Jerusalem Commands

ONE

I AM THE VOICE and the conscience of civilised Europe. I am all that remains. But for me, and a few like me, Christendom and everything she stands for would today be no more than a forbidden memory!

This at least Mrs Cornelius understands. ‘Yore a bloody miracle, Ivan,’ she says. ‘A bleedin’ monument ter a bygone bloody age.’ But her children are lost to her. Their naive scepticism will not shield them against the coming night. They challenge my ‘racialism’. They say that I generalise and that there are many exceptions to every rule. I agree! I have known noble camels and extraordinary horses whom I have respected and admired as my superiors in character and soul. But this did not change the camel into a horse or the horse into a camel and it turns neither into a human being. Equally, I tell them, it is both foolish and unscientific to pretend there are no differences between peoples. This logic defeats them. Few were ever a fair match for my intellect, even during my childhood. I have devoted a lifetime to mental training. But the consequent self-knowledge can, you will understand, be a curse as well as a blessing.

Already, at the age of twenty-four, on August 24, 1924, I had some intimation of my vocation. In the glory of refreshed success, having earned acknowledgement at last of my engineering genius, I was soaring towards New York to reclaim my soulmate. I had begun to sense how I might become a positive force for good in a war-weary world where humiliated enemy and exhausted victor alike were preyed upon by every form of human carrion. (I refer, of course, to those amoral and ubiquitous descendants of Oriental Africa, the minions of a Carthage which has for centuries coveted our dignified wealth.) I rarely thought of God in those days. I attributed everything to myself. It was not until later that God provided me with a salutary lesson in humility and I came to find the wonderful rewards of Faith. In 1924 I was, in almost every sense, ‘flying high’. What happiness I anticipated when Esmé and I were at last reunited!

This will not do. They say there is a question of my being mistaken! But I did not become a Musselman! An ethereal Parsifal drifts across the desert. The aeroplane banks and glides over wooded Pennsylvanian hills as wide as the gentle Steppe. I am flying towards my past and my future, towards my Esmé and the East. I will claim my bride and take her back to live forever in der Heim, in Hollywood. We shall build a twelve-bedroomed Beach House and rediscover our passion. I recall and anticipate the delicacy and variety of our love-making! In Constantinople we were Adam and Eve in Eden, the innocent children of Fate. Brother and sister, father and daughter, husband and wife: all these rôles and many variations extended and refined our spirits. I am no stranger to Rasputin’s theories. I have personally guided many a young woman to the profoundest realms of sensual fulfilment. But Esmé was more; she was my feminine self, a further dimension. Incubus and succubus as the old Norwegian had it. In Paris a random trick of fate had almost destroyed the being that was our single united soul. Oh, how I longed to know that unity again; that delicious, breathtaking blending of spirituality and sexuality which both threatened and enhanced my reason, taking me to new emotional and intellectual heights beyond those achieved even with the finest cocaine. As the plane, a confident Walkyrie, drew us closer, I could feel her, smell her, touch her, taste her. She rode on the great Atlantic breakers, plunging towards an as yet invisible shore. She was music. She was ecstasy!

Faygeleh? This is nonsense. I was always above such definitions. Es tut vay daw. Besides, these practices are natural in Egypt.

Deliver me from that god that is both male and female. May I not fall under their knives. Shuft, effendi, shuft, shuft, effendi. Aiwa! Murhuuba! Aiwa? Let them tug at me. Let them insult me and rub their hands and sholom-al-aichem me as much as they like, those mocking wretches. They have no self-respect. That bastard nation will ever remain a warning symbol to us all. O, Egypt, thou art fallen to Carthage and cruel Arabia lounges in the ruins of thy glory! But Spain, ever our bastion against the Moor, again triumphs! In Spain the sons of Hannibal Barca are destroyed or fled. There is one lamp still burning in the camp of Christ -

Her engine uttering a discreet grunt, the DH4 began a downward curve. I was surprised. I looked at my watch and saw that it had stopped. We were not due to land until New York and we were banking over the chimneys of a small industrial town built at the convergence of three rivers, one of them almost certainly the Delaware. (Like most Cossacks, I have a memory for rivers.)

