‘The desert, it’s true, my dear chap, is crammed with hazards. Those heathen fellows were Tripoli Berbers mostly, I suspect. The British police are powerless of course. Well run, pretty demoiselle!’
‘You will appreciate, Sir Ranalf, the superiority of my Desert Liner over the desert motor-car. A freight Desert Liner of three hundred and fifty tons would cost about twenty-six thousand pounds. Forty motor-trucks would cost, say, five hundred pounds apiece. Armed with Bofors and Bannings my liner costs about six thousand pounds more than the trucks, yet the running expenses of forty motor-trucks on a dirt-track without tank stations would be considerably higher than that of my luxury cruiser of the dunes. Each truck would require at least two chauffeurs, for instance, making a minimum staff of eighty men. A crew of twenty is sufficient to run and man my liner! The population of wild desert tribes is reckoned at some three and a half million. Wild beasts are another common danger. Where trucks would have to make camp and guard against these threats, my liner ploughs on day and night without a halt. Thomas Cook should be especially interested.’
‘Howzat! Ha! Ha! Howzat! Cook?’ Sir Ranalf glared at me almost in alarm. ‘Oh, no! We’ll sort something out without involving them. My partner in Aswan is always interested in daring new notions. I am sure he would love to back you to the hilt. And there are others I know in Alexandria and Cairo. Perhaps even here in Luxor. See me later, famous bard, and I shall be delighted to help you find someone for your ship!’ His eyes wandered again to the willow and the leather. ‘A scheme, my handsome mechanic, worthy of the Suez Canal and all who built her! I am mightily impressed.’ And then he could resist the contest no longer and went rolling and panting through the dust to snatch the bat from Esmé’s hands and call an incoherent challenge to Professor Quelch who, thoughtfully rubbing his ball upon his bottom, began the long stroll backwards which was a special feature of this game.
Everyone who knew me in 1926 knew where Bischoff of Kiel got his plans, lock, stock and barrel when he announced the building of the Countess Marianna. As it was, the Nazis scratched all Bischoff’s experiments and research when they came to power. I understood Hitler’s decision, but he was already growing into another short-sighted politician. Thanks to their ideology they needed to show the public immediate gains. As with Stalin, life, dignity, spirit, everything was sacrificed. Goebbels was right. He and his friends were, indeed, temperamental opposites of the patient Jew. Seaman was himself very Teutonic and determined. The Slav possesses both virtues, which is why he survives so successfully through history’s ups and downs, resisting all outside conquerors.
My patience saved me undue exertion, whereas Seaman grew increasingly frustrated at the antics of his inefficient crew and at Sir Ranalf’s interference. With the second problem, I sympathised. I had explained to Sir Ranalf how a producer’s function is to be the efficient medium of the artist’s creativity, but he had tasted previously unguessed-at power and wanted to embrace it forever. Did the film have sufficient ‘authority’? Sir Ranalf mused. When we did not follow his reasoning, he explained that so far we had to take too much in the film for granted. The characters needed deepening.
As a team we united against him. We were not sure what he meant by ‘deepening’, we said. All the actors, even Esmé, had given extremely good performances. They were real people on the screen, with whom other real people could identify.
‘But not everyone!’ Sir Ranalf insisted the film have as universal an appeal as possible. He was not sure he really believed, for instance, that Esmé was actually a voluptuously sensual temptress. I was offended by this. Our rushes showed Esmé to be thoroughly sexual. Clara Bow herself had said as much about Esmé.
‘But do we believe she could seduce the greatest priest in Egypt, the noblest of men, your good self, Ah-ke-tep! You are the mightiest engineering genius the world had ever known, sweet esquire, Rameses the Second’s most powerful architect!’
He had no need to butter my parsnips. Better than any I understood my story’s symbolism! I could not deny, for instance, a certain autobiographical strain. Yet I was puzzled by his body language. I was reminded of a semaphoring squid.
‘I think we should show Ru-a-na in a scene of her own. Where she reveals her charms to you.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Wot?’
Mrs Cornelius came ploughing through the dust to gulp refreshment. She had been on a camel most of the morning and unlike myself had no affinity for the animal. ‘Dirt?’
