The Laughter of Carthage (14 page)

As soon as my face and hands only marginally betrayed the signs of my beating, I set off for Taylor Street, near fishing quays where the rigging of little crab boats cross-hatched the spaces between the houses. There was a mouth-watering smell of fresh seafood and cooked lobster. Clouds of gulls hung over the wharves, wheeling and shrieking, fighting for scraps. I found the restaurant, left my message with a sleepy old woman who held the envelope carefully in both hands. She yawned, assuring me it would be safely delivered. Then I strolled back. In a typical San Franciscan morning, foggy and damp, thin sunshine was breaking through. I decided to explore the city, as was my habit. I had become stiff from spending so long in bed. I needed exercise. Trudging through little streets and alleys in the general direction of my hotel I came eventually into a slum favoured by hop-heads and winos. Occasionally I was whispered at from a doorway, but was not otherwise disturbed. I turned into Clay Street, glancing at a small, sleazy theatre and found myself staring in astonishment at the smiling face of Mrs Cornelius. She was one of three girls in a photograph, part of a chorus line, advertising a show called
Beauties From Blighty. The Latest Concert Party Sensation From England.
I burst out laughing at my own surprise. So close was the threat of the engulfing nightmare I was sure I had begun to indulge in wishful hallucinations. I forced myself to go on a few feet and peered into the cluttered window of a faded delicatessen while I collected my wits. I returned slowly. Like most of the places in this area the theatre was run-down, an edifice of damp, flaking brick and peeling red and white paint, called for some reason
Stranoff’s Russian Commedia.
It advertised ‘movies’ as well as ‘live-shows’. It occurred to me, cautiously, that Mrs Cornelius’s film contacts had paid off: she was not physically in San Francisco, but was appearing in a kino play. I tried the doors. The place was locked, back and front. The Matinee began at 2:30 pm. In a daze, I returned to Goldberg’s hotel and sat down on my narrow bed to write another note. I would assume Mrs Cornelius to be working at the theatre. If they would not allow me through the stage door she would at least read my note and have me admitted or send word when she had finished her turn. Once again I congratulated myself on the saving instinct which led me always to large cities where such coincidences were the stuff of ordinary experience. Mrs Cornelius, my guardian angel, might again be able to save me. The hope revived that my present circumstances were merely a minor setback in a career which, with a tiny amount of good fortune, could only prosper.

As it happened, when at two o’clock I arrived at the stage door, there was no one to stop me. I was able to wander freely through a mysterious succession of musty tiled corridors until I found the dressing-rooms. There were only three. One was marked Actors, one Actresses and the third, cryptically, Others. I knocked on the ladies’ door and heard familiar English giggles and shrieks. A voice shouted for me to enter. I turned the handle and was immersed suddenly in a confusion of tinsel and cheap brightly coloured fabric, the smell of sweat, paint and strong perfume. Smoking and still wearing her street clothes (a gorgeous pink frock with green trim) Mrs Cornelius stood leaning against an unplastered wall. Her blonde hair was fashionably waved. She wore bright red lipstick. With her emphatic mascara and rouge, she looked even lovelier than when I had last seen her in Constantinople.

She recognised me. At first she was expressionless, shaking her head. ‘Bloody ‘ell,’ she said. ‘Wotcher, Ivan.’ She began to chuckle, ‘It’s abart time ya turned up. Yore lookin’ the toff orl right. So yore doin’ as well as yer said, eh! ‘Ave yer come ter take me orf ter ‘Ollywood?’

I moved forward uncertainly between the clutter and the two other young women, oblivious of them. I took her hand and kissed it. ‘You remain the most beautiful creature in the world!’ I was entranced, as always. I could not disguise my ecstatic emotion. Behind me the skinny little girls giggled and whispered. Mrs Cornelius leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. Her fragrance was intoxicating. ‘Come orf it, Ive. We ain’t on stage fer anuvver ten minutes! Still, I carn’t say I’m not pleased ter see yer, ‘cause I am. Wot yer bin up ter?’

It was my turn to smile. ‘Oh, all kinds of things. In the past year I’ve been on tour.’

‘Wot? Actin’?’

‘You could say so. They call it lecturing. How long have you been here?’