The late August sunshine, thrusting through clouds of black, yellow and grey smoke, glittered on the lacquered white canvas of the plane as we flew low over a suburban settlement so elegant it rivalled, in its new colonialism, its Tudor dignity, the better parts of Beverly Hills. Levelling out, we headed for the twelve-storey brick towers of a prosperous and familiar-looking business district. We reached the meeting of the rivers and I smelled machine oil in the smoke and the sharp sweetness of summer pines. I at once remembered coming here to Wilmington; my first, startled meeting with that accusing angel, Justice Department Agent Callahan. Wilmington was not a place I associated with tranquillity of mind. Yet, even as behind me Roy Belgrade, a startled sloth in his flying goggles and fur-trimmed helmet, threw out a reassuring gesture and guided the plane towards a green area, probably a public park, I was not excessively nervous. We had already made two routine stops in Colorado and Ohio. I had come to understand that Belgrade was a cautious pilot, obsessed with checking every change in the engine note. Once the young man had satisfied himself that his machine was in perfect order, we should be in the air again within minutes. I still had the best part of the day to reach Esmé in New York. At worst, she was only a few hours away by train. Good engineers that we both were, I assured myself, Belgrade and I had left a considerable margin for error. The story would just be part of another adventure to laugh about when Esmé and I were reunited.

Fairly suddenly, the DH4 banked again, over a stand of oaks, and straightened into a climb, as if Belgrade had missed his mark and was determining another approach. The field, some quarter of a mile from a river bend, backed on to a large building whose windows were suddenly filled with excited faces. I was tempted to wave. The field was full of flowers, a profuse geometry, a kaleidoscope of colours and scents, rich and ordered. It was a glimpse of a perfect world. The plane lifted and I saw the faces again - so many undernourished plants pressed to the glass and gasping for the sun. As we wheeled and were levelling down towards a space between the trees and flowerbeds only a cretin would consider big enough for landing, I had my first doubts about Roy Belgrade. Then the hot smell of resin was mixed with the scent of roses and lavender, the stink of the Rolls Royce Eagle as it wailed with sudden life and as suddenly cut dead before we struck a bank of red, white and blue poppies (no doubt some patriotic memory of Flanders). I yelled out to my pilot but he was too far away to hear me. We cleared the flowerbeds in a burst of earth and petals, bounced, and were taxiing over the grassy area watched by two old men (one excessively fat, the other excessively slender) who remained seated on a bench at the far end of the garden. They were clearly enjoying the whole display. I looked about me in disgust. Save for the poppies we had done very little damage, but the surrounding walls, trees and power-lines would make it impossible for us to take off. We needed immediate help to get the plane to a more suitable field.

Controlling my temper, I climbed out of the plane, stepping from wing to lawn while Roy Belgrade remained in his cockpit studying his map with the familiar air of one who is completely lost. At my signal he loosened his helmet.

‘We’re in Wilmington, Delaware.’ I spoke a little abruptly.

‘I know that much, sir.’ Belgrade returned to his map. ‘But I don’t reckon this here is a baseball diamond, do you?’

‘Did you think it was?’ The man was half-blind! ‘It’s clearly a public garden.’ I advanced towards the grinning oldsters. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. Can you help? To take off again we need to wheel our plane into open space.’

‘Why in heck did you fellers want to land here at all?’ The skinny man had the narrow features of the typical New England peasant, the flat, grudging accent of a people for whom stinginess had been elevated to a moral virtue and generosity made a cardinal sin.

‘We had engine trouble. I suppose I should find a telephone!’ At least the park had only low fences and we should have few problems once we got the plane into the open street.

