She was now a gorgeous white blonde, with huge eyelashes and a delicious cupid’s bow, even more beautiful in all her pink English flesh than she was upon the screen. She wore pale blue silk and pearls. She was drenched in Mitsouko. I was again entirely intoxicated, hypnotised by her exquisite beauty, her aura of glamour. She listened with few comments, eating as I told her my story, every so often urging me to elaborate or continue. She was horrified at what had happened. ‘I just thort you an’ yore bint ‘ad decided America wasn’t good enough fer yer and orf yer went, back to wherever it was. Cor, you poor littel bugger! I can let yer ‘ave a few dollars, if yer like.’
I told her that I was provided for at the moment, though I did ask discreetly for the name of a reliable cocaine supplier. I felt it was high time I refuelled my brain. She put me in touch with a well-known actor who, down on his luck, was supplementing his income working as an agent for a big-time dealer and meanwhile told me her own story, which explained much of what had been mysterious. The very day she had left me at the airfield she had met a handsome young man who, like Hever, was a partner in a film company. ‘The only difference is, Ivan, that this feller was also bloody good-lookin’, in a sleazy sort of way. Like old Trotsky used to be before ‘e started takin’ ‘isself so fuckin’ seriously. I ‘ear ‘e’s in France now, by the way. Them blokes was orlways squabblin’ amongst themselves. Gord, it got borin’ towards the end!’ And then she smiled, remembering some comic incident of those terrible Civil War years when she had helped me out of more than one difficulty. She did not know what had happened to Hever or my steam car. ‘It only larsted a fortnight an’ then I met me Swede, Wolfgang. ‘E sounds like a kraut, but ‘e ain’t. Well, ‘Ever was bitter, I’ll say that much. Very bitter reelly. Took against me an’, I suppose, you. ‘E wrote this stuffy note, talking abart breach o’ promise an’ rubbish like that. Said ‘e wasn’t bloody surprised we’d skipped and we was bofe a pair o’ blackmailin’ scoundrels and he didn’t give a damn ‘oo said wot abart ther fuckin’ KKK, ‘e was buggering off ter Europe and after that he was goin’ ‘untin’ in Africa. Innit amazin’ ‘ow many poor bleedin’ animals get killed jes’ ‘cause some bloke don’t get the rumpo ‘e’s after!’
‘He said nothing of my car?’
‘Not in as many words, Ivan. But I’d guess yer can forget abart that one.’
‘It would have made him millions,’ I said. ‘And me, too, of course.’ I would go to Long Beach tomorrow, gain access to my invention, and perhaps drive it away. Technically, according to our contract, the car was our joint property, but with Hever abroad I must quickly find a new backer. I explained this to Mrs Cornelius, who said I should do what I liked. She’d mentioned, she said, my name as a script-writer and actor to her friend Wolfgang Sjöström, the famous Swedish ‘Sex Director’ who had arrived in Hollywood just as Hays came into office and had, ever since, been gloomily frustrated by what he called ‘the bourgeois kinema’.
He was interested in employing me. I was grateful for her kindness but explained my destiny lay with the conquest and harnessing of the forces of nature for the greater benefit of mankind. Only necessity had made me a play-actor.
She seemed a little disappointed, even sceptical, but she said the chance was always there if I wished to take it. Sjöström had a contract with Goldwyn Studios to make two pictures a year, but he also was a partner in DeLuxe. He could put plenty of small parts my way. I could earn some money while I worked on my inventions. I promised her I would consider this idea.
An hour or two after we had finished the meal and the black servants had cleared it away, ‘Wolfy’ Sjöström came in. I was surprised at his weight. I had visualised someone altogether slimmer and more romantic. Yet clearly Mrs Cornelius saw in this bulky Norseman a hero! I must say I did not care for him much myself. His features had fallen into the deep lines of anxiety neurosis and even when he smiled one had the impression of a man in the throes of indigestion. He seemed condescending and over-eager to me and I suspected that Mrs Cornelius had exaggerated my artistic achievements, especially when he made reference to my books and expressed the breathless piety that some day the American public would be ready for the Philosophical Novel. Of course, my natural frankness made me want to tell him that I was no writer but a practical engineer who merely needed a little financial backing to astonish the world, but, not to embarrass Mrs Cornelius, I remained silent, and soon he had left for another room with my friend. She came back alone about ten minutes later and slipped a few screws of paper into my hand. She had found me the cocaine. Now I understood everything and was grateful. The chauffeur would take me back to the Hollywood Hotel. She would telephone me in a day or so, to see how I was settling, she said, but she evidently did not understand how baffled and unhappy I was concerning Esmé. Unenthusiastically she promised to ask around and find out where Meulemkaumpf, at least, might be discovered.