She had arrived in New York the previous summer. The show had been booked by an agency which led them to believe they would be appearing in major theatres, ‘Instead we come on between ther bloody flickers while they’re changin’ the effin’ reels. Ter keep ther bleedin’ customers from tearin’ up ther rotten seats!’ She shrugged, dismissing a wealth and variety of disappointments with her usual good humour. ‘But at least we’re workin’. An’ ther Yanks ain’t bad audiences, mostly. This is ther biggest bookin’ we’ve ‘ad since Phily-bloody-delphia. We got anuvver week, then it’s renewable. Dunno wot we’ll do if they don’t bleedin’ renew. Ther bloke managin’ us run off ter Brazil in February, wiv ther juvenile lead, littel effin’ poof.’

As she talked she began, with unconscious grace, to change into her costume. ‘Wot woz yore management like?’

‘I’m in a similar predicament. A change of directors. No further bookings. I’m currently at a loose end.’

She looked back at me, cigarette in the corner of her mouth, a small frown in her eyes. ‘Ya bin duffed up, ain’t yer? ‘Oo dun it, Ive?’

‘Cowboys,’ I said. ‘My last appearance wasn’t received too well. One of those Western towns.’

‘Yeah,’ she agreed, ‘they let yer know when yer ain’t goin’ over too well. So yore art o’ work, eh? Ya c’d orlways come in wiv us. Ya couldn’t do worse’n ther larst bloke. Managin’, I mean.’ She made small, dainty adjustments to her tights and spangled bodice. The costume matched those her friends were wearing.

I had nothing else to do. I would dearly love to be close to the woman who had been my most reliable friend. Yet I had no general experience of theatre work. I did not know what rates to charge or how to approach owners. There again I was sure to learn quickly. I said the idea had its attractions. She seemed pleasantly surprised. ‘Buy me some supper after ther show.’ she said as the distorted sounds of music came from the auditorium. ‘And we’ll tork abart it some more.’ She tripped towards the darkness.

‘Oh do, please do help us!’ whispered the last girl hastily, turning huge, vulnerable eyes on me. Then all three ran for the stage. The girl at the rear offered me a red grin.

That night Mrs Cornelius and I ate at Hong Kong Willy’s on Grant Avenue, ‘It woz yore fault, reelly,’ she said. ‘Writin’ orl them bleedin’ letters sayin’ ‘ow great it woz ‘ere. So I jumped at ther chance, din’ I? Yer orta think it over, this opportunity I’m offerin’.’ She had already convinced me (as she would always convince me) that my ‘gift of the gab’ made me ideally suited to manage the Beauties from Blighty. ‘It only needs a few ‘undred dollars extra cash ter get us orf ther grahnd. An’ you’ve got that much easy, aincha? Give it a try, Ivan, since yer’ve nuffink else on. We got orl the leaflets an’ stuff. Ya could do it! A small stake an’ you own ther Beauties.’

I was too embarrassed to tell her that my money was hard to ‘liquidate’. I promised her a decision as quickly as possible. I was certain I could manage the troupe. She had explained how the important trick was to keep the attention of theatre owners long enough to convince them of the value of the act. But money would be needed for improvements, to pay travel expenses for a while, and so on. It would mean that I should have to risk a visit to my bank. It was only on this point I hesitated.

When I returned to Goldberg’s a youngish man was waiting for me in the alcove beside the desk. He was tall, fashionably dressed and courteous, carrying himself with a straight-shouldered stance suggesting a military or sporting background. I was sure he was from the Justice Department and was on the point of asking how he had traced me when he introduced himself as Harry Galiano and vigorously shook my hand. With relief I realized he was an emissary from Annibale Santucci’s cousin. My message had been received, ‘If you ain’t too busy, the boss could see you tonight.’ He spoke with grave politeness. I asked for a moment to go to my room. There I used some of Mrs Mawgan’s remaining ‘wings’ to ensure I had a few more hours of wakefulness. When I rejoined him he smiled suddenly, with the same cheerful insouciance as Santucci. He was quite as proud, when he escorted me round the corner into Broadway, of the large blue Packard parked there. ‘Be my guest,’ he said. With a flourish he opened the passenger door.