‘If you want to call the police, don’t worry about it. Look there, Mr Meng, I told you so.’ His plump companion indicated the gate where four or five uniformed officers had appeared, clearly confounded by the sight of our flying machine and the havoc it had done to the municipal blooms. I approached them at once. ‘Thank heaven you’re here, gentlemen! Naturally, I apologise for the damage and will ensure all concerned are generously reimbursed. I regret we were forced down here but a few sturdy lads like yourselves will soon get us back into the air again.’

The policemen were of the good, old school. ‘Don’t worry, mister. We’ll have you up there faster than a pigeon out of a trap.’ The leader was a grey giant, probably an ex-prizefighter.

Our surroundings were those of a lower-middle-class suburb. The gables and turrets of an earlier prosperity mingled with the present’s tract houses while the only high wall was the far one separating park from office building.

Roy Belgrade remained in the plane, fiddling with some instruments. As we approached, he switched off the ignition, folded his arms and grinned at us. ‘Well, gentlemen. This is a pretty rare situation, eh?’ He got to his feet and sprang from cockpit to wing and from wing to ground. ‘Sorry about the mess. Naturally, we’ll pay the city back. We’re from the movies.’

‘Then it’s the Du Ponts you’ll be wanting to see.’ From the rear a portly youth, sweating in his unseasonable serge, offered this with a certain pride. ‘This park belongs to them.’

‘Well, I guess we haven’t put them too much out of pocket!’ Belgrade responded almost with hostility. ‘Okay boys. Can you lend us a hand? Where are we, by the way? This can’t be Brandywine Park.’

‘It would be a little small for that, mister.’

Strolling round the plane the sergeant ran his hand over the canvas and admired the lines. ‘I never saw one of these close up, you know. Even in the War. I sure admire you fellows. We’d better get some kind of truck or maybe we can give you a tow with our car. There’s an airfield out there, now. You might as well use her. Why the devil didn’t you head for that?’

‘It happened too quick.’ Roy Belgrade was relaxed charm again. He slapped the youngest policeman on the shoulder. ‘Why, boys, I don’t know what we’d do without you!’

My anxiety was retreating but I could not help associating the city with the Justice Department’s keen interest in my old Klan connections. They did not know the Klan was now also after my blood.

Yet I had probably convinced Callahan of my innocence. He had, anyway, turned a blind eye to my unorthodox papers. Surely the DH4’s problems could not be very serious? Within two hours, I guessed, we would be on our way again. As his men debated the problem, I confided to Sergeant Finch that I would be especially grateful for anything he could do. ‘I’m currently engaged on top-secret work,’ I told him. ‘If I am not back in California within two days, the consequences for the country could be alarming.’

He greeted this information with considerable gravity. ‘Sir, it’s no more than a couple of hours to Washington, on the train. We can get you back and on your way again in no time.’

While there was nothing to be gained by telling him we had not come from Washington, Roy Belgrade seized on this misunderstanding and compounded it.

‘It’s urgent that we return to Washington by tonight.’ He made a serious mouth. ‘The Professor’s an inventor, see. National security’s involved.’

I wondered why he bothered to say this, since he had now contradicted himself and involved me in his bungling and pointless lies. But it was of little consequence to me. Mr Belgrade and I would have no further business once he had delivered me, safe and sound, to New York. I began to enjoy the touch of the sunshine on my face. A quality of light in the American North-East recalls my childhood in Kiev, the steppe and my Cossack ancestors, and I am so easily overcome by it that I can frequently do nothing but weep. There is no sweeter agony. Every Russian understands this.

Sergeant Finch expressed some concern for my health, but I reassured him. ‘A little airsickness, I suppose. Or hay fever.’

