Roy Belgrade glanced down at the clipboard he dug from the back seat of the plane. ‘Colonel Pallenberg’s you, sir? Welcome to Coast-to-Coast Airservices. That’s me.’ He grinned. We shook hands. He bowed as he was introduced to Mrs Cornelius. At closer inspection, he looked his age. I moved past the big, heavy wings of the DH-4 to peer into the glass-covered interior of the forward passenger cabin. Some attempt had been made to give it a comfortable appearance. There was a rack with a thermos bottle, a little hamper of food, some magazines. It was almost touching, as if a child had arranged it. The seat was padded, with arm-rests and leather upholstery. ‘Everything but ma’s cookin’,’ said Roy sardonically. ‘You’ve flown before haven’t you, sir?’
I nodded. Mrs Cornelius came to embrace me. She was nervous of planes. She had been up once, she said, but it had made her sick. ‘I do ’ope ya know wot yer doin’, Ive.’
This made me smile. ‘My dear friend, the PXI passed its tests with flying colours. I have a splendid house in Hollywood. My reputation’s completely restored, my name vindicated. In two days’ time my fiancée comes ashore off the Icosium. Meanwhile, I should tell you, Mr Hever wants to propose to you!’
She was unsurprised. ‘Wot’s yore foughts on that?’
‘He’s kind and rich.’ I could not resist a wink. ‘And virtually blind.’
She began to cackle. She pushed me back. ‘I’ll probably do it, jes’ ter spite yer by bein’ faithful! You wicked littel Shnorrer! Yore worse than I am. You be careful nar, Ivan.’ She inspected me as a mother might send her boy to school for the first time. ‘An’ don’t let anyone pull ther wool over yer eyes, eh?’
‘My instincts rarely betray me, Mrs Cornelius. Please put your mind at rest. My future is assured. As is yours. Soon you’ll be as famous as Lillian Gish.’
She was further amused by this. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘in Whitechapel. Okey-dokey, Ivan. Bon bloody voyage, pal.’
I climbed into the front cockpit of the DH-4. Roy Belgrade whistled through his fingers and a lad in knickerbockers came running from behind the hangar. He was chubby and black. For one dreadful moment I thought he was accompanying us. But he merely stowed my bag between me and the pilot. I drew the safety straps across my body, settling into the soft seat with some pleasure. To one side of my legs was a locker stencilled PARACHUTE. EMERGENCY ONLY. Curiosity made me try to open it. It seemed stuck. When I did manage to pull the door back I saw that the whole compartment was crammed with Mexican liquor. As well as the mail, Roy was taking a little private cargo to New York. I was not bothered by this. The DH-4 could only be shot down, it was virtually impossible to crash. Der shvartseh vos kumen spins the propeller, his sleeves falling back from muscled arms, his skin alive with dancing sweat. Mrs Cornelius waves vigorously, her left hand moving from hat to skirt and back again as she attempts to hold her clothes in place. For the engine has caught. The blade ahead of me cackles and snores, whirling faster and faster until all is wailing, frustrated energy. The black boy suddenly appears on the other side of my cockpit canopy. He’s laughing. Ikh hob nisht moyre! Vemen set er? Ver is doz? Ikh vash zikh. Di kinder vos farkoyft shkheynim in Berlin … He has gone. Does he still cling, like a mocking demon, somewhere upon the fuselage? The night creatures are in the pay of Carthage. Mrs Cornelius has disappeared. But I see Brodmann briefly. Does he step from the hangar and approach my car? Or is it the shvartseh I see. Do they all conspire? Have I never known free will? What forces took me to Byzantium and Rome? Did I make my own decision to sail for New York? The plane’s note changes and we are released from the Earth. This is the great Escape of Flying. We circle the diminishing field. A pink scarf waves from my little green Peugeot. I will be back with Esmé within the week. My blood is singing. I adjust the buckles of my helmet and goggles, drawing on my gauntlets. Wir empfangen es schlecht. Er ist zu viel Störung. I crane my head backwards. Der Flugzeugführer sitz im Führersitz … He nods his reassuring helm then pulls his stick to send us upwards, banking towards jagged rock and distant snow, the High Sierras. Brodmann, if he was ever down there, can no longer be seen. The little black creature continues to cling to the fuselage for all I know, threatening to drag us down. Carthage will not let the individual fly.
