The Laughter of Carthage

TWENTY-TWO

NOW YOU COME, Esmé! Soon you shall be real again. Her engines drumming steadily, a magnificent city bears you beneath the grey Atlantic’s unquiet skies. Far below her hull are mountain peaks taller than the Himalayas, in whose inky valleys prowl dark old titans, immense and eternally hungry. These beasts are bound, by virtue of their size and gravity, to exist through lightless millennia (perhaps as many as mankind has known). These are the gods to whom Carthage would make sacrifice: the melancholy totems of an undead slavery. But the floating cities are safe, sailing high above that gloomy territory: so high as to be neither heard nor scented; beyond the imaginings of Carthage’s monstrosities.

Terrible denizens of an eternally sunless sphere they survive the heavy centuries experiencing neither love, nor dreams, nor fear; they are without sensation save their dull, perpetual greed. They cannot touch you, Esmé, in your powerful city, as inexorably she challenges shrieking elemental violence with tapered steel and carries your innocent courageous vitality, your beautiful, wondering vulnerability, home to where my arms can enfold you.

Our bodies shall soon know that specific ecstasy of two perfect souls, two halves of a single globe, conjoined at last and for eternity to burn with a silver, an all-illuminating flame; a flame containing the sum of the spectrum’s shades, the inviolable glare of diamonds and rubies blended. We shall unite, Esmé. We shall explore an infinity of facets; an abundance of sensuality, new artefacts, fresh cities and the glories of the natural world. Oh. Esmé, I lost you. They took me to the City of Sleeping Goats, where the warning fires of synagogues alerted me at last. I came to a City of Fearful Dogs, whose holy places were smeared with heathen excrement, and there I found you, restored to virgin mind. We travelled to the City of Whispering Priests, to the City of Painted Cadavers, and there I was again banished from you. Many other cities, Esmé, have informed me, seduced me, led me from virtue. But now I have found rest, here in this City of the Golden Dream, the Emperor City I thought destroyed. You will come to me in New York and I shall bear you back to the safety of these fantasies made real, where they have discovered a means of eternally banishing the nightmare. And in time, Esmé, we shall fly again. This city shall fly. Vifl iz der zeyger? Iber morgn? Eyernekhtn? Ikh farshtey nit. Ikh veys nit. Es tut mir leyd. Esmé! Es tut mir leyd! Es iz nakht. Morgn in der fri ikh vel kumen. Mayn Esmé. Ikh darf mayn bubeleh. Mayn muter.

In Anaheim the restaurant turned to black ash blowing across the endless furrows; then the concrete poured like lava over the old groves and from these ruined futures grew the antiseptic quasi-fantasy of a tranquillised kulak class. Every year they put their pork-fed legs into Bermuda shorts and take the road to Main Street, U.S.A. Here the children and grandchildren of Klansmen earn their holiday dollars by exercising well-trained mouths and cleaned-up wholesome limbs in a ritual of pious good will which soon, the proprietor intends, shall be exuded by genuine robots. Twice a day, a marching band, in uniforms parodying those of Napoleonic Europe, blue, red, green or yellow, play the good old battle tunes and pink girls, sweating with the effort of their grins, grit teeth of perfect whiteness and fling ornamental staffs into the air, to catch them precisely as they fall, to spin them with terrifying skill, their legs pumping up and down, echoing the Teutonic rhythms and perhaps just a memory of unambiguous lust. They cannot fail. Thus, simplified, they shorten the odds against even the threat of failure. And Mickey Mouse, once the enfant terrible with a crooked, almost malevolent grin, now strolls through Fantasy Land in middle-aged slacks, as respectably removed from the sources of his fortune as any other exploiter of desperate slavery. There are signs, now, for Japanese visitors. And guidebooks in Japanese. And Mickey-Tees bearing ideograms in the language of that once forbidden nation. They walk on little loafer soles across the concrete to Main Street’s urinals where they piss on the buried ashes of ancestral relatives. In identical grey suits they file back aboard the buses, file from the buses to the planes, from the planes to the buses and finally home to the very latest electronic styles which fill their lives and bring twenty million babbling voices into their hearts. And for that they had a generation die? Why should I care? They flood the whole world with their hopeless instruments; they are the source of a sickness more destructive than any other form of fallout. I take the alleyways of this dirty place, this graveyard metropolis, and duck my head, cowed by stereophonic catcalls, the battle-cries of a consummate horde. Mist engulfs me. God save my mishling soul. Moyredik moyz, er has defeated me! Vu iz dos Alptraum? Vi heyst dos ort? Here is again the nightmare.

