Byzantium Endures by Michael Moorcock, Alan Wall Page A

typical Southern voice, but I thought then that she was being especially pleasant. Even this heavy-featured creature rolled her ‘r’s with an emphasis which must surely be sexual. I had not heard her properly. ‘What?’
     
    ‘Moths.’
     
    ‘Aha.’ I was reminded of the moth on the Cossack sabre. I recalled the wonder of my trip, the swooning pleasure of my first impressions. I almost wept as I thanked Wanda and watched her leave. I had a bolt on my door. I had water in a jug on a washstand. I had a chamber-pot and a rug, and clean, white sheets and a patchwork quilt and two pillows in embroidered cases. What generous relatives. And how rich. I had had no conception of their wealth. Mother had told me they were well-off but she had never mentioned that they owned an entire building, possibly two (for there were the offices next door). Again I went to the window. The heavy scent of stocks and dying lilac ascended from the square. I felt a breath or two of the southern wind, of the warm, night sea. Then I went to bed. Determined to enjoy my freedom to the full, I masturbated for a short while, thinking of Wanda and her large, passive body, then of Zoyea and finally, when it was over, of ‘the little angel’, Esmé. How she would be impressed by my stories of Odessa. I lay on my back in the darkness looking out at the open window, enjoying the disquieting thrill of being in a room alone at night for the first time. I put my hands behind my head. I smiled with delight at the luxury. I addressed imaginary friends and told them of my luck. I realised as I went to sleep that in my half-dream I had been copying Shura’s confident gestures. I was already half in his power. And I was glad of it.
     
    * * * *
     
    THREE
     
     
    I AWOKE in the warmth of the sun’s rays, blinking. I listened for a moment and heard all kinds of alien sounds: the clanking of trams, the shunting ot goods-trains, horses’ hooves and cart-wheels on cobbles; shouts, laughter. And there was an astonishing smell: a mixture of the ocean and of deliciously rotting fruit and flowers, as if all the foliage of the Eastern seas had come in on the morning tide. I went slowly to my window. Many of the stately houses of the square were still shut up, for it was only a little past dawn. And Odessa had her autumn aurora. Each roof, railing, brick, tree, bush and wall gave off luminescence. The mellow colours shimmered almost imperceptibly in the city’s glowing air.
     
    Kiev had its beauty, but it was a prosaic beauty compared to this glorious enchantment. Every outline, whether it be animal, vegetable, stone or wood, was surrounded by a faint radiance. A red and gold automobile crossed the square to stop outside a newly-opened grocery shop. It was like a car from fairyland. The men and women in it wore white suits, peacock feathers, Japanese silks, patent leather, and seemed to have come from a splendid performance of The Merry Widow.
     
    I expected to hear music at any moment but this was the only sensation lacking. I craned over the small, wrought-iron railing and peered in what I hoped was the direction of the sea. All I saw was pavements, trees, possibly a park. I smelled coffee. I saw girls in black and white uniforms come out into the street bringing jugs to be filled from a milkman’s cart. I smelled fresh bread and identified the source, a baker’s shop at the far corner of the square. A postman went slowly along the street, delivering his letters. Women called to one another from house to house. This was how I had imagined a city like Paris, but never our own Odessa. It was possible to understand why many Russians found the town vulgar, and why so many writers and painters loved it. Pushkin had chosen to live here, for instance.
     
    I was at once stimulated and relaxed. I was on holiday. The conception had not dawned until that moment. A holiday, for instance from school, was when one worked at home. But here, as far as I knew, I had no work