The Laughter of Carthage: Pyat Quartet

by Michael Moorcock

  Valentino in his grandiose nest proved a disappointment. I think he saw me as a rival. He had the manners of a Neapolitan whore and the taste of a Milanese pimp, with his huge self portraits and ramshackle collections of rusting swords and suits of armour. I had tried to be polite to him, suggesting how he might expand his range, given his limitations. I was only too glad to get away from his house. It was depressing. It had a smell of suicide about it. The majority of Lords and Ladies in the World’s Movie Capital were nothing like the sinful, crazed, night-haunted creatures frequently depicted by the press. Most had great poise, humour and kindness. Doubtless the image of Hollywood’s élite giving orgies in their swimming pools or practising perversions on the palm-fringed lawns of their mansions had more to do with the wish-fulfilment of hoi polloi than the ordinary lives of people they envied.

  Esmé was on her way! A telegram confirmed it. She was coming to me. The remorse I had felt since my meeting with Griffith quickly dissipated. I imagined holding my little mistress in my arms again. I drove along the white, twisting canyon roads of that beloved, adopted home, pushing the sprightly Peugeot almost to her limit in a joyous Escape of Motoring. I explored orchards, the fruit groves of the wide valley, peaceful, self-contained settlements like Pasadena, sleepy farming towns like San Fernando. Out beyond Hollywood there were vineyards which would one day produce wine quite as good as Europe’s. The first cuttings had been brought from Bordeaux and Burgundy and had flourished in that idyllic climate, just as her settlers, from Europe, from the East and Mid-West, also grew healthy and virile. The best of her people were young and strong, like the wine. Their dream was nothing less than to build Utopia. It was a dream we shared. And I had practical plans to make it come true.

  Only once did I consider leaving my new home behind and fleeing back to Europe with Esmé. It was a miserable episode. At her suggestion, I one morning agreed to motor out to Anaheim with Astrid Nilsen, the blonde actress. At that time she was said to rival Swanson in her willingness to accept modern, daring roles. She had heard of a good restaurant on our side of the little town and insisted it would be worth the drive. Happy to pass a day or two with a pretty girl (never again would I have to make do with the likes of Mabel and Ethel) I agreed. We left fairly early, driving on dusty dirt roads, through relentless rows of artificially irrigated fields, occasionally relieved by a farmhouse or general store, clean modern villages, each seemingly pressed from the same mould, with a wooden church, a stand of trees, a café. It was twilight by the time Astrid pointed off to the right. She had wonderfully soft, fleshy arms and shoulders. Her strong-boned face was almost Slavic. I saw yellow and red lights, the sign for the road house, but as I turned into the drive was struck by its strange name. ‘How’s that pronounced?’ I asked. ‘And what does it mean?’

  ‘Lady Korohoto’s Sunshine Sushi Bar. It’s Jap food. There are a lot of Japs around here. This place is designed to please foreign devils, I think. Ever eaten the stuff?’

  ‘Don’t you know Russians are the sworn enemies of Japan?’ I was amused, yet felt she had deliberately manipulated me into an uncomfortable position. I could do nothing now however but park the car and escort her up the steps to the verandah of what until recently had been a large, sprawling farmhouse. Now it was painted dull red and black, it had woven silk screens where the windows had been and a few pieces of decoration hanging here and there which I assumed were intended to make you think you were back home in old Nagasaki. We were greeted by a grinning, bobbing yellow girl, dumpy in her constricting gowns, and were escorted into what seemed a fairly conventional restaurant, with ordinary tables and chairs and a long counter taking up the entire left-hand wall. Again the colours were muted, the decorated screens illuminated from behind, but there was nothing too exceptional. ‘See,’ said Astrid, taking my arm and moving closer to me, ‘it’s all pretty unscary, eh?’

  I was not nervous, I said. I was in fact somewhat disapproving. If the Japanese were moving into service industries it was against the spirit of the newly amended California Alien Land Act which made it illegal for Japanese to farm anywhere they competed with Whites, and the Immigration Act denying Japs the status of a quota nation, intended to encourage them to leave. Doubtless they now owned land secretly! As we sat down in the otherwise empty restaurant, I said as much to Astrid.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Max, they’ve got to live somehow,’ she said. ‘They’re being squeezed from every side. Associated Fruitgrowers and every other vested interest in the State.’

