The Laughter of Carthage (9 page)

Mrs Mawgan was glad to be away from the ‘in-fighting’ as she called it. She had been working for Mr Clarke and his partners in a Georgia advertising company when Colonel Simmons had asked them to help him save the ailing Klan. Now it was gaining momentum she felt she could gladly give it up and return to a more sedate life. ‘The trouble is, Eddy’s grown so hopped on it. It’s more than food and drink to him.’ She sat in the Club Car, her legs crossed under a ravishing dark green frock. I understood her womanly desire to be free of the burden of politics but sympathised with Mr Clarke. Women rarely understand matters of principle. To Mrs Mawgan her task had been to build finances and membership. ‘Now it’s getting too dangerous. I’m sometimes afraid a few of them hate me so bad they’d cheerfully kill me.’ She laughed at her own fancies. I said she was plainly exhausted. I hoped this trip would be something of a vacation. She agreed, but as we neared Oregon gradually became more businesslike. ‘First we make you an official Kilgrapp in the Royal Riders of the Red Robe. That’s an affiliate group of foreign-born One Hundred Percent Americans. It’s the main reason we’re going to Portland initially. They have the most influential chapter. You’ll speak there, but Seattle will be your real debut.’ Her warmth and her perfume as we sat close together in the padded velvet of the corner made me swell with lust. I think she noticed this, but did not seem offended. It would be after Seattle, however, that we became lovers.

These were to be happy months for me. In Portland the ceremony of induction was so moving I could scarcely hold back my tears. I swore to support all things Truly American and Defend the Honour of the United States above all other considerations. The public meeting, as Mrs Mawgan had predicted, was a limited success. Two days later in Seattle, however, I had a massive audience for my oration. I was taken back to that wonderful moment in St Petersburg when the entire college applauded my diploma discourse on the ontological approach to Science. I began with a quote from
Birth of a Nation:
‘The former enemies of North and South are united together in common defence of their Aryan birthright.’ I spoke of the envy other races felt for the White Protestant, of our duty to counter the enduring threat in all its guises. I closed with another quotation from the Griffith masterpiece, where Lynch the power-mad mulatto proposes marriage to Lillian Gish. It must stand as an example to us all: ‘My people fill the streets. With them I shall build a Black Empire and you as Queen shall sit by my side!’ Lynch’s ambitions are the ambitions of those jealous of what we have won for ourselves, I said. I reminded them of the flag bearing ‘the red stain of life of a Southern woman, a priceless sacrifice on the altar of civilisation’, how ‘the little Colonel’ had raised the ‘ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men, the fiery cross of old Scotland’s hills’ and quenched ‘its flames in the sweetest blood that ever stained the sands of Time!’ That flag had borne a slogan, I said. A slogan we might do worse than make our own today. ‘Conquer We Must For Our Cause Is Just! Victory or Death! Victory or Death!’

The audience was still cheering and stamping its feet when I left the hall on time to catch the night express to Chicago. It was later, as the great engine pounded through the North Western darkness, that Mrs Mawgan stretched her large, greedy body on mine, dragging back the blankets from my bunk. With unhesitating lechery she positioned herself upon my stiffening penis and fucked me, her gusto proving her as lustful as she was intelligent. When halfway through the night I began to flag, she produced a small box of what she called ‘wings’. It was pure cocaine. She was to become my best source, a free supply. In return for this she received the use of my willing body. The tour progressed. I grew to know her well. It even occurred to me she had been ‘kingmaker’ of the Klan. With Eddy Clarke experiencing difficulties, trying to control rival factions, she might be preparing me to be the next. But I would not have betrayed my friend. I would betray Bessy first, if I was forced to. My honour would allow me no other action. Having given up most Klan duties, she was devoting the greater part of her time to me, occasionally disappearing on mysterious visits when we had a day or two to spare (I think she had a child somewhere). Otherwise she was concerned in what was essentially her own pleasure. Sometimes she would contact a woman friend in a certain city and all three of us would frolic until the hotel’s sheets were soaked with our juices. Everywhere we went I was greeted with enthusiasm. I always made it clear I spoke from conscience, that I was paid via an agency called the South Eastern Speakers’ Association and had no connection with any political group. I was first and foremost a scientist. I gave press interviews, even made a few radio speeches, something of a novelty then, and Klan recruitment improved wherever I went. I was ‘doing my bit’ for the cause of freedom. And naturally there were those who would have stopped me if they could.

