My Autobiography (53 page)

The political outlook was cynical. England had almost four million unemployed – and the number was increasing – yet the Labour Party had little to offer that was different from the Conservative Party.

I went down to Woolwich and heard an election address by Mr Cunningham Reid on behalf of the Liberal contestant.
Although he spoke a lot of political sophistry, he promised nothing and made little impression on that constituency. Shouted a young cockney girl, sitting next to me: ‘Never mind all that high-class chatter, tell us what you’re going to do for four million unemployed, then we’ll know whether to vote for your party or not.’

If she was an example of the political rank and file, there was hope for Labour winning the election, I thought – but I was mistaken. After Snowden’s speech over the radio, it was a landslide for the Conservatives and a peerage for Snowden. Thus I left England with a Conservative government on the way in and arrived in America with a Conservative government on the way out.

*

A holiday at best is an empty pursuit. I had dilly-dallied around the resorts of Europe too long – and I knew why. I was aimless and frustrated. Since the innovation of sound in movies, I could not determine my future plans. Although
City Lights
was a great triumph and had made more money than any talking picture at that time, I felt that to make another silent film would be giving myself a handicap – also I was obsessed by a depressing fear of being old-fashioned. Although a good silent film was more artistic, I had to admit that sound made characters more present.

Occasionally I mused over the possibility of making a sound film, but the thought sickened me, for I realized I could never achieve the excellence of my silent pictures. It would mean giving up my tramp character entirely. Some people suggested that the tramp might talk. This was unthinkable, for the first word he ever uttered would transform him into another person. Besides, the matrix out of which he was born was as mute as the rags he wore.

It was these melancholy thoughts that kept me on a prolonged holiday, but my conscience kept nagging at me: ‘Get back to Hollywood and work!’

After my trip up north, I returned to the Carlton in London, intending to make reservations for returning to California via New York, when a telegram from Douglas Fairbanks in St Moritz altered my plans. It read: ‘Come to St Moritz. Will order fresh snow for your arrival. Shall be waiting for you. Love Douglas.’

No sooner had I read it than a timid rap came at the door. ‘Come in!’ I said, expecting a waiter. Instead, the face of my lady friend from the Côte d’Azur peered in. I was surprised, irritated and resigned. ‘Come in,’ I said, coldly.

We went shopping at Harrods and purchased ski-ing outfits, then on to a jeweller’s in Bond Street to buy a bracelet, with which she was highly pleased. A day or so later we arrived in St Moritz, where seeing Douglas brightened my horizon. Although Doug was in the same dilemma as I was about his career, neither of us spoke about it. He was alone – I believe Mary and he had separated. However, meeting in the mountains of Switzerland dissipated our melancholy. We ski-ed together – at least we learnt to ski together.

The German ex-Crown Prince, son of the Kaiser, was in the hotel, but I never met him, although when I happened to find myself with him in the same elevator I smiled primly, thinking of my comedy
Shoulder Arms
, in which the Crown Prince was a comedy character.

While in St Moritz I invited my brother Sydney to join us. As there was no vital hurry to get back to Beverly Hills, I decided to return to California via the Orient, and Sydney agreed to accompany me as far as Japan.

We left for Naples, where I said good-bye to my lady friend. But this time she was in a gay mood. There were no tears. I think she was resigned and somewhat relieved, for since our sojourn in Switzerland our alchemy of attraction had become somewhat diluted, and we both knew it. So we parted good friends. As the boat pulled out, she was imitating my tramp walk along the quay. That was the last I saw of her.

M
ANY
excellent travel books have already been written about the Orient, so I will not encroach on the reader’s patience. I have an excuse, however, to write about Japan because of the weird circumstances in which I became involved there. I had read a book about Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, and what he wrote about Japanese culture and their theatre aroused my desire to go there.

We sailed on a Japanese boat, leaving the icy winds of January to enter the sunny climate of the Suez Canal. At Alexandria we took on new passengers, Arabs and Hindus – in fact we took on a new world! At sunset the Arabs would place their mats on deck and face Mecca and chant prayers.