  I suppose she, like some women, found the Orient erotic and mysterious. I merely found it threatening. I knew the truth. The Slavs had been conquered by Mongols more than once; had pushed them back again and again, and had been freshly attacked as soon as the numbers grew. These people were breeding even now in California. They were arrogant and ambitious. Voraciously greedy, they worked far longer hours than Anglo-Saxons, to establish this beach-head for their Emperor. But I had hopes of staying overnight with Astrid, so was not prepared to argue with her. Our geisha bobbed, bowed and vanished, but a waitress failed to appear. After twenty minutes even Astrid became impatient. When I walked to the kitchen doors and peered inside nobody was preparing food, though meat and vegetables were there in abundance. The place seemed, like a Mary Celeste, unaccountably abandoned. Could it be a custom? Perhaps an insult, I thought. Astrid was growing uncertain. ‘Maybe it’s their religion?’ she suggested. She jumped at a noise from outside. I pulled back one of the blinds to see what had caused it and became instantly terrified.

  A huge cross burned in the yard. Grouped round it, with guns crooked in their folded arms, were at least fifty silently waiting Klansmen!

  I sat down heavily in my chair.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ She was white with horror. ‘A swell idea, huh?’

  A salvo of shots came from the yard. ‘They’re warning us to leave,’ I said. ‘This place is going to burn. We’re going to have to give them a good story. Come on.’ We walked to the exit and emerged onto the verandah. We had our hands raised. ‘What on earth’s going on?’ I demanded, hoping I sounded properly outraged.

  One of the leaders whistled sharply. He said, almost in delight. ‘Looks like we’ve found the Commie bastards that’s been organising them, Sam.’ He offered me a mocking bow. ‘Welcome to the clambake, comrades. You’re the clams.’ They all laughed at this. Astrid raised her hand to her face, almost like a signal.

  I shall never be quite sure if the actress, who claimed to be Danish, was actually a Chekist agent employed by Brodmann to frighten me away from Hollywood. The suspicion was there from the moment I heard the Klansman speak. I was appalled at my situation. To display too much knowledge of the Klan might alert them to my identity, whereupon I would almost certainly be killed. I had to prove that I was neither a Communist organiser (these rural areas became rotten with them) nor a Japanese sympathiser. Within the nightmare, I found myself moving towards them. Rapidly I explained how my wife and I were travelling to Los Angeles to board our liner which would take us home to Australia. Thus I identified our accents, making it clear we were innocent tourists. We had stopped at the roadhouse simply because we were hungry. I was relieved, listening to them discuss this amongst themselves, to learn they were all local people. Even as the debate continued, some were setting fire to the restaurant. Now of course the absence of customers was explained. I saw two of the squealing geishas being carried, wrapped in wire, to a nearby truck. I emphasised to the cold blue eyes that we of the outbacks and billabongs were equally aware of the yellow menace. We had solved our problem by banning all coloured races from our shores. This seemed to convince them. The whole time, however, even when they lowered their guns and gestured for us to get in our car, I feared that their apparent belief was a charade. I could not guess what Callahan had done (it might suit him to betray me), or what Brodmann intended. I did not know how much power Mrs Mawgan still possessed. She might only have temporarily resigned so as not be caught in the trap which ruin
ed Clarke and the others. She rather than Brodmann could have paid or blackmailed Astrid into setting me up. It was certainly in Mrs Mawgan’s interest to have me killed.

  I approached the car. After several attempts the starting handle finally kicked in my sweating hand and the motor was running. Astrid climbed in. Her face was whiter than the moon, which now, huge in a clear, black sky, framed her head like the halo on the ikons of our old Kiev saints. She seemed genuinely terrified, but that might merely mean she feared my revenge, or the punishment of her employers. The waving hoods surrounded us. Flames took hold of the building. Her silk screens burned first, leaving black holes in the wooden frame. Red fire gasped, smoke poured into the sky and the moon grew dimmer. I had thought to see the last of the Klan. I swore I would remain in cities for the rest of my life. The countryside had never been my friend.

