The Laughter of Carthage

TWENTY-ONE

MY ACTING CONTINUED to improve almost in direct proportion to my sadness and desperation. During that brief period of my life I was greater than any Barrymore. Before long we would have been snapped up. I was grateful, however, for every show we did which lacked the approving presence of the Klan! It would take only one man to recognise me and I might easily find myself invited to a night ride. I had seen what happened to traitors. They stapled your testicles to a tree, lit a fire under them and handed you a knife with the command to ‘Cut or burn’. I had felt as sick only in the Ukraine, where similar brutes had passed their leisure skinning youths alive or roasting babies on sheets of corrugated iron. They were the guards in Auschwitz, moreover. There is a kind of Ukrainian the rest of us disown.

As usual, late that afternoon, I discovered Mr Hever trembling and red-faced, almost drowning in his own seat, waiting for a word. I told him Mrs Cornelius valued her privacy more than anything, ‘I can understand,’ he said several times. Partly from curiosity, partly because I still had some notion I could borrow part of Esmé’s fare from him, I drew him out on a variety of subjects. Did he travel much? Did he live permanently in California? Where did he live in the State? Did he have views on the political situation? It was odd to witness so much awkwardness in so large a man. With his prematurely greying hair and rather thin, stammering voice, his expression of furious despair almost demanded kindness. He had renounced travelling in favour of the telephone. He lived up in ‘the hills’ but still took the double-decker downtown to work every day. He was ‘solid Republican’, he said, as his father had been. He had spent most of his adult life in the State and in his view it was best served by the Republican Party. I found this, given his interest of only a couple of years before, the most illuminating thing he had said. It seemed to me he, like me, wished to be completely free of this new, ersatz-Klann. which had abandoned oratory in favour of the blackjack, the boot and the bullwhip. I was sympathetic. Nonetheless I could not resist the unworthy thought that if he one day remembered me from Atlanta, he might be even more embarrassed than I. Living here so long, I said, one must automatically become interested in the movie business. He shrugged, pointing out that movies were only ‘a kind of hobby’. His real job had nothing at all to do with them. He was an engineer. I knew this, of course, ‘In what field?’ I was curious to see if he answered truthfully. ‘Oil,’ he said.

‘You’re employed by one of the big companies?’

‘I guess so.’ He was impatient to change the subject, to return to that of Mrs Cornelius. From a casual angler, however, I had suddenly become a game-fisherman. Here was someone who very likely could introduce me to an important executive! If I was careful, I might help Mrs Cornelius and at the same time help myself. It was regrettable I could no longer claim Klan connections, since we both were saying nothing of them. I had noticed, however, that he had been anxious to avoid the topic of politics. I wondered why. I considered what I should do next. It was all I could do to restrain myself from opening my document case under his nose. I longed to show him my plans. I knew that a professional engineer would be impressed by what many had been kind to call my genius. How could he expect a play-actor to be a brilliant scientist? It did not make sense. Why should a scientist choose to become a strolling thespian? There again, I thought, was it usual for oil-company engineers to squander their earnings on the movies? Perhaps he would understand. For all my optimism about his response, I decided to hang on to my secret a little longer. Instead I asked if there was some message I could take (with his hideous black and red carnations) to the object of his desire.

‘If she would grant me my dearest wish,’ he murmured without much hope, ‘it would be that she accept my invitation for dinner tonight at the Hollywood Hotel.’

I kept a straight face and said I would see what I could do.

‘Assure her my intentions are honourable!’ He had grown more anxious by the second.

‘She would take that for granted, Mr Hever.’ I carried his blooms to the great actress’s chamber. She began to interest herself in the flowers rather than what I had to say. ’‘Ow ther bloody ‘ell do they git ‘em that colour, Ivan?’

I insisted she listen. He was a man of means, with excellent social connections. Some kind of silent partner in a movie studio, ‘I advise you strongly, for both our sakes, to accept his invitation. The Hollywood Hotel is where all the important people dine. You’ve read the magazines. Aren’t you curious? God, I wish he was in love with me. I would jump at the chance!’

She laughed at this and her dawning anger dissipated. ‘Ivan, I still fink your sellin’ my body like any flashy littel pimp.’

‘He insisted he had honourable intentions.’

‘It’s not the bloody fuckin’. Ivan,’ she said wearily, ‘It’s the bleedin’ boredom I can’t stand. Orl right, I’ll go. This ain’t normal, Ivan. If I even think o’ goin’ art ter supper wiv a chap yore usually poutin’ orl over yer bleedin’ face.’

‘I’m thinking of your career.’

She sighed. ‘I’ve got a feelin’ I’ll on’y find art wot yore up ter by seein’ wot ‘e ‘as ter say! Wheel ‘im in, an ‘urry up abart it.’ She primly arranged her kimono, picking at her Marcel waves with pink fingers. She had begun, quite unconsciously, to exude sexuality with such force it was as much as I could do to pull myself from the room, close the door, straighten my shoulders and walk slowly back towards the daylight and the looming, untidy, cow-eyed creature silhouetted in the exit.

‘Mrs Cornelius presents her compliments,’ I said. ‘She would be glad to see you for five minutes, to discuss the possibility of her dining with you tonight.’

I all but carried the poor monster into the presence of his adored madonna. Mrs Cornelius was happy to let me remain during the interview. She plainly found Hever endearing and most of her grand manner had gone by the time she dismissed him. She said, with an affectionate smile, that she would meet him at the exit after our evening performance. He lurched away, almost taking the door frame with him. ‘He’s sweet,’ she said. ‘Wot d’yer want me ter do tonight? Pick ‘is pocket?’

‘Of course not. Merely mention the fact that I am a qualified engineer, that I have patents on a number of practical inventions for saving money in the oil business, that I was educated in St Petersburg and have worked with important companies in France, Memphis . . .’

She raised a plump hand. ’‘Ang on, Ive, fer Gawd’s sake. I can’t remember the ‘ole CV. Ya fink ‘e can do yer some good, right?’

‘He must have connections with the important oil men. All I ask is an early introduction.’

‘You sure that’s it?’

‘I swear!’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Okey-dokey, if yer say so. Yore schemes ain’t usually that simple. What we do fer bloody love!’

Once again that night I gave her my all. She responded with magnificent acting. ‘Mucker’ sat doubled up in his seat, squirming with admiration, ecstatic in the knowledge that his dream would soon come true. We took three curtain calls (this time without the aid of the Klan) and came off in a mood of cheerful elation. ‘Yore reely pullin’ the stops art, Ivan. I got ter admit I don’t mind doin’ this fer ya, as it appens. A favour fer a favour, I orlways say.’ She was dressed specially for the high-class restaurant, in one of her hats. This was primarily of green and yellow satin. Her dress was midnight blue with lighter blue beading at throat, arms and knee. Her yellow shoes were a close match to her hat. ‘Wot d’yer fink, Ive?’ She admired herself. ‘A stunner, if it’s me as sez so!’ She took a deep breath, which threatened the security of her chest. ‘’Ere goes, then. See yer later, I ‘ope.’ She placed her hand on her hip in parody of a modern fashion model, picked up her jet and chrome beaded bag, and waltzed off to keep her date.

