The Laughter of Carthage

TWENTY

I COULD NOT GO BACK to Odessa. Even if it were possible, what would I find? A rationalised corpse; a poor reproduction? Nothing is left of my cities. All that remained was a future: now even that is denied me, for Carthage laid waste its foundations. The present is obscene. What do they expect me to make of it? Those lost cities: those stillborn marvels! I offered the solution. They rejected it. Surely the Jew in Arcadia did not betray me? I loved him. The metal was introduced out there, while I lay helpless against their synagogue. I choose who is and who is not a Jew: I choose the way to a safer, ordered world. I choose to say what is fact and what is fiction. Dissatisfied with mere victory, Carthage made war on my dreams.

Carthage came marching against Byzantium. I fought. I drove the enemy back. My dreams soared again. No little black hands clung to my anchor lines. No mocking nigger eyes traded on my guilt. What reason I should feel guilty? I have done something with myself. I am an engineer of long experience.

For all that year and the one which followed Carthage hid her masts behind the horizon. How could I know she still pursued us? I journeyed into a world of illusions. I cannot say I regret it. Indeed, I would dearly love to see the fantasy restored. Reality is not in itself valuable. But I did not know that. Those Nazis were barbarians. Like the Bolsheviks before them, they were willing recruits in the infantry of Carthage. They called Hitler their ‘new Alexander’. What cities did they leave in their wake? What enduring monuments? Sachsenhausen? Buchenwald? Dachau? Twelve million slaughtered lagervolk (50% Jewish, 50% Slav); another twenty million miscellaneous cadavers and a crude rocket? What did Speer build which lasted just fifteen years? Even Turks showed respect for Constantinople, albeit by imitation. Carthage creates only ash and mud, mixes these together, moulds the result on frames of twisted barbed wire, then hails the result, these shambling grotesques, as the Obermenschen of their impoverished mythology. Today I have no time for self-professed enemies of Carthage. They are too easily seduced. My Baroness von Ruckstühl was killed in Berlin. That city was never the best refuge for a philosemitic Slav, yet it was a Russian bomb which took her life. Stalin’s answer to a problem was the simplest of all. If it could not be quickly solved, he destroyed it. Nit problem. This is fundamental to the philosophy of Carthage. I fail to understand this Liebschaft mit der Nazi. Er verfluchte die Zukunft. Er verlachte den Amerikaner. Er lachte laut! But was ist Amerika und seiner Venegurung in kontrast? Es ist kornish! Der Nazi er eine Wille to self-destruction has in stronger form. Um so besser. Begreifen sie das Problem? These daytsh broynfel lombard-tseshterniks are no better than Bolsheviks, concerned with the same silly sport. Auschwitz? Treblinka? Babi Yar? I offered them a sky-borne Alexandria! Always in sunshine. Always warm.

I claim only novelty as the explanation for any success we achieved on the Pacific Coast. Mrs Cornelius had a real show business talent which she owed chiefly to her exuberant vitality. She herself would always admit she had no outstanding gifts. Because I was more comfortable there (having made few public appearances in the State) most of the bookings I organised were in California. We became innocent again; Wandervögel, moving from town to town. This had definite advantages for our theatrical troupe. If you remain only briefly in a place and then swiftly travel on, your ability is rarely questioned while your novelty frequently passes for talent. Most of our audiences were grateful for any entertainment and we were able to satisfy them reasonably well. We toured regularly from the vicinity of Crescent City on the Oregon border all the way down to the San Diego region. We were tempted to cross into Mexico, but thought it unwise, given the problems we were likely to encounter with immigration. We were rarely the only feature on the bill. Sometimes, to fill in for a late or missing act. I even resumed my old role, lecturing to miners on the wonders of the future, or talking to fishermen about the perils of foreign Communism. We also performed our little musical play. It was of my own concoction. Wearing Don Cossack uniform and brandishing Georgian pistols, I played a Russian prince in love with Mrs Cornelius’s Bolshevik commissar. She elects, at the end, to go with me into exile. I called it White Knight and Red Queen. I was rather flattered when this proved to be our most popular act. frequently drawing more applause than cinema films shown before and after the performance. We had become Limeys in Limelight and Mrs Cornelius had chosen the stage name of Charlene Chaplin. I was most frequently billed as Barry More. Most employers believed such names attracted custom. Privately I felt this deceptive association with the famous was likely to confuse and annoy audiences led to believe their film favourites were taking the plank stage of a tent theatre in Redondo Beach.

I became adept at securing cheap lodgings and bargaining with the proprietors of carnivals, opera houses (saloons before prohibition) and ramshackle movie theatres. Our van proved a sound investment. It often served as shelter. The gypsy life was not unhealthy and indeed we all benefited. Though frequently tired and short of money we were rarely downhearted. A good climate makes an enormous difference to one’s spirits. Sunshine is an antidote to almost any ills. English people appreciate it almost as much as Russians. The other two girls were Mabel Church and Ethel Embsay. They were usually known as Gloria de Courcey and Constance Buckingham-Fairbank. Both were plain, cheerful creatures whose popularity had much to do with a fairly indiscriminate dispensation of off-stage favours. We acquired a drunken juggler-cum-comedian called Harold Hope: he drew more applause for his lack of dexterity than for any intrinsic skill with the Indian Clubs. For a while we also had a young black-face minstrel, Will Olsen. He left us outside Monterey after attempting to force himself on Mrs Cornelius. Next we employed Chief Buffalo Nose, a fire-eater from Brooklyn. His tribe was closer to the Plattfussindianern (as the joke went in Germany during the 30s) than it was to the Schwarzefussindianem. He rarely needed artificial help in lighting his breath. What always astonished me was how he kept his stomach from igniting.

These were idyllic days. I had women almost always to hand, friendship and common sense from Mrs Cornelius, little thought for the future and less for the past. The small California towns were generally welcoming. They also possessed an innocence missed by modern Americans. Here were settlements unsullied by coloured invaders; unthreatened by godless ideologies. The soda fountain, the drugstore and the barbershop were the local meeting-places and the saloon, when it existed, was as sombre and peaceful, as respectable, as any church. I have seen the Disneyland brochures. But you cannot create Main Street as a nostalgic sideshow in a fun fair run by Mormons dressed as cartoon mice. Devo tornare indietro?

America forfeited Main Street when she turned her back on Europe, leaving us to struggle alone against Carthage. She looked inward at the moment her power and idealism reached zenith. If she had looked outward, she would still have everything she yearns for now. I was there. America was euphorically taking the path to self-defeat. She suffered the perpetual delusion of the rich: that their wealth is the reward for some inherent moral superiority. I, who shared the benefits of California’s irresponsible youth, saw no better than did they the end to the privileged golden years, the gaiety and extravagance. But my time as an actor was not wasted. I learned much about ordinary people living on slender means, experiencing the daily realities of a world many Europeans still insist is wholly glamorous, naive or spoiled. My disappointment with America was to come later when I realised she refused her proper role of leader merely because she would rather be liked than respected. In the twenties she still had self-respect. That was why you could safely walk down Main Street, smelling sodas, malts, coffee and syrup in towns where only a generation or two earlier men had killed for a nugget of gold, a parcel of dirt.