Roy Belgrade was chuckling to himself and shaking his head. It occurred to me that he had taken a strong pull from a bottle before joining us. There was a faint smell of whiskey. I would not allow him to indulge in another drink until we reached our destination. At my urging, he accepted the police offer. They would tow us to the airfield. By now a small crowd had grown around the entrance to the park. They were mostly youths, children and old people, calling out questions in support of their own particular theories as to how and why we had landed in such a tiny space. We were followed by the two old men, who had assumed something of a proprietorial air and were now explaining how Belgrade and I were government agents, testing special equipment. I was becoming alarmed at these claims and had almost made up my mind to squash them when from around the corner of the wide, tree-lined street, a large touring Ford braked to a dramatic stop beside the squad car before uttering, through every door, a gang of civilians, each flourishing a large pistol in our direction. Had Chicago come to Wilmington?

A long crowbar in his hand, their leader, a black-browed ape, swung from the front passenger seat and unbuttoned his jacket. From the top pocket of his waistcoat he drew a card and displayed it to an impressed Sergeant Finch.

‘What do you want us to do, Mr Nielsen?’

‘Keep an eye on these fellows while we check out the plane.’

Nielsen nodded to his men. Holstering their weapons they moved expertly about the DH4.

‘We were expecting you in Brandywine Park, Roy.’ Nielsen grinned at my pilot. ‘Your partner blew the whistle on you. Now, let’s see where you’ve stashed the booze.’ With that he moved deliberately up to the plane and drove his crowbar through the fuselage. It was wanton damage.

‘Stop this at once!’ I cried. ‘You have no evidence at all. I am a bona fide traveller on my way to New York!’ But even as I spoke I remembered seeing the lockers crammed with Belgrade’s branded bottles. ‘I am a paying passenger, sir!’ I was insistent. Mr Nielsen ignored me and the sergeant put a firm hand on my chest. ‘I don’t understand this, mister, but we’ll sort it all out at headquarters. Why don’t you two gents settle down in the car while these gentlemen do their work.’

‘My luggage is in the plane.’

‘Then it will be returned to you.’

‘Someone must have put it there,’ Roy Belgrade lamely told the officers.

Even I was briefly amused by this.

Of course, they had come upon the alcohol in the storage lockers. It was not exactly a major haul for the police and I suspected they had been tipped off by people resentful of Belgrade and his partner’s inroads into their business. Now I realised what the other stops had been. In both cases I had been mildly surprised at how rapidly Belgrade had found assistance and how quickly we had returned to the air. This passenger service was a disguise for his bootlegging! I became furious with him. His criminal activities threatened everything! There was still plenty of time to meet the ship but I would be forced to continue the journey by train. Meanwhile I could not tell how long it would take the police to realise I was no common bootlegger. As we sat together in the back seat of the police automobile I could do nothing but glare at Belgrade as he lit a cigarette and, whistling to himself, awaited the next turn of fate.

At a signal from the plain-clothes man, the police squeezed into the car with us and headed down the wide leafy road, over a river reflecting dreamy skies and deep green trees. The tranquil afternoon streets of residential Wilmington soon gave way to shop and office buildings enlivened by busy trams, buses, trucks and cars, a smell of grease and human sweat, all the reassuring realities of a booming manufacturing town.

As soon as I could I would contact my acquaintances the Van der Kleers. Those powerful mine-owners had been my hosts some eighteen months earlier. They would not fail to remember me, if only because of the Federal Agent who had called at their house to interview me in connection with my missing partner Roffy. It was not a particularly happy association, but I recalled the Van der Kleers had remained perfectly friendly throughout the incident. They would at least be prepared to vouch for me to the authorities. After all, I was mixed up in nothing more than a seedy minor stratagem of some bootleggers’ territorial war. They would surely soon realise that someone of my standing would not volunteer for such a role.

At the rather graceful-looking precinct house, Belgrade and I were taken to separate rooms. Captain Nielsen himself decided to question me. This suggested that he already believed in my innocence. The room was not uncomfortable, with a high, barred window, a cot, two chairs and a table with a desk lamp on it. The lamp’s bulb was a little too powerful for my eyes, but otherwise there was nothing sinister about the place. Mr Nielsen sat down on one of the chairs and I remained where I had settled myself on the bed. He asked me if I minded his smoking and when I made an acquiescent gesture he took a cigar from his case and lit it. ‘How well do you know Roy Belgrade, Mr Petersen?’ He looked at the sheet which had been filled out by the duty sergeant when we had arrived. ‘How often have you used him as a pilot?’

