Again it was impressed upon me how potent, perhaps especially to absolute monarchs, is the power of myth.
TWENTY-SEVEN
TO ALIEN EYES, says Prinz Lobkowitz, colours which to us speak of comfort, security and pleasure might for them represent death and threat. Thus we look upon Mars and find it desolate while the Martian looks on Earth and finds it foul.
I do not think I was unduly incautious in the way I conducted my life while out of the Pasha’s favour. Indeed, I had planned for some while to transfer accounts to Tangier and convert francs into other currencies through my British bank.
I did not want immediately to begin such movements of money, of course, until I was restored in the Pasha’s confidence. Otherwise he would construe my actions as a confirmation of any guilt he imagined me to feel. As principal shareholder in so many banks, he might easily decide to confiscate my money! Too often the failures of his own engineering schemes came about as a result of bribery and corruption, of bad materials being put in place of good, of unskilled people being employed at half the wages of the skilled. I knew that if he was investigating my factory, he would soon discover that I had conducted myself honourably in every aspect. I could not, of course, speak for individual workers or indeed for my native foremen, but I saw no way in which they could deceive me. I am not, after all, easily deceived. I would have lived for a while quietly until I found a means of slipping unnoticed from the city, preferably with Miss von Bek, and getting as quickly as possible to Rome and civilisation, where we would no longer be dependent upon the whims of a local tyrant. But then came Iago into my Moorish fantasy.
I had made her tell me of the secret rooms and what went on there. She showed me some oddly placed bruises. It was curious what he had done to her and she gave me an insight into that alien point of view. This heady intimacy with an unknowing third partner is part of the terrible attraction of infidelity. It is why some women in particular can never fully escape from its temptations, its delightful and astonishing discoveries, its revelations of human complexity and, indeed, of human perfidy. For some, infidelity is the closest thing to a vocation they know. I am not among their number, but I suspect Rose von Bek was. She became the ever-available repository of extraordinary secrets, some of which she shared, some of which she nursed to herself, rationing the distribution of her knowledge and thus increasing her sense of power. Yet she was to learn that much of what she possessed was the illusory—or at best temporary—power of the whore. She was a woman, I once said, unworthy of her own base inclinations. Together we might, so to speak, have conquered Italy. At that time I could still see that potential in our partnership. I spoke of it. After all, I said, she had the ear of the Duce.
‘That was never the part of his anatomy I influenced,’ she said, and she remained uncommunicative, stroking the side of her jaw with her long fingers, staring speculatively at me with her strange, violet eyes while she considered my proposal. It was time, she agreed, that she got out. She had been a fool to play the game as long as she had. She had not backed, she said, all the winners. It was the story of her life. ‘But they say you’re a singularly fortunate gambler, Max.’
I could not think where she would have heard this. ‘I rarely gamble,’ I said. ‘Life, after all, is enough of a gamble.’
‘That’s what they say.’ She was climbing now with expert swiftness back into her camisole. We had found a useful cubicle at one end of the aeroplane factory. It had been intended to house a modern toilet and bath, but the Pasha’s whims had discarded Western plumbing at the last moment. Now the room contained some quilts and cushions and a few of the things we needed for our love-making. The wonderful shapes of my planes surrounded us in the semi-darkness like the creatures of an unearthly mythology, regarding us with friendly but puzzled concern. The place still stank of glue and resin and aeroplane dope, of the treated silk and the drums of petrol, the oil and the charcoal which the absent factory-workers used to prepare their food. Sometimes, when she had gone, I would light the lamps and stroll amongst my beautiful monsters, running my hand over their smooth bodies, longing for the moment when the powerful new engines nestled in their housings, ready to give violent life to the most advanced air fleet in the world! Even in America they would be startled when my birds came shimmering over their horizon! Hever would be powerless. How on Earth could his petty accusations make sense when I returned to Hollywood a hero, a leading figure in Mussolini’s wonderful Round Table of latter-day knights-errant, a famous inventor and explorer?