In greatly improved humour I returned through dreaming groves and gardens to my hotel and spent the night drawing up fresh plans. In the morning I would visit my old landlord to reclaim the belongings Mrs Cornelius told me he was retaining in lieu of rent. Then I would take a Red Car down to Long Beach and gain access to my steam auto. In all justice the Pallenberg Flyer was mine. Let Hever raise what devils he dared, I would take possession of her come what may!
Next morning I arrived at the Long Beach docks where our machine sheds were. Stretching almost to infinity along the concrete quays and bays, the pumps, cranes and oil-derricks were like skeletal dinosaurs, the salt air was crazy with the screech and growl of labouring machines, thick with the stink of a blue industrial haze mingling with the harbour’s cool December air, drifting over water as blue and flat as new-forged steel beneath the winter California sun. Our own sheds had scarcely changed save for a board now advertising something other than Golden State Engineering Developments. Inside the main shed a few mechanics were repairing a little seaplane whose floats had evidently struck the water at the wrong angle. One of the young men, whose overalls bore a profound stratum of stains, had a familiar look to him. Politely I hailed him from just inside the doors. It was Willy Ross, the bright-eyed foreman who had done so much to help get the PXI ready for the road. He looked up, squinting in the light, and then grinned as he recognised me. He came forward, wiping his fingers on a rag, and put out an almost clean hand for me to shake. ‘We all thought you were dead or gone back to Europe, Mr Pallenberg. It’s good to see you. What’s the story?’
I told him briefly what had befallen me and he listened with some sympathy. ‘But I came here to collect my car. The PXI. Where is it now, Willy?’
He put awkward fingers to the back of his neck. ‘There’s not too much of her left, Mr P. I don’t know what you did to him or what he thought you did, but he came down here only a day or so after you’d gone to New York and told us to wheel that steamer out. Just there, on the quay. So we did. We wheeled her out. Then he went to his own car and got this forty-pound sledgehammer from the trunk and just started whanging away at her. Well, you know, he was the boss …’
It would not take a half-crazed Viennese Jew to know what had set John Hever off. It appeared that his only reason for funding the project was to ingratiate himself with Mrs Cornelius. What contempt I suddenly felt for the man! It was clear that he had no vision—even clearer, he had not even sense to respect mine! I let Willy lead me to a metal dump, used by all the machine shops, and there amongst the discarded boilers and engine parts, amongst the ruined elements of every land, sea or air vessel ever made, the pathetic remnants of more than my own dream, I saw the great PXI, its Buick body dented and smashed, every piece of glass destroyed. The hood had fallen open to reveal a ruined mass of tubes, wires and boilers. My steam car was unsalvageable!
At this point horror gave way to anger. What childish folly! Gevalt! What a fool I had been to trust such a chozzer! Mah nishtana! Me duele aquí. They put a piece of metal in my soul. ¡Estoy el corazon! Tak sie raz osiel dasaù! I could
not stand any more. I left in some disorder shivering with anger and disappointment. ‘He went to Europe,’ Willy told me. ‘We were fired. But it’s not hard to get a job around here. I liked your car, Mr P. We all figured she’d do okay.’ He was wistful. ‘I told Bob we were on to something.’
An understatement indeed! Imagine my despair! This was not the first time, even at such an age, I had been bitterly disappointed in my hopes. Is it the fate of all men of vision to be treated thus? I think so. One has good years and bad years. 1924 was, perhaps, not to be one of my better years.
