Since the rest of us had never visited Alexandria and only Mrs Cornelius knew London, we had no means of judging the measure of Quelch’s descriptions, although I was inclined to trust them. He did not hate the Middle East, but he did not idealise it either.
That evening I was feeling somewhat gloomy at the prospect of parting from my new friend when I had only recently been forced to lose an old one. Since Tripoli I had been especially glad of Mrs Cornelius’s company but inevitably this made Esmé jealous. Once more, she was taking her meals in her cabin, though the sea-sickness was no longer a problem. Thanks to her, however, Wolf Seaman had recovered his humour, such as it was. He had been nervous, I think, afraid his master Goldfish would learn of our unofficial passenger and decide to recall the expedition. With Shura safely in Tripoli, he became merely surly, no longer quick to start an argument. What was more, for all Mrs Cornelius’s declaration that my Esmé was as useful as a roast ham at a synagogue outing, my little girl overcame her natural shyness, devoting her time to placating Seaman. I reminded Mrs Cornelius how Esmé had become a useful peacemaker. Mrs Cornelius tartly suggested the word I wanted was pirsumchick and I decided to hold my tongue on the subject. Women can be baffling at such times and I suppose I should be grateful they did not come to active war on board the Hope Dempsey. I saw nothing wrong with Esmé’s wish to win the approval of a man who might be useful to her but it was hard for me to understand why Mrs Cornelius, who was not above such strategies herself, could be so critical of a child who would never be her match in the art of ‘vampirism’. I am being complimentary. I have been too long in the world to judge the way anyone—man or woman—makes their living. And for women I agree it is harder, these days. Men are no longer bound by religion and conscience to protect them. Women have more to lose and they must take greater risks. That courage was what I admired in Mrs Cornelius. Why should she despise the same qualities in another woman? Is the competition so fierce? Are the losses so great? Ikh farshtey nit. Because I cannot bear to see two women whom I love at odds, this is somehow a sign that I am insensitive? Here, too, I have also learned to keep my mouth shut. If Catherine Cornelius asks, believe me, I am a feminist. Besides, I have never been against another person’s sexual preferences. Love, I always argued, is the only really important thing. Love, even now, could save us from the pit, from the suffering God puts upon the earth to warn us what Hell is like. It was love which saved me from the camp, in the end. ‘We must learn to understand one another. It is our only chance. To succeed in that will make the rest of this worthwhile.’ With tears in his eyes, Herman Goering himself spoke these words to me. He could not bear to hurt a fly. He had become a vegetarian. I suppose I should think myself lucky that because I try to tell them about the whole man I have merely been accused of fascism. They hounded Goering, after all, to his death. I wept for him when I heard the news, but I was not allowed to speak. I remained silent, like Peter, and I am ashamed. For it was Herman Goering who saved my life. Yet still the world refuses to let me honour him. Society has become too simplified for me. Paradox and contradiction are now the sole province of TV futurists and pop surrealists. They were allowed to make it their own. They became a commercial monopoly. Thus the very qualities distinguishing humanity from the beasts were isolated and turned into a show, something speculators could invest in and which spectators would pay to look at. Fantasy and invention, vision and speculation, all were placed in their own ghettos during the Great Simplification. The human race warred on the very elements which made it distinct. It warred on the Twentieth Century. It devoured and destroyed its own Time. It fought complexity. It fought variety. It fought individuality. And slowly, like Stalin, it began to win. It stifled those elements to death first by putting them into special categories, then by eliminating them entirely from the consensual consciousness, making them something alien and perverse.
All the qualities separating mammal from reptile were burnt out of us. Not for nothing is Satan represented as a snake. What does it matter how they style themselves any more—Tories or Trotskyites? They offer the same thing. Authority demands conformity because it has made conformity and familiarity synonymous with security. They have made a positive virtue of similarity. They have outlawed plurality and take power by promising to eradicate all inconsistency from the world. Do we need such heroes? Alexander the Great united the world while celebrating its variety. He did what no socialist has ever done. He drove Carthage out of the Semitic lands into equatorial Africa. He gave the Semites their chance to be whole again, to continue God’s work and his. Ptolemy and some of his successors tried to maintain Alexander’s momentum. To some extent they succeeded, but then Carthage cunningly returned in the form of a woman. Cleopatra caused the civil war which robbed Rome of her noblest men and ensured the destruction of Egypt’s capital, the greatest city of the Ancient World, famous for her learning and her art, ‘sweet, dreaming Alexandria, palm-shaded city of the sun, crucible of all that reason values,’ as Wheldrake had it. Captain Quelch was the first to note how, in so many of his works, the poet influenced Eliot.