At first I was frightened by the threatening letters in which mad people offered to kill or maim me in a hundred ways, but Mrs Mawgan laughed at them. This was, she said, ‘par for the course’, a sure sign I was ‘putting it across’. When a gun was fired from the back of a hall in Baltimore, the bullet chipping moulding in one of the stage’s pillars, covering my suit with plaster, she assured me it was for the publicity. The gun had been fired by a Klansman, to make sure the newspapers had a good story and thus reported my speech. I was hugely relieved. We laughed about the incident a great deal. When a similar shooting took place in Wichita, Kansas, I was able to brush it off easily, with a smile and a joke, and thus impress my audience with my cool nerve, even though the plan went slightly askew and the local woman who was introducing me received a minor shoulder wound.

This unfortunate event, however, in comparison to the other fly in our otherwise idyllic ointment, was nothing. As well as malevolent fanatics, Bolsheviks and foreign born agitators who tried to disrupt certain meetings and were handled firmly by Mrs Mawgan’s people, I had to contend with Brodmann. I saw him the first time at Union Station in Chicago while I was changing trains, bound for Cincinnati. His hands in the pockets of a leather coat, his broad-brimmed hat hiding his eyes, he stood in the shadows of a stone archway, next to a tobacco kiosk. He stared at me but made no attempt to follow. I suppose it had been easy enough for him to pick up my trail from Paris. The Chekist seemed to be playing his own game. I was never to determine the exact rules. Perhaps he hoped to unnerve me. I did in fact become edgy, wondering how many agents he might have on the train. Happily Bessy Mawgan was always conscious of security and only staff entered our compartment. The second time I saw Brodmann was as we waited at a St Louis intersection. Suddenly his hatless, malevolent face was glaring from the window of a passing trolley car. Thereafter he kept himself better hidden or possibly lost the pursuit. Nonetheless I continued to feel I was being spied upon. At last I accepted the fact without letting it affect me too badly. My mission was more important than Brodmann’s ridiculous personal vendetta. We warned them and many heeded, but America as a whole had fallen asleep. By refusing to admit her interdependence with Europe she became euphoric. She ignored her role in international affairs; abstractions proliferated. The result was a disaster. America had taken me to herself, I shall not deny. She was generous in those days before the Zionist coup of ‘29. I did everything I could for her.

I spoke in towns called Athens, Cairo, Rome and Sparta. I spoke in St Petersburg, Sevastopol and Odessa while behind me came efficient Klan recruiters, signing new members wherever I passed. I still wrote regular letters and postcards to Esmé and Kolya, but only Mrs Cornelius responded to my notes. She was in a successful theatre troupe. What they called ‘concert parties’, she said. She worked chiefly in the chorus, with the occasional chance to do little solos. The manager was a dear. He thought they should try American where English shows were catching on. There wasn’t much chance of that, but you never knew. She might yet be looking me up wherever I was. I wrote to say how pleased I was for her and asked if she would do what she could to trace Kolya and Esmé. I said my own ‘stage career’ was going well. In those months of 1922 it was easy to believe Chaos had been successfully contained. Everywhere the Klan flourished. Washington listened to us. President Harding extended the immigration restriction act. In Italy Mussolini gained prominence, standing firm against the Pope. But I suppose the signs were there to be read if I had wished to see them. Socialist Germany hobnobbed with Bolshevik Russia and Turks defeated Greeks at Smyrna, allowing Mustafa Kemal to declare himself ‘President’. Rome seemed to have the upper hand in the Irish Civil War. Harding, weak from poison, tried to make railroad strikes illegal and was ignored. Carthage came seeping in, for the dam had rotten foundations. Mrs Mawgan told me miners had beaten, shot and hanged twenty-nine strikebreakers in Illinois. This at least provided fuel for my oratory proving my prophecies. Still the Klan gathered strength, ever ready, with all its courage, to stem the flood. Klan-endorsed candidates won in the Texas primaries. Thousands of hooded members pledged allegiance at mass klonvocations, under fiery crosses a hundred feet high! Labour racketeers controlled Chicago. The Klan worked tirelessly, night and day, to destroy them. It struck decisively at bootleggers and vice-tsars. All evidence showed the battle was to be ours. In Major Sinclair’s airship I flew from Houston to Charleston, incognito because it was still thought unwise publicly to identify myself with the Klan. I flew in a variety of other machines, but never stopped planning for the day when my own gigantic passenger aircraft would mount the skies. Daily it seemed my opportunity drew nearer. Newspapers reported me nationwide. British Prof Predicts Great American Tomorrow, they would say, or Air Ace Warns Bolsheviks Imperil USA. With this recognition I had every reason to be optimistic. Soon I should have unlimited resources at my disposal. This great political power I would use for the common good. In New Mexico I became the target for an anarchist’s bullet as I rode to an outdoor meeting. The shot went hopelessly wide, killing some youth. In Texas came the privilege of a nightride with the Klan to a secret valley. Here, beneath a flaming cross, more than two thousand Klansmen applauded me. Wearing my splendid red robes, I was introduced as ‘our first and finest ambassador at large’. Then came the trial of two men. The white was accused of adultery. His sentence: KKK branded on his back, according to Klan Law. A negro who had insulted a white woman was whipped to death at the feet of the lady he had offended. (These were not the actions of cruel, mindless men. It was a display of the Klan’s remorseless justice. The papers, of course, blew the incidents out of proportion. I experienced far worse in Russia. Yet the reporters who defended Trotski were the same who accused the Klan. I need say no more.)

