Jerusalem Commands: Between the Wars Vol. 3

by Michael Moorcock

  Rosie von Bek, in spite of all anxieties, continued to romanticise me, to make a melodrama of our liaisons. This, too, terrified me. ‘You are truly a Hawk,’ she would say to me as I lay gasping on the piled quilts. ‘You are like one of Si Hammou’s hunting birds. There is a strong case for your being hooded and traced for the rest of your life. You are no longer suited for freedom. You were neither bred nor trained for it. Whoever freed you made a serious mistake. But, of course, it was the Revolution, I suppose. You’d probably be renting out bicycles on the Odessa sea-front now and more or less content, if it hadn’t been for the Bolsheviks.’

  I told her mildly that my ambitions were somewhat larger than that.

  ‘So many of you released into the world,’ she said. ‘The nineteenth century engulfed the twentieth. So many mad birds flying out of Russia to prey upon the fat and unsuspecting pigeons of the West.’ She was joking, I suppose, for she smiled and laughed the whole time. It was she, I thought, who was insane, not I. She had taken a liking to my Georgian pistols, which I had carried all the way from Ukraine when I had ridden with the Cossacks. She was not the first woman who had enjoyed speculating as to their employment, especially on the Jews. I said that all she need know is that I had never fired them at a living soul. ‘They are antiques,’ I told her. ‘They are my birthright.’ I refused to use the pistols in the way she suggested.

  The hashish I was eating in larger and larger quantities, to calm my nerves, had begun to affect me. I pulled the pistols from her hands and put them back in their case, back in my bag. That bag had gone with me everywhere. Filthy and patched, it was my only link with the past, the only proof of my achievements. At twenty-nine I was a successful scientist and inventor, star and designer of a score of top-quality Hollywood movies; I had fought a last-ditch action against the Reds in my nation’s Civil War; I had made my mark on American politics and the world of finance. I had achieved far more than any ordinary mortal might expect yet still I was not satisfied. What was more I was increasingly tormented by the inescapable knowledge that somewhere, on the dirty, flickering bedsheets of the world’s walls, in hazy black and white, I performed the rape scene over and over again. I had only a poor memory of what was on all the other Egyptian reels, but I know my face was not always masked. Do my agonised eyes still stare out at masturbating businessmen in Athens and Frankfurt and seem for them to crease in ecstasy? Is this my only immortality? Am I the illusion of truth, confirming an uncomfortable lie? Am I to be remembered by posterity as a mere fake? I try to buy these films, but they are never the right ones. After watching them I can only pray that one pumping bottom is much the same as another to the cognoscenti. It has always struck me as odd, however, that those films, no matter what they show, always stop far short of the miserable actuality. But I hear there are more realistic pictures available in America now.

  Increasingly I had begun to long for California again and the life I had made for myself there. Once I had restored my fortunes and reputation in Rome, I would return in style. Meanwhile I consoled myself with the loveliness of Marrakech. I had previously thought California the most intensely vivid place in the world, with her flowering shrubs and great palms, her ocean sunsets and desert sunrises, but first Egypt and then Morocco had surpassed her in everything save civilisation. Here in this barbaric paradise I continued to feel oddly at home, as if I were indeed in the very cradle of our history. All our ancestors swept westwards from the steppe and the desert once, so perhaps that is what my blood recollected. To say that my soul was confused would be closer to the truth, yet the experience was not entirely unpleasant. What great culture had once existed here before those wild tribesmen carried their cruel religion across the deserts from Mecca to the Atlantic and thence to Europe as far as Lyons and Vienna! What had they destroyed? Did my blood recall some Paradise before Islam? Again I saw the ghosts of great cities rising out of the plains. I saw lovely terraced gardens spread across the foothills of the Atlas. I almost heard the murmur of courteous conversation from that savagely demolished past of which scarcely more than a whisper remains. Did Arabia trample the last life from Atlantis?