That night, as it became unpleasantly warm, I sought out Captain Quelch, anxious to enjoy the comforting ambience, for the last time, of his wonderful cabin. He, too, was in a sentimental mood, wearing his scarlet Chinese dressing-gown and the pearl-trimmed smoking-cap he had won at a fan-tan game in Shanghai. He insisted I borrow the blue gown, undress and enjoy the sensuality of the silk while I sipped a ballon of perfect cognac, relishing the clear-headed heightening of mind and senses which is conferred by the best cocaine. He talked of home a little, of his schooldays in Kent, the vicarage where he and his brothers had grown up. He revealed almost casually that he had a wife of his own in England. ‘And two strapping lads, a pretty little girl. They’re in Cornwall now, near Bugle. We stay in touch, you know, and I hope to retire there, eventually. Don’t be mistaken, old boy, they never go short, even when I do. I think the pups are a little proud of their sailorman papa.’
‘They plan to join the navy, I suppose?’ I felt oddly embarrassed by a note I interpreted as regret.
‘Good Lord, old boy, I hope not! There never was any money in the sea. I keep hoping they’ll turn out to be lawyers. We could use some of those in the family. You must have a few in yours, eh, Max? Not to mention doctors and violinists and so on.’ None of these occupations was traditional either for a Cossack or a Russian aristocrat, I said, and we shared a minute or two of relaxing laughter. He said that his brother and I would get on famously. ‘More,’ he said, ‘Hibernico.’ And with an air of priestly pleasure he carefully lowered the first disc of Lohengrin to his turntable.
ELEVEN
THE PEOPLE whom you would call heathen or ignorant or merely ‘alien’ have amongst them as many heroes and great men, as many possessed of the finest virtues, as any Christian society; you would recognise as many amongst them as malcontents or evil-doers (the kind who sometimes rise to power over you) as you observe amongst yourselves. So why do you therefore single out and exaggerate these minor differences between you, so that you may feel free to mock and attack them? Is this not a true sin of Pride?
What possible virtue is there in all this terrible competing and quarrelling? You are like a rabble in a maze fighting amongst yourselves rather than pooling your resources to find a way through, to make a common plan. We are all frightened, all desperate for certainty. Not one of us does not secretly yearn to be given a real reason why we should suffer so and then die, perhaps even a reason why some win all life’s rewards, when the equally gifted (or equally ungifted) are allowed to exist in perpetual squalor. We refuse to accept the random qualities of God’s universe, and until we accept them, we shall be forever quarrelling in a maze of our own creation. A political creed is a maze. A religion can be a maze. Even simple faith can create a maze—for we impose simple models upon that which is not simple—as Americans visiting London attempt to impose a grid system upon the tangled streets. Their logic not only fails them a
t this point—they become fearful. Their inability to cope with the warren of streets encourages them to curse the fools who did not have the sense to simplify and lay a rule upon their city. The simple-minded dinosaur did not survive; he could not cope with change. Only by accepting the world as it is and fulfilling our lives in an unpredictable world can we ever know the universal harmony the majority of us long for. Contrary to what these hippies believe, harmony can be achieved by political and philosophical means; so long as the means are not imposed but are presented as arguments in a natural ‘pluralist’ democracy where humane Reason and uncorrupted Law are commonly respected. This is not too much to hope. The means is there. The only logical means of satisfying all Man’s spiritual, physical and psychological needs under a single idea which accepts plurality as its fundamental faith. I speak of the true church, the Church of Constantine, the First Christian Emperor. Ah, Tsar, remebre vus! The little girls scream in the cathedral. Kyrie eleison! Kyrie eleison! The ghost is risen and those temples were so cold one might have thought their contents cryogenically preserved and that the entire Dead of Egypt would, thanks to our warming blood, begin to rise and walk the earth again. Die Geschichte ist niemals gleich; doch es kommt vor, das Ereignisse sich wiederholen. Thus did Hannibal command his legions, ‘Rise from the ashes, and fight again!’ So Carthage sleeps; beautiful Carthage stirs; golden, heathen Carthage groans and opens up one hot and greedy eye to behold the Valley of the Nile, the fertile wonder of our world, the verdant birthplace of all we value and the fount of all we ever knew.
Mother Egypt, our universal Mother Egypt! With what great beauty were you dressed, mother; in what rich splendour! And all the vivid colours of Africa and all the subtleties of an English spring harmonise in you. You are forever beautiful, mother. Even your squalor, your vice, your danger, is beautiful. You were half-beast, still, when you began to build your nation. Your very diseases are exotic and beautiful. Mother Egypt! Mother Egypt! I had not expected you to be so beautiful. L’histoire est un perpetuel recommencement. The Greeks understood this. Even the gods must submit to fate.
