When Major Nye had gone to keep his date, Malcolm Quelch himself proposed that we should revisit The Crooked Path. I agreed to return with him to the club but if I still felt ill-at-ease I would be perfectly happy to leave him there and take a cab back to the hotel. As our one-horse kalash bore us through the cool sibilance of Cairo’s midnight streets, he murmured that his brother had mentioned ‘a certain penchant pour la neige’. In some surprise, I admitted a connoisseur’s taste for specific drogues blanches.
I would never have expected to hear from this rather prim man the secret language of the drug fancy. He told me that while he neither approved of cocaine nor used it himself he had grown partial to morphine when wounded in the military hospital of Addis Ababa. He had fought with El Orans himself. For much the same reasons as Lawrence he had been commissioned because of his knowledge of the Bedouin and their language. Lawrence was a great man, who romanticised his life so thoroughly he came to believe in the world’s legend. ‘Well, it’s a common enough delusion, I suppose. He’ll romanticise his dying moments if he gets the chance. You’ve read his books, of course.’
That doubtful pleasure was still to come. I am all for sex. But excessive sex coupled with a cloying philosemitism is not, I fear, to my old-fashioned taste. And now, of course, it is the common currency of television! Having no desire to be reminded of those dusty, evil days, I did not go to see the ‘biopic’. Some of the Desert Raider’s work was later set in England, but the desert was his true inspiration. At heart he remained a tubercular Midlands nancy-boy and was dead, of course, before I ever arrived in England. Or, at least, there was talk of a road accident. In Mexico, I think. Perhaps he really did want anonymity. Certainly Malcolm Quelch maintained that he had that familiar type of sex-drive which, seeking complete lack of emotional attachment, only functions with nameless people. ‘He had strong affections, however.’ The publication of his early Pit Life tales proves that. I am no philistine and am always prepared to give Art, no matter how unfamiliar, her due. But there is, everyone will agree, a distinct difference between the probing finger of truth and the vulgarisation of mere pornography!
The Crooked Path, now more familiar, had become less unattractive, especially after one of Quelch’s friends suggested that I suck upon the ivory mouthpiece of a goza, the water-cooled hashish pipe. As a rule I had a deep suspicion of narcotics, but was willing to relax my guard in a company which, no matter what its degenerate appetites, was considerably more tolerant, welcoming and better-mannered than I had recently enjoyed at the Savoy. I purchased some first-class neige from a pretty young woman in a blue shot-silk ‘flapper’ dress whose fashionable page-boy haircut resembled the traditional coiffure of the Egyptian dead. Her faintly green make-up added further to the impression that some deceased Emperor’s handmaiden had taken the evening off to sell cocaine in a European nightclub. Apart from some long-haired boys in excessively loose cotton lounge-suits, some, depending upon the tastes of their masters, with make-up and earrings, there were few natives here. Even the waiters were Greeks from Alexandria, or so they all claimed. The blood has mixed so thoroughly in the cities that it is impossible to tell one race from another, except by what they claim for themselves. And people think the South African government is mad!
The increasing attraction of The Crooked Path reminded me how easily and to my detriment I had slipped into bohemian living in St Petersburg, and I drew on my usual resources of self-discipline to leave Quelch in the company of a transvestite, clearly an old friend, and take a kalash back to our hotel. Halfway before I reached the Continental I had been asked for baksheesh in return for graphically mimed services by a score of little boys, a group of youths, two whores and the driver of my cab. I waved the rest away but suffered the boys through the gaudy streets of the Wasa’a district which even at that hour remained brilliantly lit with a mixture of stained-glass oil-lamps, electrics, naphtha and candles. Each little garish hovel offered the delights of Paradise and the temptations of Hell. Women of every European nation graphically advertised their charms and skill while their negro pimps, their Greek ‘protectors’, their Italian capos, whispered to you of unspeakable gratification and the smell of their perfume made you drunk on the heat of your own blood; yet you knew they promised only profound hunger. I had known that hunger in Odessa; again in Kiev and Constantinople. But here, it gnawed more fiercely than ever. I sensed the softness of professionally yielding flesh; flesh that was never angered, never shocked; flesh that had no morality, merely a price; flesh that could take without surprise the demands one dare not make of even the most obliging and loving sweetheart. And somewhere it seemed to me I heard the wild, vicious whistling of a whip; a whip I myself wielded; a whip that was wielded upon me. My own flesh became nameless until all that filled my universe was pain, lust, more pain and a draining, terrible satisfaction.