  The man addressed as Sam wore flowing purple: a Grand Dragon. ‘We’re neither bullies nor cowards,’ he said evenly, ‘but honest, simple people fighting for what belongs to us. The Federal Government seeks to deliver our birthright into the hands of aliens. You go home, my friends, and tell your folks they know what they’re doing. Take them and all other Anglo-Saxon peoples this message: Wherever white protestants are threatened, the Knights of the Invisible Empire will strike and strike hard. You can sleep safely tonight, wherever you stay, and know you are protected. Have a safe journey, now, and come back soon, y’hear.’

  Never, in that last phrase, had a tone so clearly contradicted the sentiments it expressed. I think he had warned me. I could not expect a third reprieve. I said little to Astrid as we drove away from the hissing blaze. She was full of indignation. She said we should contact the nearest police force. Then she subsided. ‘I guess they’re all part of it.’ She began to speak of contacting someone in Los Angeles, perhaps a Federal agency. ‘They had those girls. What were they going to do?’

  ‘I think you should try to forget it all.’ I remained distant, for this could easily be one of her best performances. ‘Everyone, from locals, like those people back there, to the President, has made it clear Japs aren’t welcome in America. If you report this you could be kicked out as some kind of political agitator.’

  This allowed her to think before she said anything more. I was glad, after a miserable journey, to see the lights of Hollywood’s hillside palaces on the horizon. I dropped her off outside her 3rd Street apartment house. She said, ‘Don’t you want to come in for a while?’

  ‘No, thanks. You never know what you’re going to catch these days.’ I was still angry. I had been put through too much. I had been forced to draw on mental and spiritual resources properly reserved for my gas car and for Esmé. I had almost lost her, even before she arrived in New York. I had been made to cringe and lie in front of someone who might now be delighting in my discomfort, reporting the news to an envious, revengeful Jew or amused Catholic, even to Mrs Mawgan. Possibly they were scheming a new means of destroying me. Not content with her initial betrayal she might now wish to wipe out all past associates. How could I warn those Klansmen that they were being used to exploit the petty personal ambitions of greedy, corrupt men and women? It would be a blow to all they cherished. And if they already knew, one had to face the alarming implication: that America now no longer possessed any organised means of defending herself against those millions of secret enemies already scheming her destruction. Whether they were called IWW, Labour Unions, Anarchists, the Organisation of this ‘minority’ or that ‘racial group’, whether they had any specific name at all, they were all agents of Carthage. This was thoroughly proved, of course, in 1941. Then America, by rounding up the Japanese, narrowly avoided defeat from within. Zey vein komen. They will surely come again.

  I drove on to Sycamore until I reached Venice Boulevard. Often I was the only car on the road. Venice Boulevard passed through forests and parkland. A few lights were visible from little settlements, office blocks and private houses set wide apart: a tribute to modern ideas of what twentieth-century civilisation could be, if carefully planned. By the time I reached Venice the amusement park and pier were shutting down for the night. A Yellow Car rattled by, the last trolley bearing tired fun-makers back to the more sedate suburbs. I turned inland a few blocks until I was on San Juan, where I had my little, unpretentious house, deeply glad to be close to the ordinary human bustle, the familiarity of a town. No matter how fantastic her surface, Venice was ordinarily lively and cosmopolitan, sufficiently like old Odessa to bring a measure of tranquillity to my troubled mind. Nonetheless, I was cautious when I opened my front door, and would have been unsurprised to see Callahan, Brodmann, or a fresh assembly of pointed hoods, waiting for me. I went straight to bed, determined to be at my best for Esmé, and for the tests which we were due to run on the car we called Pallenberg’s Experimental Type I.

  Next day was Sunday. I would rather have spent time in Long Beach, seeing how work was progressing, but had agreed to escort Mrs Cornelius to the pictures. She still had not received a result of her screen test. Hever had said it sometimes took a week or two. The studio was particularly busy. She was sure however she would not be offered a contract by Lasky. Hever was already making a further appointment with MGM. There, he was confident, she would ‘knock them all out’ immediately. He had suggested Lasky first, I suspect, because he did not want his friend Goldfish to think he was merely trying to find work for some ‘bimbo’. The tycoon remained very sensitive to such suggestions and could become surprisingly angry if Mrs Cornelius’s talents were ever questioned. His investment in her was by no means merely financial. We saw Orpheus of the Storm. As I watched, my longing for Esmé became physically painful.