‘A scene of artistic nudity.’ Sir Ranalf ignored Mrs Cornelius, fuming and scarlet, behind him.
‘Wot the effin’ butler sor!’ she declared. ‘I noo you wos a twisted ticket, Rannie. Someone tol’ me yer made yer pile in dirty pictures!’
‘Really, my dear Queen of the Nile, I assure you I speak for the whole of Europe, where the nude scene is an accepted convention of the medium. In America, where prudishness reigns, I would agree that is not so. But surely you, as cosmopolitans, understand that I demand nothing unworthy of your great talents?’
‘Too effin’ right, chum.’ Mrs Cornelius drew me forcefully on, speaking in a rapid whisper. ‘I’ve ‘ad enuff, Ive. This bastard’s up ter somefink filfy, I c’n smell it. Git art, nar. Take an ol’ trouper’s tip.’ And, laying her pink finger alongside her delicious nose, she informed me she had been in touch with Major Nye in Cairo. ‘Me an’ ther major are chums again, since that larst night. ‘E sent a ticket, firs’ class. An’ I gotta bit o’ spendin’ money. I’ve reelly ‘ad enuff o’ this, Ive. Next fing yer know I’ll be on some bloody pilgrim boat off ter ther bloody Sultan’s ‘areem. God knows wot they’ll do wiv you!’ And she smiled, though her grip on my arm was urgent. I had rarely known her so positive. Yet she was asking me to give up the project of a lifetime. I needed to see my film completed. True, all our main scenes were ‘in the can’, and we had only to shoot a few more interiors, which could be ‘faked’; but I needed her with me! I begged her to remain. We would insist on complete control over any doubtful material. ‘It’s orl bloody doubtful, Ivan. You know as well as I do wot that bunch o’ Bubbles an’ Eye-ties do fer a livin’. Git on ther bloody train, Ive. Same time as me.’
I trusted her instincts, but my loyalty to Esmé and my art was greater than my fear. This loyalty, of course, was completely misplaced. I have never ceased to curse my own folly, though she never once reminded me of that warning, in all my years in England. I told her I would consider her suggestions. I would let Esmé decide (I could not, after all, abandon her). There was also the question of Sir Ranalf’s partners investing in my Desert Liner. I had more than one career established in Egypt—then a country ripe for every kind of development. Surely I could trust men whose self-interest was identical to mine? I did not know then how many of those business people prefer to talk than act. (Unless of the most hysterical and irresponsible types they are racially conditioned to inactivity. The blood feud and the football match is all that engages them.)
During that boiling May I could see my chance of fame returning. Already history had rolled over my hopes and destroyed a career in Russia, another in Turkey, another in France. It threatened yet another in America. But now I had the chance to redeem everything. Here were wealthy potentates with private fortunes for developing ideas. I would point out the military as well as civilian use of my Desert Liner. Such a juggernaut at the heart of their armies would ensure British dominion over the entire desert as far away as their deeper African possessions.
Mrs Cornelius wished me to abandon that dream (as well as the dream of our screen union) together with my salary and my fiancée? How could I listen? Yet, so great even then was my belief in my old friend that I was prepared to consider flight, as long as Esmé would come with me. By now others were glancing curiously in our direction. Mrs Cornelius became evasive. ‘Well, ‘ave a good time wiv it, Ive. Don’ ketch cold.’ And she stormed towards her tent.
That evening we returned to Luxor and prepared for our evening meal aboard the boat.
As soon as I could I took Esmé aside to tell her urgently that she should not do the scene Sir Ranalf suggested. At the station I would get us tickets for Alexandria. From there we would go to Italy, where we had friends. It would not be long before we were returning to America. I said nothing of my own reservations.
To my relief she would have none of my sacrifice! ‘You have set such store by this, Dimka. I could not let you abandon it. I understand the scene is necessary to the success of the movie.’ She giggled. ‘After all, my darling, I am not unused to a few appreciative male eyes.’
I told her, ‘That bad time in your life is a forgotten dream. I promised you need never suffer such awfulness again.’
