Blood of Victory (9 page)

But, anyhow, Russia, on that point at least the mythologists agreed. He was said to have run away from home and poverty at the age of fourteen, making his way to Constantinople, where he joined the
tulumbadschi,
the firemen, a gang that had to be bribed to extinguish fires, which, at times, when business was slow, they set themselves. From there, he graduated to brothel tout, then used his commissions to play the currency markets in the Greek
kasbahs
.

As a young man he’d gone to Athens, where he’d used every penny he’d saved to buy good clothing and an extended residency at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. He next contrived to court, then wed, a Spanish heiress. By this time he’d become Ivan Kostyka, accent on the first syllable, which either was, or was not, his real identity, depending on which of the stories you chose to believe. As for the truth, none of the newspaper reporters who tried to follow the trail in later years ever found a trace of him. Some people said that there had actually been someone with that name but, if he’d lived, he no longer did and any record of him had disappeared as well.

In Athens, Kostyka became intrigued by the potential of the Balkan wars and, speaking at least some of the languages, became a commission salesman for the Schneider-Creusot arms manufacturer of Lille. Selling cannon turned out to be his métier, and he discovered that the greatest profit was to be had by selling them to both sides. Kostyka prospered, having learned to use what was known as the
Système Zaharoff,
or
Système Z,
named for its originator, the greatest of all the arms merchants, the Russian Basil Zaharoff. The
Système Z
called for, first of all, the flattery of political leaders—“If only the world knew you as you really are!” Then for a passionate appeal to patriotism, the same in all countries, and, finally, a reminder of the prestige that the possession of bigger and better armaments brought to statesmen of all nations.

But the key element in the success of the
Système Z
was the operation of a private intelligence service. This was crucial. Kostyka, and other powerful men, men of the world, had to know things. Who to flatter, who to bribe, who to blackmail. Mistresses had to be watched, journalists paid off, rivals destroyed. This was expensive, private detectives and bureaucrats and policemen cost money, but, if you could afford it, worth the expense.

Kostyka made millions. Had castles, paintings, lawyers, stories in the newspapers, had pretty much everything he wanted and, by 1937, Ivan Kostyka had become Baron Kostyka. But it was a Baltic barony, bought from an émigré Lithuanian, and bought in anger. He had, in the 1930s, lived in London, and faithfully served British interests, hoping for a
K,
hoping to become
Sir
Ivan Kostyka.

“But then,” Polanyi said in a Turkish whorehouse, “he got into trouble.”

16 December. It was almost noon, Serebin shivered in his overcoat, the alpine sunlight sparkled on the ice of the St. Moritz municipal skating pond. The skaters were almost all women, slow and sedate as they circled the frozen pond. Serebin sat on a wooden bench, Ivan Kostyka at his side.

As Kostyka’s mistress skated past, in fur hat and long fur coat, a silky little terrier in her arms, Kostyka gave her an indulgent smile and a discreet wave, a Swiss wave, and mouthed the words “Hello, darling.”

When she’d gone by, he turned to Serebin. “Who wants to know?”

“A small enterprise,” Serebin said. “To stop this war.”

“From?”

“Britain.”

“Not France? Free France, as they call themselves?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you know the expression ‘false flag.’”

“I’ve heard it. But, in this case, it doesn’t apply.”

“You give me your word.”

“I do.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Perhaps I can, but not today.”

“I give you time, then. But, if you want my cooperation, I must have a signal.”

Serebin agreed.

“I will have nothing to do with the USSR—or anyone else. Understood?”

“Perfectly.”

“My heart is with England, you see.”

He meant it. At seventy, he was bulky and short, had gray hair, brushed back from his forehead in little waves, and a face carved in pugnacious lines, chin and brow and nose thrust out into a world he didn’t like. “These places,” he said, his voice a mixture of sorrow and contempt. “These Monte Carlos and Portofinos. Vevey, whatnot...”

Poor soul.

It was very quiet, the skates made a soft hiss on the ice. Once again, the woman with the terrier came around the circle, this time gliding to a stop in front of the bench. “Good morning,” she said to Serebin. Then, to Kostyka, “Take him, would you? He’s getting restless.”

Kostyka accepted the dog, which sat on his lap, then yipped and trembled as the woman skated away. “Shhh, Victor. Be nice.” He patted the dog with a big hand but he wasn’t very good at it. “Oil,” he said. “Not for me.”