I became agitated almost as soon as she had left. I kept crossing my fingers, then uncrossing them because I felt foolish. I thought I would go mad simply waiting for her report, so I went into the next room where Mabel and Ethel were pulling on their stockings and asked if they had plans. ‘Nuffink spesh,’ said Ethel. She nudged her friend. They had always enjoyed our ‘romps’ in the past. When heavily made up and in high heels, their skinny little bodies could be almost attractive. I took them, one on each arm, along the boardwalk in the fizzing light of the fairground. The sea was black and still beyond the beach. I could hear the oil pumps, steadily grinding away, and I wondered how many lovers used the noise and the darkness as cover. Huntington Beach was at its best now, coming fully alive. Huge, crudely painted heads nodded above booths which popped and clattered or tinkled with tiny bells. The barkers yelled in a language of their own, more ancient than Romany, and the harem girls, if anything even less attractive than my two, wriggled their mean protruberances to the sound of some fartsayrik Edison cylinder. The stink of oil came off the beaches and mingled with the stink of oil from the fairground, with the smells of hamburgers and hot dogs, toffee apples, pink cotton candy and sugar-sticks. The ground, often covered by bouncing planks where it had become too muddy, was a museum of California’s glanlsik garbage, the vivid colours of bottles, boxes and paper bags already beginning to fade. My theatrical colleagues were sharing a room with Mrs Cornelius. I thought it imprudent to go there, in case she decided to leave her date prematurely. I took them back to my own room, on the other side of the fairground. It was as if we had not left. The lights flashed and winked, the music churned out with mechanical cheer the waltz tunes of a more elegant century, and Ethel moved her skeletal, almost androgynous carcass up and down on my misleadingly trimmed member while Mabel, unusually for her, lowered a not oversweet vagina towards my head, then dropped with a slight yelp, full on my lips. I did what I could before my conviction that I was suffocating got the better of me. I had not forgotten Esmé. I could see her sweet, virginal face even as Mabel ground herself next upon my shoulder. It was astonishing how like Lillian Gish Esmé was. She would have no trouble at all finding movie parts if that was what she wished. I began to hope I might be responsible for giving the world two wonderful new stars. The temptation to remain in the acting profession was considerable, but I knew I could not resist my destiny any longer. I had other gifts to offer the world. I had my luftshif and boats and household appliances. Ultimately they led to my dream of maximum freedom, my aerial cities. Eybik, fargesn, ikh blaybn lebn.

I escorted the ladies back to their own boarding house, a couple of blocks from mine. They made coffee for me and chatted about films they had seen, men they had dated, advertisements which had attracted them. By three in the morning they had crawled into bed together and fallen asleep. Mrs Cornelius, when she returned, was mildly surprised to find me there. She gave a little jump and then hiccupped. ‘Beg pardon, Ivan. Wot the ‘ell are you doin’ up, and in my room!’

‘I wanted to hear how everything went.’

‘You ain’t me granny.’ She frowned, ‘I still carn’t work art yore angle.’ Then she grinned, removing her hat. ‘E’s loverly, reeliy. Soft as butter, an’ orl! Didn’t lay a finger on me, like ‘e said.’ She was impressed by this. ‘An’ ‘e’s fixin’ up a screen test wiv ‘is mates at Lasky’s. I ain’t complainin’. A bit’v a barn, that hotel, though. I expected somefink more flash. An’ no bloody booze, would yer believe it. Woman ‘oo runs it’s a reformed madam, I fink.’

I was genuinely pleased for her, but I needed to know what she had done on my behalf. ‘Did you manage to slip in something about my inventions?’

She sat down on her narrow bed and began carefully to roll down her fine silk hose. She grew bright red. The frame shook and creaked. She was laughing silently. ‘Anyone c’n read yer like a bleedin’ book, Ivan. Orl right, I carn’t ‘ang on ter it! If yer must know yore “engineer” wiv a bit o’ spare cash is John Ewart Hever-Junior. Not on’y is ‘e a bleedin’ millionaire wiv oil fields all over California an’ Texas. ‘Is bleedin’ dad’s a millionaire. Thass J.E.H. Senior, is fuckin uncle’s a millionaire. An’ when they wanna go slummin’ they orl get in a big Rolls Royce and piss over ter William Randolph ‘Earst’s gaff ter see ‘ow the ovver ‘arf lives.’ She enjoyed the astonishment on my face. She reached over and patted my arm. ‘I carn’t say I ain’t grateful fer the intro, Ive. Mucker reckons ‘e’s ther main tip as Republican nomination fer Guv’ner, next time rahnd. Fink I’d make a proper firs’ lady o’ the State?’ And she released her laughter this time, waking her room mates who asked her to put a sock in it.

‘But you didn’t mention my stuff?’

‘We’re ‘avin’ dinner agin tomorrer. Some place darn near Laguna Beach, I fink. Fish restaurant. Orl on ther legit, eh?’ She winked again. ‘I’m lookin’ arter ther value o’ me assets, like I said. But I’ll do it tomorrer night, Ive, I promise. It jes’ didn’t work art this time. Off yer go, love. See yer at ther show. I’ve gotter get me beauty sleep, in ‘I?’ And humming a few bars of Knock Em In The Old Kent Road she waved me towards the door. I left, but I felt she had at very least failed to understand the urgency of my situation. Although glad things went well for her and grateful for the intelligence of Hever’s enormous wealth, for some reason I was seized by an additional sense of panic. Perhaps I suspected she might betray me (I should have known better) and claim Hever entirely for herself. It would be like an Indian who, having hunted down one of the last buffalo, refused to tell his tribe. Hever belonged to me quite as much as he did to Mrs C.

That was why, next morning, I boarded a powerful Red Car inter-urban trolley rumbling the coast-road tracks to Marina del Rey. From near Venice’s huge indoor Bathing Pavilion, I took a Yellow local inland. It was a remarkable public transport system and a model to most other cities. The Huntington class tram cars were St Louis-built, superbly engineered and designed to live a century. They were named after the line’s owners, that old wealthy family established in California since she was ruled by Dons. I saw almost the final run of the Descanso, the big silver-grey Funeral Car, last of her kind. Unable to compete with the rapidly multiplying automobile, she was extinct within the year.

The South Western Mineral Company was easily found. They had an entire building on Wilshire Boulevard, some twenty storeys high, standing in what was virtually a small park. I gave my name to the clerk at a vast reception desk which occupied the ground floor. He was greatly impressed when I was asked straight to the top. A pretty secretary met me outside the elevator, leading me through cool, grey corridors crowded with potted palms and ferns. We came at last to a massive door which was thrown open and there was ‘Mucker’ himself, as untidy as ever in his pale suit, virtually embracing me. It was as if an elephant calf had risen on its hind quarters in imitation of homo sapiens. ‘So happy to see you, Pallenberg.’ He was, even in his native environment, acutely nervous and consequently expressing embarrassment with every clumsy movement. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope?’ He was growing whiter even as he escorted me inexpertly through mahogany opulence towards his antique desk squatting before the shaded window and a view of the sea. From here the city looked curiously incomplete, like an unfinished jigsaw, with patches of irregular green, abrupt asymmetrical mud lots or exact squares of glittering concrete. It was as if this part of Los Angeles were in the almost organic process of reforming herself. Hever put his broad back to the view, offering me a chair, a cigar and a ‘pop’ with one brief, hesitant wave. I lowered myself into deep, Victorian leather, looking up at his worried eyes. ‘You’ve brought a message from Mrs Cornelius, I take it?’

I shrugged, smiled and shook my head. ‘She said she had a delightful dinner. She’s looking forward to this evening. Laguna Beach? I doubt you’ll find me acting as an intermediary from now on. Mr Hever. Mrs Cornelius is her own woman.’

