“My
father, George Doig, died of the
plague. That was in 1903, when I
was fourteen and he in the flower
of his age. For many years he’d
been the manager of their Moscow
office for Hodge & Co., the
big cotton-brokers. During this
period he made himself attractive
to Irina Rykov, and married her.
She
was the granddaughter of the Rykov
who raised the loan that kept the
Tsar’s army going in 1812. In
this way I was the direct descendant
of the man who saved Russia from Napoleon.
Until recently, these were the principal
facts in my life over which I’ve
had no control. I must add a physical
description of myself.
I can’t
remember having been small. Nanny
Agafya sometimes sought to dominate
me by saying that Mother had spat
me out. ‘Five heaves and there
you were, all slimy and bawling, no
bigger than a gherkin.’ This
has never been the sense I’ve
had of my person. Some initial helplessness,
suckling, infancy, these I concede,
remarking that they belong to the
period of the womb, which had nothing
to do with me. It is from the age
of my first complete memory, four
years and two months, that I date
myself.
It was the day that we moved into
the fifth, the top, floor of an apartment
building off the fashionable end of
the Tverskaya. Moscow was entering
its most capitalist phase. Accommodation
was difficult to find, everything
being half-finished. It was a measure
of Potter Hodge’s satisfaction
with my father that the firm was prepared
to pay the premium on the Tverskaya.
To keep
me quiet while the men were setting
out our furniture, I was bribed with
the gift of a troop of the 1st Sumsky
Hussar Regiment in a polished chestnut
box: black horses, the soldiers in
brick-red breeches and blue dolmans
with yellow braid. The brilliance
of their colours and the evocation
of Russia’s martial glories
made me shudder with excitement. Things
got out of control. It was not my
fault that a subaltern spoke dishonouringly
of his senior officer, or that satisfaction
was demanded.
But
it was I who whispered encouragement
to the captain, I who set the two
chargers and their riders at each
other across the new tan linoleum,
and I who plotted the melee. Sabres
rang. The horses reared as if boxing
each other. They snickered with fear.
Voluble advice came from the seconds,
both of whom I represented. At the
exact moment that the subaltern’s
shako’d head flew off, my father,
made testy by a wek of packing and
argument, was passing the door.
‘Why,
you little devil, I’ll have
you know that I scoured the city for
those. The best, none better in all
of Moscow, and see what you’ve
done to them. Already!’
‘What do you mean, of course
they could be better,’ I countered.
What were they for if not fighting?
I threw the severed head at him. ‘Look
at that.’
For this I was walloped by Nanny Agafya
with the back of a long-handled wooden
clothes brush. It was my first meeting
with physical force, mankind upon
man, object on flesh. The scene has
remained in my mind as an example
to be followed. Pummel! Strap! Flog!
It’s the only way. The carrot
is the solution of the dilettante.
It’s invariably construed as
a sign of weakness. To offer it simply
hedges the issue, defers everything.
From
that day on I have been conscious
only of being the Charlie Doig that
I now am. Six foot two, strong in
the shoulder and broad in the chest.
Wide Russian face, straight dark hair,
stubble. Eyes of blue: not the loony
blue of the German philosopher but
steadier, more brutal, with flecks
of iron and schist. Powerful high-boned
wrists. Mangling stride. A rugged
obnoxious nose. And proper Russian
balls that swing like the planets.
Nothing of the gherkin down there.
My father left a sackful of debts,
which of course made everything even
more desperate for Mother. I loved
them both. Not equally, that would
have been too ideal. But Mother had
an ample allocation, which she knew.
We were happy together. It filled
us with pleasure to be the family
we were. There are no childhood grudges
hanging in my mind like old meat.
Father’s
legacy to me was the unrequited portion
of his ambition. Because he died so
young this came to a sizable bequest,
inferior in neither quantity nor zest.
From the moment I got my hands on
it I desired nothing less than complete
success in everything that I did.
Top of my list was to honour the memory
of my father, which I swore to do
as I knelt praying for his soul.
Next:
a mansion with a flagpole, sobbing
fountains, a butler, footmen, cigars,
concubines, racehorses, silken scarves
and monogrammed underpants. A portrait
of my woman done in crusty oils showing
clearly her emerald rings and the
richness of her bosom-salad, to be
framed with the most glittering vulgarity
my money could buy. This is for the
front hall of the mansion, a knock-over
to greet my visitors. I have wanted
a blond birchwood desk in an office
the size of a banqueting hall so that
the butler bringing my coffee has
to approach for sixty paces down a
narrow red carpet. I have wanted a
hothouse and its dusky perfumes, bushels
of women’s flesh and raw anchovies
and French wines, to gorge myself
on life, cramming everything in together,
with both hands, as a man out of the
desert goes at a swag of grapes."
Thus begins the story of Charlie Doig. I was writing and tearing it up for six months before I discovered the true direction of his character. I still don’t know if I like him. He’s rampant, rancorous, vulgar, loud, amusing and tough: not amoral but heading that way – and so well suited to survive the Russian Revolution. On the other hand he loves beauty (he’s a naturalist by profession) and cries easily. Let’s also remember that this is a novel about the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and that he has to deal with situations that are unthinkable today.
“She laughed, thumbed her nose at me with both hands and ran towards the cart, turning halfway to see if I was coming after her. Her small tufted breasts pressed at her shirt pleats. I could make out just enough of them to imagine their pull and slap. I caught her by the wrists. The roof of my life slid back and she entered. Her lean dark face was framed against the bluest of skies, a face so powerful in its musculature, so capable. It was the most wonderful experience I’d ever had.
So that was where it started, in the spring of 1915, and there was no remedy."
Nor was there an easy remedy when two years later the sluice-gates burst and all the sewage of history flooded across the Russian plains. What do lovers do when beset by ruin and revenge on every side? Everything is simple to decide when there’s only one option. But Charlie Doig had a choice….