‘They use their bloody whips a good deal too bloody much,’ said Mrs Cornelius next morning, when I found her in the dining-room alone at breakfast. The large, net-curtained windows looked out upon wonderful landscaped gardens and a passing four-wheeler. Ezebekiya Square was the very centre of the European quarter. ‘It makes yer wanna walk everywhere, dunnit, Ivan?’ She and Seaman had gone to dinner that evening with Goldfish’s local representative. The Egyptian market was one of the most rapidly growing of all. Sir Ranalf Steeton, a cousin of Storrs Pasha, the immediate power in Egypt, was now principal agent for all the major British, French and American studios. He had also done some work as an independent producer, chiefly, he had told Mrs Cornelius, for the tourist market in Cairo and Port Said. ‘ ‘E reckons ‘e’s a plain, blunt Yorkshireman ‘oo don’t like ter beat abart ther bush,’ she said over her fried eggs and trimmings, ‘but ‘e sahnds like ther usual posh toff wot’s ‘ad ter find a job o’ work, nar the butler’s votin’ Labour an’ wants ‘is larst ten years’ back wages. Anyway, ‘e wos tellin’ us that Cairo’s the flash place ter be at ther mo’. Becos o’ Tutenkhamun an’ that. There’s plenty o’ money ‘ere an’ lots to be made, ‘e sez. But it’s bringin’ wot ‘e corls undesirables in. Conmen an’ stuff. So wotch yer bloody wallet, Ivan. Yore the first ter fall fer a line y’d be ashamed of if it woz one o’ yer own!’
This was my opportunity to mention my meeting with Major Nye. She brightened at the name. ‘Loverly ol’ geezer. I ‘ad a soft spot fer ‘im. ‘E understood me. Even when I wanted ter go back on ther stage.’
‘He seemed to think you might not be happy to see him.’
‘ ‘Appy? I’m ecstatic. I did ‘ave ter borrer a few quid ter set meself up an’ I ‘aven’t ‘ad ther chance ter pay ‘im back yet, but thass orl water under the bridge, eh, Ive?’
The English major was evidently in love with her and was terrified she would again reject him. He thought of the money only as a barrier he had unwittingly thrown between them.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘it turned art ter be a decent littel inves’ment orl in orl. I’ll get Wolfy ter write ‘im a cheque as a sub on me wages. Did ‘e say wot ‘e wos doin’ ‘ere?’
It was my belief he was on secret government business, probably in relation to the bandit problem. Acting as usual under the banners of ‘nationalism’, they had assassinated a couple of officials and ineptly blown up a few administrative and military buildings. No sane Egyptian condoned them. The king himself condemned these activities. Personally he favoured his country’s complete absorption into the fabric of the British Empire, where conditions for the common man would inevitably improve together with his own security. Islam, as is perpetually demonstrated today, habitually selects new leaders through a succession of murderous betrayals, rather than by the less dramatic and more prolonged methods of the West. Fanatics like the Wafd’s Roshdi threatened not only the king’s life but the lives of his entire family. The king knew as thoroughly as anyone that the rule of Law was synonymous with British rule and that the moment His Majesty’s advisers left, his country would revert to the blood-feuding characterising all th
ose countries which had known only enslavement to Turkey or Baghdad or, in modern times, the Great Powers. How right he was to look at his choices and thankfully link his fortunes with the British! It takes an Arab to understand who makes the best master. He is used only to masters. It is all he can himself aspire to.
‘ ‘E was with some sort o’ special police, larst I ‘eard,’ she said. ‘A kind of elevated copper. Ter do wiv drugs or somefink. Y’d better wotch yer step, young Ivan.’
I told her I did not think I had much to fear from a white man.
‘Cairo’s ther world’s drug capital these days,’ she continued. ‘Opium an’ keef from Lebanon an’ Syria. Cocaine from Bulgaria, mostly. Morphine an’ heroin from orl over. Sir Ranny reckons ther big in’ernational racketeers’re gettin’ in’erested in Cairo. The p’lice fink they got it under control. They fink an ‘eavier fine and roundin’ up a few dealers an’ ‘ores ‘as solved it.’ She laughed. ‘I’ll tell yer, Ivan, wiv orl these crooks abart I’m on’y too pleased to be legit. Iss bad enough in bloody Whitechapel or Notting Dale when ther big crooks start fightin’ amongst themselves.’
I now understood exactly why both Stavisky and Major Nye were interested in this part of the world. Such a vast volume of tourist traffic would allow the, perhaps unconscious, travellers to carry the dope to where, of course, a large European market was willing to pay generous local prices. As well as the Egyptian upper classes who were all connoisseurs, the poor fellaheen made up the basic market for hasheesh and horribly adulterated heroin. I had already heard stories in The Crooked Path about the old woman near the Khalifa cemeteries who had discovered that ancient human skulls could be ground into a fine enough powder to ‘cut’ the heroin used by the area’s quarrymen and carters. The creature who told me this found it amusing that they were snorting the skulls of their own ancestors back into their living brains. I had merely been a little sickened by the anecdote.
‘I bet ther major’s ‘ere on account o’ ther drugs.’ Mrs Cornelius reached with conviction to the rack for another slice of toast. ‘That’ll be it.’
Privately I was in full agreement with Authority’s efforts to wipe out the trade in so-called ‘black’ drugs - the opium and hasheesh draining the energies of working people - but it seemed unsophisticated to ascribe the same life-sapping qualities to cocaine, for instance, which was ever a boon and a source of energy, a stimulant to the imagination. As for morphine, to make it unavailable to the likes of ex-servicemen like Quelch, needing to kill the pain of old wounds, was positively inhuman. There had to be selection and moderation in the control of drugs just as there was with alcohol, for instance. I found the whole subject distasteful, so asked gracefully after our great director.