He turned his head in a peculiar sideways movement which suggested approving assent. ‘Strong-minded.’ He beamed. This was his favourite subject. ‘A woman of so many wonderful aspects.’ He grinned like a half-trained puppy. ‘I thought you were here to tell me I’d flopped the prelims. She’s no goop, that gal. If you want it straight, Pallenberg, I’m pretty much of a ham with the ladies.’ He sat back with a self-approving sigh, as if he had just made a courageous revelation. He continued to lounge at this uneasy angle, his expression fixed as he waited for me to speak. I have met his type since, but he was the first millionaire I had encountered. He had none of the characteristics I would have expected to find in someone who controlled the fate of thousands. I think nobody liked to tell him how much power he had: it would make him speechless, wondering in panic what so many individuals expected of him. It was hard enough for him to deal with one of us at a time. In raising the main subject I felt like an assassin; yet, for Esmé’s sake, I was determined to continue.

‘Actually, Mr Hever, we’ve met before.’ I hesitated. ‘We discussed the future of engineering for a little bit. But mainly we talked about our mutual enjoyment of the movies. I recall you mentioned some Germans. Pabst? Murnau?’

He glared at me in innocent panic; his fear was purely social.

‘At Klankrest? In Atlanta. Mr Hever? A party given by Eddy Clarke, a couple of years ago? You told me how you’d made a big donation to the Klan.’

Suddenly his massive body rose like a wild balloon. Hand to the side of his head he glanced at me in fear. From white he quickly grew bright red. Then he inhaled enormously, slumping his unhappy bottom against the edge of the desk. ‘Mrs Cornelius knows all this?’

‘Why should she?’

'So she -' The words became a groan of pain. Obviously he was wondering if the love of his life had only agreed to go out with him to set him up for me. Another massive breath. He began to roam aimlessly over the carpet as if he thought he might find the elephant's graveyard. I turned my head to follow him, saying urgently. 'Mr Hever, sir. I think you have the wrong idea.’

'You're not blackmailing me, are you Pallenberg, for God's sake.’ He had ascended to Heaven only to find it inhabited by the Devil. I wanted to pat his hand and assure him his happiness was not attacked. 'The friendship of Mrs Cornelius means a lot to me. You can't know what I went through . . .' Again his manner apologized for this self-reference.

I was offended. 'I won't deny my finances are currently nonexistent, Mr Hever. But,' (I was enjoying my increasing familiarity with the slang.) 'it will be a cold day in Hell before I try to put the bite on a pal. Please relax.' I knew how nervous he must be. He still could not believe his good fortune. He had been born a millionaire, had known nothing but privilege, yet he expected happiness to be snatched away from him just as if he were a child in the slums of Kiev who knew from experience that nothing of value was ever his for more than a chance moment. Hever actually expected to have his dream destroyed. I went on: 'Nothing which I say in this room will ever be conveyed to Mrs Cornelius. Whatever exists between you two can't be harmed by me.'

He looked at me with that same expression of gratitude which had been on his face when I first told him he could see his idol. But he was puzzled. 'Then why are you here?' He was in the early stages of a love affair. The rest of the world and its inhabitants currently scarcely existed.

'I thought you'd better know the Justice Department has frozen my assets for an indefinite period. If anyone's being blackmailed, it's me. I'm their key witness in a Klan knockover which could expose almost every secret supporter in the country. I'm not being melodramatic.'

'You know I'm expecting to be nominated for Governor next year?' He blinked vaguely into a threatened future.

'Yes. I just wanted you to rest assured. No matter how desperate I get, I shan't give the game away. But this is the ruin of my own career.'

‘You’re a brilliant actor, Mr Pallenberg.’

I chuckled bitterly as I picked up my hat and rose to my feet.

‘That’s the real irony, Mr Hever. It’s all I can do at present. Actually, if you remember that conversation at Klankrest, I’m a scientist. I told you about some of my ideas. You said you were impressed.’

For a moment he again became aware of a world which had existed before he had dined with Mrs Cornelius. ‘What a prune I am! Of course! You were the whiz who suggested roofing over Iowa! You must excuse me, Mr Pallenberg. I’m completely fogbound this morning.’ Smiles came and went across his face. He lumbered after me and my hand was shaken for the second time. ‘And you had some other ideas. I remember thinking you were the only intelligent person at that whole bust. How on earth did you get to be an actor? I thought you were in big with the KKK. Don’t tell me. I’m deeply ashamed. They had me completely bamboozled for a few months. I wish I could have got my money back. You came to warn me, is that it?’

‘We’re in the same boat, I’m afraid.’ I told him part of my story. He listened with deep, mindless sympathy. ‘Anyway,’ I concluded, ‘that’s how a first-rate scientist wound up becoming a third-rate actor. Whatever happens, Mr Hever, your name will never be drawn from me.’

Hever’s porcine lower lip was trembling. He grew sentimental. He said I was a white man. What specific help could he offer? What experiments had I been conducting when the Klan kidnapped me? I told him of my gas car, my new oil-refining process, my suction pump. He displayed enthusiasm. I unrolled the few rough plans I had brought, explaining I had been forced to change my name. The patents were chiefly registered to ‘Pyatnitski’. He studied them, exclaiming politely from time to time, asking the occasional pertinent question. I congratulated myself: we had reached an understanding.

Before I left Hever’s office I heard much more about Mrs Cornelius’s virtues, his own shortcomings, my genius; but he had bought a control in me. I had a draft contract with Golden State Engineering Developments (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Hever empire) and a cashier’s cheque for $2,500; my advance on a retainer of $10,000. I would draw a salary of $200 a week. My title, Chief Experimental Engineer, was in black and white on the contract. When my inventions were commercially produced I would earn 50% of the net profits. Life had begun again for me. Esmé was coming!

Ich kann ohne dich nicht leben. I did no wrong! It was to mutual benefit. Gold blinkte. Due wirst mich ruinieren, mein Schatz, meine Gelieble. I could not help it. Es ist zu spät. Ich kenhe mein Schicksal. Zu spät für den Seelenfrieden! Wir kämpfen nur, um ein gewisses Gleichgewicht aufrechzuerhalten. I had found myself, like some engineer of the Renaissance, a powerful patron, that was all.

Mrs Cornelius was soon Hever’s regular consorte everywhere. Under her picture on the society pages she was described as ‘an English beauty’, ‘daughter of the eminent banker’. Within two weeks we formally handed over Limeys in Limelight to Ethel, Mabel and Harold Hope, together with all props, the van, and enough money to get the girls back to England if they chose. They now had legitimate visas. Both said they thought they would stay in California. If Mrs Cornelius had made it, Mabel told me, there might be a chance for her, ‘even if it’s only marrying a wealthy projectionist!’ Mrs Cornelius was due to take her first screen test at the Lasky Studios on Selma and Vine. She told me privately that Mucker was the tastiest millionaire she had met and a proper gent. She generously thanked me for insisting she go out with him. ‘You done us all a bit o’ good there. Ivan!’ She had forgiven me for ‘going behind her back’ to Hever. (She did not realise what she owed me for that action!) She said she was surprised he had agreed to my scheme. Normally he was slow and cautious in his business dealings.

I would visit her at her new suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sometimes I would take her for drives in the lovely wooded roads behind the hotel. I had a serviceable green and gold Peugeot 163. This de luxe Torpedo had been presented to me when I signed my final contract. I liked to luxuriate in the clouds of pink and pale blue which filled the rooms in that Spanish palace. Dressed in new clothes (jodhpurs, riding-boots and ascot, then acceptable motoring wear, became my favourites) I would lounge across her sofas, passing an hour or two with her before Hever called. My own pleasant little house was in the seaside suburb of Venice, close to the Grand Canal. I especially enjoyed Hollywood’s extravagances. Where else might one find this translated notion of a European city, with rococo wood and brick representing the stones of the original? Hollywood, even then, had begun to influence the whole of Southern California. She was the spiritual and cultural core of Los Angeles. For miles around there were growing whole townships which, were it not for the skills and imagination of movie set-designers, could never have existed. In a region where rain was rare, elaborate architectural fantasies could be created cheaply and rapidly. In Hollywood it was possible to ape the rich and succeed. Hollywood created the world’s first true democracy. For different reasons, both Mrs Cornelius and I were euphoric.