‘Oh, Dimka, sweetie, it is fun,’ she said. ‘It’s just a jolly game. Sir Ranalf will explain. You mustn’t be so stuffy, darling.’
I was, I admitted, the product of a more upright age, yet I did not wish to seem unadventurous in my darling’s eyes. I required her voluntary obedience. I smiled at her jokes about my ‘stern, old-fashioned face’. She had won me! I saw how, through art, she would not demean herself. I had to add something in reference to Mrs Cornelius’s observation. Foreigners would feast, I said, upon her form.
She laughed. ‘None of them Moslems, Dimka dear.’
Then Wolf Seaman joined us, a bulky vibrating tower, and explained with lugubrious intensity how our film would shock no one in Europe. Without those scenes the story would lack a certain impact. Let us do this, he begged, for the sake of perfection. He did not know of course that Mrs Cornelius, whom he still referred to as his fiancée, was leaving. I made up my own mind. I sought my friend in the cocktail lounge and drew her from the bar into a quiet corner of the deck. With trembling voice I begged her to remain long enough to complete the tomb scene. She was adamant. ‘When I git a sniff o’ somefink narsty, Ive, I’m on me bike. This littel set-up’s gettin’ defnitely niffy. I’m orf while the goin’s good an’ ya’d better scarper, too. Mum’s ther word, eh?’
Of course, I could not betray her. I bowed. I kissed her hand. Then I returned, with some reluctance, to what remained of our fold.
Mrs Cornelius’s disappearance was discovered next morning, as we set up our shots beside the Colossi of Memnon, those strange guardians of a lost road to the barren valleys of the dead. I retired as quickly as possible to the little Greek café across the way, which catered to passing tourists. Sitting in the shade with a cup of Lipton’s, I listened to Seaman bellowing as loudly as those legendary Colossi whose voices had howled above the desert winds even when Caesar came here to marvel at the monuments to a conquered past. Seaman delivered a manifesto on the nature of art, the artist, his rôle and rights, his need for order, his own need for us to work as hard as he did, his understanding that punctuality was the backbone of a good movie play. They believed Gloria Cornish had remained behind in Luxor, but I had looked from my window early that morning and seen her, aided by tip-toeing Nubians, heading for the kalash stand at the top of the mooring steps. She was taking the early train to Cairo and would return to England with Major Nye, re-assess her career, and perhaps rejoin me in Hollywood later. She could easily get a job in England on the strength of Social Follies and Lady Lorequer alone. By eleven Sir Ranalf arrived, summoned by Seaman. At first our master seemed as angry as his director but then he had composed himself, going about with his usual authority, calming everyone, white or native alike. It was not, he said, an important issue. Our main footage was shot. Esmé could take a slightly stronger part. No actress, he was sure, and he touched his fingertips to her face, would refuse such a chance. Esmé flushed with pleasure. I must admit I became a little jealous. I left my place in the shade and strode up the path towards them, calling out, ‘Miss Cornish will be ready for us soon, I am sure. Meanwhile, I should remind you, gentlemen, that the story is mine. I will accept no interference. No dilutions.’ Had Sir Ranalf, too, seen Mrs Cornelius on her way to the station? Perhaps while he glanced idly from the window of his hotel, overlooking our boat? He did not say. He was all soft reassurance, affirming our story as a model of the literary art. There was no question of interfering with its fundamentals. But he was a showman—a kind of window-dresser. It was his job to make sure the public would come to see our picture. If they did not come, my message would never be heard. This was a reasonable argument. I was relieved to hear it put this way. Then Sir Ranalf began the rather more difficult task of calming Seaman, who claimed he could not work without his star’s presence. Eventually it was agreed that we shoot all the scenes, with ‘Irené Gay’ heavily veiled, standing in for Gloria Cornish who would be with us the next day when we could shoot a few more scenes. Sir Ranalf reminded us that time was money and since this solution would cost more, no doubt we thought his acceptance exceptionally generous.
