Sir Ranalf seemed only a trifle disappointed. ‘Just as you like, dear chappy. I take it, however, that you aren’t averse to turning up for some extra shots this afternoon?’
I told him, with perfect truth, that this film meant everything to me. I would do nothing to harm it.
When Sir Ranalf took Esmé back to the Winter Palace for lunch I was rather relieved. It was difficult at present to face her in real life, our rôles had grown so intense. Profoundly disturbed and thoroughly confused, I was grateful when Professor Quelch showed some of his brother’s old affection for me and suggested we try another pipe or two before work began.
‘To calm you down, old boy. You want to be on your best form, don’t you? And it certainly worked yesterday. What superb shots they were!’
We sat together in the cabin we shared while Quelch read to me from Browning and some more modern writers. But it was impossible to give my attention to the written word. I struggled to find a language to describe my dilemma. At last I admitted that, while I had every understanding of their logic and needs, I wanted neither Esmé nor myself to perform further nude scenes. ‘It is not what we mean, it is how it will be interpreted,’ I said. Quelch dismissed this. He assured me that only certain bluestockings in America would object while in Europe I would become a household name. An honoured artist! A great engineer! But I remained uncertain. There was another problem, I said; a question of my operation. He became sympathetic. He did not know I was bothered by such a thing. A scar? He did not recall a scar. The scar, I said, was secret and indelible. And then, because I had borne this lonely burden on my soul for so long, I told him how my father, a socialist, a physician and a Modern Man, had performed the barbaric surgery which was to dog me all my days and which more than once had almost cost me my life. Quelch was deeply understanding. He had heard of the operation. Children in England were given it all the time, these days. He understood it even to be fashionable amongst the lower classes. I was foolish to worry. This was not a stigma. Everyone would understand. ‘Besides,’ he laughed, ‘your bald gentleman would go quite unnoticed in this country, don’t you know!’
This was far from being any consolation! But he went on to tell me how such a thing meant nothing outside Ukraine these days, that it was quaintly old-fashioned of me to worry. Nobody would take me for something I was not. This was the time to put all such stupid thoughts and fears behind me. ‘After all, my dear Peters, fortuna favet fortibus!’
Fortuna favet fatuis, they say also. Would that I had been the fool Fortune favoured!
That evening I came to the set in my light overcoat. I had already donned my costume so that I need not risk further awkwardness. I was a little bleary. Some of the earlier details of that evening have gone but I know we were to re-enact the scene in a ‘tomb’ created in a small ruined Coptic chapel on the outskirts of town, its walls freshly covered with paintings supposed to depict the life and death-journey of our mythical Queen. Esmé will be chained into the coffin in place of the mummy. It will be her fate to be sealed there forever, fulfilling her ambition to take the place of the queen she dared challenge. We will shoot alternative scenes. In one I will stab her. In the other I will reach longingly towards her lips, my body tensed as if I mean to release her. Then I will crush one kiss upon her and turn to flee down the rather ramshackle cardboard corridor representing the tunnel from the tomb. Again I am brought to an Esmé already stretched upon the slab, her legs pressed against the warm stone, her wonderful little body writhing in the most lifelike display of terror. I am proud of her. I am aroused. I have never felt such a peculiar power. I never wanted it. But it will not leave me. The beast stirs and stretches within me. There is metal in our womb. I draw back, conscious of the electric ambience. I turn to Seaman. ‘I cannot,’ I say.
‘You must.’ His voice is quiet and urgent. There seems to be fear in it. ‘You must.’
I begin to shake. Sir Ranalf comes up. ‘My poor dear old fellow, are you sickly?’
I cannot do the scene at all. I will never do it. He asks if I am nervous. I do not know. I am trembling. Sir Ranalf speaks more soothing words. He gives me into the professor’s care. Morphine and cocaine help me get a grip on myself. Now I feel very guilty. I have not been professional. It is completely against my self-interest to let down my potential patron.
When I return to the set, Esmé is calmer. Her eyes are closed and she pants almost in natural sleep. Distanced, she becomes another creature, a lovely animal, even more desirable. Now I am much steadier, almost gay, as I adjust my costume, let the Ethiopian put finishing touches to my make-up and advance towards the altar. All the gods of Egypt are looking down on me. As Seaman rolls the camera I stare in sudden awe at Horus and Anubis and Osiris and Isis, at Mut and Set and Thoth and the hosts of animal-headed demigods surrounding us. Beast blends with man, woman with beast. I feel the power of the beast in me. I feel that terrible power which can inhabit every one of us who invites it in but which it is our duty to control. I would have controlled it. I have controlled it since. Then Esmé begins to cry, a strange little sound, a dreaming sound, and I turn to see her face shift through a dozen expressions, almost as if a series of masks emerges, one beneath another, and her eyes open and she smiles at me. She thinks I can save her.
‘Now, Maxie, now!’ whispers Sir Ranalf from somewhere behind Seaman. ‘You do not know whether to kill her or whether to ravage her. You are torn. The knife is in your hand! But you cannot immediately kill one whom you have loved so passionately. How to take your final revenge?’
