The Vengeance of Rome Read Online Free PDF Page B

obtain for me a French diplomatic passport (she had some idea of continuing our liaison when she returned home). I was offered several permanent business opportunities which I was obliged to refuse. My duty I now knew was to get to Rome as soon as possible. Also, the jobs on offer were either unsavoury or liable to place me in peril again. I had had my fill of perils. The secure magnificence of Il Duce’s Italy so near at hand was much more attractive. Even this caution was not enough, however. Soon I learned that enquiries were being made about me in the Outer Market and shortly afterwards I was arrested. Happily it was on a trumped-up vice charge. Even the police thought it ludicrous. They told me they sensed the hand of a jealous woman but I could not help thinking of my old enemy Brodmann. I had nothing to gain by using the French passport. The authorities accepted my Spanish papers, so I was able to pay my way clear only, needless to say, to find myself the subject of extortion. I was rapidly growingreconciled to accepting a previously rejected prospect when one rainy afternoon in the Inner Market, not far from the British Post Office, I recognised two welcome faces.
    Only a Russian, especially a South Russian, will understand the joy of meeting fellow countrymen in a world as alien as Tangier’s. When one of those countrymen is a relative it is no surprise that your Russian will shout out his pleasure and run, arms wide, to embrace him! The faces belonged to none other than my dear cousin Shura and his elegant boss, the Ukrainian turned Parisian, that famous
éminence grise
of French politics, Monsieur Stavisky, whom I had known when a boy and met later at a party of Mistinguett’s in Paris. I had not seen Shura since he had disem-barked from our boat at Tripoli, on some business of Stavisky’s. Now the two sophisticates strolled through the market as if they took the air along the Arcadian corniche. Ignoring the light rain, they were chatting and enjoying the sights and the warm weather. Their stylish suits, in canary yellow and lavender respectively, with matching spats, drew admiring attention from the ever-present touts and beggars of the Tangier streets. Hugging him I noted that Shura’s sleeve, empty since the War, was now filled. I admired his artificial limb. The hand that projected from the crisp linen of his shirt-cuff looked almost real. ‘Oh, Shura! Shura!’ Shura laughed heartily as he recognised me. Even the cool Stavisky showed pleasure at the coincidence. ‘It is a small world, this,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some of that terrible fig brandy they sell here.’ He pointed to a café and we soon took our seats at a little outside table. ‘What are you calling yourself these days, Dimka? Are you still a film star? Are you on location? Or on the run?’ He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.
    My life was suddenly enriched. These true friends understood the necessity and usefulness of a
nom de guerre,
and only needed to learn that I was Señor Juan Miguel Gallibasta, an import/export agent, to accept that I was now, to all intents and purposes, a Spanish national.
    The two Ukrainians were in Tangier on business, making their way to keep an appointment at the Banque d’État du Maroc to take care of the paperwork. Shura was delighted to meet me alive in Tangier. Rumour had it, he said, that I had died upriver in Egypt. Before he disappeared into the bank, Stavisky amiably suggested I join him and Shura on his yacht
Les Bon’ Temps
that evening. ‘We’ll have an Odessa reunion,’ he said. He was leaving for Casa in the morning but Shura would remain with the boat.
    Once again Odessa, the location of my transfiguration, was proving central to my fate. In that city of Odysseus my adventures had begun and mydestiny had been determined. There Shura had been my mentor, my alter ego, my hero. There I had discovered all the