T’hami el Glaoui, respected chief of his clan and undisputed ruler of half Morocco, power-broker to the other half, sent for me after I had been his idle employee in Marrakech for almost a month. He was in his study overlooking the palace’s great courtyard in which shady shrubs surrounded a splashing fountain of the most splendid mosaic. On mornings like this I could imagine myself in Byzantium, paying a call upon some Greek dignitary. Unfortunately T’hami, for all his virtues, continued to have the reality of a suburban usurer and, until he spoke at least, was inclined to disappoint expectations. Moreover, he was dwarfed by the heavy Spanish antique furniture which gave the room the appearance of a crowded museum. Part of his great library was here. He was rumoured to read only with difficulty and to have stolen most of the books.
He wished people to think him wise, true, but T’hami had actually read much of his library and understood some of it far better than I. Like a real bookman he took pleasure in the feel and smell of his volumes. Today we stood by the window looking down at a print table on which he had spread my designs. Behind us were the lovely arches, domes and tiles of the best Moorish architecture, which again reminded me of a Hollywood tycoon’s offices. It is, sadly, an architecture which has been readily vulgarised by every modernist who ever designed a suburban picture-palace or a picnic park. ‘I have been looking through these just now,’ said El Glaoui, smiling up at me. ‘They are very good, I think. I have had one or two exberts give them a glance. I hobe you don’t mind.’
I murmured something about the patents being already registered.
‘Well,’ he said, adjusting his little silk collar, ‘in sbite of young Lieutenant Fromental’s view of the matter, I think we can begin building some aeroblanes, Mr Beters.’ He was delighted by my response and laughed aloud.
‘You are a man who loves these things!’
‘More than my own life, I sometimes think.’
He enjoyed this. Like most tyrants, wherever they occur, he approved of strong expressions and opinions as long as they did not conflict with his own. He became by turns avuncular, brotherly, respectful, intimate, yet always the confident authority. As I knew from Mr Mix, he had, though it would be impolitic to employ it, the power of life and death over everyone in Marrakech and her surrounds; more power than the nominal ruler in Rabat; enough power (and he desired no more, for he was by nature a cautious man) to hold the balance between the French, the rebels and the Sultan. Even while I marvelled at the Glaoui’s sudden decision, he made a further suggestion. ‘I think we should have one of each tybe at first. Meanwhile brint a catalogue which will describe the virtues of our machines. Use as many colours and photos as you like. As the orders arrive, we shall make the aeroblanes. That way the cabital investment comes from the customer. What do you think?’
I was merely glad that I was again going to be busy doing the thing I loved best. I would bide my time before I raised the question of the confiscated Buckaroos. There was no point in arguing with the Pasha, who would jovially have promised anything and then declared that it was a police matter and out of his hands. So has the East learned to use the language and cherished institutions of the West to its sublime advantage.
‘We will number them, I suggest,’ he continued, ‘and berhabs give them names. As I see you have done in your sketches. The Desert Wind is one I had in mind. Or is that a little too brovincial, do you think?’
‘We should select a theme,’ I suggested, ‘as you see I have done over here. These are the names of animals - you will recall Sopwith’s famous Camel - and these are of oceans - The Pacific, The Atlantic, The Indian - or weather conditions - Typhoon, Hurricane, Maelstrom, Sandstorm.’ I admitted my own preference was for birds - The Hawk, The Swallow, The Owl and The Snowgoose. My ship is called The Silver Cloud. She is crewed entirely by bright-eyed Slavs. He settled for the birds. He said he had heard that I, in fact, was nicknamed ‘The Hawk’ in certain quarters. I admitted I had been honoured thus by the Bedouin of the Eastern Sahara.
‘I, too, have been likened to a bird of brey.’ He turned to the window and the music of his fountains. ‘I am sometimes named “The Eagle of the Atlas” while my boor nephew Hamoun, alas, you know, is “The Vulture”. So we are “of the same feather”, I think?’ I have made no effort to reproduce his peculiar mixture of elaborate Arabic, rather simple French and broken English. I know women found this especially charming. ‘What do you say, Brofessor Beters?’
