Byzantium Endures by Michael Moorcock, Alan Wall Page A

interpreted by all. My affectionate and admiring ‘How are you, you old bugger?’ to Mr (later Lord) Winston Churchill, at a function for celebrated Polish émigrés, was not as well-received as I had expected and I was never able to thank him, thereafter, for the hearty support he had given to the cause of Russia’s rightful rulers.
     
    I know today that the English share something with the Japanese, who do not like to hear their language spoken too well by foreigners. In Japan, I am told, people who speak perfect Japanese must often pretend to speak it badly in order to be accepted. In common with all Orientals, our Nipponese friends have an elaborate sense of protocol not easily communicated to foreigners. To a lesser extent this is true, in my experience, in all countries. I am by nature the most diplomatic of men, but it has sometimes been my fate to have my motives misinterpreted entirely because I have shown myself unsuitably fluent in a language.
     
    My sense of tact comes naturally to me. I have had it since I was a child. This virtue was encouraged by my mother in her permanent anxiety over the stigma attached to my father’s activities. More than once, when there was some kind of trouble in Kiev, she would be visited by the police. In the main these men were kindly, cheerful officers, merely doing their duty. Even when investigating some major crime, they did not have the pinch-faced fanaticism of Lenin’s ‘leather-coat’ Chekists. Indeed, they were true representatives of the Tsar; kindly, avuncular, a little distant in some ways. They believed that our young men were being led astray by romantic notions primarily of French, German and American origin. I recall hearing that when the Tsar met Kerenski, after the first Revolution, he remarked warmly that ‘He is a man who loves Russia, and I wish I could have known him earlier, for he could have been useful to me.’ Such generosity (more than I might have felt in the circumstances) was typical of the man and typical of the system which received criticism from so many different quarters. When it did take firm action it took it thoroughly and without malice. For every Cossack charge there were a thousand incidents preceding it. Young men of good family were rarely shot for misdemeanours but sent into exile, often to stay with relatives, until their hot blood cooled a little. Only the most persistent or vicious of working-class revolutionaries received long prison sentences or capital punishment. This my mother understood, as she understood that the police had their duty to do. When they called they were always cheerfully received and invited to eat a little cake and take tea from our samovar. I remember the bulky blue and gold greatcoats steaming by the stove. My impression of these men was not at all frightening. I admired their splendid uniforms, their well-kept beards and moustaches. I remember delighting at least one set of these visitors when I informed them, without irony, that if I were not destined to become a great engineer I would wish to become a policeman or a soldier in the service of the Tsar.
     
    As it happened, both my desires were to be granted in a modified way in the future, though even here I was dogged by bad luck and misunderstanding. My mother was extremely proud of my attitude and she was complimented by the officers. One of them, who had presumably known him, remarked that I was considerably more sensible than my father. My mother had smiled, but I could easily tell she was offended by their denigration of my father’s memory. She could accept no criticism of him, even when that criticism reflected well on herself and her only son. The policemen left in good spirits (I think they had had some vodka with their tea) and I remember how my mother drew a deep breath and looked at me oddly before telling me to resume my supper, which had been interrupted by the visit. She leaned against the shelf over the stove, where I normally slept