In downtown Los Angeles Mexican and Chinese destitutes, having sought the shade of withered trees, lie drunk in sun-soaked parks. The villas of old Spain are shabby. The Dons long since took their swords in the service of Carthage. Now Negroes and defeated immigrants shelter in haciendas, whose brittle lawns glitter with discarded cans and rotting candy wrappers. The palms are dusty and in need of repair. Even in Paradise the cannon-fodder of Carthage makes camp, awaiting a signal which it might not even recognise. Ich weiss. From their hill-top fortresses gracious Lords and Ladies look carelessly on steeples, cupolas and high adobe, seeing only antique romance through the blue-grey haze of noon. Their vassal city appears to dream in peace. Her boyars cannot guess how fiercely their security is guarded. Her great princes refuse to venture into ghetto slums so never confront the envious, misshapen creatures who plot, however lazily, to steal the treasures of the citadels; to steal the golden dreams. One is not supposed to speak of such things. Ich glaube es nicht. One joins the swift galliard and turns one’s head against the warning evidence. Ich will es nicht! Who that has tasted Hollywood’s luxurious opiates wishes to contemplate for a moment the threat growing like a virus in the Old Plaza, where Los Angeles began? Where, once more, Mexicans are an occupying force and the nights are horrible with their stamping feet, their wails, their melancholy self-reference, their awful guitars. Nicht wahr? Who can blame us?

Our dreams are always real. The test comes when we attempt to turn them into money, seeking power to build still greater dreams. Do not listen to the envious and the insensate. The illusion of Hollywood is thoroughly tangible. They have never learned, her citizens, that some things are impossible. The rules are formed and broken according to their own experience. Hollywood is a self-possessed city. Her vassals of the valley and the coast will claim she is a dissipation of someone else’s smoke; a mirage inhabited by poppy-chewing luftmaystern merely the more attractive alternative of muselmanisch. She has, they say, no special character or moral condition. She is all fantasy. This need not be challenged. The worn-out illusions of Paris and Rome were certainly as glamorous in their day. They reflected the wish-dreams, the Wunschtraumen, of their times: an affirmation of the popular mass. I cannot understand them. What are they saying? That Hollywood does not exist? Or should not exist? Was Periclean Athens not real? Or less real than Wren’s London and Speer’s Berlin? Are these critics of the Traumhauptstadt angry because her great palaces grew from wealth earned by answering the public’s needs rather than gold squeezed from fearful peasants? Do they think age alone makes the palaces of Europe attractive? What can be more vulgar and banal than Versailles? What cathedral was ever in worse taste than St Peter’s? They say Hollywood is a false scent, a gilded corpse, a trap. Did they not once say the same of Florence and Venice, and Rome herself? Hollywood attracts would-be popular actors. Florence attracted would-be popular painters and sculptors. Was she responsible for the disappointment of the ones who failed to find favour? Yet every day the tabloids tell us how some wretched ex-waitress has been ‘ruined’ by Hollywood. In other words Hollywood somehow conspired in her downfall, first luring her with false promises, then corrupting her and finally ‘destroying’ her. And what are Hollywood’s motives for this senseless behaviour? Vi heyst dos? What would the Sun or the Reveille do with every eighteenth-century doxy who dreamed of becoming a King’s courtesan but actually wound up as a serving-wench in some provincial tavern? Was heisst das?

Hollywood is the first true city of the twentieth century. Like Rome or Byzantium she thinks herself inviolable. I have seen it all on the television. Of course there are changes, but the core is preserved. Was muss ich zehlen? A city founded on abstracts (and in this she is by no means the first) she next sought to make those abstracts reality. This is a common process. Wie lange muss ich werten?