  Only in the Jewish quarter did I feel any real discomfort. Under El Hadj T’hami, Lion of the Atlas, the Black Panther, the Jews were flourishing. Never had the mellah been so merry. Never did the Jews so blatantly flourish their gaudy prosperity, their new security and power, for their relatives were the Pasha’s closest advisers and this put all Jews under his benign protection. There has always been a peculiar touch of philosemitism in the Moorish character, but it is unusual to find it in a Berber warrior. One might as well expect a Cossack hetman to help build a synagogue, brick by brick, with his own hands. These people respect one another as old rivals. It takes more than a change of flag to reconcile them. Not that these mellahim had the pathetic posture and half-starved stare of the shtetl Hassidim. These were good-looking Jews with broad, well-proportioned faces and beautiful deep-set eyes. The women were notoriously handsome and, when they came on the market, were always sought after by men of the world. These were the Jews one might have seen following Moses into the desert, like those who followed Charlton Heston, self-respecting and clean. Even Goering distinguished between this type and the other, but in the end his arguments went unheard. They thought him too much of a sentimentalist, I suppose. I, too, am used to being ignored for that reason. It was Goering who reminded me of the joke about never trusting the well-fed Jew, he was always the one who was cheating you most successfully. Not that I ever felt short-changed by Charlton Heston. It was Cecil B. De Mille, after all, who sought to establish Hollywood as the spiritual capital of out faith. At present, of course, Zion rules there. But not in 1929, a year in which while I dreamed in Oriental luxury the Western world changed dramatically. I spent that year with most of my senses focused on my affaire d’amour, so it was not until months after the event that I heard of my California bank’s collapse. Banks were falling like bowling-pins all over the world, from Shanghai to Stockholm, and it seemed that Western civilisation was in collapse, that the predicted Chaos was at last upon us. Here was the signal for the final clash of armies where, for a while, it seemed the forces of good were in the ascendant. But all these opportunities have been thrown away. I do not absolve Hitler and Mussolini and the rest. They also turned their backs on salvation.

  With the dawning understanding of the world’s disorders, I began to count myself lucky that I enjoyed the security of El Glaoui’s court and that my proposed destination would be Rome, now clearly the strongest capital in Europe. Here was sure proof of everything Mussolini had warned against. From this time on, this evidence gave authority to Hitler’s claims. Bolshevism and Big Business between them were discredited. The Age of the Dictators was not an aberration, it was an attempt to cure the disease. We all willed that Age into existence. But the disease at last triumphed. Now the giants stride hand in hand, brothers in financial intercourse, the triumph not of Capitalism or Communism but of Centralised Monopolism. This is exactly what Mr Weeks had warned me about when we were still on speaking terms. This was the bleak future he predicted and now I am living in it. And nobody but me seems to care.

  The plane almost ready, I resumed my petition at El Glaoui’s court. Hadj Idder seemed surprised to see me. He asked me how the work progressed. I thought this a good sign. I told him very well. We were nearing completion.

  ‘It will be as new?’ he enquired a little cryptically. I thought this was an Arab expression and he meant that we would go back to square one, as the Americans say. I shared his humour. ‘As good as new,’ I agreed. He took my letter and my money then crossed to where Mr Mix sat rather moodily on his bench and, after sharing a friendly word, accepted his envelope.

  But when he had gone away, Mix shouldered through the crowd of pleading petitioners whose envelopes had not been accepted and spoke to me rapidly. ‘I wasn’t kidding about what I told you. Wise up, Max, you’re in deep shit! Meet me here at eight tonight. Wear a disgu
ise if you can.’ He handed me a note.