“Risky, I expect.”

“Not even the word. And the men who run it, my God. You know what Gulbenkian said about oilmen? He said they were like cats, that it was hard to know from the sound of them whether they were fighting or making love.”

Serebin laughed.

“Give me a steel mill,” he said. “Or a railroad or some guns. I’ll show you how to make money.”

“Well, the Germans need oil.”

“Oh yeah, oil and wheat, oil and wheat. Why didn’t he just take Roumania and leave the rest of the world alone? Nobody would’ve cared, you know.”

“Hitler wants more.”

Kostyka snorted at the idea. “He’ll have shit.”

“So then, you’ll help.”

No answer. Kostyka looked at Serebin for a moment, but whatever he saw there wasn’t interesting, so he turned and watched the women as they skated and made a face like a man talking to himself and, Serebin felt as though he could almost hear it, almost see it, whatever machine was running in there was big and powerful and very fast. Eventually he said, “You’ll take lunch with us.”

Oh the mistress.
At the grand Hotel Helvetia, lunch was set out on the balcony of Kostyka’s suite by two waiters, who were tipped, then waved away. Kostyka, his mistress, and Serebin sat around the table and speared chunks of raw beef with their forks and cooked them in a chafing dish of bubbling oil. “Fondue,” Kostyka said. It was like a eulogy for his life.

Kostyka’s companion, introduced as Elsa Karp, was no powder puff. Not at all what Serebin would have expected. She was easily forty, and heavy, wide at the hips, with copious brown hair, a beak nose, a sullen, predatory mouth, and a sexual aura that filled the air and made Serebin almost dizzy. Or maybe that was the altitude, but he certainly felt it as he watched her eat, sitting across the table from him in front of an alp.

“Monsieur Serebin is from Odessa,” Kostyka said.

“We’ve been there,” Elsa said. “It was...”

Kostyka dabbed his cooked beef in a dish of béarnaise sauce. “Summer. A year ago? Two years?”

“Not last summer. The one before.”

Kostyka nodded. That was it.

“We stayed at the Czar’s palace.”

Serebin was puzzled. “Livadia palace?” That was in Yalta, at the southern end of the Crimea.

“We stayed a night there, darling,” Kostyka said. “In Odessa we stayed with General Borzhov.”

“Oh yes, you’re right. Mischa and Katya.” She looked at Serebin and said, “Do you know them?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“She plays the violin.”

Odessa was elegant, she thought. Italian. White and southern. The famous steps. Eisenstein. The baby carriage. She was from Prague, near Prague. She found it much too gray there, too much
Mitteleuropa.
She loved their house in Paris, he must promise to come and see them. She was going to have it redone, but then, the war. Now they would have to wait. Of course, for a
city,
well, London, of course.

“For every man there are three cities,” Kostyka said, quotation marks in his voice. “The city of his birth, the city he loves, and the city where he must live.”

Elsa Karp was animated. “We loved the dinner parties, even with our poor English. Everyone so, brilliant. So clever, the way they, they make you talk.”

Band concerts. Bookstores. Eccentricity. The gardens! Kostyka’s face froze, he was almost in tears. This was, to Serebin, extraordinary, a paradox of human nature—there were people in the world who lived brutal lives, yet, somehow, their feelings stayed close to the surface.

The beef was taking too long to cook. The three of them peered beneath the dish and Elsa Karp adjusted the wick, but the flame remained pale blue and unsteady. Kostyka was annoyed. “Jean Marc!”

Jean Marc appeared from another room. A French aristocrat, a pure type that Serebin easily recognized—tall and slightly stoop-shouldered, with dark hair, his face vain and watchful.

“My
homme de confiance,
” Kostyka said. Confidential assistant, but much more—the title meant absolute discretion, absolute fidelity, the sacrifice of life itself when necessary.
He is armed,
Serebin thought.

Jean Marc turned the wick up as high as it would go, but it didn’t help. “It lacks oil,” he said. “I shall call the waiter.”

Kostyka sighed, sat back in his chair, gave Serebin a certain look.
You see? How it is with us?