Hollywood, though constantly threatened by her neighbours, is the strongest fortress of the modern world. She must not grow lazy. Hollywood purged herself once. It was painful, but she was successful. She purged herself as John Wayne might purify his blood after a rattlesnake bite; by drawing out the poison with his mouth, then, with a white-hot Bowie knife, cauterising the wound. Hollywood spat the poison into the sea, sending it East where it had come from. She banished writers, a few producers, some directors, a tiny percentage of her actors, and let them try to swim in the unfriendly ocean of reality. They drowned, most of them. A few eventually reclaimed themselves from Carthage. It is time for her to draw the poison from her arteries again.

Half-caste youths in studded leather ride their motorcycles amongst her fallen monuments. Mongrel dogs defecate upon slabs engraved with the names of honourable Lords and Ladies on that crumbling Avenue of the Stars. Gangs of gaudy vandals run unchecked over the broken walls of once unassailable castles. They loot the rotting costumes, the faded scenery. It is all that is left now of Republic and RKO, of Fox and Lasky. Hollywood offered her prophecies in so many films. She warned the world of the dangers of interbreeding and loose moral standards. Griffith drummed this message home, even in Broken Blossoms, the most unsound of his films (though Lillian Gish was exceptional). He died in poverty, that great man. From me he got only ‘trousers’. Everything he predicted came true. Pray, all of you, for the great Tsar City, the New Byzantium, the citadel of our Faith. Vergenen Sie nicht. Die Kapelle spielt zu schnell. Rock-and-roll magnates, champions of all that is barbaric, are the inheritors of our sunlit, melancholy ruins. Who could know The Jazz Singer would lead to this? Yet God is with his Emperor Stadt, even now. Not the yammering, drooling old God, but the new one, the Greek. The white palaces still stand guard above the valley, only apparently sleeping. Who better to accuse her than I? But I shall not. Six thousand miles from me and careless of my name, she yet retains my loyalty. Byzantium, you blaybnlebn. Hollywood was ever a Christian city, though many of her princes began as Jews. Wer Jude ist, bestimme Ich. Why not? Auf gut Deutsch. The Venice of the near past is still in a perpetual celebration, a carnival. Her pier swarms with happy souls. The sea is calm today. The ferris wheel turns slowly, like a useless mill. I walk beneath rococo arcades, her wooden fretwork, her brick that imitates stone. I admire the huge gondola on the Grand Canal which, itself, is smaller than the original. The gondolier sings some mock-operatic snatch as he poles his passengers towards the watery cul-de-sac’s terminal. The little railways flash and rattle. The yellow trolleys roll by. And girls in pretty beads and skimpy frocks, in cloche and aigrette, skip upon the arms of blazered Midwest dandies who walk awkwardly, trying to keep their boaters from falling off their bullet heads. I shall be leaving Venice soon, to move my few goods up the boulevard to the Hollywood Hills. A small grey and white palace of my own, for Esmé’s sake. I know what she prefers. At the pier I turn, still shaded by this idea of some Doge’s cloister, and here stands my bulky partner, my nervous benefactor. ‘Mr Hever!’ I surprise myself with my exclamation. There is a pause. The day is momentarily still. ’Sara sheyn veter!’

‘Ven kumt on der shiff?’

‘You’ll recall I leave by plane tomorrow.’

‘Of course. I was looking for you, old man.’ A wave of embarrassment rocked his untidy frame. ‘I didn’t find you home, so . . .’

‘I thought I had put all the PXI jobs in hand with Willy.’

‘Of course. That’s dandy. I’m very happy. I felt like a little gabfest, that’s all. Do you mind?’

I proposed we walk along the seafront in the general direction of Long Beach. The promenade stretched for miles, apparently meeting beach and ocean somewhere near Catalina Island. We walked. He said nothing for a long time. Then he suggested lunch at a nearby lobster place. Again I complied. I had time to kill. I was content. The food was excellent and became the topic intermittently for an hour or so. We finished our lobsters, our custards and our coffee and set off again. Still, save for remarks about the beachfronts, the weather, the Curtiss seaplane beginning its approach to Long Beach harbour, he was substantially mute. At last he asked if I would mind taking a Red Car and continue ‘our real talk’ by the workshop. I cheerfully agreed and we crossed the street to wait for the massive trolley of the inter-urban line. It was a hot, easy day. Children ran in and out of the water, chased by dogs and parents. Young people grew brown on the sands. Every town along the coast had its pleasure arcades, its little fairgrounds, its share of fun. I was amiable, thinking how much Esmé would be thrilled. I intended to bring her back by train from New York, so we could travel via the Broadway Limited and then take a Pullman all the way from Chicago. I guessed she had become unused to any luxury and what I proposed must surely pleasantly overwhelm her.

