The Laughter of Carthage (8 page)

My own past thoroughly behind me, I felt I had entered the future. I was, amongst these ancient hills and vineyards, truly about to take part in the twentieth-century adventure. For this civilisation was not decadent as was Turkey’s. It had continued to grow; it marched confidently on, paying decent respect to the past but never yearning for its return. I felt a distinct contrast between this world and the crumbling monuments of Islam, the noisy, stinking, degenerate streets of Pera, whose denizens clung desperately to scraps of wreckage so rotten they turned to dust almost at once. Italy herself was reviving, as she always revived! She was a new, flourishing nation, ecstatically welcoming, as perhaps nowhere else, the Age of the Machine! Her greatest hero was her finest symbol: the poet/aviator d’Annunzio! Here was a figure one could unconditionally admire. Magnificent in his manly dignity he showed the Bolshevik demagogues up for the petty, unwholesome creatures they were. D’Annunzio had taken up the sword in his nation’s cause. He had refused to allow the Mapmakers and financiers their shallow compromises. Personally, he had marched at the head of his soldiers into Fiume, claiming the city in the name of Italy. The city was Italy’s by every honourable right; it had been promised her, as Constantinople had been promised to the Tsar. Oh, for another ten d’Annunzios to take the conquered cities, the betrayed cities, the noble, forgotten cities of the world and give them back to Christ!

Doctor Castaggagli talked a great deal of d’Annunzio, whom he admired, and it was the inspiration I needed at that moment. ‘He epitomises the new Renaissance. He is a man of science, yet a great poet; a nobleman who embraces the future. He is a man of action.’

Here was someone with whom I could thoroughly identify. I saw much of myself in d’Annunzio. One day I intended to meet him. Together we could do so much. As the simple country doctor said, there was a Renaissance about to dawn all over the West. Greece was flourishing. France was restoring herself. England was extending the Reign of Law. And Germany, too, must soon recover from the trauma of defeat, putting an end to the sickness of socialism which currently infected her wounded body politic. America was resting, yet she would rally, I knew. A great brotherhood of Christian nations would emerge, united in its common purpose, to drive the Bolshevik wolf to its death and send the Islamic jackal scurrying into the desert from whence it had come. A little drunk on the rough young wine, I spoke of these dreams to my Italian friend. He toasted me enthusiastically and spoke of his country’s renewed friendship with mine (which he thought was England). He had a dream: the future would show us a world balanced between two Great Empires, the British and the Roman, each mutually admiring, each complementary, each with its own distinct character.

‘It will exemplify the Renaissance ideal,’ he told me. ‘The ideal of Harmony and Moderation. Science will flourish in all forms, but it will be humane, tempered by the wisdom of the Church.’

As if to confirm this statement, there came a high-pitched drone from above. The sun was setting bloody and huge behind Otranto’s castle, and out of it flew the distinctive silhouette of an SVA5 biplane. It lifted its nose above the fortress battlements and then, turning lazily to circle the red tiles of the old town, began to bank down towards a dark green line which was the sea. It was seemingly swallowed back into a magical realm where the ordinary rules of nature did not apply, flying as easily through water as it had through air. Then it disappeared.

Drunkenly, the doctor and I applauded it. We toasted d’Annunzio once more. We toasted Otranto. After some debate, we rose to our feet and toasted the Pope.

Later it occurred to me the plane was probably a Customs spotter, hunting out illegal shipping. I wondered if it had seen Captain Kazakian’s steam launch off the nearby coast and was searching for smugglers or secret immigrants. As soon as we could we should be on our way to Rome. (I learned soon afterwards I had been far luckier than I realised. Italian coastal patrols had been doubled in recent months. There was an influx of stateless refugees desperately fleeing the ruined countries of Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.)

That night I told Esmé we were going to Rome, to the seat of her religion, to a city older than Byzantium. The wholesome food and the innkeeper’s wife’s loving attention had restored her considerably. My news made her almost gay. She began to apologise for her behaviour. I told her how I understood. It is a terrible thing to be torn up by the roots, even if those roots are buried in poisoned soil.

Soon afterwards we took the train to Rome. A little group of our Otranto friends saw us on our way. The journey proved extremely comfortable, if mainly dull. It was good, however, to know the luxury of true first-class travel again. The seats and the general appearance of the train impressed Esmé. She grew animated; her wonderful, girlish self; her eyes as bright as ever by the time our final train pulled in to great Central Station.