‘Wolfy got up early ter go out ter give ther pyramids ther once-over. ‘E wants ter get down ter work as soon as poss. In that I’d agree wiv ‘im. I’m bored art o’ me pants, Ivan. It’ll be a relief ter ‘ave me nose ter the powder-puff again!’ And she laughed heartily at that and could not stop even when a sallow Quelch came almost surreptitiously into the restaurant, caught my eye reluctantly and then even more reluctantly advanced upon our table. I pulled back a chair for him. Slowly, in that deliberate way he had of re-ordering his limbs into a new position, he lowered himself to join us.
He was afraid I would embarrass him. He had not been in his bed when I rose that morning and came in as I was leaving. He had mumbled that he had only had time for a quick wash and change of clothes. He had no reason to distrust my discretion and as this came clear he even managed a small smile when Mrs Cornelius suggested that the sausages were a bit ‘funny-tastin’ ‘ and might be ‘strickly Moslem’, made from camel meat. Again she demonstrated her power to lift the ill-humour of someone whom she liked. Her effort, however, was not of quite the intensity it had been on yesterday’s train. I suspected her energies to be a little more widely distributed now. She called him a gay dog. She laughed and said I had told her he had not come home until after nine o’clock that night. ‘You’ve bin ‘angin’ rahnd them museums an’ libraries again, ‘aven’t yer, prof?’
He was happy to give some vague sign of acquiescence and even giggle as if she had somehow put her finger on his most terrible vice. My understanding of his character was growing with almost every passing hour! At a suitable time, perhaps when we were on the ship back to Los Angeles, I might indeed tell Mrs Cornelius that I had last seen her ‘innocent’ full of dope and ginger ale in the arms of an extravagantly dressed Albanian transvestite while he quoted excitedly from the more sensational passages of Juvenal! Pinching his cheek with the air of a fond mother who would be happier if her boy were just a little more manly, Mrs Cornelius finished her saucer of tea and rose from the table. ‘I’ll leave you two norty boys ter tork abart the Redline togewer.’ Referring jokingly to the district ‘redlined’ by the British for licensed brothels, she did not guess it was where Quelch and I had actually spent the better part of the evening. Meanwhile, our encounter at the Savoy offered sufficient explanation as to our whereabouts of the previous evening.
‘Our reputations, dear boy, remain intact,’ hissed Malcolm Quelch with a wink containing something of his brother’s devil-may-care insouciance, but the expression faded almost at once, as if he realised he had been in danger of revealing something to me. His features seemed visibly to narrow. ‘It would not do to disturb the lady’s feelings.’
For my part I did not offer any opinion. He could do very little to disturb that particular lady’s feelings! My friend was a woman of the world. Like me, she had lived by her wits throughout the entire period of the Bolshevik War. In those circumstances one very quickly learns to adapt. The Cornelius boy has a phrase I believe he has borrowed from one of his pop tunes. He says we must all ‘ride with the tide and go with the flow’. But I have no time for his washing-machine analogies. In certain terrible circumstances, it is true, the human being will adapt in order to survive. But might it not be our duty to ensure that the terrible circumstances themselves do not occur? Unless we learn to control our appetites we are doomed forever to be in the power of random Nature. This new romantic movement that talks about ‘ontology’ and ‘ecology’ instead of the Zeitgeist is merely another celebration of the irrationalism Jean-Jacques Rousseau turned to such a handsome profit while incidentally offering a posthumous blessing to the Terror - indeed, to a series of Terrors, some of which we are still enjoying! Has not this century seen enough of such tainted ideals?
It was almost noon before Quelch and I left the table, returning to our room where he would instruct me in some of the more important Egyptian symbols I might incorporate into my designs. I was in this, as in everything I did, conscientious to the point of obsession. I had already accumulated a great sheaf of designs, both of costumes and sets, and my script was ready for shooting. Though my own part would not be a starring one, I felt it would counter any suggestion that I was a mere ‘programmer’ idol and show me in my best light as a dramatic actor. I was still reluctant to include Esmé, but Seaman had insisted upon it. I could only agree with him that Esmé’s death would probably bring the audience to tears in the final reel and there were after all only two scenes where she appeared with Mrs Cornelius. Thus I combined talent with strategy, diplomacy with humanity, to help create a film to justify everything D.W. Griffith ever taught us - a romantic, stirring spectacle with a strong moral tone. That was what audiences had come to demand and it was what I could cheerfully give them. Today’s cinema has lost the willingness to combine those two key elements. What is the surprise if it is thus losing its audiences? Even in Weimar’s most decadent days we could be uplifted by a moving tale. There is certainly nothing amoral about Die Erdgeiste. Our movie had my full commitment on both levels. I became more and more absorbed in the realisation of my great story, in which the ancient and modern were (as in Griffith’s masterful Intolerance or De Mille’s Ten Commandments) held up as mirrors, one to the other. I began to feel it was almost ‘in the can’.