We travelled in the footsteps of Lola Montez, who had danced her way through the lumber camps and tent towns seventy years before. From the wooden metropolises of Lost Hill to the new, brick-built dignity of Calaveras County, through the great deserts and redwood forests, over mountain ranges and between steep hills, from gold to silver to oil, we sang our songs and declaimed our lines. In cities whose boardwalks protected our feet from mud we could turn a corner and find a full-sized oil well erected in the middle of the street. The great Mother Lode, which had brought San Francisco one of her richest and wildest periods, was played out, yet the hills remained full of prospectors. We drove through the shimmering passes of the High Sierras and the vast San Joaquin Valley when the plum blossom was at its fullest, through fields of cotton, across irrigated plains with lines of eucalyptus as far as the eye could see. We rested and breathed the almost narcotic scent of orange groves, plucked fresh peaches from the tree, feasted on trout caught from cool rivers. We performed in barns, tents and the public rooms of dilapidated hotels. We travelled as far as Flagstaff, Arizona, and one night made camp close to the rim of the Grand Canyon. That primeval vastness can only be experienced, never conveyed by word or picture. We drove our old ambulance through the Painted Desert. In Monument Valley the Indians’ eyes stared upon the death of all dreams. Navajo children had the trancelike expressions I already knew from Galata and, before that, the steppe-shtetls of Ukraine. They had been born into a century which had no place for them. Their rituals and traditions had lost function and reason. Now, through no fault of their own, these Indians could never be anything but outcasts. They were parasites in their own land, like the conquered Armenians, the Palestinian Jews and Russian kulaks. They had become Musselmanisch, as they said in Buchenwald. They had, in essence, ceased to live, these exemplary citizens of Carthage.

Occasionally our tours would take us to larger cities, or at least their suburbs. It was in Auburn, a peaceful Northern Californian town, where the telegraph poles were still taller than most buildings, that I saw Brodmann again. I was crossing from a café called Rattlesnake Dick’s to the local post office. The only moving traffic on the wide steep street was a horse-buggy and two or three bicycles. The afternoon was sleepy and sunny. Auburn seemed to be enjoying a siesta. I had in my hand a note to Esmé and a postcard to Kolya. As usual I was begging for news, praying that soon one of my letters must reach them, wherever they were. I refused to consider the possibility they had been kidnapped back to Russia. Brodmann was standing on the wooden balcony of the old Freeman Hotel, at the very top of the hill. I could make out his figure clearly. Before disappearing back into the darkness of his room he waved once. I was fairly sure the gesture was simply a mocking one, but he might have been signalling to someone. I became very wary after that and insisted on leaving Auburn, to Mrs Cornelius’s annoyance since we had originally planned to spend the night there. For the next week I had difficulty playing my parts but saw no point in alarming anyone else with my knowledge. I still had no clear notion of Brodmann’s intentions. I was glad, however, when we began to move back towards the South.

We played fairs and carnivals, wooden booths and magnificent theatres usually built for populations which had failed to materialise and which were slowly falling into decay. We played seaside resorts on piers and boardwalks, local fairs, fruit and flower festivals. We had become gypsies and were content enough, even if we sometimes dreamed of the moment when Florence Ziegfeld or Cecil B. DeMille would see us and put us under contract. We knew in our hearts it would never happen. The nearest we came at that time to someone of means taking us up was in San Luis Obispo when we heard one of William Randolph Hearst’s lieutenants was in the audience. Apparently he had been told by his boss to find some local entertainment for a party at Hearst’s ranch in the hills above the little town. I gathered we were unsuitable. No contract was offered.

In November 1923, at Huntington Beach, we were doing our Russian playlet, a couple of sketches and a song medley, filling a bill with two ‘movie-dramas’ and four other acts at Maddison’s, a little beachfront vaudeville theatre on the fringes of the ‘entertainment strip’. Like several ocean-front villages in Southern California. Huntington Beach had become part resort, with the usual small hotels, fairgrounds, boardwalk sideshows, and part oil town. Very noticeable amongst the mixture of family groups, inebriated oil-riggers, bored-looking old people and other seaside regulars, an expensively-dressed but untidy man sat in the front row, transfixed by Mrs Cornelius. I admit I felt some jealousy. Ethel guessed he was a theatrical agent when he sat through both that day’s performances but when he appeared backstage with a bunch of flowers I found vulgar in both colour and size, I remembered him. He, however, did not know me, perhaps because of my makeup. I was able to block his way before he got into our dressing-room. He was apologetic, even humble. His huge greying bulk (he was not yet forty) trembled in its loose suit as he blubbered how he would dearly love to make the acquaintance of Mrs Cornelius and express his sincere admiration for her acting. I had met him in Atlanta, at the Klankrest party. John ‘Mucker’ Hever, the oil engineer, sweating a little in the heat, somewhat fatter than before, would probably not have recalled me in any event. His eyes were full of Mrs Cornelius. His mouth was full of her. He was completely smitten. I did my best to get rid of him as quickly as I could. The last thing I wanted was for my alias and whereabouts to be passed on to the Klan. I was equally frightened that the Klan’s enemies might find me. Furthermore I did not think he was an appropriate suitor for Mrs Cornelius. I took his bouquet and his card and sent him away. I gave the flowers to Mrs Cornelius, but I kept the card. I told her I had no idea who they were from. Next day, however, he was back again, with roses and gardenias, more demands for an introduction. To my dismay I had to cope with him each evening for an entire week. At least I protected Mrs Cornelius from him. I was relieved when we were on the road again, moving down the coast to San Diego. The huge white-topped breakers of the Pacific, the palms and the yellow beaches soon took my mind off ‘Mucker’, his ludicrous passion and my dismay at encountering this unexpected reviver of my previous persona.

While we played the little mock-Spanish theatres near the border, life became increasingly easy. We even had a few dollars in our cash box. I often wondered what it would have been like for me had I chosen to remain an actor. Probably I should have soon grown restless, like John Wayne or Frank Sinatra, and returned to politics. It is fashionable these days to mock Governor Reagan’s ambitions, but who can say if his natural talents would have been allowed to develop had he not taken his opportunities where he could, donning the stetson and six-gun as a champion of old virtue? He was a successful actor because he believed in his lines. Surely that is also the mark of a successful politician? The point, I would think, is not that you play a part, but that you choose which part you want.