Mrs Cornelius did not turn up, of course. After a couple of days, Sir Ranalf’s people established that she had boarded the Cairo Express. Whereupon Seaman returned to his cabin and refused to come out. When he did emerge next day he seemed chastened. Sir Ranalf had visited him in the night and brought him to his senses. Thereafter, he was a far more agreeable man. Indeed, his control over the film was almost too light, even lacklustre, on occasions.
The nude scene was tastefully accomplished by daylight amongst the ruins of Karnak. There were, of course, no witnesses amongst the general public and, moreover, the majority of our crew was banned from participating. As Esmé stripped her silks from her body, her eyes yearning towards me, I must admit I was moved to my deepest masculinity. This display aroused an unexpected lust. The beast leaped to fill my skin; a sensation in its own way more intense than those almost savage days of lovemaking experiment in Cairo. The scene could not have been better and was unquestionably of the most superior artistic merit. Seaman was thoroughly satisfied with our work. Esmé, with good humour and her Erdgeist’s love of nudity and natural freedom, made me understand how I had indeed been unnecessarily stuffy. That night my little girl and I continued our scene unobserved. Free from other eyes, she became uninhibited, inventive.
When, next day, Seaman assembled us near the Sacred Pool and casually required my darling to remove her clothing and seem about to swim, I remained relaxed. There had, I accepted, to be continuity. Karnak, that bastion of a savage intellectualism, of a profoundly pagan art, helped establish in us a new mood. It had grown so hot that most of us were already wearing as little as possible, no more than a pair of shorts, a singlet and our lightest boots. This semi-nudity contributed to a mood of moral looseness which, with the slow pace of Luxor’s days, the high quality of the cocaine and the kif, was extremely seductive. I was young and relatively inexperienced. I do not blame myself for relaxing my standards a little. Perhaps, even by then, I could not have escaped. Now we had lights, so that we could shoot in the shadows of the temples, amongst the great pylons. We laid Esmé out upon a great fallen slab, stretched for sacrifice. And I, the priest of Ra, was supposed to raise my knife over her lovely, screaming head. I discussed this scene with Malcolm Quelch. I had an artistic, as well as an historical, problem. Surely there had been no such sacrifices made at that time? He said there was such a thing as imaginative human licence. I asked him if he meant ‘artistic licence’ and he said he did. He had become extremely off-hand in the past week.
Our days now had a peculiar, hermetic quality. We filmed in enclosures, in alcoves, in ruined chapels, among Karnak’s tall, knowing pillars which had witnessed all human folly, all human greed, all lust and dark, unnatural need. My inhibitions indeed seemed stupid in the presence of all this hot African sensuality. I was giving myself up to the past, to a barbaric civilisation that had grown old, tolerant and yet was still greedy for human feeling, for the thrill of flesh against flesh, the touch of a fingertip upon a nipple, the rush of blood and heat, the gasping desire, the stink of sweat and sex. Watching Esmé spreadeagled and perspiring on that rock I conceived such an almost uncontrollable desire for her I yelled with astonishment when Sir Ranalf’s friendly h
and fell upon my naked shoulder. ‘Isn’t she lovely, old boy? Such a deliriously natural young lady, don’t you know. Well, we should all know. Those things we do in secret!’ And he chuckled. I was offended. ‘What do you know of my private life?’ At once he became an avuncular tomcat. ‘Only what our little darling has told me,’ he purred. And, of course, it was then I knew she had betrayed me.
My emotion at that realisation is indescribable. Though I hated them both my lust for her had never been greater. Had I always hated her, always mistaken one intense emotion for another? Had I ever loved her? I became horribly confused. That dreadful passion threatened to engulf and activate my entire being. I was grasped by the twin fists of lust and rage.
My Esmé was a whore! She had been fucked so many times she had calluses on her cunt. They aren’t a bad bunch, the soldiers I’m with. Why had she betrayed me? She was my angel. Meyn batayt, meyn doppelgänger. It was my duty to rescue her. Yet I had so many other duties, not least to Art and to Science. To the Future.
‘Esmé?’ I moved to where she lay, chained and ready for sacrifice. ‘Sir Ranalf has confessed.’ I turned to still the cameras. This was not, I said quietly, a scene for the public view.
Jerusalem Commands Page 36