I must admit I came to miss the comradely pleasures of the Pasha’s dinners and found fresh European company only rarely now, usually in the cafés and hotel bars around the Djema al Fna’a. These people were not always of the best type, but were the kind of petty racketeers and drifters who accumulate wherever the law we revere is weak or non-existent. I had no time for them. Even in my loneliness, my yearning for civilised company, I disdained to have much to do with them.
Of my earlier acquaintances only my young fan, Monsieur Josef, found courage to break the rules sending me to Coventry. He advised me to return at once to the USA and in the meantime suggested I get in touch with the American Consul. It was atrocious, he said, that an actor of my stature should suffer such humiliation. Then he would grin and refer to some plot ploy from Buckaroo’s Gold and suggest I doubtless already had a daring plan up my sleeve. It was his ambition, he said, to emigrate, to visit the Wild West and emulate his hero. I said, soberly, that there were probably worse things he could do. In Europe, most of his kind joined the Communist Party. He intended to plead my case with the Pasha, he said. El Glaoui must surely realise the adverse publicity he would receive from insulting me so. I thanked the young Jew. I told him I had not yet descended to asking others for help. I hope he did not take my reply as a snub.
I had made a decision to live my life according to my usual routines, continuing to pray and visit the mosque as always, usually these days at the Katoubia, whose cool interior brought a particular peace to my soul. It was the mosque most favoured at that time by the intellectuals of the city. The Katoubia, all soft old stones and faded mosaic, is the landmark of Marrakech. It can be seen from afar by any rider approaching the city. It is a monument to the city’s great days as the artistic and literary capital of the Moorish world. Outside its walls the booksellers, who gave the mosque its name, set up their stalls here and there, selling all the old holy books, the Q’ran in elaborate editions printed with exquisite detail in golds, greens, reds and blues, bound in silk and the supple leather for which Morocco is famous. I had emerged from the mosque, one Sabbath, and was going through some miscellaneous scrolls, passing the time of day with the booksellers, who were all acquaintances, and glancing through half-used account books or the occasional French tome deemed respectable enough to mingle with the texts of the Faithful, for Marrakech, in the whole of Morocco, has an easy, devoted way with her religion which deems it poor taste to indulge in excessive piety. She was what was left of the brilliant glory of the Alhambra. As I reached towards a familiar copy of some orientalist effusion by a popular female novelist of the day, which held that Maghribis were the inheritors of every virtue and, interestingly, descendants of the Lost Race of Atlantis, Mr Mix appeared almost magically at my elbow, like a devil in a pantomime, and asked, without preliminary courtesies, ‘Would one of those planes of yours get to Tangier if it had the right engine?’
‘Easily.’ I turned puzzled eyes upon the brooding urgency of his handsome African features. ‘We should have to test the machine, I suppose. But the range will be greater than most available planes. Assuming we had a good-quality engine.’ Had they arrived at last from Casablanca?
‘Could you, say, modify a good car engine?’ he wanted to know.
I told him that it depended on the engine. But I had learned the arts of improvisation in Odessa and Constantinople. I believed I could make almost any engine do almost any job. The truth was that I had been hasty in using an unsuitably hea
vy engine for that particular plane. I had learned by my mistakes. ‘It will take a little time, however,’ I said, ‘to fit and test.’
‘Then you’d better start modifying as soon as you can,’ said my loyal darkie, ‘because I have a feeling your number’s about to come up with our mutual employer.’
I drew him away from the curious booksellers, though they could not understand a word of our English, and asked him what on Earth he meant. This, he said, was no time to play the innocent. There was now a possibility we would both be cooking in the same pot come Thursday noon. ‘I want the observer’s seat,’ he said, ‘when you go up. Until then I’ll stick with you. When you decide to run, I’ll run too.’