Through the rest of 1923 and into 1924 we continually found enough work to keep body and soul together. We became polished enough to refuse the poorer bookings. Now we appeared only in permanent theatre buildings, and once or twice reached the top of the bill. Life was good. We did not overly mourn Warren Harding when he died (another victim of the Black Pope). Calvin Coolidge seemed a man of great commonsense. Our circumstances remained unchanged. For a short while the news of Lenin’s death in January 1924 brought a mild hope I might see my mother again. Nothing improved. In England the Bolsheviks increased their influence when the socialists under Ramsay MacDonald seized power. Carthage was making steady gains, but I could not see it. I scarcely cared. I agreed with Mrs Cornelius who said one morning after reading the item about Hitler’s Munich failure, ‘we’re well art of it orl, if yer arsk me, Ivan!’

Only in Italy was there any chance of political stability. In Russia, the Bolsheviks actually tightened their grip. It became clear that Lenin had been a restraining influence on the Oriental elements now apparently in power. In April 1924, at Mrs Cornelius’s insistence but against my better judgment (though I looked forward to city life again) we returned to Stranoff’s in San Francisco. They had offered us triple their old rate. We could not afford to refuse. The place was a little more decrepit but otherwise unchanged. Mrs Cornelius even found a piece of chewing-gum where she had stuck it on her last visit. We were doing White Knight and Red Queen as part of a bill including Douglas Fairbanks’s Mark of Zorro and Rudolf Valentino’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. On our second evening Harry Galiano arrived in my dressing-room. He was full of good cheer and with a broad grin pumped my hand. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘you’re doin’ great!’ He had brought me a letter. It had arrived earlier, in care of Mr Vince Potter at the North Beach address. ‘From Italy,’ said Harry. I reached out for it. I trembled. This letter was to bring a significant change in my life and remind me of my duty, my Lebensplan, my original course. Before I could open it Harry removed his hat somewhat awkwardly and told me with controlled sadness that Vince had been treacherously murdered about a week before the letter arrived. Harry knew Vince would have wanted to be sure I got it. I asked if he knew who killed his boss. Harry assured me with quiet confidence that justice would soon be done. He apologised for his poor manners. If there had been time to find me he would have invited me to the funeral, since I was ‘almost a relative’. I was surprised to hear Vince had followed my career with close interest. ‘We come to see you one night when you was outside Eureka some place. But we only caught half the show on account we was heading for Weaverville. We thought you was swell. Very classy. Vince was thinking about hiring you for the club. He was one of the sweetest guys in the world. But too soft, you know, for his own good. This letter come inside one from his cousin Annibale. I kept an eye on the posters, you know, and the Examiner, saw the show was in town. And here we are.’ The envelope was creased and crumpled, as if it had been thrown away and then recovered. I scarcely dared open it. Harry grinned. ‘That reminds me. You been writing bum checks. Matt?’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Maybe you heard of somebody called Callahan? He’s looking for you. Or, anyway, Pallenberg. It’s to do with a check. That’s all I know.’

‘You’ve seen Callahan?’

‘No. This came down the grapevine.’

‘He’s from the Justice Department.’

‘Bad hockey,’ said Harry. ‘There ain’t much you can do to a Fed.’

‘And you’ve heard nothing more?’

‘You think I should put the word out? Wise you to anything that comes in?’

‘It could do no harm, Harry.’

‘Sure.’ Harry gave my arm a friendly punch. ‘Stay in touch, eh? We got plans, same as Vince, to go into the entertainment side more. We’d rather give the work to an old friend.’

I thanked him, assuring him I would contact him again, even if I heard nothing more about Callahan. Although not handsome, Harry possessed the natural poise of a Renaissance Medici gallant. He was to put rum-running behind him in later years and turn, as he had predicted, to show business and leisure activities in Las Vegas. The last I heard, he was still alive and in excellent health.

The letter, of course, was from Esmé. I still have it, but if I did not I could quote it in full. Sie war es. Ich gebe allmein Weltstadten weg; aber ich gabe nicht alle meine Briefe. Her childish hand, her misspellings, her unconscious drifting from one language into another, revived all those profound feelings I had shut away when I left her in Paris. I had always known a reasonable explanation would emerge. At last I was to discover why she had failed to communicate or follow me to America. Mãyñ shvester, mayn froy! She had only, she wrote, recently received any of my letters. Almost immediately after I left Paris she had decided to live alone since Kolya’s wife Anäis seemed displeased by her presence. Kolya had kindly helped her find a flat. For a while she had worked as a receptionist in the office of one of Kolya’s business friends. Then something had cropped up. She was vague. ‘A stupid, pointless argument,’ she said. She left that job to work as a waitress in a night club. Then, unable to stand the advances of the customers, she had luckily bumped into Annibale Santucci one day. Santucci was sympathetic, offering his friendship and protection. Knowing she was my fiancée the Italian had behaved honourably and so she returned to Rome with him. There she lived with his cousin, a lady of Christian convictions, eventually finding a job as a hostess in a club. She worked and saved hard to get the fare to America. She had written me, but the letters were returned. Nobody knew my address. Unfortunately, just as she had enough money for a ticket, it had been stolen from her by the woman who shared her flat. As a consequence the police had arrested her for vagrancy (it was much harder nowadays to get along in Rome). Finally, meeting Annibale again, she had seen my last letters to him and at once wrote to this, my most recent address. She was longing to see me, was delighted I was doing well in America; she would be there with me now save for her lack of money. She had a genuine Italian passport, thanks to Annibale’s government friends, but to come to America she would need ‘dollars’ from me. Could I send word as soon as possible? She gave the address of a hotel near Tivoli where she was registered as Signora Sylvana Rastelli. This was also the name on her passport. She hoped I still wanted to get married. She had been a good girl. Mayn freydik, mayn gut bubeleh! She loved me faithfully and her heart had broken the moment we parted. Wann kommen Sie wieder?

I was, of course, overjoyed. I was so proud my little girl had managed to look after herself sensibly for the years we had been separated. In my elation I scarcely considered Harry’s news about Callahan. Muyn froy. Sie fährt morgen! I showed the letter to Mrs Cornelius. She read it carefully, first with pursed lips and a frown, then with a peculiar smile. Naturally I had completely failed to realise how ordinary female jealousy can distort the most objective information. Mrs Cornelius was typical in this respect. She spoke with flat significance. ‘Ya gonna send ‘er ther cash, then, are yer, Ivan?’

‘That’s the problem. I haven’t anything like the amount she needs. And I’d have trouble getting more. Of course she must have a first-class ticket.’

‘Better write an’ let ‘er know yer carn’t afford it, then, ‘adn’t yer?’

‘I can’t do that, Mrs Cornelius.’ I was surprised at her. ‘Esmé is my betrothed. We intend to be married. I left her behind only because she had no passport.’

‘Got one easy enough nar, ain’t she.’