In the twilight palms, tall outlines now against the deepening blue of the sky and the rich wash of the sunset, he began to speak rapidly of his motion picture ambitions. He intended to be sole financer of a movie drama to star Mrs Cornelius. ‘She’s agreed to change her name to Dorothy Kord. Names are supposed to be important and easy to remember and all that rot. Mrs Cornelius wasn’t too happy about doing it. Well, to keep it short, what I’d like from you is the story - that’s White Knight and Red Queen - for which of course you’ll get a generous fee. Why don’t you try fleshing it out to full-length. About an hour.’ He made a shy smile. ‘I’m no Griffith.’

‘When would you need the script?’

‘About a month for the first draft.’

From his manner I knew he had not yet come to his chief subject. I said lamely, ‘It would be interesting to work on such a big movie.’

He offered me a large cigar. Against my normal custom, I accepted. We stood on the edge of the quay under the trees, smoking and looking into the rather dirty water.

‘Good,’ he said at length. Then, as usual, out came the real topic in a confused babble of which the salient concluding phrases were: ‘Pallenberg. I want her to marry me. I intend to ask her tomorrow, while you’re in New York. Do you think I have any kind of a chance?’ His huge eyes looked pleadingly down; he had the face of a lonely cow. I took some time before replying.

‘She’s very independent. She evidently cares for you a great deal more than anyone I’ve ever seen her with.’ Of course there was no point in mentioning Mrs Cornelius’s affairs with half the Bolshevik hierarchy. He would have fainted at the very notion. ‘She shouldn’t be rushed. Maybe you can wait until I get back from New York? I’ll have a female second opinion, then.’

Though seriously disappointed, he bowed to my judgment. ‘Okey-dokey. I guess I also wanted to ask if maybe you could, as an old friend, get her general feelings on the matter. What do you say?’ Without giving me time to reply he continued gravely: ‘See, I know she’s got It - whatever it takes to be a great actress. I don’t want her going through any more screen-test hoops. I’m going to cut across all that. She’ll get her movie career, no matter what.’ He looked out to where a tethered seaplane, some Schneider contender, bumped against the wooden cladding of her moorings. ‘See,’ he murmured, ‘it’s incidental I happen to think she’s the most adorable little honey who ever lived and breathed.’

‘I’ll do what I can, old man.’

He was grateful. He frowned, trying to pull himself together. ‘How do you think we should handle publicity for the car? Should we let the papers know we’ve made a successful first run? The press already has rumours. A couple of journalists were in my office today. From the L.A. Times, I think. One of them knew you. What was he called? Irish name?’

‘Callahan?’

‘That sounds right.’

‘The other wasn’t Brodmann, by any chance?’

‘I guess I don’t remember. I thought he was Irish, too.’

I turned away from him. I was becoming over-suspicious. I was also obscurely depressed. I took control of myself. ‘Well, I’ll leave all that with your publicity department. They’re the experts. I can brief them further when I get back.’

He shook my hand, then lumbered inland to find a taxi. I took the trolley back to Venice.

Hever was a pleasant, kind-hearted soul. He would do Mrs Cornelius no harm. Yet I had been upset when he declared his intentions. I was disgusted with myself for my obvious jealousy. Perhaps I feared she would be separated from me for good. I determined to put a decent face on it, give them both my honest help and (assuming Mrs Cornelius accepted him) my blessing. Moreover when I saw her tomorrow morning I would do exactly what Hever had asked. She was coming with me to the airfield, to drive my car back to my new home on Cahuenga Boulevard. I tried to recover what had been a perfect mood, anticipating the flight itself, then my reunion with Esmé. I could not deny that part of me still lusted for Mrs Cornelius. Perhaps I hoped she would one day fulfil my dream. These were not sensible thoughts. Returning to my little San Juan house I telephoned the detective agency I had commissioned to investigate suspected enemies. The woman who answered said I should call back in the morning. I had been a fool to leave it so late. There would be no time tomorrow. I consoled myself. There were a great many Irishmen called Callahan in the world, after all, and I had given innumerable interviews.

