born a Christian.’ And there you have it. Many ‘old Bolsheviks’, and a number of new ones in today’s Party, have secret links with the Church which they dare not admit. How much better for us all if they did. A little sanity would return to Russia.

We had a taste of the old rivalry between the Roman Empire of the West and the Hellenic Empire of the East. Kiev saw as many emperors come and go in as short a time as Rome or Constantinople when those Empires fell apart. As my mother said in her merry way: ‘At least under the Rus or the Tatars people had time to get used to their rulers. These days it’s impossible to know who you’re supposed to cheer.’ But she liked Petlyura and his white horse and his gaudy Haidamaki with their baggy trousers and fancy waistcoats and scalp-locks. The Haidamaki had saved Ukraine from Polish oppression in the eighteenth century. They represented another calling on the past in support of a hoped-for future. Ends are defeated by means. The future will always be defeated by the past. The past is a useful metaphor but it is a terrible precedent.

My mother hoped the laundry would be nationalised. As manageress, she would have security without the same responsibility. Petlyura’s brand of socialism, she said, seemed fair enough. Petlyura needed to court what remained of the business people. Again I found myself rising in the world. I knew everyone. I was invited to various high-level meetings. I was called ‘Doctor Pyatnitski’ by everyone and regarded as a scientific Wunderkind. I was allowed to expand on the possibilities of Ukrainian monorails, Ukrainian civil airlines, Ukrainian garden-cities for the workers. My ideas no longer struck people as fantastic. All Ukraine’s potential was to be used. I mentioned special cinemas, education centres, aerial guard-ships which could protect our frontiers from Bolshevik aggression. We should soon have the cream of Russian genius, I pointed out, back in Kiev. Kiev could become the capital of a new Russian Empire (diplomatically I termed it ‘an expanded Ukrainian state’). I spoke of my dreams and I helped others to dream. That was my gift. I offered it to the government and at last the government began to accept. I had no official position. I thought it foolish to accept one. I was only just nineteen years old. At last I had found a ready audience for more complicated ideas, such as my invisible ray device. I made no large claims. Such machines could, however, form a defensive ring (‘an iron ring of light’ as someone said) about a city, making it almost invulnerable. This was the nearest thing to the recent force-field notions of the Americans.