Again I was touched by his devotion to me. For all his experiences, the black man had lost none of his honest willingness, his good-natured, happy-go-lucky way of looking at the world. Though many of them meant nothing to me, I delighted in his colourful expressions. I had learned not to rise to everything he said, since his habit of droll irony frequently had meaning only to himself. I promised him that he would be the first passenger when I took the bird up. This did not satisfy him entirely and he was about to say something else when he changed his mind, glanced across the little square to the doorway of the mosque, and told me he would see me later. He vanished, leaving me feeling alarmed for no good reason. I decided to wander over to Djema al Fna’a and restore my spirits with a glass of coffee at the Atlas. It was not yet noon and I did not expect to see many of my cronies, but I felt the need to calm myself. Marrakech, so like Hollywood, is equally a city of illusion. There is commonplace work abounding, of course, or the illusion could not continue, but the hallucinatory nature of the light, the shimmering brilliance of the tiles and stucco, the hidden, peaceful fountains and courtyards one comes upon unexpectedly, the friendliness and general openness of the people, all make one city the model for the other. Hollywood is our finest example of the Moorish influence upon our civilisation. Without the Alhambra there would be no Hollywood style. Without the Moor there would be a very different Western lingo, for the cowboy borrowed it from the vaquero and the vaquero from the Arab. Go down to Mexico. Go to Guadalajara—Wadi-el-Jar means the same in Arabic as it does in Mayan. The Spaniards carried Carthage to South America. The result is self-evident. Today we see only the romantic aspects of Carthage and we borrow them for our fantasies. But the reality, as I think I have shown, is very different. We live in an age of illusions. The art of illusion has become the principal industry of the twentieth century. Even our wealth is shown to be illusory. It can be taken away at any moment. The Muslim is prepared for this. We Christians are horrified. We believe in progress. The Muslim believes more thoroughly than the Westerner, whom he first instructed in astronomy, that the clear message of the spheres is that we should live within the natural order. What right, says the Muslim, have we to change God’s world so radically? But I believe it is our destiny to be agents of change. There is much that requires improving. Their illusion is no more or less valuable than ours. It is simply a matter of temperamental preference. I have been to the Land of Death and Anubis was my friend. I have seen clearly into the black soul of the world. I have been afraid. I returned to the Land of Life and my message was the message I had learned from the gods. We must redeem ourselves. We must grow strong. We must forge our humanity into something positive and enduring. We must march again under the banner of Christ. But first we must know ourselves. First we must take control of our own destinies. Now I understand that. Is this God’s punishment upon me? To show the truth just before I die? To reveal that one fragment of truth I have sought all my life. They put metal in my stomach. That shtetl was no dream. I can still smell it. There was too much fear. I found it unbearable. There should not be so much fear in the world. I have missed some small point, I sometimes think; that would explain all that.
Djema al Fna’a before noon resembles nothing so much as a deserted fairground, with a few stalls open, a little desultory business going on, a couple of fortunes being told, the occasional troupe of boys practising to be acrobats. The souks which run off the square are doing some lazy trade, but mostly men stand around and talk and smoke and watch whatever attracts their attention. On this day there was a string of fine young camels crossing, on their way to the Friday market and a large red touring car entering the square from near the Hotel Transatlantique. It drove ostentatiously towards Brown et Richards garage, honking for essence. Over at the tables outside the Atlas one of El Glaoui’s Jews saw me and drank his tea hurriedly. I did not approach until he had risen. At the Pasha’s court, one learned not to embarrass one’s fellows lest one day they embarrass us. It was a turning world, as Hadj Idder was fond of telling us.
I let the last of the pretty little camels cross my path, and glanced towards the souk immediately across from me. I saw Brodmann. He was unmistakable in a crumpled linen suit and stained panama. To cool himself he carried a small child’s raffia fan in his hand, of the kind the Berber women sell to tourists. When he realised I had seen him he shaded his face and looked away immediately, stepping to the darkness of a spice-seller’s awning. I did not know whether to confront him or ignore him. I tried to think what damage he could do me in Marrakech and decided he must wield no power here. But I was still nervous. I called a cab immediately, telling the driver to whip the horses to a trot. I was in a hurry.
