The Laughter of Carthage (10 page)

‘Jimmy told me that. Have you come to warn me? Am I in some kind of danger?’

His eyes widened at this. His manner grew more hysterical. ‘Mr Pyatnitski, it would ruin you if the public learned you’re a Russian Jew whose only familiarity with science was a highly scientific gum-game in Paris a year ago.’

‘If they believed such a thing, I agree. Captain Rembrandt expressed the same fears in Memphis. It’s not true, of course, so I’m not greatly worried.’ I placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. ‘What are you trying to tell me? Have my political enemies found the stories?’

Roffy cleared his throat, scarcely able to speak. He nodded emphatically. ‘There’s some danger of that happening, sir.’ He drew a breath, squared his shoulders and looked curiously into my face. ‘Because of you, sir, I’m destitute and on the fly. I can’t go back to Washington where I’ve worked for years. Now everyone knows I’m a paper layer. You owe me something, my friend. So I’m prepared to sell you all this stuff and call it quits. What do you say?’

I was horrified a gentleman of his stock could fall so low. I spoke with compassion. ‘You don’t need to sell me anything, Mr Roffy. I have always respected your reputation. You have only to ask for help. I was, as you say, in part responsible. How much do you need?’

‘Ten grand.’ He shrugged and looked towards the window. I smiled sadly.

‘You still have an exaggerated notion of my wealth. Mr Roffy, for old time’s sake, I can let you have a single grand.’

He was considering this when Mrs Mawgan, fresh and blooming in red velvet, walked in. She frowned as I made the introductions. Evidently my visitor’s shabby appearance offended her. She asked him sharply if she had met him somewhere before. I explained Roffy was an old business colleague in need of help.

He rose nervously, speaking swiftly and softly to me. ‘Okay,’ he said. ’I’ll settle for the thousand.’

‘You’re hungry. You should stay for breakfast.’ But I was embarrassing him. I wrote out the cheque. He handed me the envelope.

‘You’re a blackmailer, then, Mr Roffy?’ Mrs Mawgan was her most devastatingly sweet. I recognised her humour, but she angered Roffy.

‘That’s none of your damned business.’ He picked up his hat and pushed past the waiter entering with our breakfast trolley.

Mrs Mawgan frowned. ‘You’d better put me in the picture.’ We sat down to eat. ‘And don’t be afraid to spill it all. You know I won’t tip you up. The Klan already has the goods on you, more than you know.’

So I retailed the whole sorry story from beginning to end, explaining how I could not condemn Roffy. The least I could do was let him have a little money. Mrs Mawgan sat over untasted bacon shaking her head and sighing. Then she got up quickly, put down her napkin and said she was going down to the lobby. She had to make a phone call. I would be okay. When the Klan said it looked after its friends, it meant just that. She was back within ten minutes. With an expression of satisfaction she bent to pat my face. ‘Scandal around you is bad for everybody. I already know what it’s like to suffer from the press. Cancel that cheque as soon as you like.’

‘The Klan is paying Mr Roffy?’

Her smile confirmed my guess. This was generosity indeed!

That evening, as I stepped upon the stage to give a packed house Bolsheviks, Bloodshed and the Coming Battle for America, I was never more confident in the security of my future. With my debt to Mr Roffy cleared, I also forgot that pernicious
doppelgänger.
Brodmann had longed for my soul ever since he witnessed my humiliation at the hands of Grishenko.

In the American wilderness I experienced too many memories. Her plains took me back to the steppe; her great forests to the forests of the Russian heartland. In the Rockies and the Blue Ridge Mountains I could frequently be free of Brodmann, Yermeloff and Esmé. Those massive peaks brought me unexpected tranquillity whenever our crossing and recrossing of the country took us into them. In the big modern, most typically American, cities I was released from memory, from the agony of my last months in Russia. They had raped you. They stole your soul and your heart. Your very identity was taken from you. In Akron, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Kansas City the grids could swallow me; they offered anonymity. In New Orleans and San Francisco too much was familiar; there certain warrens, configurations of wrought-iron, arrangements of brick and plaster brought my mother with them. Only a fool submits to pain. Pain has no justification, brings no benefits, whatever the Catholic tells you. For a while I found Chicago the most beautiful city in America, her massive, elegant towers glittering monuments to human skill and optimism. America in 1922 sought restlessly for new paths to the future. If her enthusiasm was sometimes excessive it remained a healthy contrast to Europe’s drained cynicism, Russia’s grim decline, the Orient’s chaotic decadence. Emerging from small-town complacency the American citizen was realising his power. Perhaps naturally he balked in those days at his international responsibilities. I was reminded of the Falstaff story in which Henry resists his divine role, rallying only at the last possible moment to defeat the weight of French chivalry as it gallops down upon his ‘happy few’. Of course he did not have the Jews to contend with.