‘Italian. Not French. Can you imagine what she must have gone through? She hardly mentions it. She can’t bear to. I knew Kolya wouldn’t let her down. It was that bourgeoise Anäis. I always found her a snob. The wicked bitch! Thank God, though, for Annibale’s generosity. I owe him a great deal. He’s been a true friend to us both.’

‘I’m sure.’ Her rivalry was patent. ‘An’ she’s bin a perfec’ lady, a bleedin’ nun. Keepin’ ‘erself by the sweat of ‘er brow while stayin’ pure an’ untouched fer ‘er ‘usband ter be. Makes yer weep.’ She was pitying. ‘Yore ther softest touch on earf, Ive, for orl yer ‘orrible ways. If y’ve got an ounce o’ sense y’ll tear that bleedin’ letter up an’ ‘ave done wiv it.’

Of course I ignored her. She meant well, as she had in Constantinople. But she had not met Esmé. Once I introduced my girl, everything would become clear. I became obsessed with the problem of raising the money. Mrs Cornelius pulled herself together. I think she realised what profound forces were at work. She offered no more negative advice. It was, she admitted, my own life. All she asked was that I spend my own, not the company’s money. She should not have feared. I possessed my usual means of earning honest cash. What I had to find quickly was a backer for my patents. Happily I was in the perfect area. Los Angeles and San Francisco, not to mention the five hundred miles between, had attracted several newer fortunes, such as Hughes’ and Davenport’s; many big industries were based in the State. But I had no idea whom to approach, nor how best to begin. My circumstances meant I could not contact Washington or any old Klan associates and Harry Galiano’s news of Callahan alarmed me. I did not dare cash a further check. I had to be more than usually circumspect about anyone whose financial assistance I sought. The patents were in my own name. I required a sympathetic ear and absolute discretion as well as an enthusiastic chequebook.

I had to offer my patents, therefore, to someone willing to keep a secret until I cleared my name and became officially resident in the USA. Harry Galiano evidently was not yet interested in industrial expansion. He might, however, have friends who were. Similarly most film people were notoriously wary of investing in anything speculative, save movies. I went on stage in a daze, my lines and gestures performed completely automatically. I considered a mental list of firms: Gilmore, Curtiss, Lockheed, Douglas, Studebaker, Martin and so on. Most were exploring some field of aviation. For the moment I had no faith in dirigibles or aeroplanes and did not particularly want to be associated with them. They had brought me too much ill-fortune. Oil was my next thought. I had detailed specifications prepared of my gas-powered car, a machine designed to make use of oil well by-products or even sewage waste. It would be cheaper to run than a conventional petrol-fuelled vehicle. The only serious technical problem lay in the storing and accurate valving of the gas. It was less stable than petroleum. To counter this I had invented a new type of cylinder (and, incidentally, the method of safety ignition still used today). Everyone knew the expense of refining Californian crude oil and realised it must eventually run out. Gas was cheaper to process. Unlike petrol it could be artificially manufactured. It seemed inevitable that my gas car, even perhaps my dynamite car, must in time replace the conventional automobile. Together with these designs I had a suction pumping method and a rapid refining process both of which would radically reduce well maintenance costs and produce a million barrels a day for every current thousand. By the time we finished that evening’s performance, I was certain I should soon possess more than enough money.

I went from the theatre to the nearest Western Union office and cabled Esmé: I had received her letter, noted the contents and a ticket would shortly follow. I returned to our digs, having celebrated thoroughly in a low-priced gin joint I knew, at about three in the morning. I was staying at Mulvaney’s Apartments on Jones Street, not very far from the theatre. It had a fancy glass door, reinforced with wire mesh; the desk was in the vestibule between this and a similar door some five feet further along. As I picked up my key from the Japanese night porter, he whispered something to me. I thought he was asking if I wanted a woman (it is a standard question from night porters at that time in the morning). I told him no. On the other side of the second glass door a slender figure was rising from where it had been sitting on the stairs. I grew alarmed at first, thinking it must be Brodmann. But this man was much taller. I went through the second door and turned up the gas in the hall. Smiling uncertainly, his hands deep in the pockets of his raincoat. Officer Callahan seemed apologetic. I did not care why. With Esmé so close, it now appeared I was to be locked away from her. I had no visa, false papers. I would spend time in a Federal jail, then be deported. It was about the best I could hope for.

‘I suppose I’m speaking to Mr Pallenberg,’ said Callahan.

I did not reply. I stood staring at him, almost tempted to kill him. I was desperate. I could not be separated any longer from my girl; it would be an outrage.

‘Well,’ Callahan looked away from me, ‘where do you care to do this, sir?’

I took him up the flight of stairs and unlocked the door to my room. He waited for me to enter, then he followed me in. After I lit the globe I glanced quickly around to make sure I had left none of my cocaine in view. It was hidden, but if he decided to search my luggage he would find it easily. I wiped my moist forehead.

‘You know your money’s frozen, do you, sir?’ The Irishman lowered his eyes towards the bed. It was unmade. He reached down and pulled the threadbare coverlet up, then seated himself, unbuttoning his raincoat and drawing out the same notebook he had used on the train. ‘We noticed you haven’t used the account. Besides that one check.’

‘I suppose it was my only mistake,’ I said.

‘Maybe. You didn’t do yourself much good blowing Walker without paying your hotel bill.’

I was not sure how much I should tell him. In a similar situation, with the Cheka in Russia. I had learned all information is worth hoarding. I waited to see if he would reveal anything else.

‘That was a pointless, petty crime,’ he said. ‘Up until then you’d kept your nose clean, at least as far as we had evidence. You could be charged for it.’

When I still remained silent, he went on: ‘And now you’ve changed your name, plainly to remain here illegally, since you’ve made no attempt to renew your visa.’

‘Is that it?’

He sighed. ‘A good lawyer could keep you in the country for a few months, maybe longer. Plainly you prefer it here. Is there something in Europe you’d maybe like to forget?’ He looked up at me from ambiguous. Catholic eyes. Suddenly I realised he was very probably a failed priest.

‘Can you help me?’ I said. My mouth was dry. I was trembling. Deliberately I let him see how nervous I was.

‘Help’s what I wanted to offer last year.’ I watched him grow slowly into his role. ‘We’re not ghouls. And we don’t always go by the book. What happened?’

‘I was frightened, Mr Callahan.’ Seating myself on the other side of the bed, I did not look at him directly. I tried to imagine a confessional grille between us. ‘My life was threatened.’

‘Who by?’ His voice grew softer. ‘Can you say?’

‘I had no clear idea what the Ku Klux Klan was when I arrived. I love America. They offered me a speaking circuit. It seemed an ideal means of earning a living while I toured your country. I never planned to stay here forever. By the time I realised what the Klan actually was, I was deeply enmeshed. Nothing specific, but I knew it would be unwise to anger them.’

‘I guessed as much.’ He sighed. ‘Go on.’