By wireless telegraph:

17:25 16 December, 1940

Hotel Helvetia / St. Moritz / Suisse

Saphir / Helikon Trading / Akdeniz 9 / Istanbul / Turquie

Principal requires London confirmation here soonest

Marchais

18 December. The Geneva/Paris night express was almost empty, only a few passengers leaving Switzerland for occupied France. Serebin took a stack of manuscripts from his briefcase and, with a small sigh, for himself, for the universe, began to work.
The Harvest
would not appear for Christmas, but maybe it could be done before the New Year. New Year also needed a boost for morale, didn’t it? Of course it did, and their émigré printer was an angel sent from heaven, explicitly, Serebin thought, for the salvation of editorial souls.

Anyhow, he reminded himself, he liked working on trains. Here was Kacherin, “To Mama.” Oh Jesus. The man never gave up—this poor sweet lady cooked potato pancakes, sat in a chair by her sleeping son, three or four times a year.
Love
rhymed with
above,
also with
stove,
well, it almost did. But then, what the hell, this wasn’t
The Resounding Shell,
or any of the powerful Russian quarterlies. This was
The Harvest,
it had no Blok, no Nabokov. It had Kacherin and his sugar bun for mama. Who was Serebin to deny him his thirty-six lines?
Fix it!
Serebin went for the pencil, determined compassion burst like a bomb in his heart. Even in an imperfect world,
bedizened
didn’t have to rhyme with
wizened.

The pencil hovered, and died in his hand. He had no right to do this. Use it as it was, or leave it out. But then, Kacherin’s dues paid for
The Harvest,
was it not just to include him?
Not really.
He put the poem aside—maybe in, maybe out, he would wait and see if they had room. And, if they didn’t, and Kacherin didn’t get published, he would at least get a banana.

Serebin carried a handsome check drawn on Kostyka’s Paris bank, but the shaking-by-the-heels hadn’t been easy. To Kostyka it was all the same, donating for Christmas baskets was no different than buying a lead mine, it was investment, and it demanded negotiation. How many baskets? What, exactly, was in these baskets? Serebin improvised. Cheese, a sausage, Ukrainian sweet bread, chocolate, every sort of festive delicacy. Kostyka looked grim. That was all well and good, but what about oranges? What about bananas?

Such things existed in Paris, Serebin admitted, but had to be obtained from German sources or on the black market—either way, very expensive. Kostyka didn’t care, these were now
his
Christmas baskets, and
his
Christmas baskets would have an orange
and
a banana. Understood? Agreed? For a moment, Serebin was afraid he was going to have to sign something, but Kostyka stopped short of that. So, they’d find a way to buy the fruit. They had better, Serebin realized, because Kostyka would not forget their contract and would make it his business to find out if the IRU had met its obligations.

Serebin returned to work. He had a story from Boris Balki, called “Tolstoy’s Lizard.” This was good, and definitely in the winter issue. Balki was an émigré who worked as a barman at a Russian nightclub, the Balalaika, up in the tough Clichy district. He didn’t much like Balki, who he found ingratiating and sly, and always up to something, but he wrote clean, steady prose. “Tolstoy’s Lizard” was a retelling of a true story about Maxim Gorky, who habitually followed people, secretly, in order to use them in his fiction. That was nothing new, Balzac had confessed that he did it all the time. Gorky, the story went, had once followed Tolstoy in the forest of Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy had stopped in a clearing to watch a lizard lying on a rock. “Your heart is beating,” Tolstoy said to the lizard. “The sun is shining. You’re happy.” Then he became sorrowful, and said, “I’m not.”

The train slowed suddenly, then jerked to a stop. Serebin looked up from the manuscript. Now what? They were only twenty minutes from the
Kontrolle
at Ferney-Voltaire, certainly not scheduled to stop at some village. Serebin peered out the window but there was only the dark station and the frost-whitened fields of the countryside. He put the manuscript aside and opened the door of his compartment in time to see three men in suits, speaking German in low, excited voices, hurrying toward the end of the car. Two of them carried small automatic pistols, barrels pointed safely at the floor.
Gestapo?
What else.

When they left the train, Serebin followed them to the door, stepped cautiously outside, saw that a few other passengers had done the same thing. Up beyond the locomotive, at the far end of the station, he could see flickering orange light. Serebin took a step along the platform, then another. Somebody said, “What’s the problem?” Nobody knew. Slowly, they all walked toward the fire—nobody had said they couldn’t.