On the morning I bought Esmé’s ticket, I called on her in her suite to tell her the news. She had advised me not to cable Esmé cash. Cash could always be stolen again. I had sent my girl a non-returnable one-way first-class ticket on the Icosium which sailed from Genoa on July 21st. ‘Registered and Special Delivery,’ I told her. ‘I paid cash. It’s wonderful to have money in my pocket again!’

‘Yore a jammy littel bugger.’ she said affectionately. She was trying on various accessories before the wall-length mirror. ‘I reckon we’re birds of a fewer, you an’ me, Ive. Thass why it’d orlways be a mistake ter you-know-what.’ I smiled at this, not completely in agreement. ‘We wouldn’t be ‘ere nar,’ she pointed out, ‘if we’d’ve bin up ter a bit o’ the how’s-yer-fahver.’ She put down the long scarf she had been winding round her cami-knickered waist. The scarf was scarlet, her underwear pale green satin. ‘So thass why yore orl antsy t’day.’ She kissed me on the forehead as she reached behind me for a headdress of bright blue ostrich feathers. ‘Ah, well. Somebody’s gotta ‘elp yer spend it, eh?’ In the course of her love affair with Hever she had grown, as people will, more tolerant of what she still called my infatuation.

It was true I was trembling with excitement. By the end of the following month I should be reunited, after all those painful years, with my darling Esmé. My entire body had quickened and come to life in anticipation of our meeting. This ecstasy transcended fleshly sensation. I experienced it so forcefully, I think, because I was at once confident, relaxed and unthreatened. Wann sehe ich Sie wider? Ich habe lange geschlafen. Die Zeit vergeht. Sie hat ihr Tat selbst zu verantworten. It had been three years. Seit 1921. Wo sind wir? Drei jahre! Ich habe geschlafen. Der Traum is eybik. Der Traum wird morgen nicht kommen. Hat sie mein Trait m missdeutet? Mit Esmé Ich. . .

Every day I visited my new domain, my little factory. At Hever’s suggestion we had taken over the workshops of a bankrupt firm (it had hoped to build a funicular railway system between the various ranges of Los Angeles hills). In the unremarkable area of the Long Beach docks several small engineering firms had their headquarters. During the day the local air was a hullabaloo of saws and rivet guns, gouting furnaces and pounding hammers, like some gnomish nether region. It looked out directly over the harbour. Grey warships would stand there for weeks, apparently deserted by all save a handful of men, then suddenly weigh anchor and be gone. I watched seaplanes coming and going. Some of the early Curtiss prototypes were taking shape. As I got to know him, I would offer advice to Curtiss and his people. It was astonishing how many of my suggestions they accepted, how many became standard procedural and production features. Naturally, I never received payment or acknowledgement. I did not worry about such things. I merely delighted in the thump of floats striking water, the shrill early notes of an approaching machine, the wheeling and climbing of the beautiful little craft.

I had only so much to do to our own adapted Buick tourer. Chiefly my duties consisted of overseeing the mechanics. There were three of them, all excellent, and an apprentice. Having exchanged petroleum tanks for compressed-gas cylinders we were experimenting with means of feeding the gas to the engine. I studied several types of steam car, including the excellent Stanley, which had ceased production in 1920. What we learned from these, we attempted to apply to our own prototype. I was lucky in my team of enthusiastic young men; my band of brothers, sworn to secrecy. Sometimes, when a particularly difficult problem arose, we would all work through the night. Again I had that life-giving powder to thank for her benevolent help. With such wages, I could afford it. Es ken nisht shatn. Thus the gas car gradually took shape. I continued to experience that thrill of anticipation, for the day when Esmé would place her dainty feet upon the soil of America.

With no photographs of my little girl, I had to make do with many of Lillian (and sometimes Dorothy) Gish. How much more wholesome they were than the likes of Clara Bow or Gloria Swanson. Somewhere in those few years we lost ‘the Nation’s Sweetheart’ and were given instead ‘the Hottest Jazz-Baby in Town’. I prayed my little shvester, mayn meydl, mavn metsie, would not have been coarsened or otherwise changed by her hardships. Her letters suggested she was the same delightful Mädchen of my dreams, my incorruptible daughter; sweet mistress of my mazl. Yet she had lived for long in the Vatican’s shade. I knew the Jesuit tricks. They would introduce sin into Eden if H. G. Wells would tell them how to build his zeygermashin. God help us if they become engineers. Then we shall see also their zindmashin! Maybe she was cynical. Who would not be after saving so long only to have the money snatched away at the very moment it is needed? I know some of these feelings. Yet I had fought cynicism, maintained my idealism against all odds. I was sure my sister, so much my alter ego, had protected her innocence equally well. Soon, together, we should be able to embark again upon that zukhn, that holy quest for the purity we had known in Kiev, for the tranquillity that once filled our hearts, for the zilber of clear thought. Iber morgn du vest kumen. I was confident, but I was not wholly confident, as they say. That is, I yearned for confirmation. Here were the sunshine years of my life, in California. I, who had always loved silver, learned the value of gold. There is a clarity in sunlight I never understood until Los Angeles. Though I know Carthage, terrified of silver, lurks in gold, I refuse to condemn the metal itself. I lusted for our union: my purity of intellect, her purity of flesh. The days began to manifest themselves as well-defined units.

When happy I always work best. What little pressure I had exerted on Mucker Hever was completely justified. We had an excellent design. The engine began to prove well. It would greatly increase Hever’s already monstrous fortune and by this means he would find his judgment confirmed. He and Mrs Cornelius occasionally visited the workshop, but were so involved with one another my descriptions were meaningless to them. This did not distress me. I prefer to work without supervision. Mrs Cornelius would never know I helped tip the balance in her favour, founding her assurances from Hever in something much more solid than momentary infatuation; she was to embark on her movie career very soon. I blamed myself for nothing. Wer hat gewennen? Das Spiel war unent schieden. Nobody was unhappy.

Und nun ist der Traum Wirklichkeit. Es ist höcliste Zeit, dass ich auf main Schiff zurükhehre. Karthago wird von einem glühenden Hass auf die Weissen verzehrt, die er als Wurzel alien Übels in der Welt betrachtet - obwohl ich andereseits wieder gehört habe, dass sinige weisse Wissenschaftler in seinen Diensten stehen. Seine Mittel wachsen folglich ständig. Gelt. . . Golden cupolas rising in Atlanta, in Odessa, and in Sparta. These domes rise in Jackson and Jubilee; copper and pewter, as any in Kiev, they rise in St Petersburg Fla and Alabama’s redbrick metropoli; no longer the domes of Christ Arisen, these are the domes of Civil dignity and Law, just democracy. A clock chimes where the sun’s orb blazed; red, white and blue flapping on a polished staff where for my sense of congruity should be a Russian crucifix. And these sappherine skies, are they never silver? In Arcadia alligators crusted with antiquity wallow in metal tanks. Their heavy jaws clack shut on asymmetrical teeth; they haul themselves over each others’ backs, refusing even the notion of death, they have existed so long. Small cousins to the mile-deep Atlantic monsters, blind representatives of a Carthaginian future, they are now bred by men to make handbags for Beverly Hills housewives, boots for singing cowboys and belts to decorate the trousers of millionaire dentists. The Jew showed me kindness in Arcadia. Wir steigen unter leichtem Schaukeln vom Bodenauf, wobei der Motor sin kaum varnehmbares Schnurren von sich gab. In Arcadia I came unsuspectingly upon those old reptiles. They could not know they were bred for profit. The Jew gave me warmth and his food. With his hands he fed me; with his dry sardonic lips he offered realistic prophecy. Maybe I was wrong to trust him. Der blut, der toyt, der kamf, der blitz, der synemmen, der oyfgeheybung!