I shall come back to the City of the Golden Dream. I can still smell California with her ocean, her gorgeous crops, her precious metals and floral boulevards. I can smell the promise of Utopia, almost realised. Esmé will think she is dreaming. Wo sind wir jetzt? Es tut mir heir Weh. Ich weiss nicht was los ist. Es tut sehr Weh! Wir haben drei Jahre gewartet. We shall return to the citadel. Its substance changes so frequently it can neither be attacked nor destroyed. Barbarians believe they have conquered it but it is they who dwell in illusion. Derflitshtot vetkumen. Even if I am in mortal danger, the city will find a means of saving me. I never became a Musselman. My mother was swallowed by their red lava. How can I trust Brodmann? He has followed me too long. No one has the right to steal my future! The little black body loses its grip and is flung away, tumbling towards the foothills which now rise from the plain. Nit shuld! Nit shuld! They always claim that everyone shares guilt for those great crimes. But I say: We are all innocent! If one is true, then so is the other. Ikh blaybn lebn … I shall survive. Carthage shall no longer threaten me with her whips nor shall she push my face into her mud. I am too old and proud to let her grin and point and mock unchallenged.
Outside the night street is deserted; the black rain shines and hisses, mingling with grease from a dozen cheap cafés, with everything a dog or a man can pour from bowels or stomach; and the upstairs lights go off suddenly above the pub. There are sirens, of course, and distant war-cries; the occasional rising note of a curse, a condemnation, a self-advertisement. I think there is something wrong with me. I have eaten nothing, yet the pain starts in my stomach. I turn down my oil lamp (power strikes grow so frequent) and look through the curtain again. Head down, arms limp, shoulders slumped, some happy drunkard tries to piss into the doorway of the Greek take-out. He seems almost as old as me. He wears a stained tweed jacket, grubby grey flannels, a shirt without a collar. He is addressing himself in a furious undertone, accusing himself of some fartsaytik crime. How can I condemn any of these? At least I know the enemy and understand what is destroying me. They could not keep me for long. I was always too slippery for them. Tomorrow is early closing. I shall put this gelekhter and this glitshikfantazye behind me and go south instead of north, into the salubrious parks of their other Kensington. I was truly a luftmayster, a lord of the air, long ago when it was heroic. All they want now is long hair and guitars. Well, I disdain their zoot-suits. And I am the one who has to close my window against the stink of their vomit when they have all gone home. Ikh bin a Luftmayster, N’div auf der Flitstat. Firt mikh tsu ahin, ikh bet aykh. Firt mikh tsu ahin…
The DH4 gains height to fly through the wide spaces between the taller peaks. I can see the snow blowing like an eternal tide across their flanks. I am fleeing out of paradise; but it is not true you can never return. We shall cross the plains and the Rockies, Esmé and I; the deserts and the Sierras; and come into our valley again. Here they have no Schutzhaft, ni Buchenwald, no Gulag for me, only for the Japanese. The future can be created swiftly here; there are people who devote themselves entirely to engineering problems involved in realising vast dreams. My cities shall begin here. Hollywood shall be my flagship. The old cities of Europe and America are noble and must be honoured, perhaps preserved. The cities of Asia Minor, Africa and the Far East: these, too, have some interest. But if Constantinople cannot rule as Emperor City, then a New Byzantium must be built to resist Carthage. I can make this a fact and do not seek even to be balebos. Eybik eyberhar? Vos is dos?
They are monumental, these ships. Cities self-sufficient in every respect. They move with tranquil dignity through the upper air. How easily they resist the deceptive gravity of Carthage! Here are the far-flying colossal children of Mauretania; the logical resolution of our Western history. They ar
e pure and they blaze like silver in the sun. They are seen in the horizon’s haze, flickering, suddenly golden, then their massive engines thrust forward, upward, and they are gone.
Wailing their earthbound despair, the conquered and the conquering, victims both, look up for an instant. If it were permitted them to think at all, they would think they had glimpsed heaven. Es war nicht meine Schuld. They move sluggishly, like chilled reptiles, desperate for the sun. Their wasted limbs are ensnared in filthy wreckage. They are opfal, say the Lords of Carthage. They gave their loyalty to the past, so they must die. Wie viele? Ich klayb pakistanish shmate. Ikh veys nit. They turn back to their sluggish battles, these slaves of the Sultan, these musselmanisch, these lagerflugen. Ikh varshtey nit.