Carthage opens up her other eye—and there lies Europe, luscious and rich. Sweet Europe, from the wheatlands of Ukraine to the apple trees of Kent, the pine forests of Lapland, the olive groves of Greece and Spain, the rich cities of the Romans. And Carthage blinks and Carthage grins and golden, mighty, wakening Carthage grinds her savage teeth and licks her scarlet lips and her burning breath stinks of roses. She prepares to feast. Soon, we shall all be silenced. Frightened and bribed into perpetual passivity we shall become no more than the domesticated cattle of Carthage. Then Carthage shall have no need of arms. She shall not need to hunt. Great Carthage becomes a financier and feeds the cows and chickens at weekends, a gentleman farmer called Collins or Carter or Green or some such reassuring English name. This is how Carthage, barbaric and devious, shall enslave us without our ever knowing it. Anyone detecting a glimmer of this truth, who attempts to broadcast the news of our imminent conquest and humiliation, is at best shunned as a lunatic, at worst killed in torment as a lesson to the rest never to utter the fact that our very souls are mortgaged to Satan.
I set this down meo periculo, at my own risk, but I am well aware that no public is likely to see it. Carthage has won not only our bodies but our minds. To her advantage she has learned from English insularity.
Now no one will ever let me tell the truth lest they too enjoy my punishment. They see a great man already humiliated and reduced. The Bishop said so to Mrs Cornelius. Like Abdias in the story, I learned all I know by suffering, by travel and intellectual solitude. Unlike his creator Stifter, I see no special virtue in Abdias’s suffering, solitude or even his travels. I never sought them out. But neither would I let their threat deter me from my course. I once thought I was doomed to wander until Judgement Day, doomed to speak the truth and never be heard.
We should live in harmony with Nature. I am prepared to provide the means by which that is possible. The Gods learned to live with random Nature. Tieck knew that and all the great German writers. We must use our ingenuity to live in accord with Nature, not try to overpower her! My flying cities allow Nature to exist without interference from us and yet remain there to be enjoyed whenever we wish.
Throughout all my vicissitudes this has been my dream. I have a gift for the world. Why would they accept so much dross from those frauds—from Marx and Einstein? What makes Faust a villain and Freud a saviour? There is one obvious answer but of course we are not allowed to give it any more. We have been fully conquered. Already we are refused the basic right to identify our masters. We are fully enslaved. We are even ruled by the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, who as everyone knows bought their titles in Warsaw! I have a leaflet which proves it. It was written by one of those old churchmen from the Polish Club. The Poles of all people know the perfidy of Carthage. They prize Christian chivalry above everything. No wonder the women complain. Chivalry and good manners are a thing of the past. Once a man had to court his woman, prove his wit, his talent and his courage. Today it is all godless, joyless power-coupling—the boy to boast, the girl to feel even a taste of loving a man, her common sisterly dream, virgin or whore. For true love is all, the only dream she is allowed to call her own. Assured that this chimera is theirs to achieve through appropriate acts of obeisance and devotion to men, by appropriate speech and appropriate dress, the women become devious and spiteful. The boys are taught that to fuck and vomit are the two truest tests of status in their community. Their football chants must be a clue. We’re here because we’re here. The desperate call of nihilists down the centuries. We want, ra-ra-ra. We want, ra-ra-ra. We’ll never walk alone! I did it my way. The dumb confidence of the herd. The women I could save. The men are hopeless. They should be sent to the Gold Coast or the Congo or the Andes. One day I shall write about my months in South America following the shipwreck of the John Wesley. I have ever since had a phobia of snakes and alligators which I suspect will stay with me for eternity. We went to The Wandering Jew at the Majestic in Lisbon. It was almost as good as the play, with Matheson Lang recreating his famous rôle. I was deeply moved by the final speech when, refusing to renounce his faith to the Inquisition, Mateus says: ‘The spirit of your Christ is nearer to my heart as I stand here—a Jew—than it could be to those who would so thrust Him between their lips.’ A wonderful speech. I wept. They had a full orchestra. Is this anti-Semitism? The message of the film was clear—we are becoming so far divorced from the virtues of our religion that it takes a noble and envying Jew to show us that what we have is of infinite value. I have pointed this out more than once to that yentzer Barnum, who runs the Festival Novelties in Elgin Crescent, though half of it is toys now. I say his skull is as empty as one of the giant pantomime heads in his window. He says I am just an old Judenhetze. I say this is ridiculous. How can I be? True, he says, it is a miracle to hear such mishegass. Maybe Charlie Chaplin was Adolf Hitler, after all. ‘A split personality, maybe.’