I had no choice but to encourage this mockery of religious ritual, to paint him a picture of my terror, of Klan threats, of my attempts to get out and finally, after I had talked to him on the train, my decision to refuse any further lecture engagements. Whereupon Mrs Mawgan had turned me over to the organisation’s bully-boys. They had beaten me, left me for dead. It was the Klan, not the Justice Department, I had hidden from. Certainly I had no wish to return to Europe. I had done nothing wrong. I had fought the Bolsheviks in Russia. I had been instrumental in getting hundreds, possibly thousands, to safety through Odessa. The Chekist Commissar Brodmann had been specifically commissioned to hunt me down. I got up to open the closet containing my clothes. One of my Russian uniforms hung there. ‘Those decorations were honourably won,’ I told him. I explained how I had flown against the Reds, how I had crashed and almost drowned. Yet Brodmann had searched me out until I was forced to flee Odessa, returning to France, my birthplace. There I had been the victim of a Chekist conspiracy. I had come to America hoping I might eventually be forgotten. If I went back now I would probably be going to my death. I had worked for the Klan because I thought they were anti-Bolshevik. I had not realised their own revolutionary ambitions.

Now Callahan was nodding rapidly, still making his notes. His ‘Go on’ was automatic. He was a monument of pious sympathy. ‘That’s it, Mr Callahan. There’s no more, save a few details. I believe the Klan and the Cheka are still hunting me. If you succeeded, then they too must soon find me. I suppose I’m as good as dead.’

He shook his head adamantly. ‘Only the Justice Department could investigate your bank accounts. You should bear in mind it’s our job to protect people, as well. Why didn’t you come to me? I had a notion you were innocent. I gave you my card.’

‘I thought you had finished your enquiry. I could not believe I had done anything criminal. But Bessy said you’d jail me.’

‘Mr Whiskers wasn’t interested in you. He wanted to get the dope on Bessy Mawgan, enough to send her down for a long stretch. We’re pretty sure she was the Klan fronter for half a dozen side rackets.’ He paused, including narcotics,’ he said. ‘Prostitution. You name it. She and Clarke and that other woman, Tyler, moved in on a fairly small-time gyp. They turned the Klan into big bucks. But Mawgan had the weight as well as the pedigree. Her old man went to the chair for a double burn down in Toledo. We were pretty certain he was her fall guy. Did you have any idea of that?’

‘None.’

‘That was my hunch. You, I could get through to. You were an amateur. But she was an old campaigner. She was spreading the slush money. She was delivering the chippies and practically anything else, from gazoonies to moonshine, to darned near every official and politician in the country willing to take a squeeze. So, we need to have the goods on her if we want her to sing.’ He paused. That’s why I’m willing to do a deal with you, Mr Pallenberg.’

‘You want information from me?’ I had none worth the name. Mrs Mawgan had always kept her other business affairs secret. He took my hesitation for fear, or possibly loyalty.

‘She put you on the spot. Why shouldn’t you tip her up? It you’re worried about recriminations, I’ll guarantee you’ll never have to take the stand. We’ll cover you all ways. And you can go on doing whatever it is you’re doing now. Anything you like, once you’ve whistled the whole tune and put your signature at the bottom.’

I saw a chance of immediately saving Esmé. ‘What about the money in my banks?’ I asked. ‘Will you release that?’

‘Can’t. On account of the order we used. It’s recorded as suspected criminal profits. When Mrs Mawgan takes a fall, or better still when all the crooks she was slipping the squeeze to are in the slammer, we’ll be able to do something about that. Meanwhile we prefer to know where you are. As our secret witness, we don’t want you leaving the country. You get an automatic “indefinite stay”. All you have to do is finger the floozy who put the spot on you. If you won’t, it’s hello Russia.’

I was convinced. It seemed I could gain my freedom, but disappointingly still had to find money for Esmé’s fare. I decided, in the interests of justice and for the sake of those I loved, to make a statement. I felt like a rat, but I had no choice. I talked into the night, dearly wishing I could get to my cocaine to keep my thoughts in order. I mentioned every name which came back to me. I made it clear that Major Sinclair was an idealist. Prompted by my Confessor I invented orgies, murders, perversion and pay-offs. Some I did not know by name, I said, but I gathered they were big wheels in Washington. I excelled myself as an inventor. George Callahan was almost crooning with joy by the time I took the fountain pen from his hand and signed myself Max Peterson on the last page. ‘That’s peachy,’ he murmured in his strange Irish accent. ‘That’s peachy, Mr Peterson.’ He closed the book. ‘Now, so long as you haven’t pattered me, we’re in business. All we have to do is locate Mrs Mawgan, get her lagged and tagged on the strength of this little brief and we can start going against the politicians we’re really after. I’m much obliged. You might not understand, or care, but you’ve performed an important public service this night.’ He was virtually rubbing his hands.

‘I do realise it, Mr Callahan. I’ve no desire to associate with criminals. Had I been a degree more au fait with your country I should not be in this position.’

‘For my part, Mr Peterson, I’m mighty grateful.’ There was a gleeful smirk on his thin, monkish face which he could not quite erase. As he left, he handed me a fresh card. ‘If you’re in any sort of a scrape, call that number and ask for George Callahan.’

‘Will the Klan be out for blood now, Mr Callahan?’ I knew I had sacrificed a great deal in order to be united with my Esmé. The beating outside Walker would be nothing to the ferocious tortures for which the Klan were famous. A good friend, but an implacable enemy, as Eddy Clarke had said. At least he was in jail, though he did not deserve to be. He would have understood my position. Indeed, if he had not been betrayed, I should not have been troubled by the Justice Department, Brodmann or this urgent need to raise money for Esmé’s ticket. Mrs Mawgan, on the other hand, had earned whatever came to her. No one would ever accuse me of betraying her. She had fled Walker, leaving me to the renegade Klansmen. Even then, given a choice, I would not have brought witness against her. But any rational person would agree that if a woman had to be sacrificed it should rightly be Mrs Mawgan. Esmé was in need of help. My innocent sister, my daughter, my love! Oh, how I would pile roses on her bed. Schönen roten rosen for meyn freydik froy! Moja siostra rózy. Meyn gelihte! She will save me from this groylik gadles! She will restore the truth. With her beside me, my cities shall take to the air again. No enemies shall I fear. Die Freunde sink gekommen und die Feinde entkommen!

Mrs Cornelius sitzt am Steuer. She could see I had not slept. Though she hated driving, feeling she somehow lost face by doing so, she took over when we left town next morning, bound for Hollister. She was an inexpert, if lordly, motorist, with her fringed green satin up to her thighs and her powerful muscles flexing as she manipulated the van towards the highway, cursing continuously. She paused long enough to ask me, almost sympathetically, if I had been frightened by something. Then I told her of my visit from the Federal officer. ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘we c’d orl be in jug. Me an’ the free girls’re illegal too, ain’t we?’