‘I had never seen him until yesterday,’ I said. ‘I am on my way to meet a ship. I work for an engineering company on the West Coast - it also has movie interests - and it’s important I return quickly. The company was prepared to pay for me to take a plane. I did not even speak to Belgrade personally. I suggest you get in touch with his employers, Western Aviation Services.’

‘As far as we can tell, Mr Petersen, Western Aviation is Roy Belgrade, one airplane and a local contact. We just nabbed the entire outfit.’ With the air of a man who had personally supervised the arrest of Legs Diamond and his gang, he blew satisfied smoke towards the ceiling.

‘Congratulations, captain.’ I got up from my bench. ‘Now I would suggest you contact Mr George Van der Kleer, who is a friend of mine, and ask him to vouch for me. He will tell you that I am a scientist.’

‘And you know nothing of Belgrade’s rum-running activities?’

‘How could I?’

‘You saw the liquor in his lockers?’

‘After I was airborne, yes. I intended to inform the authorities as soon as we reached New York. But you can imagine, I didn’t think it sensible to alert him. These people reach for the gun and the blackjack as casually as I reach for a slide-rule!’

Nielsen was close to being convinced. I extended a placatory hand. ‘If you could see your way to speeding things up, Captain Nielsen, I would be deeply grateful to you.’

‘You’re prepared to make a statement for us?’

‘I have nothing but loathing for people who abuse their responsibilities in this way. My moral views are well known. I have spoken publicly on the subject. I saw Belgrade make two stops, I saw him transfer cases to a waiting truck in Colorado and in Ohio. The man is a common criminal. Give me half-an-hour and I shall write down a clear description of the whole business. Meanwhile, if you could contact the Van der Kleers . . .’

‘It’s a deal,’ said Nielsen. Taking his cigar from his mouth he rose. ‘I’ll have some paper sent in and you can write out your statement. If this Van der Kleer speaks for you, you’re on your way again.’

‘But the plane?’

‘Impounded. You’ll have to get the train to New York, Mr Petersen.’

My fury against Belgrade intensified. When the moment came for my statement I ensured that my erstwhile Icarus would not again spread his wings for some time. Then I grew agitated when there was trouble contacting Mr Van der Kleer. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to know you,’ Nielsen informed me. I told him to mention the name of Mrs Mawgan. By now it was growing dark and my little girl disembarked from the S.S. Icosium next morning. I was assured by Mr Nielsen that the last train did not leave until around midnight. He went to the telephone and returned after a while with something of a frown on his face. ‘You’re okay. Van der Kleer says he’ll stand guarantee. He also told me to say that while in other circumstances he would be delighted to see you again he regrets,’ and Nielsen smiled at me, ‘that he can’t see you personally and wishes you a speedy journey to New York.’

‘He was always a gentleman.’ I sighed with relief. I had over an hour to get to the station. My bag was brought to me and I confirmed that its contents were all intact. I was relieved that I had taken the precaution of keeping my usual supply of ‘sneg’ on my person. ‘I wonder if you’d be good enough to find me a taxi.’

‘We’ll do better than that. We’ll personally make sure you get on the train.’

Their attitude had changed now they realised my powerful connections in the State, but I was too well-bred to take advantage of our reversed positions. As we waited for the car, I chatted about the city and its problems and assured them that I was working on plans which would one day revolutionise the manufacturing industries and rid the world of smoke and filth. ‘Sanitary working conditions ennoble the worker and advertise the humanity of the employer,’ I said. ‘A clean worker is a happier worker.’