And I press myself upon her, kissing her, fondling her, thrusting my body upon her soft, shivering flesh. Her cries are now almost guttural and they frighten me. I continue to kiss her and caress her, but slowly my inspiration again fails me. I stand up, my leg steadied against the rasping granite, and tell them that I will do no more.
‘But that is not possible.’
It is the negress who speaks. A deep, vibrant voice; gorgeously sensual. ‘We must have our rape, I think, or there will be no proper resolution. And the public demands resolution.’
I do not understand her. I hear Sir Ranalf in urgent conversation with her, but cannot make out the words. She is adamant. Sir Ranalf comes up to me. ‘My sweet boy, this is our most important backer. It would be very foolish of any one of us to give offence to such a personage. If you could please find the inspiration from somewhere, I would be deeply obliged.’
I stand there and shake my head. Suddenly the negress advances, a pillar of swirling vividly-coloured silks and rolling black flesh, she walks with the deliberation of a colossus.
A gusty sigh escapes the creature. Her rich voice is now full of sadness. ‘I had hoped to be associated with one of the century’s great picture-plays. The rape will provide the catharsis. The resolution. You understand Freud?’
I say I am not prepared to pretend to rape my girl.
‘We did not suggest that you pretend.’ The negress’s bulk moves as if to silent laughter.
‘Then I will act no further.’ I am barely able to focus on the creature. From her radiates an aura of extraordinary power. Her eyes refuse any disobedience. Yet I stand my ground. For my girl. For myself.
‘This is deeply shame-making, dear boy,’ murmurs Sir Ranalf from behind his partner. ‘It is so important for us all to achieve this.’
‘What you are asking, however, is too much.’ My lips are dry, my words sluggish. ‘Esmé and I will return to Cairo in the morning. I believe you have genuinely frightened her.’ I reach backwards to clutch for her grateful fingers. ‘This has all gone too far.’
‘ Very well,’ Sir Ranalf turns away with a small shrug. ’Once your debts are cleared up and everything else sorted out, you can be on your way.’
‘You can have every penny of my wages.’ I am cool. ‘All I want is a ticket home for Esmé and myself.’ I speak clearly. My demands are exact. I refuse compromise.
‘Sweet boy, I fear your back wages, generous as they were
by Egyptian standards, are not enough to cover your IOUs.’ Sir Ranalf’s tone is one of deep regret. ‘Not so?’ And he turns blue, enquiring eyes upon his backer.
The negress waves a confirming hand.
I cannot read their signs.
‘Professor Quelch will explain.’ Sir Ranalf is curt.
‘I got behind with my own bills, I fear, dear boy. My hands are tied. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, you might say. Your IOUs were my only collateral.’
Sir Ranalf clarifies Quelch’s meaning. Esmé and I owe some £2,500 in back debts. Our salaries would yield perhaps £500. Accommodation costs have also been deducted, as well as local taxes, bar bills and so on. There is also a question of a dishonoured contract. ‘It is very simple,’ he says. ‘If you wish to leave the project, merely pay your bills, reimburse us for your expenses and go.’
‘But what of our film?’
‘You may have what has been shot, I suppose.’
‘The negative as well?’
‘If you can reach agreement with Mr Seaman.’ But when I look at him Seaman withdraws. I realise he has already made his own irreversible compromises.
‘We should leave.’ This from Esmé. I turn back to her. She moves her drugged hands in the chains. ‘We must get home, Maxim. To America. It was my fault. Help me.’
I do not know whether to blame her for all this or whether to take her in my arms and comfort her. It is clear, however, that we are for the moment trapped. All I can do now is bide my time until we can escape. Tomorrow I will seek the help of the American Consul.
‘We will leave,’ I determined, still bleary.
‘We shall keep the film, I understand, as security.’ This is the negress. I cannot bear the idea of my naked Esmé becoming her property. I cannot think clearly. I stand there, trying to determine the best course of action.
‘You must make a decision, Maxim. You must make a decision.’ Never before have I heard such urgency in her voice.
‘But the film is ours. We are its creators!’
‘I am afraid that as the producer I must confirm it belongs to my company,’ said Sir Ranalf. ‘And our friend here, of course, is our major shareholder.’
‘I own you all, I think.’ A thin smile plays behind the negress’s veil. ‘I think so. But we need not quarrel. You will be good, I know.’
Esmé whispers to me again. She must escape. She must get to Cairo. I have so many duties. I have a duty to our film. She will not respect me if I abandon it. After all, her chances of fame are also linked to it. We need only return to Hollywood and our fortunes are made. But we have no money here. I look towards Quelch. There is a suggestion of guilty triumph in his eyes and it occurs to me he could actually be chief architect of our predicament. Has he nursed some dreadful plan of vengeance since Esmé and I, the only witnesses, inadvertently stumbled upon him and the Nubian boy?
‘We can compromise.’ Sir Ranalf is persuasive. ‘We can still be friends and comrades. After all, we have the basics of a jolly good film!’