It was Sunday, July 4th 1920. Esmé and I had arrived at last in Rome, that city of lush gardens and timeworn stone; that city of the automobile where every second citizen seemed a priest or a policeman and where, consequently, Church and State were neither remote nor frightening institutions but familiar, ordinary and reassuring. A helpful cab driver recommended the
Hotel Ambrosiana
at 14, Vicolo dei Serpenti. We took a suite there. Warm sunlight poured through the French doors leading to our own little balcony. Esmé danced with pleasure. She was rapidly putting even a hint of her old terrors behind her, becoming ebullient, eager to go onto the streets, to visit the cafés, the shops. ‘And there must be circuses,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard of them. Cabarets, too. And the cinema, of course!’

It was a wonderful new world. It smelled free in a way Galata never had. Esmé marvelled at the straightness of the streets, their cleanliness, the relative absence of dogs and beggars. This, she said, was very much as she had thought of Heaven, when she was younger. And she had identified Rome, of course, with Heaven.

I asked her what she wanted to do most urgently. She skipped beside me, her hand in mine, her eyes smiling up at me.

‘Oh, the cinema!’ she said. ‘It has to be the cinema!’

After a light lunch at a pleasant little café near the Barberini Palace we went to look for a picture-house. We rushed straight in to the first one we found. They were showing
Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeii
and we were entranced, almost overwhelmed by the film’s epic reality. There could have been no better choice, no better place to watch it. Esmé hugged me and held my hand all the way through. Occasionally, in her delight, she would kiss me. I could not imagine happiness more perfect.

My rebirth was consolidated at last.

* * * *

EIGHTEEN

IF I AM A MARTYR brought low by my beliefs, then I am in excellent company and should not complain. Certain contemporaries have suffered far worse than I. They were reviled, imprisoned, tortured, hanged or burned alive. No single individual betrayed me in my fight. I am history’s victim, but I have had many exquisite moments, seen the world in all her beauty, made love to delightful women, enjoyed lasting friendships and the warmth of public acclaim. I am not one to whine over misfortunes, or blame others for my failures. I stand by my actions. What if I no longer receive the general respect which perhaps is my due? I have at least been true to myself. The Sultans sail from the City of Dogs. They come out of Carthage on a black and bloody tide. Their ships ride at anchor in harbours blocked with corpses. Scarecrow boys hang in the yards, grinning at the ruined cities of the West. Only the Slav remains ready to resist them and the Slav is still in chains. The Steel Tsar died, forgetting to tell where he hid the key. Those girls are so lovely with their pale hair and blue eyes, picking at my clothes, looking for silk stockings and satin drawers like the ones Esmé might have worn. I cannot help myself. I give it away.

The West is on her last legs and I shall not live forever. The Sultans strut from their gloomy men-o’-war onto a festering shore already conquered by its own degeneracy. They who ruled only a few yards of Buchenwald or Auschwitz now claim mastery of the world. But the Sultans are liars if they claim me as their subject. I am not of their
blut. Ich habe langen geschlafen. Jesus erweckte die Toten.
I refused to become a Mussulman. I lost my mother. I wrote several times but nobody knew what had happened to her. Then, after the War, in London in 1948, I met Brodmann. He was already old and probably had TB. He told me he had been in Kiev when the SS came. He had worked for them in an office and had recognised her name from the list, had seen her as she went down to the trench. All this he could have said just to wound. Why was she on a list? Why was he not in the gorge? It was in the gorge I worked, he said. I was captured, too. I have no reason to trust Brodmann. He lied even then, trying to placate me. Why did you pursue me? I asked. I did not, he said. I never got out until ‘46. I was sent to Czechoslovakia. It was distasteful, my mother’s name on Brodmann’s sickly lips. I guessed he was out of favour but still a Chekist, hoping to redeem himself by luring me back. I was too old a hand for him. Anyone might have learned my mother’s name, which was doubtless in my file, together with our old address. That was not, of course, the name I use. I at least am willing to show responsibility and protect those relatives still alive in Russia. Somebody told me Brodmann had died in Spain in 1950. Doubtless he was by then claiming to be a Sephardim Don! The Catholic pseudo-Fascist Franco must have welcomed him as a brother! I wonder how he explained what happened at the Tempelhof Airfield in 1939! They are all the same. They, too, would have been Sultans, given the opportunity. Maybe Brodmann was exactly that, living by betraying the likes of my mother. The black ships are the size of towns, prows throwing up yellow mud as they invade the land. They are implacable. They fly a dozen cryptic standards, but I have always recognised the banners of Carthage. That is why they hate me so. Yet certain of us, all of whom have this gift, recognise each other, frequently without having to exchange words. So it was between myself and Major Sinclair and later with Eddy Clarke and Mrs Bessy Mawgan.