‘I’ll buy a bottle.’ Nielsen seemed laconically enthusiastic. ‘Keep that pitch up and I’m liable to buy two.’

It was 11.30 before a car was ready. ‘It’s five minutes to the station,’ Nielsen reassured me as he handed me my bag. Together we walked into the silent street. One trolley disappeared with an introspective clank around a corner, its lights blinking out even as it moved. A uniformed man was driving the car. Nielsen opened the door for me and helped me in. ‘Make sure he gets on that eleven fifty-one,’ he told the driver. This was the first time I realised he was not coming with me. ‘I’m very grateful to you, captain.’

‘Sure.’ He touched the brim of his hat. ‘Have fun in New York, professor.’

With that, the car took off at top speed, its siren a caged gull, forcing me back into the seat. ‘What’s the hurry?’ I asked. ‘The captain said it was only five minutes to the station.’

‘That’s right.’ The driver took a corner at a terrifying angle. ‘But he’s forgotten there ain’t a eleven fifty-one no more. Last summer train leaves for New York eleven forty.’

‘And what’s the time now?’

‘Eleven forty.’ We moved downhill through the density of office buildings and hotels, passed through two traffic lights, crossed the tracks, heard the long, authoritative note of the great locomotive, and pulled up at the station in time to see the train lurching steadily into a blackness where its smoke resembled those mocking spirits who from time to time insinuate themselves into my dreams.

I was in despair. I sat, unable to speak, and watched as a uniformed man ran from the station to the car. For a moment I thought my driver was going to ask him to telegraph up the line to stop the train, but it was only some message about a burglary near the marine terminal. ‘There’s a hotel across the street.’ The policeman opened the door for me. ‘You can get the first train in the morning.’ Then he left me to struggle from his car to stand with my bag on the steps of the Union Station while a railway employee informed me that the first morning train did not leave until eight that particular day and that the hotel was a good, clean ‘commercial’ place where I could get a decent night’s rest. By now I was almost gibbering with anxiety. I told him the urgency of my situation. I had to be on the quay when the ship docked. Esmé was innocent of New York and its dangers. He could not help me, he said. He did not really care if I met the ship or not. Several terrifying possibilities went through my head. I pointed to the yards, down the line, where a number of massive shadows showed locos still making steam. ‘You say there are no trains. Where are they going?’ He told me they were freights and laughed. ‘You could try and ride the rails with the bums. But be careful.’ He sniggered. ‘Between the bulls and the darkies, there might not be much left of you by morning!’ Again, he indicated the hotel and advised me to send a telegram to the ship to say I would be a little late then catch a few hours sleep. I ignored the fool. I looked about for a taxi, but I was not sure even the hundred dollars in my wallet would cover the fare to New York, assuming I could find someone to take me. I became still more frantic. I followed the railroad man up the steps but he locked his door and pulled down his blind and would not respond to my rapping. I became confused for a while and simply sat on the step with my head in my hands. Then the call of the trains from the nearby yards reminded me that there was still a way of reaching New York in a few hours. I set off down the tracks towards the great confusion of steel and steam. I would bribe a driver to let me ride with him on the footplate. It was commonly done, I had heard, by travelling salesmen with urgent business.

Twice I fell full-length in my haste to reach the yards, stumbled to my feet, found my bag, lost my hat and did not stop to look for it. The third time I fell, I was only a few yards from the caboose of the nearest train and this time I was helped to my feet by a large, unkempt individual who, from his breath, might have been Roy Belgrade’s biggest customer. My bag was picked up by one of his several ragged companions, all yellow-eyed wastrels and loafers. I took them for the kind of scum which collects around any wealthy centre, hoping for a few free scraps from the rich people’s tables, willing to stoop to petty crime if necessary, but too cowardly to be a serious threat. ‘Thank you, my good fellow.’ I patted the large man on the back. ‘Help me to the nearest New-York-bound train, and I’ll make it worth your while. Fifty cents apiece! Hurry now! I am a plain-clothes police officer on urgent business!’