Short skirts, wine, certain drugs and most things offensive to the majority of my audiences were not to me obvious signs of degeneration or imminent social revolt. Those who spent their lives pursuing prostitutes, bootleggers and gamblers might have served their country better by attacking the ‘big wheels’ exploiting and controlling their ordinary daily needs, their food, clothing, housing and transportation. By making pleasures into crimes puritans place power directly into criminal hands. The puritan cries ‘It should not exist, therefore it does not exist!’ They allow the vice-king to say ‘It does exist therefore someone might as well make a profit’. Moderation is not achieved by Law, but by example. If supply becomes unreliable a commodity gains higher value in the marketplace. This was once true of travel, of trains, ships, aircraft, even cars. It was in Detroit, at a party given by Major Sinclair for people in the aviation business, that I met, as it happened, young Lindbergh and fired him with the notion of flying the Atlantic single-handed. A plane should be almost all fuel tank, I told him, using every possible area, even the wings. But he was still obsessed with the South American routes. He never joined the Klan, though in later years he took my role, using his aeronautical reputation to back the fight against alienism. Many engineers, scientists, soldiers and aviators share an understanding of the world. We can break down social complexities, describing them with a clarity denied philosophers and artists. Thus we are able to solve the problems. The running of America should have been left to Henry Ford and Colonel Lindbergh. We might be looking at a very different country today.

All that year the power of the Klan grew. My tours became increasingly elaborate and well publicised. Entering town in an open car I might be accompanied by a marching band, my head and shoulders covered in streamers and confetti. Preachers gave sermons, choirs would sing before I spoke. Local politicians were photographed with me. I lent my name to advertisements and newspaper columns. While I never let them or myself forget I was primarily a scientist - it did no harm to promote my real interests in this way. I had learned to value the American art of the ‘bally-hoo’. Thus, ironically, despite the temporary dashing of my technological hopes, I became a celebratory. It is hard to say exactly how much I influenced the social and scientific thinking of my own and future generations. Ideas which I threw off quite casually were later claimed by others: the nuclear power plant, the television and the rocket ship. Important magazines such as
Popular Mechanics, Radio World
and
Air Aces
seized on my prophecies while the imitators of Verne and Wells translated them into fiction. Sometimes whole books of factual speculation appeared between 1925 and 1940 which were borrowed from me in their entirety! I did not care, then, how my visions were disseminated. I had a profusion of them and readily shared them with the whole human race. Even today I do not regret my generosity, but I feel a little wounded when I receive no recognition. I should have been glad of a small place in history. Perhaps it was a mistake to come to England. She always looked with suspicion upon the new and strange. Lately, to her own wretched tomb, with complacency and self-congratulation as always, her Union Jack the standard of broken promises, rejected ideals, she conducts herself, as if she has something to be proud of. The tourists come from May to September, staring at the beefeaters, the old stones, the royal carriages, utterly deceived by the British illusion. But in Notting Hill and Brixton, in Mill Wall and Tottenham, the houses collapse inwards, the jerry-built towers lean and tremble in the lightest wind, the pavements crack, the alleys fill with sinister shadows: for this desolation is what maintains the imperial facade. We are the victims of a wicked lie. The English have lost their pride, forgotten their honour, refused self-knowledge. In a rich nation, these would not necessarily be vices; in a poor one, they are a ludicrous disaster.