I was glad to keep active. I was troubled at receiving no news from Esmé. A busy man does not brood. I despise this fashion for self-analysis. It goes hand in hand with narcissism. If one keeps one’s mind busy it becomes impossible to harbour a grudge or hold on to pain for long. Real pain, a friend once said, never lasts more than five minutes. The rest is picked scabs. In useless speculation lies hysteria and mental illness. Ideas are useless unless they can be acted upon. But I do not ignore reality. The incident of Mr Roffy is a case in point. In Warsaw, Indiana, where I had already lectured once, I had been asked to speak again. The State was ‘solid Klan’ and must soon elect a governor. As usual, Mrs Mawgan and I were wined and dined handsomely by local members and we returned late to Paxton’s Hotel to our own more private and lustier celebration. I was awakened next morning by a porter. Closing the door on the bedroom and the still sleeping Mrs Mawgan, I asked what he wanted. ‘The gentleman says, sir, that it’s mighty urgent. He’s downstairs now.’ He handed me a note.

Clarence Roffy had written it. He had news of immediate interest to me. Assuming this to be Charlie’s brother I was only too pleased to ask him up, thinking he might have news of Roffy’s wish to revive our aerodrome scheme. I told the porter to give us half an hour, then have breakfast served when the gentleman arrived. Mrs Mawgan was ill-tempered, blinking as she sat up. I explained what was happening and sent her back to her own room, suggesting she reappear at breakfast and meet Roffy’s brother.

I was groomed and ready by the time Clarence Roffy knocked. When he entered my first response was to utter a good-humoured laugh. I thought myself the victim of a mild joke. It was Charlie Roffy, of course, looking rather down at heel, carrying a soft felt hat and wearing a pin-stripe suit which had seen better days. His florid features were swollen, his skin lacked its old glow of health. He took the seat I offered him and said he would be glad of a bite of breakfast. I shook him warmly by the hand, anxious to show I bore him no ill will. His hand was limp, clammy. The poor devil was ill. ‘Why are you calling yourself Clarence?’ I asked. ‘It’s not much of an alias!’

He frowned. ‘I meant Charlie,’ he said.

‘I’m so glad to see you. I feel badly about letting you down. If you hadn’t left Memphis so quickly everything would have been all right. I suppose Boss Crump’s murderous thugs were too much of a threat, eh? Was it borrowing got you into the scrape? How’s Mr Gilpin? And Jimmy Rembrandt? Have you heard anything of Major Mortimer?’

He had lost touch with them. His tone was strained. Nothing I could say put him at his ease. Eventually he pulled from his pocket some hand-copied papers bearing translations from the French journals which had attacked me. He also showed me my dog-eared note of hand for $150,000. ‘You’ve seen all this stuff before, I know. I have the originals.’