Taking a taxi back to Venice I located the landlord of my old San Juan house and, when he had extorted a vicious $50.00 from me, recovered my bags and bore them back to the hotel. Thankfully the Georgian pistols, all that I had left of my homeland, were still there, along with my plan cases, my clothes, some money and about four ounces of cocaine which I had placed in an air-tight tobacco tin and which was as fresh as when first distilled! The quality was much better than the version familiar to the lower classes, which I had grown used to, and so, save for dashing off a quick letter to Mucker Hever, which would not make his homecoming any more pleasant, I did nothing that evening but clean my goods and get them into order, luxuriating in newly discovered ecstasy. I was glad to have my wardrobe restored to me and, determined not to brood on Hever’s appalling perfidy, dressed in formal elegance. Leaving the hotel, I was delivered by cab to the beachfront at Venice where fashionable bohemians mingled with actors and tycoons. I determined to order myself a magnificent meal at my favourite restaurant, The Doge’s Palace, and then enjoy a cigar and some brandy while I considered how best to approach a new backer for my inventions. The steam car had never been the only card up my sleeve. Afterwards I planned to patronise Madame France’s famous ‘maison’. Soon I would begin to build up another list of telephone numbers from the ‘baby stars’ who were always up for a good time and charged you nothing, save that you promised to help them in their careers if you ever got the chance. The Doge’s Palace remained undimmed in its fanciful glory, framed by tall palms, its forecourt lit by hidden yellow and orange lanterns and I was about to enter when an apparition in the livery of a fifteenth-century condottiere, its black face grinning like the sudden winner of some mighty sweepstake, bellowed from where it was frozen in motion, about to enter a local mogul’s massive Duesenberg: ‘By God! If it ain’t the Flying Dutchman himself!’
Irritated by this insolence I had almost complained to an unsettled doorman when I recognised with dawning pleasure the features of the ‘parking valet’. It was my old railroad companion, my amanuensis, who had shared so many adventures, so much hardship, so many nights talking of books, philosophy and politics when, I like to think, I contributed to his education, encouraging his eagerness to learn and to make something of himself.
‘Jacob Mix!’ I exclaimed in delight. ‘You are in California? How? Why?’
‘Looking for you.’ His grin was self-mocking. Then he became serious. ‘I figured you’d surely make it back here sooner or later. With your luck, it was only a question of waiting till you just naturally came by.’ He spoke without irony, with absolute certainty. For him this meeting had been inevitable.
Laughing happily, I clapped him on the shoulder and reassured the doorman. ‘This gentleman and I are old friends!’ I told Mr Mix I would see him again as soon as I had dined. He continued to offer me his delighted beam. ‘Oh, things are going to get a whole lot better now!’ He spoke almost to himself.
Just as the restaurant door was opened for me by the flunkey, Mr Mix added, ‘I guess I’ve seen that fiancée of yours around town. But maybe you’ve caught up with her by now. Or wised up.’ All thoughts of food driven from my mind, I whirled round. But Jacob Mix had started the Duesenberg and was driving it to the rear of the restaurant. I heard the doorman’s startled shout as I ran in frantic pursuit of that black Cassandra, the scent of a fresh spoor suddenly in my nostrils. Esmé.
Meyn shwester. Meyn trail buddy.
FOUR
YOU THINK YOU ARE without blame? Well, as we used to say in Kiev, there is always room on the tram for one more saint. We were fair judges of people, Jew or Gentile, in the old days before that pseudonymous Red trio saturated the map of Russia in blood and called the result ‘Progress’.
I am not here however to plough up old graves. I myself was once a great believer in the future. You could argue that my convictions were my weakness as well as my strength. Also I trusted others too much, for in that I was always my own worst enemy. I admit it. I continue as best I can to lift high the Torch of Christian Civilisation against the Darkness of the Beast. What better torch indeed! Yet I too have known the burden of guilt and moral ambivalence, the most painfully, the most unbearably, when I have betrayed a fellow human soul! By giving a machine priority over a person and by not arriving in New York earlier to make all appropriate arrangements for transport and hotels, I had betrayed the trust Esmé had placed in me. I had come to understand how it was entirely my fault and no surprise that, in her grief and terror at my presumed betrayal, she had blotted me, her rescuer, her passionate, loving husband, almost entirely from her consciousness.
I was soon to become well aware of her state of mind when I telephoned her at the number Carmelita Geraghty, a well-known ‘baby-star’, gave me.