  I was growing as impatient with Mr Mix’s cloak-and-dagger dramatics as I was with Miss von Bek’s French farce. I longed for the oblivion of my own particular Oriental romance. But Brodmann had seen to it that even this small comfort was to be removed. I slipped away that evening into the mellah, near the Bab Barrima, just below the French Post Office and behind the Prison. The address was familiar. It belonged to one of the Pasha’s own Jews, the young man who had remained my supporter, whose greatest hero was the Masked Buckaroo, Monsieur Josef. I hated visiting those whispering alleys especially at night. What could I want that they had to sell? I consoled myself. At least they did not offer me mortal danger. I was relieved to reach the Jew’s house. M. Josef was one of El Glaoui’s less illustrious advisers, but he affected European clothing and manners and had ambitions beyond the confines of the mellah, beyond Morocco itself. Because he continued an enthusiast for my films this made me trust his friendship a little. Mr Mix had known him for some while and had often visited him. I arrived dripping with sweat in a heavy winter hooded djellabah, the weather having turned suddenly mild, to be greeted by a less than light-hearted Monsieur Josef. He had lost a great deal of his European savoir-faire and wore the hunted look of the typical Ukrainian Jew. Suddenly I began to put two and two together. This development almost certainly involved Brodmann. Where had he been lying low? Here, in the mellah, or perhaps as a guest of the Pasha? I was drawn by Monsieur Josef through dark corridors and across silent courtyards, deeper and deeper into that alien enclave, until at last we came to a small, windowless room where Mr Mix was waiting for me, his huge body flinging the cell into heavy shadow as he rose to block the light from the lamp-shelf behind him. ‘I’m glad you made it,’ he said soberly. ‘I don’t know how you get away with it, Max, but that ain’t the only thing I don’t know. Listen, the Pasha’s wise to all of us. He’s known about you and Rosie for months but he was waiting to see how useful you’d be to him. Did you fix his car?’

  ‘I’m not a mechanic,’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He sent you his Rolls to repair. The one you damaged. I think he is giving you a small chance to redeem yourself. Can you do it?’

  Now Hadj Idder’s remark was no longer mysterious. Inadvertently I had cannibalised the car I had assured him only that morning was now as good as new. I had not even taken especially good care of the remaining bodywork. This news stunned me for a moment and I asked Mix to repeat certain information so that I could be sure I had heard him correctly. It became quickly clear that my only hope now was to demonstrate the efficiency of my plane. That alone would fully restore me to favour.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ said Mr Mix. ‘Monsieur Josef says the Pasha is out for blood. We have another friend who can arrange passage on the French military train. Or we can take the bus, but my dough’s on the train. You get French protection that way. From Casablanca it’s a step to Tangier, a free port.’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the plane was as good as ready but then I thought better of it. It would be a disappointment to him to know I had chosen Miss von Bek over him, though I think he was man enough to accept the news soberly. He had, anyway, his own escape route worked out. The Jew would get him away. Perhaps we could all meet up in Rome and share an amusing anecdote or two about our escapades.

  I agreed that the train seemed the best idea. He told me to lie as low as I could for the next day or two and he would arrange when and where to meet. There were agricultural transporters going down to the coast in a couple of days, he said, and they often had passenger accommodation. I asked him who our other friend was. He whispered that it was Fromental, just returned from the ‘front’. Doubtless he would be glad to see the back of me. My going would, he knew, effectively bring an end to the Pasha’s dreams of air-power. I still did not quite trust the Jew. I asked him why he was risking so much. ‘Because I admire you,’ was all he would say. ‘Because one day I too will smell the sweet free air of the prairie.’ I was never to discover his real reasons.

  The railway station, Monsieur Josef reminded us, was a good distance away on the far side of town, beyond the Nkob gate. He would arrange a car for us.

  I remained for as long as seemed politic and then said I had affairs to attend to and must leave. I met my driver where I had left him in the Djema al Fna’a and made him take me at once to the factory where I packed my bag of plans, my pistols and my remaining supplies of cocaine, together with a few of my prospectuses. I stowed my new American passport with the bag then secured it firmly under the pilot’s seat, the remainder of my cocaine supplies and my Spanish passport in the usual places on my person. I had now taken the basic precautions. My next step must be to warn Rosie von Bek of her danger. If I could not myself enter the Maison El Glaoui, where she was now effectively incarcerated, I could send a note to her through one of the several intermediaries we had used over the months. Then I began to suspect that those servants might already be in the confidence of the Pasha, sworn to tell him our every move. There was no reason not to suspect this and it would therefore be wise to wait until the next day and hope that the Pasha was still waiting to judge my work on his car. Happily I had used only the most fanciful of phrases in my deputation to the Glaoui that morning. Thinking back, I believed I had probably reassured him. Unless he decided to come to see the work for himself, I had at least twenty-four hours’ respite. Very shortly my twin soul and I would be winging our way to Tangier.