‘Only until I can make a phone call. This man trusts me. I was able to assist the State on a matter of grave national importance.’

‘Wot ther fuck’ve ya bin up ter, nar. Ive!’ She gave the wheel an exasperated wrench. ‘Ya little bleeding judas!’ She laughed heartily. ‘Nar, don’ tell me! I didn’t arsk!’ I laughed with her. I could now almost always tell when she was joking.

I sent Esmé another telegram from Hollister and phoned my new friend Callahan. He was not in the office. I was given another number to call. It was long-distance to New York. He had not yet arrived. I would remember, in a day or so, to telephone again and ensure Mrs Cornelius’s legality. Der Hund verfolgte der Hase. Already he was on the trail. We played the Berberich Theater that evening and my performance, while less abstracted than the earlier one, was again poor. The audience was noticeably restless. Mrs Cornelius kicked me twice, surreptitiously. As we came off she hissed, ‘If yore gonna keep changing me name from Rosa to Esmé I don’t care. But bleedin’ make it one or the uvver. They were beginnin’ ter fink it wos a bleedin’ comedy tonight.’ I apologised. I said she must understand how I was feeling. ‘Too well, Ivan,’ she said savagely. ‘Too bloody well!’

Soon I was spending all my free time studying specialist magazines, looking for likely investors. Callahan’s guarantees, when I considered them, were not watertight. It would still be foolish of me to reveal myself as Max Peterson. The Klan, I remembered, had powerful financial support from the great farming alliances of the West Coast. Doubtless industry had similar links. I made a considerable effort to play my parts with full attention, but I was growing increasingly abstracted. Every day I failed at raising the money was a betrayal of my little girl’s hopes. In Fresno Mrs Cornelius suddenly refused to continue the play and sang her songs instead. She would not speak to me for a whole day afterwards. Time was running out. I did not have a single reply to my circulars. Esmé would believe I no longer loved her. From Mojave, where we did three shows of White Knight and Red Queen a day, I sent my rose a cable assuring her all problems were being overcome. Under the benevolent sun of Southern California, I drove our little truck along the white highway, beside the sea. I saw only her. Already I imagined how delighted my beautiful child-wife would be. She would sit beside me, holding my arm, marvelling at undreamed-of natural luxury. I would again be doing my work as a scientist. We should be respected all over America, hobnobbing with the great and the famous. But this image only served to bring me closer to panic. I could lose it all. I had to find financial support. Sooner or later, when Callahan caught up with Mrs Mawgan, I would be in danger of my life. I had to act with reasonable speed. The one thing I had not told Callahan was where I guessed Mrs Mawgan to be hiding. That information was too valuable to throw in with the rest. She would have changed her name. She might be running a fresh operation. I knew therefore it could be a few months before Callahan would run my ex-mistress to earth. In those months I planned to make some money, bring Esmé to America, marry her and then escape to Buenos Aires, where engineers were in short supply, but where wealthy people willingly invested in schemes likely to add to the Argentine’s prestige. Moreover, many Russian émigrés were already there, supplying their military experience and skills to the government. Nothing of this could come true, I reminded myself, unless I quickly found what we in the theatrical profession called ‘an angel’.

We stopped for a late lunch at a little mobile hot-dog stand alone on the beach. Mrs Cornelius drew me aside. ‘Yore lookin’ orl dizzy, Ivan. I’m gonna say it once more an’ thass that. Ferget ‘er!’

I smiled graciously at my old friend. ‘Can you forget perfection, my dear, good Mrs Cornelius? When the girl you’ve longed for all your life, who you thought forever lost, is by a miracle returned to you, not once but twice, it’s hardly a casual affair. I mourned my Esmé for five years. I have sworn I shall never mourn her again.’

To her eternal shame (she apologised only three weeks ago in The Elgin), Mrs Cornelius answered this with one of her many new American expletives. It did not touch me, then. I knew in my heart she, whose instincts were normally so good, feared she must soon be parted from me. I could have reassured her, if she had listened. I loved her, as I would always love her. But Esmé possessed me. I looked up as a motor launch, shrieking like a bleeding sow, came in close to the shore, then swerved hard against the surf to squeal out towards the horizon again. There were two men standing upright in the launch. One had the wheel. The other was studying the beach through a pair of binoculars. I wondered again how much of the truth Callahan had told me. I had forgotten to question his links with Brodmann. Certainly, he had never contradicted my contention that the Cheka remained on my trail. I was sure the man with the glasses was Brodmann. Mrs Cornelius thought I was merely exhibiting pique as I hurried her and the others, who as usual giggled like children, back to the van.

Just before sunset next day, we arrived in Santa Monica where I again cabled Esmé my whereabouts, swearing a first-class boat ticket would soon be hers. I was becoming so desperate I thought of selling the van until I remembered my promise to Mrs Cornelius. It was not in me to sink to such depths. We planned to establish ourselves at Huntington Beach for at least a week and do our usual circuit of the nearby seaside resorts. It was close enough to Los Angeles for me to plan the area as a base from which to approach potential ‘angels’. By the next morning I had written another two dozen more or less identical letters and would mail them at my first opportunity. I was trying to will Esmé, six thousand miles away in Rome, to trust me and not to lose heart. I checked sailing times, discovering several ships leaving from Genoa in the coming month. My next telegram listed these ships and dates, asking her to choose which she would prefer. That, at least, would assure my child I remained sincere. I would never let her down, mayn shvester, mayn sibe!

That afternoon we did the first of our matinees at Maddison’s Famous Vaudeville Theater on the noisy, carefree boardwalk. The theatre looked out towards the big concrete fishing mole and the sandy beach. This resort was so characteristically Californian I had grown to love her. In spirit at least she reminded me of old Odessa, of her more vulgar suburbs along the coast, where brass bands played and carousels turned, in Fountain and Arcadia. From her cliffs, crooked wooden stairways wound down to beaches where huge mountains of water flung up their spray and the breakers rolled all the way from the horizon. Here were parties of bathers, older people sunning themselves, picnickers under bright umbrellas, less than a stone’s throw from a score of massive, full-sized oil derricks marching unchecked from cliffs to ocean. This forest flanked Huntington Beach on two sides. Here was the source of wealth and the means of squandering it rolled into one community. Amusement arcades, fun fairs, rickety nickelodeons, cotton candy stalls, magazine stands, ferris wheels, roller coasters, pleasure boats, many in primary colours made even more dazzling by the steady Pacific glare, contrasted with the twinkling blue of the ocean and an infinity of perfect sky. Sometimes an aeroplane flew over, just missing the roller coaster. The plane gave joyrides to excited grandparents, frozen-faced children, terrified oilmen and their happy girls, serious youths. Sometimes speed boats would howl and ululate on the water, reaping a watery furrow, marked by a wound of white foam. And all the while the oil pumps rose and fell, solid old beam-engines like gigantic feasting swamp fowl. Coupled with the towering lattices of the rigs, they made a scene from H. G. Wells, with Martians invading from the ocean depths, looking with baffled curiosity on the careless, festive crowd which simply characterised them as a not very interesting novelty. Alas, unconscious of their doom, the little foxes play, as Mrs Cornelius’s swindler friend, the Bishop, would always remark as he finished his fifth pint in The Blenheim Arms on a Friday night (it was before he was committed to an Old Folks Home near Littlehampton). Unlike Europe, America has never been ashamed of the sources of her prosperity, unless, ironically, they lie in brewing, distilling or cereal crops. Some years ago I met a Mr Schlitz. I believe the young man was attending university over here. He confided to me he did not mind in the least that his ancestral brewmasters had made Milwaukee famous; what he objected to was that their beer on his name, as it were, embarrassed him ‘all to hell’.