  On 25th July 1924 we wheeled the PXI out of her shed. To all appearances she had narrowly survived a wreck, for her paint was chipped and body work battered. Underneath her hood however was my powerful experimental engine. Gas cylinders filled the spaces where the trunk and fuel tank had been; there were extra gauges on the dash. None of these were marked, but we knew they measured pressure and flow, while a bank of switches operated individual cylinders and valves. Mrs Cornelius had been persuaded to come with Mucker Hever. She seemed a trifle unhappy, as if suspecting we would all be blown up. I reassured her. The PXI was safer than a conventional car, and far more efficient. She got in, sitting on the edge of the back seat, looking around her at nothing in particular, occasionally whistling a few bars of a favourite melody, trying to remember not to smoke. Hever loomed over me, nodding as I explained the controls and instruments. Willy Ross, my young foreman, stood leaning casually with his backside against the hood, chatting to the other mechanics and enjoying the warmth of the early-morning sunshine. A mist was lifting from the sluggish waters of Long Beach harbour. Ships moaned. A few gulls strutted up and down the concrete like Pigalle hookers, as if to be admired, possibly approached with a proposition. Here and there you could catch the occasional sound of doors being opened, electric motors beginning to turn as our fellow optimists got down to working on their own future hopes: motorcycles, seaplanes, engineering machinery, boats, domestic appliances. It appeared that the whole of America, or at least her western shores, was labouring toward the technological salvation of mankind.

  Under Hever’s mild but curious eyes and Mrs Cornelius’s agitated glare, I switched the automatic ignition to on. I waited for the red light to blink, then engaged the engine. It was wonderful to hear it wailing into life, shaking the whole chassis, then become a growling, urgent beast. I let go the brakes and put her into gear. Willy and our mechanics cheered. With a triumphant wave, I moved forward at speed, so elated that the car was doing everything I had expected that I forgot briefly to check for other drivers. I narrowly missed a truck and a Packard, recovered control of my roaring machine, and headed North. We sped along Roosevelt Highway with the wide Pacific Ocean on our left. The constantly growing organism of Greater Los Angeles was on our right. White towers thrust themselves from thick stands of greenery, handsome houses, set back fr
om the road in smooth lawns, had apparently come into existence overnight; hotels and apartment blocks glittered in the soft morning sunshine. All I missed was Esmé beside me to share my glory and my happiness. There could be no experience more transforming than this. The ponderous Pacific, blue and white, rolled against perfect beaches of yellow sand. In the sky a small biplane circled lazily down towards Burbank and a flock of seabirds rose over Palos Verdes, turning and banking almost as one above the dignified grandeur of her piles. The colours of the morning were more vivid than ever before. The vast, untroubled city, so confident in her riches and her cultural predominance, was the finest of all possible worlds. The PXI shouted my joy. I had succeeded at last. I was vindicated. I was, within the space of half an hour, compensated for every minute, every year of my suffering and misfortune. Beside me Mucker Hever was laughing like a boy as he clung to the leather strap. The wind brought a flush to his features. His eyes were bright with dawning understanding of the car’s potential. When he glanced at me I knew he realised he had been granted one of the greatest honours known to man: that of serving Genius. We passed Venice and Santa Monica. Only as we thundered inland from Pacific Palisades, heading for the San Fernando Valley, did Hever notice, with a little less concern than usual, that Mrs Cornelius lay back across her seat, rolling her eyes. Concentrating on keeping a rein on my monster I could do nothing save smile reassuringly over my shoulder. Her skin had turned pale green. I shouted above the noise, trying to tell her it would be folly to stop the car now, so far from base. At the first opportunity, just as the blue light flashed a warning to switch to my next tank, I took the steep, twisting road which led me at last onto Sunset Boulevard. Climbing steadily between grassy hills and landscaped woods, miniature lakes and vast private lawns, we passed a dozen princely houses all in various stages of construction. I at last eased my car to a halt outside the Beverly Hills Hotel. True to form, Mrs Cornelius had thrown up on the floor. ‘Sorry, Ivan,’ she mumbered as Hever helped her out. ‘I never knew it’d go so bleedin’ farst. Shouldn’t o’ ‘ad ther bleedin’ kipper, should I?’