It is a form of telepathy, I think, or something spiritual revealed in the eyes; an instant rapport. We are a brotherhood secret even to our own kind! I was never, however, to be granted an opportunity as miraculous as that offered to me by the Imperial Wizard: to speak to an entire nation! Nothing like it could have happened to me in Russia. Indeed, Mr Clarke had many recent reports of worsening terror as some assassin bungled the killing of Lenin, giving Trotski and the rest an excuse to pound the Bolshevik hammer with still greater ferocity on the wretched remains of one of the world’s noblest nations. I became incensed at dinner that first night, finally uttering a tirade against Russia’s murderers which, to my astonishment, had my hosts and Major Sinclair on their feet and clapping. Even the negro servants were impressed.

I remained a guest at Klankrest for over a week. Major Sinclair returned to the Delta (‘on unfinished business’) leaving me to discuss the strategy and logistics of my proposed tour with Mr Clarke, Mrs Mawgan and several prominent Klan officials. Eddy Clarke confided he had opposition within the organisation itself. ‘They resent my closeness to Colonel Simmons and believe I’m somehow feathering my own nest. Nothing could be further from reality. There’ll always be a few, I suppose, who see another’s altruism and believe it to be a reflection of their own greed. We shall have to teach them a lesson soon.’

I asked, by the way, where the great founder was. My ambition, naturally, was to be able to meet him one day.

‘He devoted himself body and soul to the Klan, Max. He’s no longer a spring chicken. He’s worn himself out and will be going for a rest in Florida. When he returns he’ll scotch those damn’ fool rumours. He knows what we’ve done for him. Three years ago they were glad of nickels and dimes. Today there’s a turnover in millions.’

Under these circumstances I greatly appreciated the time he allowed me. Mrs Mawgan herself assumed chief responsibility for coaching me, providing structure and detail to my proposed speeches and warning me where to be diplomatic, when I could be as forceful as I pleased. My basic text was taken directly from Griffith (whom I knew by heart) and Mrs Mawgan helped me amplify it. The first tour would begin in Portland, Oregon and encompass some fifty cities in the South and West. Mrs Mawgan thought I should be ‘broken in’ before I assaulted the North-Eastern citadels of Carthage’s greatest power. So busy were we I saw nothing of Atlanta itself and had time only to telephone Mr Cadwallader. Perhaps he had read the Paris newspapers for he seemed distant. He said vaguely he would call me at the house to arrange a luncheon. My social life consisted finally of two large parties held by my hosts to entertain wealthier and more influential sympathisers.

This was how, in a vaulted ballroom to rival Versailles, I met at Klankrest many of America’s leading citizens. Under the strictest secrecy came judges, senators, bankers, union bosses, industrialists and financiers, some of them already committed to our cause, others curious to discover what the Klan actually meant to do for them. A few, I suspect, watched the social wind, wondering how profit might be made by association with this new political force. Mr Clarke impressed them as an educated gentleman of the old tradition, while no one could fail to be charmed by Bessy Mawgan. My attendance, I was told, showed how unprejudiced in actuality the Klan was. ‘We don’t attack individuals. Only those who declare themselves our enemies are our enemies,’ Mr Clarke explained to a puffy-featured individual called Samuel Ralston, an Indian politician, I gather (though he did not look it). Klan votes sent him as a Senator to Washington the following year. I wonder how many liberals would have voted Sitting Bull into the House of Representatives! Ralston was not in my view anything more than an opportunist. He was openly rude when I tried to interest him in my methods of raising crops under massive glass roofs in permanently controlled weather conditions. Anyone who genuinely had his people’s interests at heart would have known what I meant. However, I had been overheard by a huge, shambling individual, some six foot four inches tall, bulky and wearing one of those loosely fitting dinner suits often favoured by the elephantine (who seem to believe they must wear clothes they can grow into). About thirty-five, with mild, boyish features, he beamed at me a little vaguely and, smoothing back his untidy blond hair, asked if I were an engineer.

‘An experimental scientist.’ I smiled back up at him. ‘My business is inventions.’