The hotel agreed she was registered but, every time I called, said she was not available. It was a small but very sophisticated palm-shaded private hotel on Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, in its own grounds. When I presented myself the concierge was polite, accepted my messages, but was otherwise extremely close-mouthed and rather haughty. I understood that this was his habit. I explained some of the tragic events leading to the misunderstanding between us, but nothing I tried would get him to tell me when Esmé was expected back.
My pain was admittedly no more than a dull persistent ache now and I was able to go about my ordinary business without too much effort of will while Carmelita Geraghty, Hazel Keener, Lucille Rickson and Blanche McHaffey helped me forget my heartache. My attempts to contact Esmé became a matter of routine. Every day I left a message. I was a great optimist then. The future seemed infinite and could only improve. It is different now. There are no rules, no boundaries to Time. I grew to maturity and old age in a world that sought to give new shape, even a new meaning, to the universe. What was I to do? Like some ancient mariner cast adrift in an open boat, I made my best effort to chart a safe course for myself across an alien sea beneath an alien sky. The schwartzes swagger into my shop. They say this is their territory now. I am sure it is, I say. It is what things have come to.
Do they delude themselves that I have any time for their zoot and jives, that I envy them their acid society held together by soporifics? I was born into a world of work and pain, where pleasure was earned and paid for, where Nature was not to be Nurtured and Sentimentalised but Tamed, and where crime was punished. There is a piece of metal in my womb. They placed a white-hot iron upon my spirit and my agony filled the galaxy, destroying stars, but I survived even that. I was strengthened by it. I died and came alive. I survived a holocaust. I survived the humiliation and the despair. And even now, living this life of a tradesman, buying and selling the discarded costumes and uniforms of the twentieth century, I at least have my voice, my memory, our history; and I have survived to tell the truth of it. To these children the powerful personalities who created their world have become mythic ogres and demigods. I have seen the realities of an entire planet undergoing profound and unprecedented agonies, the most momentous changes she has ever experienced in this Age of Man. I have seen the reality of individuals dying in abject terror and spiritual agony, one by one, to make—death by death—first one million, then two million, then ten million: million by million they died, and one by one, in ditches and in woods, in trains and in camps, in churches and barns, flats and huts, in snow and rain or perfect sunshine. Shot, buried or drowned, tormented, dehumanised, corrupted, robbed of self-respect
, they died one by one, children and old people; people of every age. Million upon million they watched their loved ones killed. In the name of progress they died for a future that turned to ash even as they themselves perished. That ashen future still clings here and there in those parts of the world most susceptible to temporal cancers. Once those cancers take hold they are almost impossible to eradicate, even with the subtlest, most radical surgery. Not that anyone will listen to those of us who are capable of performing such an operation. This is scarcely an era of bold and unselfish decisions. Greed is now a respectable Virtue and Envy a fine spur to ‘ambition’, or the lust for power. The Lie is commonplace. The old Virtues are mocked and reviled. They roar with laughter at the noblest sentiments and aspirations. It is why I stopped going to watch for glimpses of myself and Mrs Cornelius at the National Film Theatre. The Roads to Yesterday and other great moral fables of our time were the subject of scarcely suppressed mirth. Now occasionally on TV I get to see a 20s movie not entirely murdered by the introduction of a mocking soundtrack. In those days the cinema was worth visiting. It had moral responsibility; it recognised its influence on the public—it offered a new morality, sometimes, too—to lift them above the level of the greedy herd—a level of aspiration. The Roads to Yesterday with Hopalong Cassidy and Vera Reynolds (whom I met years later in the flesh and was able to congratulate on her performance) showed us the world of the past and illuminated the world of today. On the same day I saw a last lyrical tribute to an older West by William S. Hart who had been superseded by the glamorous daredevil Tom Mix in Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Range with Charlie Chan. I enjoyed Ricardo Cortez and Betty Carney in The Pony Express. I was astounded by The Lost World, which I had read as a Strand serial, with Wallace Beery and Bessie Love—it captured my imagination that year until I saw We Moderns, that great moral fable for our time with its powerful climax as the jazz-babies dance obliviously on the deck of the great airship unaware of the plane about to crash into the hull! Certainly, it was based on Zangwill’s book. I have never said that all Jews were immoral! I also saw She with Betty Blythe, Lord Jim and The Wizard of Oz, but We Moderns made the lasting impression and I would have gone to see it more times if I had not begun to realise I was running short of money.
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