  There is a white road down which I ride and the road ends at a green cliff, a blue sea, and when I reach the end of the road I lift easily into the air and fly towards Byzantium to be reunited with God. I still see her vivid violet eyes in her tawny Albanian skin. She shared my dream of flying. I had made flight what it should be - ethereal, beautiful, as it is in nature. I was not one of those who reduced it to a lumbering metal tube carting its human baggage from city to city like so many sacks of grain. What misery Big Business makes of our dreams and visions! They should not be allowed so much power. Who should the brave boys die for? Their fatherland? Their family? Their bank?

  I recognised Brodmann again. Ihteres! Ihteres! He had followed me into the souk and gone ahead of me. I first saw his back as he paused to study some piece of inferior tinsmithery. He turned towards me, his hand reaching for an ornamental dagger of the kind popular with certain tribes now forbidden to carry weapons. I think he had it in mind to use the dagger, but I darted away from him, down another alley into the shadowy maze of shops and stalls, roofed with canvas and palm leaves and lengths of old cotton, through which the sun occasionally blinded you as you moved from deep shadow into sudden rays. I avoided the open sewers and the muddy earth, keeping to the cobbles of the main streets, making my way back into Djema al Fna’a to where my driver waited. He took me out to the aeroplane factory. I told him to come back for me in two hours. A little later, through the winter drizzle, Rosie arrived in a galloping kalash and, as it drew up, flung herself out to come running across the makeshift tarmac towards me. ‘He knows everything!’ She was horribly distraught. ‘He knows I’ve come here. You can’t imagine what he’ll do!’ She let me pay and dismiss the cab. Agitatedly she told me that he was openly contemptuous of our affair, mocking her and insulting her about it. She was determined to suffer no more from him. ‘Obviously he doesn’t believe we can get clear. Is the plane ready?’

  Together we fitted the propeller to El Nahla. The little machine stood solidly on her large undercarriage, her black and yellow striped fuselage glittering when we wheeled her into the sunshine. I tightened the last nut. Rose got into the cockpit and started the engine. The Rolls Royce dashboard looked especially elegant in the plane, although we had had to make adjustments to one or two of the instruments. The engine started perfectly and the propeller turned very slowly. Then, inch by quivering inch, my Bee began to move forward. She strained to be free of the ground. She demanded to fly!

  Delighted, Rosie swit
ched off the engine, jumped over the side and embraced me. In my soul was a deep sense of fulfilment. I knew that I had created a superb original. I looked at the machine with new eyes and saw my future restored! Once I had demonstrated to El Glaoui that El Nahla could fly, I would be redeemed. He would be apologetic, he would beg me to tell him what he could do to make up for doubting me and I would name my films. He would press them upon me. Thus equipped, I would say my farewells to my business partner and set off for Rome, for fame and fortune! I cursed myself for an idiot. I should never have allowed myself to be panicked by Mr Mix. The Pasha would certainly decide to forget my indiscretions. This was the way of the Oriental court. But when I suggested to Rose von Bek that we now had only to wait to be reinstated in the Pasha’s good offices, she looked at me with such blind animal panic that I was immediately forced to assure her we would leave as soon as possible. I was prepared to make any sacrifice for her, I said. Calming herself, she told me that she appreciated my friendship. There was an instant, as we held hands, of deep platonic comradeship. Around us the great Atlas mountains, cruel and beautiful as Marrakech herself, proud as the Berber clans she sheltered, challenged with their snowy crags the pale blue certainty of the sky.