He was eager to talk. ‘I’m no good here.’ He apologised for himself. ‘These brawls give me the eagers, I’m afraid.’ His huge hand enfolded mine. He was John ‘Mucker’ Hever, he said, living mainly on the West Coast these days. He specialised in oil technology but as we talked it quickly emerged his enthusiasm was for the cinema, ‘I love everything about the movies, don’t you?’ For over an hour we discussed the charms of Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, our mutual liking for Griffith’s films, our fury at the people who had plotted the failure of
Intolerance.
I found his company far more enjoyable than that of the mainly pompous, self-important individuals attracted to Klankrest by ‘the powerful smell of cabbage’, as Mrs Mawgan put it. Hever knew nothing at all of politics, he said. His interest in the Klan seemed simply romantic and he had contributed, I suspect, in order to obtain the robes and pretend he was ‘the little Colonel’ of the movie. Unusually for an American he was familiar with many European directors, including Grune and Murnau. In fact his taste was rather broader than my own. At last Mrs Mawgan drew me away from ‘Mucker’ Hever to introduce me to Judge O’Grady of somewhere called Tarheel (possibly Tower Hill) which to this day I am unable to find on any map. It seems to me now that he was an imposter, one of many agents, private and Federal, then making it their business to spy on the Klan. Evidently he had succeeded in ingratiating himself with Eddy Clarke, for they were on very friendly terms. If Eddy Clarke had a weakness it was a tendency to trust too many people. Of a naturally agreeable disposition, he was perhaps a little over-confident, unable to accept with real conviction the meanness and cunning of some who surrounded him.

The final part of my evening was perhaps the most interesting, spent with an important newspaperman, originally born in Sacramento but presently on a North Carolina paper, who had written a book conclusively proving Abraham Lincoln was shot on the direct orders of the Pope. Thanks to Griffith I had seen John Wilkes Boothe kill the President then make his wild leap from the Ford’s Theater box to the stage, hobbling to freedom on a broken leg.
’Sic semper tyrannis!’
he had cried in expert Latin. That alone was proof of the enormous power over human minds wielded by Rome. The journalist spoke of the Secret Treaty of Verona, the determination of the Black Pope, General of the Jesuit Order, and the White Pope of the Vatican, to crush democracy. Five presidents assassinated, he said, and all on the orders of the two popes. The Papacy was heavily indebted to the Rothschilds. Roman Catholics were infiltrating Japan, steadily gaining power with the intention of turning a yellow tide against the United States. Already Californians were feeling the effects of a Japanese invasion. These secretive and baleful little people multiplied rapidly. They were the advance guard of the Jesuits’ Oriental armada. ‘The tools sometimes change,’ he told me, ‘but the tactics never do. Will we have our Sir Francis Drake ready when our turn comes?’ His arguments, backed by his evident erudition, made sense of apparently inexplicable events, especially the large number of US presidents who met violent deaths. Many involved in the Lincoln plot were never brought to book. The instigators of course remained in Rome, continuing to send everything needed for further disruption, including guns and ammunition-belts inscribed with the Papal Arms, personal gifts to the so-called Knights of Columbus, the Knights of the Golden Cross. I was to find these facts of great use on my tour.

At dawn, March 15th 1922, Mrs Mawgan and myself took a closed car to the suburb of Smyrna, quietly boarding a royal blue Pullman and thus avoiding unwelcome publicity or revealing my connection with Klankrest. We were on our way to Portland, via Kansas City, Denver and Salt Lake City, almost 2,700 miles from East to West and by far the longest single journey I had ever undertaken. I was excited, thoughtful, and grateful for the luxury, thoroughly enjoying the Escape of Railway Travel in the amusing company of Mrs Mawgan. With the build and general appearance of the Baroness von Ruckstühl she combined something of the disposition of Mrs Cornelius. Mrs Mawgan taught me her native Music Hall songs, also, but could not render them in the lively fashion of my Cockney thrush. In the Club Car we joined other passengers to sing
Meet Me In St Louis, Louis, Shine On Harvest Moon, Sweet Adeline
and
Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven.
I still greatly miss the comfort and good fellowship of those old American Club Cars where strangers met and chatted or entertained one another, just as in Imperial Russia, while the huge articulated 2-6-6-2 locomotives dragged us over deserts, prairies, mountains and swamps, through endless forests and down deep tunnels, steady, relentless and confident. They are all gone now. The grey forces have nationalised American passenger trains, I hear. Just as in England, they have become dirty, without character, unromantic and unreliable. They do not even have a Pullman for private rent any longer. Thousands of Indians and pioneers died, millions of labourers sweated, and scores of financiers risked their all to ensure the progress of the great Iron Horse. Now their sacrifice is meaningless. I often wonder if matters might have been different had Russia succeeded in her hopes of colonising America. San Francisco would still be St Petersburg. Instead St Petersburg is a miserable town in Florida where Jewish matrons eat blintzes and herring and sweat poison into the humid air. Why did they drain one swamp merely to create another? I still dream of America as the New Byzantium. Slavic bastion of our Orthodoxy. If Slavs had made a nation only in the West and North, with their own Tsar and their old Law, neither Hitler nor Hirohito would have dared go to war.