This changed their scowls to smiles. One of them even bowed to me. What happened in the next few seconds has always been hard to explain. I felt a violent blow in the kidneys and fell again to my hands and knees. A metal-shod boot struck me on my forehead and I was blinded, shouting with pain. I felt one more violent blow on my thigh and heard a guttural voice say something about a ‘fucking squarehead bastard’ before I passed out. Even at that moment it was clear to me that the Klan had never been far away and that it had been a mistake to use the name of Van der Kleer. Evidently he remained connected to that perverted quasi-Klan which had overthrown the old, pure-hearted band of idealists now jailed, framed for crimes they did not commit, or scattered across the continent. I had been led very cleverly into a trap.

I awoke to hear more yelling. Someone who had been tugging at my shoes suddenly stopped and cursed. Then I felt a warm hand on my jugular and for a second thought they meant to finish me off. But the hand was simply looking for a pulse. ‘How bad are you hurt, do you know?’ I heard the deep, lazy voice of the better type of black man, my rescuer. Nobody can ever reasonably call me a racialist. I am the first to tell the story of how a negro saved my life by single-handedly driving away the white men who would cheerfully have killed me. The cur-dog pack of the KKK, operating like cowards out of darkness, were all that remained of those hooded vigilantes who had sworn to wipe away the evils of the world but had been betrayed by cross-bred infiltrators of every foul persuasion, united only in their determination to destroy the best and noblest blood of Christendom. The black giant was lifting me to my feet. I was in almost as much pain as after the Klan’s last attack. I was becoming something of an expert on their strongarm methods. Next, I checked for my wallet and found that, together with my left shoe, my overcoat, my bag and my belt, it had disappeared with my assailants. ‘We’ll get you to the cops,’ declared the noble black. Like some friendly, large dog, he had attached himself to me for reasons best known to himself. I was not ungrateful and made it clear he would be well rewarded once we reached New York and I cabled Los Angeles for funds. Ich furchte, die Tiere betrachten den Menschen als ein Wesen ihresgleichen, das in hõchst gefährlicher Weise den gesunden Tierverstand verloren hat. . . ‘But our first priority,’ I informed him, ‘is to get there before dawn. I am due to meet my sweetheart’s boat when it docks. My innocent knows nothing of America.’

He was clearly sympathetic. He helped me along the track towards the wailing locos, the stink of smoke, the sudden beams of tested lights, the flash of oiled metal, the gleam of polished brass, the sputtering sparks from the boiler stacks. ‘She’s starting for the Smoke.’ The negro indicated a massive freight train some distance away on our left. ‘And she’s pretty well guarded, so we’ll have to jump her when she gets going or the bulls’ll spot us for sure.’

‘You’re going to New York, too?’

‘Pilgrim,’ said my dusky guardian angel, ‘I am now.’ And he lifted a great, African head and opened a red mouth to bellow his cryptic amusement. I felt as Androcles must have felt to be befriended by some jungle beast for reasons that had little to do with the motives of a more advanced species. And yet there was a certain kind of self-contained dignity about my rescuer, a quality of loyalty, which more civilised whites might envy and seek to emulate. An intelligent black, like an intelligent woman, is one who recognises his limitations as well as his natural skills and virtues and puts himself at the service of some decent citizen who appreciates and respects him for what and who he is. This is a natural symbiosis. Again I do not speak of ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’ but of difference. There are few rational people who would question the white man’s natural grasp of technology and the nuts and bolts of the civilised world, or his sophistication in matters of political and religious institutions, and it is these things, of course, which have put us a rung or two above the others on the great Ladder of Civilisation. Make no mistake. I am the first to extend a hand down to my less-developed cousins, but that is not the same thing as artificially setting them on the rung above me. What good can that do for anybody? Many a negro has told me sincerely how he wants no part of this unnatural elevation, just as the majority of women are contemptuous of the so-called suffragists and feminists who make such fools of themselves in their ludicrous pseudo-male masquerading. Why assume the vices of an envied race and ignore the virtues of one’s own? I have never understood this impulse. We Russians have an instinctive grasp of the fundamentals of life, the great forces which are always at work in nature and which dictate so much of our fate. Woman serves man but man also serves woman, each fulfilling a role which, when in complete harmony, can make for almost heavenly happiness. Such is the relationship between master and servant, between priest and God. Christianity tells us these facts. Why are we forever forgetting or ignoring them?