Greater Los Angeles, her earlier adobe and wooden Gothic now overshadowed by skyscrapers modelled on sixteenth-century haciendas, her blazing stucco flanked by enormous imported palms, from Africa and Australia, shading the parameters of implacable boulevards, now fills four thousand square miles. She is truly the Zukunft Kaiserstadt Imperye Yishov fun tsukunft! The Emperor City of the Future. And at her core history converges, coalesces, transmutes, reforms; not in the cool serenity of her City Hall, twenty-five storeys of splendid white Sumerian cement, not on the site of Yang-Na, mestizo Carthaginian outpost destroyed by internecine wars of her Catholic soldier-priests; not in her tar pits or observatories, her museums and universities; not even in her fantastic cults which have made of reality a globe filled with quicksilver. The core of Greater L.A. is where Vine Street crosses Hollywood Boulevard, that unremarkable collection of office blocks, shops and cinemas. Daily, when I was young, this intersection and the surrounding area, might fill with Roman Centurions, Spanish religious processions, convoys of Indian elephants bearing great howdahs from which drifted clouds of multicoloured silk; the armies of Norman France and Anglo-Saxon England, of Catherine the Great and Bismarck and Napoleon; the mob of the Paris streets in 1793 and the fighting Cossacks of Stenka Razin; the Royal Progress of the first Ming Emperor: Cowboys, Indians. Comic Police; the very failure of ‘authenticity’ is a sign that here was America’s true melting-pot. It was a melting-pot of Time. Of cultures. A million points of view like the infinite facets of some unstable gem. The Yellow and Red Cars come and go in their electric confidence; lines of power and communication strengthen Hollywood’s already complicated aesthetic. Etiolated Tahitian palms wave in an unlikely breeze next to the cypresses of ancient Jordan, the oaks of England and the poplars of the Rhone; all washed to pastels by her misty light. This same light lends shivering magic to her hills, as if, when we step beyond a certain unbakant frontier, we will find ourselves elsewhere in Time, possibly Space, too, and Hollywood vanished behind us: a whisper in the distant skies, a faint scent of coffee, paint and freshly sawn wood. She, above all, is still free. She is the perfect model of my flitshtot, my promise of hope. To her majesty, those beach towns were boisterous tumblers, summoned for her entertainment; save for Long Beach, a resentful, hard-working boyar, forever predicting the capital’s unrealised doom.

Mrs Cornelius, Mabel, Ethel, Mr Harry Hope and myself (our Brooklyn Indian had been lost to some nameless drunk tank) were now in direct competition with the chugging pumps and rattling rigs, the calliopes of a dozen whirling rides, with barkers’ shouts and the noisy excitement of the crowd itself; but we did not care. Here were the easy landscapes of childhood interludes and we felt, as always, that we had come home. I was now determined not to let Mrs Cornelius down. I put everything I had into my part. Never had a Cossack officer spoken in such thrilling fury, with such meaningful gestures, as I cried to the unseen hordes of Bolshevism encircling me: ‘Back, you cowards! Before God, the Tsar and Holy Russia, I swear I shall be revenged on some of you and send you to that Last Tribunal where a greater power than I shall judge and condemn you for your crimes!’ (I was then saved by Mrs Cornelius, in her khaki tunic and tights, who had been convinced by my earlier arguments that the cause she had served was evil, cruel and destructive.) She responded marvellously; acting with boldness and flare. If Cecil B. DeMille had actually been in the audience he might have offered us contracts on the spot. From habit, I looked to see if John ‘Mucker’ Hever was in his usual place. He had deserted us. No flowers appeared backstage.

That evening, before we went on for our final performance, Mrs Cornelius remained in high spirits. She appreciated the effort I had made. She told me I could be a wonder when I wanted to be. She hoped I would stop making a fool of myself and maybe have a try at the East Coast theatres again. We could start in Atlantic City. I reminded her I might soon be sitting behind an engineer’s desk but I promised not to leave the company without fair notice. We heard our music beginning and virtually danced out onto the stage with oui opening number (The Devil Came To Russia And The Devil Waved A Flag to the tune of The Animals Went In Two By Two). Again we had the audience captivated. We knew we were, as they say, ‘flying’. It was not until Ethel at the piano struck up our finale The Hammer And The Sickle Can’t Crush Or Tear Our Hearts to Marching Through Georgia) that I looked for ‘Mucker’ Hever and saw instead, with arms folded across their chests, five hooded Klansmen at the back of the hall. My mouth became instantly dry. I could scarcely croak out the remaining verse. My legs were weak; my stomach felt as if a knife had pierced it. Mrs Cornelius was alarmed. ‘Wot ther bloody ‘ell’s ther matter?’ she whispered. Then, as the audience whistled, stamped and applauded, the five Klansmen began to clap. They clapped regularly, at a slightly slower beat than the rest of the crowd and they continued to clap, increasing the beat slightly, until one of them raised a clenched gauntlet above his head. ‘Death to the Three Jays! Death to Jew, Jap and Jesuit! Death to the Alien Creed!’ I had expected them to rush the stage and attempt to carry me off. My first thought was that Callahan had betrayed me. Now, unless they were playing a cat-and-mouse game with me, I believed those five sincere, Klansmen of the Alte Kämpfer who still clung to the original ideals of the Umzikhtbar Imperye. We took two curtain calls, which we had never done before. We bowed and waved. I grinned like a puppeteer’s idiot doll. When we came to take the third call, the Knights of the Invisible Empire had vanished and the audience was filing from the little hall. ‘I ‘ope them bastards don’t make a reg’lar fing o’ this.’ Mrs Cornelius released my hand. ‘They could bleedin’ lose us ‘arf the ‘ouse.’ I had my own reasons for wishing them gone. In the dressing-room she made me drink a tumbler of noxious Mexican brandy. ‘Yore sweatin’ like a pig! Wot scared ya this time? Them silly buggers in their nighties? Jes’ a bunch o’ overgrown kids muckin’ abart.’ She chuckled. ‘Didn’t fink they wos real ghosts, did yer?’ She poured me another dark brown slug.