Mrs Cornelius seems to think it has always been the same. I tell her it only looks that way. England is a painted corpse; the flesh rots beneath a shell of delusion. ‘Live an’ let live, Ivan,’ she says. But what was once decent tolerance now becomes moral turpitude. I could have saved them. When my flying cities were stolen, they cut off my means of escape. Is there any reason I should not hate them?
Jene Leute sind verarmt.

At last I visited Los Angeles. Mrs Mawgan’s friends took us on a tour of the movie studios. I shook hands with Douglas Fairbanks and was kissed on the cheek by Clara Bow! Fairbanks stood for all the American virtues, though his original name was Ullman. I have his signed photograph, dressed for
Robin Hood.
I stayed only overnight in Hollywood, for I was lecturing in Anaheim, but I was impressed. There was much in the way of civilised beauty; an ideal combination of wealth, taste, security and good weather. I spoke to several people on the technical side about my proposed innovations in filming. They said I was ahead of my time. (When I arrived in England I mentioned I had been instrumental in developing talking pictures. I offered my services to Korda, but as usual came up against the old familiar wall.) I longed to return to Los Angeles and asked Mrs Mawgan to arrange another engagement as soon as possible. She said she would do what she could, but they were not exactly desperate for entertainment.

We decided not to visit Klankrest for Christmas, since Mrs Mawgan no longer cared to see Mr Clarke. Clarke was obsessed with the ambitions of what he was calling the ‘Evans gang’. This group wanted Colonel Simmons to discharge him and nominate a Texas dentist in his place. If I could have helped my friend, I would have done so gladly. Mrs Mawgan said my presence would only complicate an already difficult situation. The best we could accomplish was to stay clear of internal politics and continue to do what we could in the world at large. This made sense to me, so we broke tour in Michigan to stay at a wonderful country hotel which had been privately rented for the Season by a senator friend of Mrs Mawgan’s. He called himself ‘Uncle Roscoe’. I never learned his real name, though I believe he was from Illinois. The hotel was like a fantasy of Switzerland, surrounded with snow-laden pines, protected by hills. This was a true American Christmas; everything a Christmas should be. In the middle of the dance floor a huge tree was hung with tinsel and coloured cellophane, with brightly wrapped gifts and glass baubles. Our senator, disguised as Santa Claus, personally distributed presents to his guests. I ate far too much turkey, mince pie and other gorgeously rich traditional foods. Dressed as angels, the little local children sang carols:
O, Little Town of Bethlehem
and
Silent Night.
All I missed was my Esmé. Mrs Mawgan sang
The White Sheet of Winter Lies Cold Upon the Land
while I offered a rendering of
Any Old Iron.
A group of young flappers, hired by the senator to bring extra femininity to what was primarily a male party, added their own particular talents to the festivities. Mrs Mawgan and I left with a girl called Janey. But of course sexual pleasure is one thing, and sentiment is quite another.

Two more talks, in Sioux City, Iowa and Springfield, Indiana, and then we took the train for Wilmington, Delaware. This delightful town, founded in the seventeenth century, was associated with some of America’s greatest modern painters, such as Howard Pyle, then at the height of his realistic power. We were the guests of Mr and Mrs Van der Kleer, the mine owners, to celebrate New Year’s Eve and incidentally my birthday (which I insisted be on January 1st) in typical American good-hearted ceremonial style. The next day, however, was an anti-climax. Indeed, it proved embarrassing for all concerned and revived many of the fears I had been able to forget.

I had just finished lunch in the beautiful glass domed conservatory (through which winter sunshine poured) when Mr Van der Kleer’s butler announced someone to see the master. Apologising, our host left. Within five minutes, the butler returned to ask me to join Mr Van der Kleer and his visitor in the library. I entered the peaceful room and closed the double doors behind me. The stranger wore an expensive tweed top coat over an ordinary grey suit. He was short, with that paleness common only to policemen, and his head was almost completely bald. His glasses slightly magnified already large blue eyes. He looked like a Chekist but he showed me a badge declaring him to be an agent of the Federal Justice Department. Mr Van der Kleer said he would rejoin his wife and Mrs Mawgan. I must be sure to summon his help if I required it.