Der oyfegebrakhtkayt! Ich haben das Opferbereit, meine Glaube, meine Schöpferdrang, meine Arbeit, mein Genie, meine Jugden, mein Kamerad, mein Kampf, meine Mission, mein Engel, mein Schicksal. I am strong in this. Karthago nicht viel von der Art der Leute wusste. Das Geheimnis seiner Kraft? Der shtof! When they took that from me, I was for a while weaker. But there is such a thing as resurrection. It is what they refuse to understand. The Jew looked at me with kindness, offering security. In this other Arcadia I hear sluggish liquid churn; claws rattle on steel floors. Those alligators smell of old Carthage’s enduring evil. I look over the fence and they are grinning back, their snouts dilating. He was gentle. The better kind of Jew. Der shtof was never der Mayster. Ikh bin abn meditsin-mayster. He said he was going to find a job on a newspaper in Odessa. He was prepared to accommodate the Bolsheviks when they arrived. Maybe he was already one of them. I took the tram along the shore. I never saw him again.

Der Engelsfestung eybik iz. Ikh bin dorshtik. Ikh bin hungerik. Vos iz dos? La Cité de. . . The City of the Angels is eternal and must become the New Byzantium. Carthage she absorbs, utilises, rejects what she does not want. The holy wood is where Parsifal discovered the Grail. Here all shall find salvation, on the final coast. We have travelled so long. Carthage cannot conquer here, though she will always threaten. So, at least, I am inclined to believe. It could be I grew euphoric and lazy under the benevolent Southern Californian sun; they say that happens to many. It could be I was seduced by her luxury, her golden charm, her aristocracy. Yet the attraction, I would swear, was positive.

So swiftly did my car assume reality I had soon some leisure time and this frequently was spent with friends, visiting the homes of their peers. For the most part these N’divim, these modern princes, possessed a grace and wit usually lacking in their European counterparts. Their world was vital and constantly expanding, through art, industry and intellect. They had every reason to carry themselves with dignity, to build their palaces amongst the wooded hills and feel superior. They had no use for the petty moralities with which a bourgeois rationalises his shortcomings. Yet they never denied or derided their European heritage; indeed, they imported it in such quantities it sometimes seemed there could be nothing left of the Old World; it had been entirely reassembled in the New. Renaissance tapestries, Jacobean tables and Louis Quinze chandeliers, all of them genuine, were common to the homes I visited. Yet in almost every great mansion one found acknowledgement of native America.

When, in the middle of July, 1924, I called on Mr and Mrs Tom Mix, their French furniture and suits of medieval armour, their Scottish shields and claymores shared the same rooms as Indian headdresses, his collection of silver-studded saddles and other elaborate mementoes of the West. They were a gracious, modest couple. Mrs Mix took to me with great warmth. She said I was ‘the image of Valentino’. It was true that I somewhat resembled the star, having similar eyes and colouring, but I was anxious to point out that I did not possess a single drop of Italian blood.

John Hever preferred the company of movie people (I believe he never got over his worship of the screen) and would frequently ask me to go somewhere for dinner or for a weekend. I think he had mixed motives, for he was anxious to prove even to this easy-going world that his relations with Mrs Cornelius were perfectly respectable. I was a kind of chaperone (though, naturally, I found myself prey to the usual disgusting gossip). Thus I at last entered the portals of Pickfair. That unpretentious tribute to good taste, influenced chiefly by a ‘mock Tudor’ style popular in England, never proclaimed itself a palace, nor advertised its wealth. There were touches of the Swiss chalet, tributes here and there to the Spanish adobe dwelling settlers, but in the main Pickfair, in its fifteen acres of landscaped grounds, resembled everything an English country estate should be; even its huge swimming-pool did not seem grandiose. At dinner I got into conversation with the charming athlete, who did not recall our earlier meeting. ‘Dougy’ was a perfect host. Learning of my relish for oceanliners he produced the family photograph album. His favourite trip, he said, ‘because it was our honeymoon’, was on the S.S. Lapland with Mary. He was at that time completing The Thief of Baghdad, perhaps his most exotic film. The house was piled with drawings. Minarets, domes and crenellated walls reminded me of Constantinople. Here was Asia as it should have been. Fairbanks never spared expense on his sets. He made full-sized cities and towns, castles and mountains. This is what convinced the moviegoer of the reality of the stories. Mary Pickford was at that time turning her back on childhood and attempting a more fashionable ‘jazz-baby’ part with Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. I had seen her Rosita and been deeply disappointed. On behalf of all her fans I begged her to return to her more innocent roles. She responded sweetly and began to explain what she was attempting to do when her husband interrupted us with a display of obvious jealousy which silenced, for a moment, the whole party. There had been no question of my ‘making a pass’ at his wife; even had there been I saw no call for the stage-whisper, nor the reference to ‘some yiddisher lounge-lizard’, particularly since almost half our company were of the Jewish persuasion.

This fact had originally startled me. The Jews who settled in the hills around Hollywood were not at all what I recognised from Ukraine. Samuel Goldfish, for instance, was a man of exceptional elegance and education. He told me in confidence how much he admired Shakespeare when he was a boy. His only real ambition was to translate those great plays for the silent drama. ‘They are stories,’ he told me soberly. ‘And stories are stories, no matter how you look at it.’ He and Mucker Hever had already been co-producers of two successful films, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and The Tower of Lies. Mucker Hever had told him I was the author of a successful piece, which had been touring to packed houses for over a year. When I described the plot he nodded approvingly. He had a soft spot, he said, for the subject and with the right leading actors it could work very well. He suggested I have the synopsis typed and sent to him. ‘Though if Mucker’s already happy, then I guess I’m happy.’ Then, to break the slight chill which had descended, Mary Pickford clapped her hands and suggested we all file in to another room ‘to watch a flicker’. We saw Merton of the Movies with Glenn Hunter and Viola Dana, both of whom were with us in the audience! It was an amusing comedy, what today would be called a ‘satire’, about the industry itself. Some of its references were obscure, but the movie people found the scenes which baffled me the funniest of all. Though I was to become much more familiar with Hollywood’s aristocracy, I look back on those first few weeks of heady glamour as amongst the most wonderful of my life. I will never recapture the surprise at meeting Theda Bara and finding her a sweet, well-mannered lady whose home had a comfortable, almost old-maidish atmosphere, save for one room decorated with memento mori, Oriental tapestries, tiger skins and mummy cases. This, she explained modestly, was where she was photographed. She had wanted to play Gish or Pickford parts, but the public insisted she remain always a vamp. I understand these pressures. We are all, to some degree, caricatures of what society demands of us.