For some time we drove in silence through the diffused, multicoloured night of downtown San Francisco. The fog was growing thicker. Harry was content to concentrate on steering his big machine through the confused traffic of Market, past the cable car terminus, and to the wharf, visible as a series of yellow lights barely piercing the fog. We were guided up the ramp by at least half a dozen shadowy men in blue overalls and then, with a moan, the ferry staggered in the water, lurched sluggishly from the dockside, settling down to a steady speed as she ploughed out into the unseen waters of the Bay. It was only then, as we stood smoking beside the shackled Packard, that Harry became talkative. He and Vince, he said, were ‘buddies from way back’, first in the hotel trade, as chefs, later as restaurant owners. These days his boss ran a select country-club out past Berkeley. That was where we were going. I would like the club. It was very European. Very high class.

We drove off the ferry on the Oakland side. The dark water fell behind us; the steep town dwindled to isolated homes, then we were on a highway, running wide and straight between hilly woods. At last, turning into a shrub-bordered driveway, we approached a large building, three storeys high resembling a marble hacienda. It bore the illuminated legend
Gold Nugget Road House.
Clearly a fashionable restaurant, the place had at least twenty cars parked outside. Nothing could be seen through the thickly curtained windows from which music and laughter warmed the chill of the night. Harry parked the Packard at the rear, led me to a side door and knocked lightly. We were admitted by another Italian, lugubrious and thin in tight-fitting evening clothes, who said the boss was upstairs and expecting us. Two flights of concrete steps took us to the top of the building and through a fire door. Suddenly we had entered a passage expensively decorated in the latest somewhat jazzy fashion. I was reminded of Italy and her Futurists. We passed through several rooms, all in the same style. Everything was grey, blue or pink, including the glass tables and wall mirrors. Then, on the other side of a soft archway, a squat, swarthy man in middle years, also wearing a tuxedo, came forward to take my hand. ‘Mr Peters? I’m Vince Potter. What can I give you to drink? It’s all McCoy.’ Expansively, he opened the flap of a huge cocktail cabinet resembling one of the more elaborate cinema organs. ‘You do partake?’

When I told him I did, he seemed to hesitate. Then he shrugged and poured me the McCoy. It tasted like scotch.

He was solicitous in a humorous, slightly bantering way. ‘So what happened to you? I get a wire from little Annibale in Rome to say to look out for you. Then nothing. We thought you was dead, you know? From where was it? Minnesota? St Paul? Now you need a job or what? You got experience? What experience?’

‘I’m fundamentally a scientist and engineer.’ I explained a little of my career, how I had run up against both the Ku Klux Klan and the Justice Department through no fault of my own. I needed employment under a fresh identity for a while ‘I can work on planes, boats, cars. Anything mechanical.’ I thought it best to play down my lecturing career, seeing no point in offending an immigrant who had almost certainly been raised as a Catholic. Besides, it had no relevance to my current situation.

When I finished talking he was frowning but seemed impressed. ‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You can start an engine, for instance. Okay? Without keys?’

‘Of course. That would be easy.’ I could not quite follow his reasoning.

He shrugged and poured me another McCoy. ‘Always a good talent. But what was your main racket? In the old country, I mean. With Annibale, you must have been selling and buying, you know. That’s what he does mainly.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘So you were in Paris. What was your line there?’

‘Aeroplanes, chiefly.’ I did not want to raise the matter of the airship company scandal.

At this, to my surprise, he began to grin. ‘Jesus Christ! How the hell do you get rid of a hot Curtiss? No, don’t tell me. Over there, sure, it’s all governments and revolutions and what not. Like in Mexico and down in South America generally. Okay, I should tell you, the rum-running business is small bananas in comparison, though I will admit it gets competitive. We’ve got a pretty large territory to protect.’ He displayed mild, friendly puzzlement. ‘What can I say to you? A job? You could always have a job. But I don’t want to insult you. We got boats and cars need fixing, sure, but there’s plenty of mechanics. Start as a driver. You’re welcome. But you don’t want that. Another year, we could offer better for someone like yourself. I’m expanding, going into legitimate business. Now, short of starting a war with Panama, I can’t see how else I can help you out.’