Beginning in the dressing-room we both got rather drunk, as we had on the Rio Cruz so long ago, singing the Cockney songs which were her real favourites but most of which were never appreciated in America. She revealed she had been ‘almost sorry’ when Lenin died, ‘I wosn’t surprised ‘e croaked so sudden. ‘E wos a maniac fer work.’ She laughed. ‘Anyfink ter stop worryin’ abart real people. I must admit, my Leon’s ther same, but I fink e’ll do a better job, if they give ‘im ther chance. Not likely though, is it, ‘im being’ a yid?’ Her prediction was surprisingly accurate. Within ten years, Stalin had cleansed his ruling committee of every single Jew. A Georgian returns always to his simple roots. We cannot be seduced as easily as your Moscow intellectual. I reminded Mrs Cornelius I had no personal or sentimental attachments to Bolsheviks. They were all bloody handed mass murderers. Drug-besotted lunatics. She nodded her acquiescence, as if this was a fact everyone took for granted. ‘Yeah.’ She seemed to wait for me to enlarge on my theme, but I had said all there was to say. ‘Oh, they’re that orl right,’ she said.

She sprawled against her tiny dressing-table, still in khaki and jackboots, nostalgically remembering how she and I first met in an Odessan dentist’s surgery. Because of the drink she could not recall when she had next seen me. She was with Trotski’s Red Army, I said. She had saved my life in Kiev. Put me on the train which, by chance, led me to Esmé. She smiled and patted my cheek. ‘Wot a funny ol’ pair’ of bedfellows we are, eh?’

‘Never quite,’ I said.

This made her laugh.

Die Rosen wachsen nicht in den Himmel. Esmé, mayn fli umgenoyenist. Bu vest komen. Hob nisht moyre. Vifl a zeyger fort op der shif keyn Nyu-York? Vifl is der zeyger? S’iz heys. ikh red nit keyn Yiddish! ikh red nit keyn Yiddish! Blaybn lebn . . . Mayn snop likht in beyn-hashmoshes . . . Es tut mir leyd. Esmé! Es tut mir leyd!

Nekhtn in ovnt . . . Next day I once again gave my best as a performer. In our own eyes at least we had become a perfect stage union, the kind of romantic duet one now saw regularly on the screen. White Knight and Red Queen was almost real to us. The illusion was shared by our audience (ordinary people can, whatever cynics say, appreciate serious emotional drama) and it also served to decrease my by now habitual worrying about Esmé. I became, as a result, almost addicted to the part: looking forward to our shows as I never had before. A telegram from Tivoli told me the choice of ship was unimportant. The only problem was the fare. She loved me and was eager to see me again. Was I sure I wanted her there? Ikh farshtey nit. Firt mikh tsu, ikh bet aykh. tsu di Heim. Khazart iber, zayt azoy gut. I don’t understand. I replied by return that the fare was on its way and I counted the hours until we were reunited.

It was at that evening show I noticed with dismay John ‘Mucker’ Hever back in his usual seat close to the stage, all but drooling in his infatuation for Mrs Cornelius. Yet I was in a way comforted to see him. Our performance was perfect. He must have given himself blisters on his palms, he clapped so hard. Like clockwork, Mr Hever arrived at the stage door in time to be blocked by me. Ritually, I accepted his expensive red and white roses and his ivory card. He was an eager, dewy-eyed boy, keener than ever, promising anything for an introduction to my co-star. She had never acted more brilliantly. She was an English Bernhardt. She was perfection itself. ‘Please understand, sir, that I have never done this sort of thing before. I’m no stagedoor johnny. I’m in love, sir.’ A thought came to him (rather late, in my view) ‘My God! You’re not her husband?’

I ran my thumb over the card’s embossed lettering. ‘Mrs Cornelius is a widow.’ She was a little hazy on this herself.

I remembered how we had spent most of our time together talking about the cinema. He had shown great familiarity with Continental films. He was speaking with tearful enthusiasm of how she was fated to be recognised by the world of the silver screen. I told him I would pass on the wishes and the roses. He apologised for missing our earlier shows. ‘I have just acquired an interest in a movie business. If it is of any use to you, I will put everything at your disposal.’ It was ironic that this was the ‘angel’ I had prayed for only a few weeks earlier. Now, in that City of Angels, not one engineering firm had answered my letters. It came into my mind that I should easily demand a bribe for taking him to Mrs Cornelius’s dressing-room. How else, short of direct theft, was I to keep my word to Esmé? But only a fool would carry the price of a first-class boat ticket on his person. I had the impression that, no matter how besotted he was, Mr Hever possessed a profound sense of the value of money. I brightened, however, for it had been bothering me how Mrs Cornelius would survive without my management. I did not know if his interest was a share in the local flea pit or fifty percent of Fox, but I was not impolite as I turned him away. I could feel a certain sympathy for a man in the grip of an obsession. I told him to return after our matinee tomorrow, when I hoped to have an answer for him. He was disgusting in his gratitude.

This time I gave Mrs Cornelius his card, ‘I think I’ve made you a useful contact. He could be the help you need getting a job in pictures.’

She shook her head. ‘Never ‘eard of ‘im.’ By now she had a mental list of all the important Hollywood names.

‘You shouldn’t discount Hever completely. He’s only just come to the business. I do know he’s keen. He might be prepared to underwrite a more elaborate show, at any rate. We could make some substantial money for once.’

She winked at me. ‘Somefink in it for you. Ivan?’ She would bear what I said in mind. ‘But you know me rule: “Don’t sell cheap what don’t cost yer nuffink” and “Keep yer ‘and on yer investments.’”

I was offended. ‘I’m merely suggesting you agree to see him. He’s a pleasant enough fellow. I’m not asking you to prostitute yourself!’

‘It’s me I don’t trust, prob’bly.’ she said. ‘Ther smell o’ gelt does funny fings ter me insides.’

I had decided I must raise what I could on my Georgian flintlocks. They were all I had left of any real value and the nouveaux riches of Los Angeles were rumoured to pay exaggerated prices for what were now being called ‘genuine’ antiques. I mentioned this to Mrs Cornelius. She shrugged. ‘Seems a waste. Yore fond o’ them in yer fashion. Sort o’ mascots, in’t they? I bet they bin up a few Jew’s arses over ther years. Do wot yer like, I s’pose.’ She remained unhelpful. My other alternative was to go to a loan company and see if I could raise money with the show as security. There would be no need for anyone else to know about it, since, according to the scrap of paper we had signed, my $500 had bought me ‘exclusive rights’. I was now in a state of mixed panic, anger, disappointment and sheer misery. I longed for my Esmé. It would be virtual suicide to let her down and lose her as a result. It would be like murdering a child. Wie heisst dieses Lied?