One of the few Hollywood Yehudi I found vulgar was, in fact, from Kiev. I recognised this type instantly. We knew the likes of Selsnik in Podol, swaggering in loud suits, displaying rings and gold watch chains, smoking the largest cigars they could find, parading their wealth with appalling braggadocio. It was no wonder that occasionally the ordinary people of the city would round on them. Selsnik boasted to me he had sent the Tsar a telegram in 1917. He was full of his own atrocious joke, sprawling in the powerfully scented velvets and satins of Clara Bow’s living-room where Mrs Cornelius and I (without Hever for a change) had been invited for tea. Miss Bow herself was a lively, solicitous hostess. ‘I heard, see, the Tsar is abdicated. So I think to myself, what the hell? I’ll send him a telegram. Know what I said? You and your police weren’t kind to me when I was a boy in Kiev, I said, so me and my people come America. Here we did very well. Now they tell me you’re out of a job. No hard feelings about your cossacks. I’m willing to offer you a position acting in pictures. Name your own salary. Reply at my expense. Regards to the family.’

The others found it funny. I did not. I made an excuse and left.

The Cornelius boy is always asking me about the Hearst place. It was not finished in 1924 and very few people saw it going up. Hearst kept changing the size of the pool, adding new wings before the first ones were completed. Later I was invited to his ‘Enchanted Castle’, with a lot of dull industrialists, engineers and newspaper editors. Marion Davies was charming. Hearst was a Zeppelin, with a wren’s peeping little voice, largely oblivious to the world around him, even the one he had built. At Hearst’s you were never allowed to drink alcohol, but a good many of the movie people used cocaine in secret. By that time I had my own excellent suppliers, of course. In certain circles you were judged by the quality of your ‘stuff very much as a French nobleman would be judged by the quality of his cellar. Mir ist warm. Vifl iz der zeyger? Far more exciting to me was my meeting with the reserved old Southern gentleman, that world-genius, resembling a soldier rather than a showman, the soft-spoken First Lord of Tinsel Town, David W. Griffith. He happened to be at the Lasky studio when Hever and I accompanied Mrs Cornelius there to make her screen test.

I could hardly speak. I was in the presence of the greatest cultural figure of the twentieth century, the only one who genuinely deserved the title Kinomeyster. I mumbled like a peasant drawn from the fields to greet some mighty landsman. He was kind and courteous, cupping his ear to catch what I said. Mrs Cornelius saved the day. ’‘E finks yore ther cat’s whiskers,’ she told my hero. ‘Ter ‘ear ‘im goin’ on, y’d fink the sun shone arta yore -’

In horror I was able to bellow a complete word: ‘Trousers!’

And that was all I ever said to the one human being on Earth whose work truly influenced the course of my life. I believe he was at Lasky’s looking for a job. You would never have guessed from his bearing and stylish tailoring he was down on his luck. A natural prince, whose grasp of human nature was as profound as his political insights, now cap in hand to the immigrants he himself had helped establish in this idyllic World of Dreams. I should not have been so foolish. I blame myself. Mrs Cornelius was very popular with the movie people. They saw her as an eccentric English aristocrat. And everyone knew true English aristocrats could seem like paskudnick, they had such foul mouths. So ‘trousers’ it was for Birth of a Nation. In spite of Mrs Cornelius’s shining in her test, of watching her later in huge black and white close-up, I was not easily able to escape my depression. I constantly went over the meeting in my mind, rescripting it so that I impressed Griffith enough to bring, for a second, a look of startled emotion to his eyes as he realised here was someone who understood completely everything he had meant.

Valentino in his grandiose nest proved a disappointment. I think he saw me as a rival. He had the manners of a Neapolitan whore and the taste of a Milanese pimp, with his huge self portraits and ramshackle collections of rusting swords and suits of armour. I had tried to be polite to him, suggesting how he might expand his range, given his limitations. I was only too glad to get away from his house. It was depressing. It had a smell of suicide about it. The majority of Lords and Ladies in the World’s Movie Capital were nothing like the sinful, crazed, night-haunted creatures frequently depicted by the press. Most had great poise, humour and kindness. Doubtless the image of Hollywood’s élite giving orgies in their swimming pools or practising perversions on the palm-fringed lawns of their mansions had more to do with the wish-fulfilment of hoi polloi than the ordinary lives of people they envied.

Esmé was on her way! A telegram confirmed it. She was coming to me. The remorse I had felt since my meeting with Griffith quickly dissipated. I imagined holding my little mistress in my arms again. I drove along the white, twisting canyon roads of that beloved, adopted home, pushing the sprightly Peugeot almost to her limit in a joyous Escape of Motoring. I explored orchards, the fruit groves of the wide valley, peaceful, self-contained settlements like Pasadena, sleepy farming towns like San Fernando. Out beyond Hollywood there were vineyards which would one day produce wine quite as good as Europe’s. The first cuttings had been brought from Bordeaux and Burgundy and had flourished in that idyllic climate, just as her settlers, from Europe, from the East and Mid-West, also grew healthy and virile. The best of her people were young and strong, like the wine. Their dream was nothing less than to build Utopia. It was a dream we shared. And I had practical plans to make it come true.

Only once did I consider leaving my new home behind and fleeing back to Europe with Esmé. It was a miserable episode. At her suggestion, I one morning agreed to motor out to Anaheim with Astrid Nilsen, the blonde actress. At that time she was said to rival Swanson in her willingness to accept modern, daring roles. She had heard of a good restaurant on our side of the little town and insisted it would be worth the drive. Happy to pass a day or two with a pretty girl (never again would I have to make do with the likes of Mabel and Ethel) I agreed. We left fairly early, driving on dusty dirt roads, through relentless rows of artificially irrigated fields, occasionally relieved by a farmhouse or general store, clean modern villages, each seemingly pressed from the same mould, with a wooden church, a stand of trees, a café. It was twilight by the time Astrid pointed off to the right. She had wonderfully soft, fleshy arms and shoulders. Her strong-boned face was almost Slavic. I saw yellow and red lights, the sign for the road house, but as I turned into the drive was struck by its strange name. ‘How’s that pronounced?’ I asked. ‘And what does it mean?’

‘Lady Korohoto’s Sunshine Sushi Bar. It’s Jap food. There are a lot of Japs around here. This place is designed to please foreign devils, I think. Ever eaten the stuff?’

‘Don’t you know Russians are the sworn enemies of Japan?’ I was amused, yet felt she had deliberately manipulated me into an uncomfortable position. I could do nothing now however but park the car and escort her up the steps to the verandah of what until recently had been a large, sprawling farmhouse. Now it was painted dull red and black, it had woven silk screens where the windows had been and a few pieces of decoration hanging here and there which I assumed were intended to make you think you were back home in old Nagasaki. We were greeted by a grinning, bobbing yellow girl, dumpy in her constricting gowns, and were escorted into what seemed a fairly conventional restaurant, with ordinary tables and chairs and a long counter taking up the entire left-hand wall. Again the colours were muted, the decorated screens illuminated from behind, but there was nothing too exceptional. ‘See,’ said Astrid, taking my arm and moving closer to me, ‘it’s all pretty unscary, eh?’

I was not nervous, I said. I was in fact somewhat disapproving. If the Japanese were moving into service industries it was against the spirit of the newly amended California Alien Land Act which made it illegal for Japanese to farm anywhere they competed with Whites, and the Immigration Act denying Japs the status of a quota nation, intended to encourage them to leave. Doubtless they now owned land secretly! As we sat down in the otherwise empty restaurant, I said as much to Astrid.

‘Jesus Christ, Max, they’ve got to live somehow,’ she said. ‘They’re being squeezed from every side. Associated Fruitgrowers and every other vested interest in the State.’