In the clear upper air, a mile above, the world’s great nations sail. They are invisible, optimistic and vital. These cities are the ultimate expression of human imagination. If they are attacked they could launch from their towers a million silver knights, like militant angels. Let Carthage do what she wishes with her muddy conquests. We are free.
I shall dismiss the past. It is no longer of use. Its hands snare my rigging. I go now to live in the future with my destined bride, my Esmé, my sister and my rose. I shall bear her back from the East to the ultimate city of the West, to dwell in eternal harmony with our peers, within that noblest of all dreams: der Heim. A golden city of hope, purified and restored: my own inviolable Hollywood.
Ven vet men umkern mayn kindhayt?
Wie lange wir es dauern?
About the Author
Voted by the London Times one of the best fifty writers since 1945, Michael Moorcock was shortlisted with Salman Rushdie and Bruce Chatwin for the Whitbread Prize (Mother London) and won the Guardian Fiction Prize for The Condition of Muzak. He has won almost all major SF and Fantasy awards and several lifetime achievement awards including the ‘Howie’, the Prix Utopiales and the Stoker.
He received the BSFA award for his editorship of New Worlds magazine which blended genre and literary fiction, science and the arts. Best known in the USA for his rule-breaking SF and fantasy, including the classic Elric and Hawkmoon series, Behold the Man, The Warlord of the Air, Gloriana and The Dancers at the End of Time, he is also the author of several graphic novels including Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse and Elric: The Making of a Sorcerer. His political essay ‘The Retreat from Liberty’ predicted the manner of Margaret Thatcher’s downfall.
He has written movies including the cult classic The Final Programme and received a gold disc while with the British prog-rock band Hawkwind. Records with his own band The Deep Fix include The New Worlds Fair and The Brothel in Rosenstrasse (also a novel). He played on a variety of records including the Eno-produced Robert Calvert masterpiece Lucky Leif and the Longships. He wrote the novel accompanying the Sex Pistols movie The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle.
Moorcock’s ‘Colonel Pyat’ quartet has been described as an authentic masterpiece of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is currently working on a new album Live from the Terminal Café for the Spirits Burning label and a novel The Whispering Swarm, combining autobiography and fantasy.
His journalism appears in the Spectator, the Guardian, the Financial Times and the L.A. Times. His latest novel is an SF comedy featuring Dr Who, The Coming of the Terraphiles.
Born in London, Moorcock now divides his time between Paris, France, and Austin, Texas. He is married to Linda Steele and has three children by a previous marriage.
Bibliography
NOVELS
The Hungry Dreamers; lost manuscript—never published
Stormbringer (1965); restored and revised (1977)
The Sundered Worlds (1965) aka The Blood Red Game (1970); revised 1992
Warriors of Mars (1965) aka City of the Beast (1970); as Edward P. Bradbury
Blades of Mars (1965) aka Lord of the Spiders (1971); as Edward P. Bradbury
The Fireclown (1965) aka The Winds of Limbo (1969)
Barbarians of Mars (1965) aka Masters of the Pit (1971); as Edward P. Bradbury
The LSD Dossier (1966); as Roger Harris
Somewhere in the Night (1966); as Bill Barclay, revised as The Chinese Agent (1970)
The Twilight Man (1966) aka The Shores of Death (1970)
Printer’s Devil (1966); as Bill Barclay, revised as The Russian Intelligence (1980)
The Jewel in the Skull (1967); revised (1977)
The Wrecks of Time (1967) (US), censored; aka The Rituals of Infinity (1971) (UK), uncensored
The Final Programme (1968); censored in US; revised (1979)
The Mad God’s Amulet (1969) aka Sorcerer’s Amulet (1968) (US title); revised (1977)
The Ice Schooner (1969); revised (1977), (1985)
The Sword of the Dawn (1969) aka Sword of the Dawn (1968) (US title); revised (1977)
Behold the Man (1969)
The Runestaff (1969) aka The Secret of the Runestaff (1969) (US title); revised (1977)
The Black Corridor (1969); with Hilary Bailey (uncredited)
The Eternal Champion (1970); revised (1978)
Phoenix in Obsidian (1970) aka The Silver Warriors (1973) (US title)