The next morning we were in the Red Sea, so we peeled off our ‘Nordics’ and wore white shorts and light silk shirts. We had taken on tropical fruits and coconuts at Alexandria, so for breakfast we had mangoes and at dinner iced coconut milk. One night we went Japanese and had dinner on the floor of the deck. I learnt from a ship’s officer that pouring a little tea over my rice complemented its flavour. As the boat drew nearer to the next southern port, the thrill increased. The Japanese captain calmly announced we were arriving at Colombo in the morning. Although Ceylon was an exotic experience, our one desire was to get to Bali and Japan.

Our next port was Singapore, where we entered the atmosphere of a Chinese willow-pattern plate – banyan trees growing out of the ocean. My outstanding memory of Singapore is of the Chinese actors who performed at the New World Amusement Park, children who were extraordinarily gifted and well read, for their plays consisted of many Chinese classics by the great
Chinese poets. The actors performed on a pagoda in the traditional fashion. The play I saw lasted three nights. The principal actor of the cast, a girl of fifteen, played the prince, and sang in a high, rasping voice. The third night was the final climax. Sometimes it is better not to understand the language, for nothing could have affected me more poignantly than the last act, the ironic tones of the music, the whining strings, the thundering clash of gongs and the piercing, husky voice of the banished young prince crying out in the anguish of a lost soul in lonely spheres as he made his final exit.

It was Sydney who had recommended visiting the island of Bali, saying how untouched it was by civilization and describing its beautiful women with their exposed bosoms. These aroused my interest. Our first glimpse of the island was in the morning – white puff clouds encircled green mountains leaving their peaks looking like floating islands. In those days there was no port or airfield; one landed at an old wooden dock by row-boat.

We passed through compounds with beautifully built walls and imposing entrances where ten or twenty families lived. The farther we travelled the more beautiful the country became; silvery mirrored steps of green rice-fields led down to a winding stream. Suddenly Sudney nudged me. Along the roadside was a line of stately young women, dressed only in batiks wrapped around their waists, their breasts bare, carrying baskets on their heads laden with fruit. From then on we were continually nudging. Some were quite pretty. Our guide, an American Turk who sat in front with the chauffeur, was most annoying, for he would turn with lecherous interest to see our reactions – as though he had put on the show for us.

The hotel in Denpasar had only recently been built. Each sitting-room was open like a veranda, partitioned off, with sleeping quarters at the back which were clean and comfortable.

Hirschfeld, the American water-colour artist, and his wife had been living in Bali for two months and invited us to his house, where Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican artist, had stayed before them. They had rented it from a Balinese nobleman, and lived there like landed aristocrats for fifteen dollars a week. After dinner the Hirschfelds, Sydney and I took a walk. The night was dark and sultry. Not a breath of wind stirred, then suddenly a sea
of fire-flies, acre upon acre of them, raced over the rice-fields in undulating waves of blue light. From another direction came sounds of jingling tambourines and clashing gongs in rhythmic tonal patterns. ‘A dance going on somewhere,’ said Hirschfeld; ‘let’s go.’

About two hundred yards away a group of natives were standing and squatting around, and maidens sat cross-legged with baskets and small flares selling dainty edibles. We edged through the crowd and saw two girls about ten years old wrapped in embroidered sarongs, with elaborate gold tinsel head-dresses that flickered sparklingly in the lamplight as they danced mosaic patterns to treble high notes, accompanied by deep bass tones from large gongs; their heads swayed, their eyes flickered, their fingers quivered to the devilish music, which developed to a crescendo like a raging torrent, then calmed down again into a placid river. The finish was anticlimactic; the dancers stopped abruptly and sank back into the crowd. There was no applause – the Balinese never applaud; nor have they a word for love or thank you.

Walter Spies, the musician and painter, called and had lunch with us at the hotel. He had lived in Bali for fifteen years, and spoke Balinese. He had transcribed some of their music for piano, which he played for us; the effect was like a Bach concerto played in double time. Their musical taste was quite sophisticated, he said; our modern jazz they dismissed as dull and too slow. Mozart they considered sentimental, and only Bach interested them because his patterns and rhythms were similar to their own. I found their music cold, ruthless and slightly disturbing; even the deep doleful passages had the sinister yearning of a hungry minotaur.