His manly clap on the back filled me with an odd sense of pride. I had no doubt that I had discovered a fellow-genius. It was always of deep regret to me that he used it in such shortsighted and unChristian ways. I was never a hypocrite. While I came to attend the mosque at least once a week and to be as dutiful in my daily worship as El Hadji T’hami himself, frequently to be found reading from the Holy Q’ran, my deepest prayers were addressed to a somewhat more progressive God. I did not, however, live a lie. My faith matured during my time in Marrakech and I had many debates with myself concerning the nature of God and His role for me. I learned to accept the responsibilities of my position. I was after all a great international celebrity according to the Pasha’s extraordinary court. I was as often at his palace as I was at my desk. Almost every day brought a new visitor from Europe. Our work proceeded with the leisurely pace which at first frustrates the European until, one day, he discovers he has learned to prefer it and regard it as the only civilised way. I was, I now see, lured by something very like the luxuries and the flatteries of Satan.
The Pasha’s advisers were all Jews. One of the youngest was a great enthusiast of my Masked Buckaroo films and saw me as something of a hero. He insisted, to the amusement of his fellows, on quizzing me on every detail, every mystery of young Tex Riordan’s career. I did my best to answer him and was a little flattered by his attention. He was a Europeanised Jew of the more intelligent sort. He had been educated at a French school. I knew him as Monsieur Josef. These Jews were frequently seated beside me during meals and were friendly enough to me. Some understood Yiddish. They were clever, quick-talking men, who made the Pasha laugh. To these alone he would give his full attention, for they advised him on all his many interests throughout the country, whether they were agricultural, mining or manufacturing. It was through listening to his Jews that I began to understand something of his master-plan. He was not interested in challenging the Sultan by force of arms. He was instead building himself a modern commercial empire as vast and as varied as Hearst’s or Hughes’s. Like them, like Rothschild or Zaharoff, he had discovered the crucial importance of modern engineering to the improvement of his fortunes and would in time come to own the Moroccan press. He would develop power and influence in the democratic style. Increasingly the echoes between my masters in Hollywood and my master in Marrakech became louder and better defined, and at first I found this amusing. Thinking it might solve our mutual problems, I suggested to Mr Mix that we make some good old-fashioned picture-plays while awaiting the Pasha’s pleasure, but he threw cold water on the idea. ‘Already,’ he said, ‘I’m running out of film stock. Some was ordered from Pathé in Casa, but it’s still not here. Soon I’m going to have to start faking it. Or try for some interesting double-exposures!’
So I devoted myself to my aeroplanes. I moved into a marvellous house on several levels in the new French Quarter being built on the far side of the walls, beyond the Bab Djedid, the gateway through which the Avenue Katoubia ran. The house was fully staffed with slaves from the Pasha’s own palace, including several young creatures who were provided purely for my pleasure. I had my own carriage at my permanent disposal, bearing the Pasha’s arms to show that in every case I had right of way. Through the healing routines of the leisurely Moorish court I began to forget my ordeal in Egypt. I thought sometimes of Kolya, that wonderful friend, and his noble stubbornness which had left him in such a difficult position. But I had faith in Kolya! Slave or free man, he would survive somewhere and I knew in my bones we would one day meet again and share a joke about our hallucinatory desert escapade. Although continuing to avoid any public closeness to me, Miss von Bek remained the Pasha’s mistress for longer than anyone could remember. His negro vizier, Hadj Idder, who was El Glaoui’s closest confidant and a freed slave, was delighted. He said that his master had found a playmate. It was true, it seemed to us, that the Glaoui had, according to his habit, selected fresh sport for his evenings, but Miss von Bek always occupied a good deal of his daily life. His horses, his golf course, his cars were at her disposal. Again, typically, he remained jealous of their friendship and more than once had turned a severe eye upon a man he suspected of admiring her. She and I had become adept at disguising our brief communications, with the result that a new intensity of feeling existed between us. Only Hadj Idder suspected us. Like so many Marrakchis, he was himself a devotee of The Masked Buckaroo and had complimented me several times on my acting but this enthusiasm did nothing to shake his loyalty to the Pasha to whom he was as devoted as Mr Mix was to me. Hadj Idder had the manner of a Christian nun, except that he delighted not in God’s work but the Pasha’s. It was rumoured that they were half-brothers and lovers, and we could believe almost anything of a relationship by far the closest El Glaoui had with any creature. Hadj Idder’s great African head would grin with delight at each new pleasure his master took. At these times he and Mr Mix would look very much alike. He would chuckle and yell or grow sad in appreciation of every passing humour. And yet when acting on the Pasha’s part he became as dignified as any butler of a great Southern mansion in the years of Dixie’s tranquillity. At these times he was a diplomat, discreet and incorruptible - perhaps the only living human being aside from myself at that court who could not somehow be bought. He was trusted for the same good reasons the World Service of the BBC is still trusted in many quarters.