I suppose she, like some women, found the Orient erotic and mysterious. I merely found it threatening. I knew the truth. The Slavs had been conquered by Mongols more than once; had pushed them back again and again, and had been freshly attacked as soon as the numbers grew. These people were breeding even now in California. They were arrogant and ambitious. Voraciously greedy, they worked far longer hours than Anglo-Saxons, to establish this beach-head for their Emperor. But I had hopes of staying overnight with Astrid, so was not prepared to argue with her. Our geisha bobbed, bowed and vanished, but a waitress failed to appear. After twenty minutes even Astrid became impatient. When I walked to the kitchen doors and peered inside nobody was preparing food, though meat and vegetables were there in abundance. The place seemed, like a Mary Celeste, unaccountably abandoned. Could it be a custom? Perhaps an insult, I thought. Astrid was growing uncertain. ‘Maybe it’s their religion?’ she suggested. She jumped at a noise from outside. I pulled back one of the blinds to see what had caused it and became instantly terrified.

A huge cross burned in the yard. Grouped round it, with guns crooked in their folded arms, were at least fifty silently waiting Klansmen!

I sat down heavily in my chair.

‘Oh, my God!’ She was white with horror. ‘A swell idea, huh?’

A salvo of shots came from the yard. ‘They’re warning us to leave,’ I said. ‘This place is going to burn. We’re going to have to give them a good story. Come on.’ We walked to the exit and emerged onto the verandah. We had our hands raised. ‘What on earth’s going on?’ I demanded, hoping I sounded properly outraged.

One of the leaders whistled sharply. He said, almost in delight. ‘Looks like we’ve found the Commie bastards that’s been organising them, Sam.’ He offered me a mocking bow. ‘Welcome to the clambake, comrades. You’re the clams.’ They all laughed at this. Astrid raised her hand to her face, almost like a signal.

I shall never be quite sure if the actress, who claimed to be Danish, was actually a Chekist agent employed by Brodmann to frighten me away from Hollywood. The suspicion was there from the moment I heard the Klansman speak. I was appalled at my situation. To display too much knowledge of the Klan might alert them to my identity, whereupon I would almost certainly be killed. I had to prove that I was neither a Communist organiser (these rural areas became rotten with them) nor a Japanese sympathiser. Within the nightmare, I found myself moving towards them. Rapidly I explained how my wife and I were travelling to Los Angeles to board our liner which would take us home to Australia. Thus I identified our accents, making it clear we were innocent tourists. We had stopped at the roadhouse simply because we were hungry. I was relieved, listening to them discuss this amongst themselves, to learn they were all local people. Even as the debate continued, some were setting fire to the restaurant. Now of course the absence of customers was explained. I saw two of the squealing geishas being carried, wrapped in wire, to a nearby truck. I emphasised to the cold blue eyes that we of the outbacks and billabongs were equally aware of the yellow menace. We had solved our problem by banning all coloured races from our shores. This seemed to convince them. The whole time, however, even when they lowered their guns and gestured for us to get in our car, I feared that their apparent belief was a charade. I could not guess what Callahan had done (it might suit him to betray me), or what Brodmann intended. I did not know how much power Mrs Mawgan still possessed. She might only have temporarily resigned so as not be caught in the trap which ruined Clarke and the others. She rather than Brodmann could have paid or blackmailed Astrid into setting me up. It was certainly in Mrs Mawgan’s interest to have me killed.

I approached the car. After several attempts the starting handle finally kicked in my sweating hand and the motor was running. Astrid climbed in. Her face was whiter than the moon, which now, huge in a clear, black sky, framed her head like the halo on the ikons of our old Kiev saints. She seemed genuinely terrified, but that might merely mean she feared my revenge, or the punishment of her employers. The waving hoods surrounded us. Flames took hold of the building. Her silk screens burned first, leaving black holes in the wooden frame. Red fire gasped, smoke poured into the sky and the moon grew dimmer. I had thought to see the last of the Klan. I swore I would remain in cities for the rest of my life. The countryside had never been my friend.

The man addressed as Sam wore flowing purple: a Grand Dragon. ‘We’re neither bullies nor cowards,’ he said evenly, ‘but honest, simple people fighting for what belongs to us. The Federal Government seeks to deliver our birthright into the hands of aliens. You go home, my friends, and tell your folks they know what they’re doing. Take them and all other Anglo-Saxon peoples this message: Wherever white protestants are threatened, the Knights of the Invisible Empire will strike and strike hard. You can sleep safely tonight, wherever you stay, and know you are protected. Have a safe journey, now, and come back soon, y’hear.’

Never, in that last phrase, had a tone so clearly contradicted the sentiments it expressed. I think he had warned me. I could not expect a third reprieve. I said little to Astrid as we drove away from the hissing blaze. She was full of indignation. She said we should contact the nearest police force. Then she subsided. ‘I guess they’re all part of it.’ She began to speak of contacting someone in Los Angeles, perhaps a Federal agency. ‘They had those girls. What were they going to do?’

‘I think you should try to forget it all.’ I remained distant, for this could easily be one of her best performances. ‘Everyone, from locals, like those people back there, to the President, has made it clear Japs aren’t welcome in America. If you report this you could be kicked out as some kind of political agitator.’

This allowed her to think before she said anything more. I was glad, after a miserable journey, to see the lights of Hollywood’s hillside palaces on the horizon. I dropped her off outside her 3rd Street apartment house. She said, ‘Don’t you want to come in for a while?’

‘No, thanks. You never know what you’re going to catch these days.’ I was still angry. I had been put through too much. I had been forced to draw on mental and spiritual resources properly reserved for my gas car and for Esmé. I had almost lost her, even before she arrived in New York. I had been made to cringe and lie in front of someone who might now be delighting in my discomfort, reporting the news to an envious, revengeful Jew or amused Catholic, even to Mrs Mawgan. Possibly they were scheming a new means of destroying me. Not content with her initial betrayal she might now wish to wipe out all past associates. How could I warn those Klansmen that they were being used to exploit the petty personal ambitions of greedy, corrupt men and women? It would be a blow to all they cherished. And if they already knew, one had to face the alarming implication: that America now no longer possessed any organised means of defending herself against those millions of secret enemies already scheming her destruction. Whether they were called IWW, Labour Unions, Anarchists, the Organisation of this ‘minority’ or that ‘racial group’, whether they had any specific name at all, they were all agents of Carthage. This was thoroughly proved, of course, in 1941. Then America, by rounding up the Japanese, narrowly avoided defeat from within. Zey vein komen. They will surely come again.

I drove on to Sycamore until I reached Venice Boulevard. Often I was the only car on the road. Venice Boulevard passed through forests and parkland. A few lights were visible from little settlements, office blocks and private houses set wide apart: a tribute to modern ideas of what twentieth-century civilisation could be, if carefully planned. By the time I reached Venice the amusement park and pier were shutting down for the night. A Yellow Car rattled by, the last trolley bearing tired fun-makers back to the more sedate suburbs. I turned inland a few blocks until I was on San Juan, where I had my little, unpretentious house, deeply glad to be close to the ordinary human bustle, the familiarity of a town. No matter how fantastic her surface, Venice was ordinarily lively and cosmopolitan, sufficiently like old Odessa to bring a measure of tranquillity to my troubled mind. Nonetheless, I was cautious when I opened my front door, and would have been unsurprised to see Callahan, Brodmann, or a fresh assembly of pointed hoods, waiting for me. I went straight to bed, determined to be at my best for Esmé, and for the tests which we were due to run on the car we called Pallenberg’s Experimental Type I.

Next day was Sunday. I would rather have spent time in Long Beach, seeing how work was progressing, but had agreed to escort Mrs Cornelius to the pictures. She still had not received a result of her screen test. Hever had said it sometimes took a week or two. The studio was particularly busy. She was sure however she would not be offered a contract by Lasky. Hever was already making a further appointment with MGM. There, he was confident, she would ‘knock them all out’ immediately. He had suggested Lasky first, I suspect, because he did not want his friend Goldfish to think he was merely trying to find work for some ‘bimbo’. The tycoon remained very sensitive to such suggestions and could become surprisingly angry if Mrs Cornelius’s talents were ever questioned. His investment in her was by no means merely financial. We saw Orpheus of the Storm. As I watched, my longing for Esmé became physically painful.