After lunch Spies took us into the interior of the jungle, where a ceremony of flagellation was to take place. We were obliged to walk four miles along a jungle path to get there. When we arrived, we came upon a large crowd surrounding an altar about twelve feet long. Young maidens in beautiful sarongs, their breasts bare, were queueing up with baskets laden with fruit and other offerings, which a priest, looking like a dervish with long hair down to his waist and dressed in a white gown, blessed and laid upon the altar. After the priests had intoned prayers, giggling
youths broke through and ransacked the altar, grabbing what they could as the priests lashed violently out at them with whips. Some were forced to drop their spoils because of the severity of the lashings, which were supposed to rid them of evil spirits that tempted them to rob.

We went in and out of temples and compounds as we pleased, and saw cock-fights and attended festivals and religious ceremonies which took place all hours of the day and night. I left one at five in the morning. Their gods are pleasure-loving, and the Balinese worship them not with awe, but with affection.

Late one night Spies and I came upon a tall Amazon woman dancing by torchlight, her little son imitating her in the background. A young-looking man occasionally instructed her. We discovered later that he was her father. Spies asked him his age.

‘When was the earthquake?’ he asked.

‘Twelve years ago,’ said Spies.

‘Well, I had three married children then.’ Seemingly not satisfied with this answer, he added: ‘I am two thousand dollars old,’ declaring that in his lifetime he had spent that sum.

In many compounds I saw brand-new limousines used as chicken-coops. I asked Spies the reason. Said he: ‘A compound is run on communistic lines, and the money it makes by exporting a few cattle they put into a savings fund which over the years amounts to a considerable sum. One day an enterprising automobile salesman talked them into buying Cadillac limousines. For the first couple of days they rode around having great fun, until they ran out of gasoline. Then they discovered that the cost of running a car for a day was as much as they earned in a month, so they left them in the compounds for the chickens to roost in.’

Balinese humour is like our own and abounds in sex jokes, truisms and play on words. I tested the humour of our young waiter at the hotel. ‘Why does a chicken cross the road?’ I asked.

His reaction was supercilious. ‘Everyone knows that one,’ said he to the interpreter.

‘Very well then, which came first, the chicken or the egg?’

This stumped him. ‘The chicken – no –’ he shook his head, ‘– the egg – no,’ he pushed back his turban and thought a while; then announced with final assurance: ‘The egg.’

‘But who laid the egg?’

‘The turtle, because the turtle is supreme and lays all the eggs.’

Bali then was a paradise. Natives worked four months in the rice-fields and devoted the other eight to their art and culture. Entertainment was free all over the island, one village performing for the other. But now paradise is on the way out. Education has taught them to cover their breasts and forsake their pleasure-loving gods for Western ones.

Before leaving for Japan, my Japanese secretary, Kono, expressed a desire to go ahead and prepare for our arrival. We were to be the guests of the Government. In Kobe harbour we were greeted by aeroplanes circling over our ship dropping leaflets of welcome, while thousands cheered on the docks. The sight of numerous brightly coloured kimonos against the background of smoke-stacks and the drab grey docks was paradoxically beautiful. There was little of the reputed mystery or restraint in that Japanese demonstration. It was as excited and emotional as any crowd I have ever seen anywhere.

The Government put a special train at our disposal to take us on to Tokyo. At each station the crowds and excitement increased, and the platforms were crammed with a galaxy of pretty girls who loaded us with presents. The effect, as they stood waiting in their kimonos, was like a flower show. In Tokyo an estimated crowd of forty thousand waited to greet us at the station. In the rush Sydney stumbled and fell and was almost trampled upon.

The mystery of the Orient is legendary. I had always thought we Europeans exaggerated it. But it was in the air the moment we stepped ashore at Kobe, and now in Tokyo it began to envelop us. On the way to the hotel we turned into a quiet part of the city. Suddenly the car slowed down to a stop near the Emperor’s palace. Kono looked back anxiously through the limousine window, then turned to me and made a strange request. Would I get out of the car and bow towards the palace?