To my immense relief I discovered, in a waistcoat pocket, my packet of cocaine. Soon I would be able to banish much of the pain. Determined to put myself in the hands of this good-hearted darkie (whose name, he announced, was Mr Jacob T. Mix), I already planned to offer him in Los Angeles a permanent job as my body-servant. Through no fault of his own he had fallen on hard times, a victim of prejudice in a world which had been happy to use his services in its negro regiments but had no use for him in peace. This, of course, was the hard lesson of ‘emancipation’. What use is freedom without the dignity of work?

In a daze, I was limping rapidly down the track, jumping over ties and rails, until I had reached a slow-moving box-car and was almost thrown into it by the strong arm of my new friend. I landed heavily on oily timber and banged my head again. Rolling over, I saw Mr Mix, his great tattered overcoat flying around him so that he resembled Dora’s Ancient Mariner, appearing to expand and fill the entire doorway. Then he had turned and banged shut the sliding door. ‘We’ll sit here in the dark until we’re through the town,’ he said. This suited me well enough, for I could now make surreptitious use of my cocaine. I did not offer him any, nor would he have expected it. There is a great difference between what happens to a white man under the influence of cocaine and the effects produced in the typical negro ‘hophead’. Besides, I heard the sound of a bottle being opened. ‘You’d better take a drink until you can get those bruises fixed up,’ murmured my concerned Man Friday, but I refused. I was already feeling considerably better, knowing that I was en route for the city and Esmé.

When Jacob T. Mix lit a tiny pocket oil-lamp the car was suddenly illuminated by a wonderful radiance which turned every blade of straw to gold, every strand of wire to silver, made the walls glow like the warm, old wood of a comfortable cabin, while everything swayed gently, a huge, reassuring cradle, with Mr Mix’s enormous, scarred, kindly face peering down at me, enquiring with rough good will if I was sure I would not take a pull on his bottle and try to get some sleep.

‘How long will it be before we reach New York?’ I asked him.

‘Five or six hours, I’d reckon. She’s slow, this old train, but she’s steady. Then we have to look out for the bulls. In that early light they can stay hidden until they’re right up on you. But stick with me, Max. I’ll get you to your boat. Your girl promised to you, is she? From the old country?’

In essence he was right so I did not correct him. While Mr Mix began to tell some story of a Nigerian sailor he had once known and the stories of Africa the Nigerian had told him, I drifted into a half-sleep where I consoled myself with a vision of Esmé and myself, a prince and princess of Hollywood, driving through the hills and valleys of California, the harbingers and personification of an inevitable and glorious Future.

How cautious they were, those fools! Was ist Originalität? asks Nietzsche. I can tell him. It is what the majority would instinctively destroy. And how they have tried to destroy me! Yet I survived. I still survive! They cannot bear that.

Even then, I knew that I could not perish. Mrs Cornelius told me this, only a week or two ago, when she came into my shop in search of a new jumper for her boy. ‘Yore bloody indestructible, Ivan!’ Perhaps that is why I have always had this particular relationship with her. We have in common the not unenviable achievement of surviving the greater part of the twentieth century.

Adjusting the wick of his miniature lamp so that it should offer only the minimum necessary light, Mr Mix opened a book, remarking with some surprise at my stoicism and my powers of recovery. ‘You don’t complain much for a white boy.’

‘We Petersens,’ I told him, ‘are a hardy breed.’