The Golden Sabre. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ royalty. She could never bring herself to see Frederick on the same level as the Prince of Wales. Six years in Russia hadn’t worn away even a thin layer of her Englishness.

      ‘You had better do what Mr Cabell says.’

      ‘Damned proletariat!’ said Frederick and skipped aside as Eden swung her handbag. ‘Wait till Father hears of this!’

      ‘Is there anything I can do, Mr Cabell?’ Eden said stiffly.

      Cabell looked around. The sun had passed beyond the mountains above them and it was cool and pleasant here in the thick stand of firs. Some wild flowers, anemones and gagea, bright scattered trinkets, grew out of soft patches in the rocky earth. Nature’s music, a soft wind in the tree-tops and the whispering trickle of water over rocks, suggested a peace that he welcomed after the events of the day. It would be dark in another two hours and it might be an hour or more before Nikolai returned with the food and water.

      ‘You and Olga clear a spot for us to camp. We’ll stay here tonight and move on first thing in the morning. If you don’t mind soiling your hands, Princess–?’

      ‘One had better become accustomed to working,’ said Olga and picked up a twig between thumb and forefinger and threw it away with a fastidious grace that didn’t bode well for her future among the workers.

      Cabell and Frederick, the latter in sullen silence, changed the tyres. Then Cabell went looking for a place to wash and found a narrow stream dropping down over steps of rocks through the forest. He was out of sight of the others and he stripped off completely and washed himself down with the clear cold water. He wiped the water from himself with the palms of his hands and stood for a moment breathing the cooling air, smelling the forest and watching the green dusk ever so slowly start to creep up between the trees. A blue-grey waxwing bounced from branch to branch looking for supper and a red squirrel slipped like shifting bark up and down the trunk of a tree. This, as much as making a living from the search for oil, was what brought him to these remote spots. He had not left Prairie Avenue just for money alone.

      His father had been an adventurer whose courage ran out when he was only 500 miles from home. Jack Cabell had come down from Quebec heading for the Amazon and then the Andes; he had wanted to see jungles and really great mountains. He had got as far as Chicago and his nerve ran out. From then on he had travelled in books, safe in hardcovers against storm, disease, cannibals. He had kept the books for his son and Matthew Martin, always called that by his mother who had an Irish taste for long-windedness and no liking at all for long distances, had followed his father’s vicarious journeyings. But Matthew Martin had had more courage than Jack Cabell; and horizons called to him like houris. But, unlike most horizon-chasers, he always appreciated what he passed along the way. He smelled invisible flowers, heard silences, saw more than his eye told him. He knew that his job, if he was successful in locating oil, would bring men and equipment to spoil the very things he had enjoyed. But by then he had headed for another horizon and never looked back. That would only bring a sense of guilt and he was not perfect. The world, he hoped, would always be big enough to stay ahead of its despoilers. But sometimes he felt he was whistling into a wind that had not yet begun to blow, that was still beyond time’s horizon.

      He pulled on his clothes, donning his shirt again, and went back to where Eden, Olga and Frederick had cleared a space around the car. The air was cooling by the minute and he knew it would be cold here tonight. The climate could do that here on the eastern slopes of the Urals; the difference between midday and midnight temperatures could sometimes be fifty degrees Fahrenheit. He looked at Eden, wondering how warm she would keep a man.

      ‘There’s a stream over there,’ he said. ‘You can all go and have a wash.’

      ‘Is that an order or a suggestion, Mr Cabell?’ Eden had taken off the jacket of her travelling suit; her once-white blouse was grey with dust and there were dark stains of perspiration under her armpits. She was tired and testy and still upset by the day’s events and she forgot about wooing Cabell to remain with them. Her voice once again was full of governess’ starch.

      ‘You can take it any way you want,’ said Cabell, a little surprised: he had thought they had declared an unspoken truce. ‘But while I’m stuck with a female nanny, two uppity kids and a limp-wristed Cossack, there’s sure as hell not going to be any other boss but me around here.’

      ‘You have a knack for putting people in their place,’ said Eden, still not retreating. ‘Are there any American Tsars?’

      He grinned after her as she stalked off with the two children in tow. Goddam, he thought, how did General Bronevich keep his erection in the face of such scorn? She’d freeze the blood of a cantharides-crazy gorilla. How could he have wondered about her keeping a man warm?

      Half an hour later Nikolai came back with two legs of mutton, two loaves of coarse bread, a small bag of potatoes, two full water-skins and three blackened and dented iron pots. And a load of high indignation.

      ‘Those villagers are capitalist robbers! They saw I was a stranger and everything doubled in price!’

      ‘You two kids peel the spuds,’ said Cabell; then raised his hand threateningly. ‘Get a move on! There’s going to be no loafers in this commune. Everybody works!’

      ‘Bloody Bolshevik tyrant,’ said Frederick and ducked just in time as Eden’s handbag came round in a swift whirl at his head.

      The meal, when it was finally ready to be eaten, did no more than fill their bellies. ‘We eat much better than this at home,’ said Frederick.

      ‘Kid, stop complaining. You’re eating now what the workers in this country have been eating for centuries. Sometimes they didn’t get as much as this. If you don’t like it, just tie a knot in your digestive tract and live on air and your memories of what you had back home. But for crissakes shut up and don’t complain!’

      The boy sat very still for a moment, then suddenly he sprang up and walked off into the trees. Then Nikolai said quietly, ‘Excuse me,’ and got up and went after Frederick. There was silence for a long moment and Cabell put down the plate of mutton stew. He had three tin plates in his own cooking gear and he had doled out the stew on them, keeping a plate for himself and letting the other four share the other two plates between them. He chewed on the last piece of meat in his mouth and it tasted like soft alum.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked across at Olga, who sat as stiff and white as a china doll. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Freddie like that.’

      The child said nothing; then she, too, got up and ran off to join her brother and Nikolai. Eden put down her plate. ‘You say a lot of things that are right, Mr Cabell. You should learn to say them so that they don’t hurt people so much. Especially children. Freddie and Olga aren’t old enough yet to be blamed for what’s wrong with Russia.’

      ‘I know. I’ll go and apologize—’

      ‘No, leave them while they’re with Nikolai – he’ll comfort them. Talk to Freddie in the morning.’ She stood up, began to gather up the plates. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we went on alone to Tiflis. I don’t think we’re very compatible.’

      He looked up at her. She was flushed by the firelight, strands of her hair had fallen down about her face: goddam, he thought, she’s beautiful at times. ‘I’ll sleep on it.’

      Later the children came back, said nothing to Cabell but quietly went about helping Eden with the washing-up. Nikolai, also silent, brought in more wood for the fires. Cabell sat with his back against a tree, feeling as much an outsider as he had ever felt СКАЧАТЬ