From that moment on I took serious note of Mr Mix’s warnings. The next day, when I went out to my factory, largely to get rid of any evidence of my liaison, I found that a car had been delivered. It was, in fact, the Pasha’s damaged Rolls-Royce. A small gesture of peace, perhaps? Or had Mr Mix found a way to get me my engine? The engine, I saw immediately, was completely untouched and could easily be modified for El Nahla, my Bee. (Since the disaster, I had changed the names in the catalogue to those of insects. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived in England to hear them announce they had suddenly invented a Mosquito! I keep my own counsel these days. The truth of my achievement is known to myself and to God and that is all that matters.) With no help on that first day I was able to free the engine from its housing and by the second day I had it in a cradle poised over the yellow and black body of my Bee. By the third day I insisted that Miss von Bek give up more time and help me ease the engine into the modified housing while I demonstrated my ingenious belt-drive to turn the propeller, delivering more than enough power for the delicate little plane which I still considered our best Schneider chance. Miss von Bek warned me that by spending as much time as she was on the engine, she was endangering herself and others. ‘If I am the others,’ I said, ‘do not worry about me. We now have our means of escape! If necessary we shall leave by the same way we arrived in Morocco. What happened to the balloon, by the way?’
He had told her he had put it away for safety. She now believed he kept some kind of trophy museum. She was unusually agitated, even after our love-making, where earlier she frequently became icy and distant. Now when she spoke of El Glaoui’s pleasures her eyes no longer filled with unguessable lusts but with tears. ‘He is a Bluebeard, of sorts,’ she said. ‘Murder is merely one of his more radical instruments of policy. We should not have accepted his hospitality, Max.’
I was too much of a gentleman to remark how readily she had accepted all he had to offer, almost from the moment we left our basket. She had communicated some of her terror to me and I was sympathetic. Hers was not like my fear of Brodmann, awful as that was. Hers was more like my fear of the Egyptian God, hopeless and wretched, allowed to choose only between a lifetime of utter humiliation or painful death. And so, from my position of relative freedom, I was able to comfort her. I did not have to decide between her and Mr Mix. My natural chivalry put me at the service of the woman.
Somehow we still found time for our sexual liaison but I performed now from habit, not from lust.
Sexuality for her had become almost her entire channel of escape; it was a kind of madness in her. She was like one of those peo
ple in the ‘difficult’ ward at the New Bethlehem who perform the same few functions over and over again, perhaps locked into some moment when they felt free or safe or alive. Their catharsis, when it comes, is always hideously violent. And, for all that, I could not break the ties of love and fascination with which she had entranced me. I felt that our destinies would be forever entwined.
It had become her compulsion, even as we worked on (he engine, to tell me El Glaoui’s secrets, though I had no further interest in them. Every aspect of Eastern sexual diversion was more than familiar to me and to be told of the different pleasures claimed from circumcised and uncircumcised girls, from neutered boys and so on, was distasteful to me. The Pasha preferred his women uncircumcised in the main, she said, which is why there were so many Europeans in his harem. It was no wonder, I said, that these potentates liked to keep their concubines from public view. The amount of maiming and beating involved gave me the impression that any member of the harem at any one time resembled a boxer after a particularly dirty match. Another reason to retain the veil, I suppose.
He was taking a delight, she said, in revealing more and more to her as she became increasingly ensnared but decreasingly interested in him. She remained, he told her, a guest; her involvement must always be voluntary. That was his special pleasure, she believed. ‘But he has already demonstrated the fate of those who upset him,’ she said. ‘He has never been the same since he saw my Italian passport.’ There had been some sort of execution, I gathered, in one of the cells at Tafouelt and she had been a privileged witness.
I had a clear idea of her position. It would be inhuman to take Mrs Cornelius’s view. What possible motive could Miss von Bek have for blackening the Pasha? I am not the only one to have been told such tales. In France there is a whole literature of it. Mrs Cornelius passed me on a book by a woman who was El Hadj T’hami’s mistress and who worked for the French Secret Service. She was not the only adventuress—or adventurer—attracted to the Pasha’s strange court, to the lure of subtle intrigue, dangerous gossip and thrilling revelations. Of the children hanging in irons, she said nothing.
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