On 25th July 1924 we wheeled the PXI out of her shed. To all appearances she had narrowly survived a wreck, for her paint was chipped and body work battered. Underneath her hood however was my powerful experimental engine. Gas cylinders filled the spaces where the trunk and fuel tank had been; there were extra gauges on the dash. None of these were marked, but we knew they measured pressure and flow, while a bank of switches operated individual cylinders and valves. Mrs Cornelius had been persuaded to come with Mucker Hever. She seemed a trifle unhappy, as if suspecting we would all be blown up. I reassured her. The PXI was safer than a conventional car, and far more efficient. She got in, sitting on the edge of the back seat, looking around her at nothing in particular, occasionally whistling a few bars of a favourite melody, trying to remember not to smoke. Hever loomed over me, nodding as I explained the controls and instruments. Willy Ross, my young foreman, stood leaning casually with his backside against the hood, chatting to the other mechanics and enjoying the warmth of the early-morning sunshine. A mist was lifting from the sluggish waters of Long Beach harbour. Ships moaned. A few gulls strutted up and down the concrete like Pigalle hookers, as if to be admired, possibly approached with a proposition. Here and there you could catch the occasional sound of doors being opened, electric motors beginning to turn as our fellow optimists got down to working on their own future hopes: motorcycles, seaplanes, engineering machinery, boats, domestic appliances. It appeared that the whole of America, or at least her western shores, was labouring toward the technological salvation of mankind.

Under Hever’s mild but curious eyes and Mrs Cornelius’s agitated glare, I switched the automatic ignition to on. I waited for the red light to blink, then engaged the engine. It was wonderful to hear it wailing into life, shaking the whole chassis, then become a growling, urgent beast. I let go the brakes and put her into gear. Willy and our mechanics cheered. With a triumphant wave, I moved forward at speed, so elated that the car was doing everything I had expected that I forgot briefly to check for other drivers. I narrowly missed a truck and a Packard, recovered control of my roaring machine, and headed North. We sped along Roosevelt Highway with the wide Pacific Ocean on our left. The constantly growing organism of Greater Los Angeles was on our right. White towers thrust themselves from thick stands of greenery, handsome houses, set back from the road in smooth lawns, had apparently come into existence overnight; hotels and apartment blocks glittered in the soft morning sunshine. All I missed was Esmé beside me to share my glory and my happiness. There could be no experience more transforming than this. The ponderous Pacific, blue and white, rolled against perfect beaches of yellow sand. In the sky a small biplane circled lazily down towards Burbank and a flock of seabirds rose over Palos Verdes, turning and banking almost as one above the dignified grandeur of her piles. The colours of the morning were more vivid than ever before. The vast, untroubled city, so confident in her riches and her cultural predominance, was the finest of all possible worlds. The PXI shouted my joy. I had succeeded at last. I was vindicated. I was, within the space of half an hour, compensated for every minute, every year of my suffering and misfortune. Beside me Mucker Hever was laughing like a boy as he clung to the leather strap. The wind brought a flush to his features. His eyes were bright with dawning understanding of the car’s potential. When he glanced at me I knew he realised he had been granted one of the greatest honours known to man: that of serving Genius. We passed Venice and Santa Monica. Only as we thundered inland from Pacific Palisades, heading for the San Fernando Valley, did Hever notice, with a little less concern than usual, that Mrs Cornelius lay back across her seat, rolling her eyes. Concentrating on keeping a rein on my monster I could do nothing save smile reassuringly over my shoulder. Her skin had turned pale green. I shouted above the noise, trying to tell her it would be folly to stop the car now, so far from base. At the first opportunity, just as the blue light flashed a warning to switch to my next tank, I took the steep, twisting road which led me at last onto Sunset Boulevard. Climbing steadily between grassy hills and landscaped woods, miniature lakes and vast private lawns, we passed a dozen princely houses all in various stages of construction. I at last eased my car to a halt outside the Beverly Hills Hotel. True to form, Mrs Cornelius had thrown up on the floor. ‘Sorry, Ivan,’ she mumbered as Hever helped her out. ‘I never knew it’d go so bleedin’ farst. Shouldn’t o’ ‘ad ther bleedin’ kipper, should I?’

‘Congratulations.’ Hever was distracted, trying to gather Mrs Cornelius’s limp body with his flailing arms, like someone with palsy carrying china. ‘You’ve struck a spouter there, Pallenberg. I’ll send someone out to clean the car. You must excuse me.’ The pair moved unsteadily towards the main entrance; two tired apes attempting to perform some primitive ritual dance across the blazing limestone of the patio. The car was attended to in a few minutes. I had a little trouble starting her up again on the almost empty No. 2 tank, but I had anticipated minor problems of that kind. I was soon alone with my dream, speeding past a procession of historical and geographical styles. My PXI continued to perform admirably. She took me from Old English to German Gothic and Scandinavian Gingerbread carrying me beside ordinary-sized houses built to look like medieval castles while castles were disguised as French cottages. Here in Hollywood and her immediate provinces was a combination of every city I had ever known. At one moment I could be back in my Kievan childhood, at another in Odessa or St Petersburg. I could glance from one hill to the next, where cypresses and palms and a white cupola recalled Constantinople or drive a little further down the canyons to find Sans Souci transported in quarter scale from Montmartre. Here was Ancient Rome; there Florence or, of course, Venice, and modern Milan. Otranto, Ankara, Alexandrovskaya were equally to hand. Elsewhere I could find Peking, Moscow, London and, always, Barcelona or Madrid. Berlin and Hannover and the castles of the Rhine; Arabia, India, and, suddenly. New York. Chicago, Washington and Memphis. My entire past was represented in this single city, just as my future was apparent in her wealth, tranquillity and grandeur, beneath a sun which scarcely knew a cloud. At night, under powerful stars and an overblown moon, you could smell her sweetness, her pines and blossoming shrubs, her cedarwood closets, her spice-filled pantries. All the perfumes of the world were carried in on gentle breezes; the salt of the sea, the musk of beautiful women, the glorious odours of tropical flowers. And yet, lying in a bed first built for some ruined despot, with your window open on those comforting hills, you could still sometimes hear the howling of wolves. The coyote had skulked in the rear of the Mexican expansion, establishing himself wherever a Catholic Mission was erected to the glory of the Pope. Now he loped through the little valleys and woods, drinking from Japanese water-gardens and Dutch wishing-wells, scavenging the half-eaten pheasants or jars of caviare, imported cheeses, rare delicacies borne to Hollywood in electrically cooled holds by liners from Hong Kong, Hamburg and Capetown.

Daily Hollywood created and exported fresh wonders. In return she received all the world’s riches, all her traditional marvels, all her escapes. The flow of wealth to and from this storehouse of our deepest longings was impossible to check. I luxuriated in Hollywood’s supernatural radiance; I was bathed by her healing, indescribable tides. I could again look for immortality and expect to find it. In Hollywood’s imaginative opulence, in an ambience of infinite pleasure, infinite possibility, I had grown whole again. All I lacked was Esmé. Esmé was the final missing fragment of my resurrected being. She was my soul, my muse, mayn glantsik tsil. Esmé was myself and I was she. Oh, my rose! Separated we are perpetually crippled. Together we are an angel. Und nu du komst!