‘But he must rape the girl.’ The negress speaks quietly, in a tone of threatening finality.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
I turn to test Esmé’s bonds. She is chained firmly to the slab. I understand something of the trap into which we are falling, yet I can see no easy way out.
‘Decide, Maxim!’ She is desperate with tension. But how can I decide? After all, she betrayed me. She was nothing but a little whore I rescued from Constantinople’s gutters. What did I owe her? Up to now she had already enjoyed a far superior life with me than any she might have expected. She was born a whore. Let her suffer the fate of a whore.
Within me my love for my angel, my sister, my rose burns as strong as ever. But I cannot let this inform my common sense.
‘Yes. You really must make up your mind.’ Sir Ranalf clearly fears the negress. ‘After all, you’re not exactly on the right side of the law now, are you, dears? Drugs and prostitution are both crimes in Egypt, ha, ha! The authorities would be deeply shocked to find a white man doing business in both.’
Sir Ranalf is of course describing himself but he is too well-protected to be caught, whereas Esmé and I are already on film. Quelch will doubtless turn State’s evidence to convict us of our drug-using. Worse, without money we have no guarantee we would ever get out of Cairo again. Had the negress bought or merely taken Quelch’s IOUs? Clearly she had a firm hold over both Sir Ranalf and the professor while I had no friends here. Common sense said that Kolya had long since gone on about his business and was by now back in Algiers.
‘Consider your assets.’ The negress is persuasive, impatient. ‘What do you own? A pretty fiancée and a young, healthy body? You also have brains and talent. But these are rather tenuous things. What can you sell me for two thousand five hundred pounds?’
‘My talent, apparently.’ I am growing steadily more frightened. ‘And my designs. I am an engineer. There are many other things I can do.’
‘Certainly. So there is no quarrel between us! If you wish to dissolve your partnership with us, that will be absolutely agreeable. If you are unhappy, you should not stay against your will. So, let us say the girl is worth two and a half thousand and call it even. She will be happy with us. That will discharge your whole debt. What do you say?’
The suggestion is loathsome. I am in their power for the moment but I retain my integrity.
From behind me Esmé still murmurs, begging me to make a decision. But it is impossible. I have no worthwhile choices. I am confused by the shocking suddenness of their threats, by the narcotics Quelch has pumped into me. It is true, I have a duty to the film, but I have a duty to my own destiny. She, after all, has already broken her trust. What does it matter if we indulge in a few moments of animal high spirits for the camera? The film will still be a great one. The world will see Gloria Cornish in my embrace. We have already found immortality. Esmé is calmer now. Her breasts rise and fall very slowly; her eyes, dark with emotion, stare mindlessly up at me.
There are no better alternatives. I can only make a decision based on the least harmful choices presented to me. Once more I know what it means to be powerless and without an embassy. I am alone. I have no rights and am forced to fall back upon my own resources. Expediency demands the only possible decision: ‘Very well.’ I lay a firm fist upon my hip and hold up my head with all possible dignity. ‘I will play the rape scene.’
My statement is received with general applause by everyone save Quelch who stares at me from eyes darkening with a joyful intensity; as if our terrible compromise is the result of his own wicked engineering; as if he believes he rights some singular wrong performed by us upon himself. A malevolent automaton, a Golem, he smiles at me from the shadows. I look urgently for Seaman. He might now be my only ally, my last link with Hollywood and safety, but he has vanished. Sir Ranalf shrugs and smiles. For the time being he will direct the film himself. (I heard that Seaman left the next morning and eventually returned to Sweden, from there to Hollywood where he resumed his career.) Once I was naked Sir Ranalf expressed his delight. Circumcision, he assures me, was practised by high-born Egyptians. It was a sign of nobility. It is important to establish our authority, to have our details as authentic as possible. Abraham, der als erster seiner eigenen Menschlichkeit ein Opfer brachte: Wo traf dein Messer deinen vertrauensvollen Sohn? Alte, geliebte, furchttreifende Sumer. Leugne den Juden, und du leugnest Vergangenheit. There was a time when the Hebrews were feared by Egypt, and by Greece and by Rome, before they cultivated their insidious, all-destroying fatalism, a philosophy which makes a virtue out of defeat and dissipation. For this, I suppose, we must also blame Vespasian. It became richtung-gas . . .
I perform the rape. Thoth and Isis look down in sad disgust but the Englishman is all celebration. ‘Well done, Maxie. Oh, sweet boy, well done!’ And Esmé weeps quite silently. The tactful camera will not detect it. It seems as if she is smiling. Bar’d shadeed. It is cold. There is a piece of metal in my
heart. I cannot get rid of it. They say we are at the beginning of a new Ice Age. Now only ice can cleanse the world. Then the fires and then the sea. After Ragnarok the world shall renew and perfect herself.
Not only Nazis accept this.
All evil dies there an endless death, while goodness riseth from that great world-fire, purified at last, to a life far higher, better, nobler than the past... I understand that Moslems have some similar belief in the purification of the world through battle, death and rebirth. There is an attractive singularity to such notions. I am drawn to them myself. They are not, in essence, unchristian. Some perfectly reasonable people are convinced that a nuclear holocaust is now our only hope.