A Cure for Cancer (1971); revised (1979)
The Knight of the Swords (1971)
The Queen of the Swords (1971)
The Warlord of the Air (1971); censored in UK, restored in A Nomad of the Time Streams (1993)
The King of the Swords (1971)
The Sleeping Sorceress (1971) aka The Vanishing Tower (1977)
Breakfast in the Ruins (1972)
Elric of Melniboné (1972) aka The Dreaming City (1972) (US title); with unauthorized edits The English Assassin (1972); revised (1979)
An Alien Heat (1972)
Count Brass (1973)
The Bull and the Spear (1973)
The Champion of Garathorm (1973)
The Oak and the Ram (1973)
The Sword and the Stallion (1974)
The Land Leviathan (1974)
The Hollow Lands (1974)
The Quest for Tanelorn (1975)
The Distant Suns (1975); with James Cawthorn (Cawthorn as Philip James)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976)
The End of All Songs (1976)
The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century (1976)
The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming (1977) aka A Messiah at the End of Time (1978) (US title); revised as Constant Fire (1993)
The Condition of Muzak (1977); revised (unacknowledged) (1978)
Gloriana; or, The Unfulfill’d Queen (1978); revised (1993)
The Golden Barge (1979); written 1958 The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1980)
Byzantium Endures (1981); censored in US
The Entropy Tango (1981)
The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981)
The Steel Tsar (1981); substantially revised in A Nomad of the Time Streams (1993)
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse (1982)
The Laughter of Carthage (1984)
The City in the Autumn Stars (1986)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
Mother London (1988)
The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
Jerusalem Commands (1992)
Blood (1995)
The War Amongst the Angels (1996)
King of the City (2000)
Silverheart (2000); with Storm Constantine
The Dreamthief’s Daughter (2001)
The Skrayling Tree (2003)
The White Wolf’s Son (2005)
The Vengeance of Rome (2006)
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles (2010)
Elric:Les Buveurs d’Ames (published in French, 2011); with Fabrice Colin
The Whispering Swarm (forthcoming)
COLLECTIONS & ANTHOLOGIES
The Stealer of Souls (1963)
The Deep Fix (1966); as James Colvin
The Time Dweller (1969
)
The Singing Citadel (1970)
The Nature of the Catastrophe (1971); anthology, stories by Moorcock & others
Legends from the End of Time (1976)
The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius (1976); revised (1987), (2003)
Moorcock’s Book of Martyrs (1976) aka Dying for Tomorrow (1978) (US title)
The Weird of the White Wolf (1977); formerly The Singing Citadel / The Stealer of Souls
The Bane of the Black Sword (1977); formerly The Stealer of Souls / The Singing Citadel
Sojan (1977); revised as Sojan the Swordsman (2010)
My Experiences in the Third World War (1980)
Elric at the End of Time (1984)
The Opium General and Other Stories (1984)
Casablanca (1989)
The New Nature of the Catastrophe (1993); anthology, stories by Moorcock & others (revised from 1971)
Earl Aubec and Other Stories (1993)
Lunching with the Antichrist (1995)
Fabulous Harbours (1995) aka Fabulous Harbors (1997) (US title)
Tales from the Texas Woods (1997)
London Bone (2001)
The Metatemporal Detective (2007)
Elric: The Stealer of Souls (2008)
Elric: To Rescue Tanelorn (2008)
Elric: The Sleeping Sorceress (2008)
Elric: Duke Elric (2009)
The Best of Michael Moorcock (2009)
Elric: In the Dream Realms (2009)
Elric: Swords and Roses (2010)
Modem Times 2.0 (2011)
DIGESTS, PAMPHLETS, AND NOVELLAS
Caribbean Crisis (1962); digest, as Desmond Reid with James Cawthorn (text re-written by publisher)
The Jade Man’s Eyes (1973); novella, revised in The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976)
Epic Pooh (1978); pamphlet, nonfiction, reprinted in Wizardry and Wild Romance (1987)
The Real Life Mr Newman (1979); pamphlet, originally published in The Deep Fix (1966)
The Retreat from Liberty (1983); pamphlet, nonfiction Elric at the End of Time (1987); illustrated novella, with Rodney Matthews The Birds of the Moon (1995); pamphlet, reprinted in Fabulous Harbours (1995)
The Laughter of Carthage: The Second Volume of the Colonel Pyat Quartet (Colonel Pyat Quartet Series Book 2) Page 74
