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I DECIDED TO ESCAPE. In the night, while we were stopped and everyone slept, I took a map from the table, took a bottle of vodka and some food, and left the train. There was no snow worth mentioning. My plan was to strike out for the nearest good-sized town. Now I was au fait with the ways of partisans I could bluff someone in authority and get transport to Odessa. It might be possible to find a truck. I could repair it as easily as I had repaired Grishenko’s. I was in something of a trance. My memory of those days is hazy. But I know I was anxious to reach my mother and Esmé. I had no other particular plan in mind, save that I might sell Yermeloff’s pistols and purchase a passage on a ship bound for Yalta, which was then in Deniken’s hands. Nobody was sure the French would be able or willing to defend Odessa for long.

Those infernal gods have gathered their forces. They ride the wind which blows upon the West. Nika! Vanquish. The British are to blame. They will let any evil in. They let the east into their own country. Look at Portobello Road. Look at Birmingham. T’hiyyat hametim. Carthage is camped on the island the Phoenicians established as their trading base. Is anything changed? The British will sell their own birthright to Phoenicia for a few rayon scarves and a badly-carved wooden elephant. A culture cannot hold Light and Dark in eternal balance. Persia knew. What have the British made of their Empire? An empty name. And Carthage remains. The gods of Babylon and Tyre will crush London beneath stone feet. Moloch will open his flaming maw: into it will march the British, singing one of their songs. Good riddance! It is all they deserve. They shall be slaves of the Phoenicians again. They shall learn to grovel. They shall become a scattered race of money-grubbing, forehead-touching, dust-eating wretches and they shall weep and wail in their pride, and they shall forget their honour, and they shall tell of a past when they were great, and they shall be heard with contempt, for they shall be great no longer. Nicht kinder. Nicht einiklach.

I came to a dark village. It stank, as so many of them did, and it was silent. The houses were ramshackle. Some were crude thatched huts. It was like an extended, badly-run farmyard. I had been through such places with the Cossacks. I had seen them burn. Before dawn, I settled down against a wall and slept for a little while. I awoke to find a Jew standing over me: a Hasid rabbi. In Yiddish he asked me if I were hungry. I told him I was not. I got up. I had fallen into the hands of Zion. A shtetl. Everywhere signs in Yiddish and Hebrew. The sun shone bright and cold on this stronghold of avarice. I had been sleeping next to a synagogue. My bones ached. The marks of Grishenko’s whip stung, every one, as if fresh. I told him I could not speak Yiddish. He smiled. He spoke through his beard in halting Hebrew. I told him in Russian that I could not speak Hebrew. He did not understand my Russian. I used German. It was better than Ukrainian, which was like Yiddish to me. Even this was difficult. How did they trade? How did they manage to exist? The land was poor here. It was rocky. It was not like our Russian steppe. It was like Old Testament Palestine. The rabbi beckoned to me to follow him. I shook my head.

‘Emmanuel,’ said someone in the group. Black-clad men and women; perhaps it was Saturday. I was outraged. I remember the sensation of terror. My head began to ache. It aches now. I drew myself up. I told the rabbi I represented the Soviet Authority. He nodded and smiled. He was trying to trap me, I suppose. They probably thought I had money. I reached into my pocket and found my pistols. I did have some Petlyura money, with my papers, in my secret pocket. I was too cautious to touch it. They would know. They would set upon me. They would strip me. ‘You are a Jew?’ said a young man in Russian.

Judas call me. Or Peter. I would not confirm it: but I was too frightened to deny it. I made a gesture with my hand.

‘Why are you afraid?’ He was wearing a black suit, a prayer shawl and a peasant shirt. He had a cap on his black hair. His face was the picture of innocence. This made me wary. ‘Cossacks? You have been pursued?’

They had come out of the synagogue. They surrounded me. I kept my head. My hands were on the pommels of the pistols. They took me to a sort of tavern. They opened it. It made Esau’s in Odessa seem like a Petrograd cabaret. I told them I had relatives in Odessa; I was on my way there. They asked where my people lived. The young man had been to Odessa. I remember the sensation of humiliation as I let go of my pride. I told them Slobodka. I had to match cunning with cunning. After all, I had suffered from being called a Jew. Now at least I could turn it to my advantage. I regretted I had left the train. I took out my map. I asked someone to show me where we were.