Next morning, throwing my little suitcase in the back seat, I drove through empty sloping streets where telephone poles and cable lines were black and sharp against the pallor of the warm Los Angeles dawn, through suburban ease. I climbed up Santa Monica, between massive earthworks already grass-grown, to the Beverly Hills Hotel. There I would collect Mrs Cornelius and continue on to the Burbank Flitplats. She emerged from a main door as I drew up. More glamorous than ever before in a pink silk twin-set trimmed with bands of red, two long strands of pink pearls, a powder-blue cloche and shoes to match, she was washed, perfumed and bright-eyed. She now had credit with every fashionable store. I said she was putting the accounts to good effect. She giggled with relish and pecked my cheek. ‘They bloody love me rahnd ‘ere, Ivan! Lady Muck, eh?’ She shrieked. ‘Lady Mucker, anyway. Wot a turn up. I never fort I’d be carriage trade. Not like this. ‘Igh-times and an ‘arf, an’ no mistake!’

As she climbed in she was bursting with good cheer. Smiling, she nudged me in the ribs. ‘I done yer a favour. Left me bleedin’ brekker on me fuckin’ plate this time! Ow’s that fer sacrifice?’

‘You must never feel -’

‘Stuff that, Ive.’ She was serious. Her chin came up. She looked straight ahead, as she often did when she controlled strong emotion. ‘My silly fault, that kipper. Besides, yer gotta look arter yer own. You an’ me, eh? Birds of a bleedin’ fewer.’ At this she softened and chuckled. Quite uncharacteristically, she reached into my lap and gave me a quick, friendly squeeze to my privates. ‘Don’t let yer littel yid friend git yer inter trouble.’ She was aware of my dismay, my misleading circumcision, and it was a joke she had made before. I was moved almost to tears by her consideration. I promised I would do my best.

We drove through peaceful canyons on the other side of the hills. Steep cliffs rose on either side. Precariously balanced along their rims the new houses of a minor nobility could be glimpsed through fresh-planted bushes and saplings. They had followed the stars. Now some of the great princes were moving on. There was a fashion for beach houses at Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. The roads were improving steadily, thanks to all the immigrants from other States who flooded daily in hundreds to Los Angeles. There was work for these Iowa hopefuls, but I think they were drawn chiefly by the prospect of living in the same city as Fairbanks, Chaplin and Swanson.

Descending rapidly into the Valley we entered what had lately become an unreal half-world. Replacing farms and orchards acres of land were now marked for lots and streets not yet built. The realtors awaited their customers. (The autumn herds were coming West. If you put your ear to the ground you could hear the distant rumble of their hooves.) The sleepy fruit-growing plantations of San Fernando Valley were vanishing. Identical clapboard would rise in the shadow of the snow-topped Sierras. The old names were Spanish. The new ones here were English, echoing a dream of Anglo-Saxon villages, thatched security. All over America they were at last calling a halt to their foreign romances.

Eventually we saw the rough grass of the airfield ahead. There was one hangar covered in old barnstormer posters; one unenthusiastic windsock, one fence, one gate with a large red sign reading DO NOT ENTER UNLESS YOU ARE FLYING. There was one DH-4 biplane with a tall, skinny pilot standing leaning against its fuselage, smoking a cigarette and polishing his goggles on his moleskin riding breeches. Roy Belgrade was a veteran of the Flying Corps who seemed too young, even now, to be an airman. He yawned as he saw me, and flicked a salute, taking great interest in Mrs Cornelius as he started forward to open the gate. He had been recommended as the best by almost everyone I had spoken to in Hollywood. It was still considered daring to risk a day’s flying rather than spend three days on the train. I would have to land in a field in New Jersey and hope to get a bus or cab to the city.

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. Dershvartseh 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 tutsehr 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. Der flitshtot vet kumen. 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 glitshik fantazye 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. Firtmikh 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 are 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?