‘It is you who are crazy, my friend,’ I tell him. ‘My God, what nonsense I have to suffer. One of my oldest friends was a Jew. From Odessa. I owe my life to him. Does this make me a likely anti-Semite?’
He cannot answer. They never can, these ‘wise’ guys.
Rabbi Davidson up the street, on the other side of the bridge, claims so much greater an understanding of religion and the world than I. He can never have known the temptations and the terrors of the wilderness, the luxurious pleasures and forbidden tortures of the Orient. I know the East. I have personally experienced the world that gave birth to our common Testament. If I understand nothing else I understand religion. Davidson knows I respect his position and his faith, but I always defeat him in finding Talmudic examples or something from the Apocrypha. He says to me, ‘I believe you must have lived since time began, Colonel Pyatnitski.’
‘No,’ I tell him, ‘I was born when Christ was born.’
He recognises symbolism and plays on words, but only on that rather pr
imitive level of the English who gave the world Browning and then refused to understand him. He is famous today for his passing whimsies, the firearms which bear his name and some verses done for children and old friends. And, of course, for his long-standing feud with John Gielgud, the cinema star. It was on the television recently. When I asked her why she was crying, Mrs Cornelius said she felt sorry for the dog. I had just come out of the toilet and didn’t understand her. ‘Flush,’ she said. ‘Flush!’
It is true I have become a little absent-minded about this. My recent memories are sometimes hazy but I can recall the smell of the vast sweet mint fields gathered up to the walls of Fez like a besieging army, and Alexandria where her mint is diffused to form a liquor that is like drinking scented air which brings springtime back to old men. Who knows what real mint is like now? Today it is debased to flavour envelopes, lavatory cleaner, toothpaste and sex-creams. We had to make do with Vaseline in my day and then the only flavour was petroleum! The pilot brought us into busy Alexandria and even from the lanes I could smell the heady breeze of the real Africa brought to us down from the Nile. On that cool Mediterranean morning when with visible breath we ascended to the deck to find the mist not completely lifted off the water, I imagined I would enjoy a view of Greek and Roman grandeur, rising above the lesser architecture of Turk and Arab, for Captain Quelch had entirely failed to impress me with his insistence on Alexandria’s quintessential dullness. Instead I saw the municipal buildings of provincial England, laid out wherever possible with the kind of flower-gardens one finds assembled in Swiss cities (though a little more wilted), with a minaret here and there as a tasteful reminder of our geographical reality. Here, indeed, was the reassuring Gothic granite and Queen Anne brick of some faintly exotic Bradford. Yet she had a reassuring stateliness and I admired the efficiency of her huge harbour. Ships of the British Merchant Navy were around us on all sides, in company with equally smart ships from the major civilised nations. It was to avoid the ‘miscellaneous’ dock, full of unsavoury native tugs, dhows and rusty tramps from the four corners of the earth, that Captain Quelch, flying a prominent Stars and Stripes, announced himself to our pilot as ‘Samuel Goldwyn’s party’, a fact which was quietly relayed to those on shore, and got the usual escort of honour from our culture-starved sailors who knew the secret identities of their film favourites better than they knew their mothers’ Christian names. Today only Hollywood provides that universal glory once the sole privilege of Alexander the Great. And so remote were these Englishmen from the centres of civilisation that they were keenly prepared to believe us the stars of a dozen as yet unseen epics. Some of them did not even know of the Arbuckle scandal! Had we wished, we could have cheated them of everything they valued, just as itinerant relic-sellers and blessing-brokers of the Middle Ages went amongst ignorant villagers far from Rome or Paris. The sense of power was enormous. These people longed for stories, for glamour, just as their ancestors had. And we, of course, could provide it, perhaps in even larger quantities than Norma Talmadge or John Gilbert, for we had seen all aspects of Hollywood—from its lowest vices to its highest aspirations—and between us could give them far more than any film would ever provide. The pilot apologised. There were extremely tedious and meticulous customs and immigration rules for American citizens bringing special equipment, especially photographic equipment, into the country and it would take several hours to clear us. Almost immediately after we had docked a rosy lieutenant presented the Governor’s compliments, together with his regrets that he was not able to welcome us personally, but that our party was invited to a special reception the following evening. Meanwhile all facilities were at our disposal.
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