It was the same in the camps. Half of them ignored the obvious facts of their situation. It was how they had come there in the first place. And then it was too late. Only those who accepted the realities survived. There is little room for sentiment in Camp Freedom, as our old commandant used to remind us. Sentiment is what led us to our present predicament. Ikh bin eyn Luftmeister. Der Flugzeugführer sitzt im Führersitz ... I shall come back to the City of the Golden Dream.
The pain starts in my stomach. It reaches my mouth. I did not become a Musselman. What more could they want from me? I wore their stripes. I wore their star. Even though their punishment was unjust I performed my work. It had been my fate forever to be condemned and identified not through any action of my own, but through the careless decision of a father whom I hardly knew. But that I suppose is what becomes of the child of a free-riding Cossack when left too long in the care of its mother. I do not blame my mother, I hasten to say, but it is probably true she made me a little over-sensitive. Those stripes. Brodmann gloated. Grishenko raised his quirt. So that I should not forget the sacrifice of my friend Yermeloff. Then he gave me my pistols, ebony and silver. Those bars. Nobody blamed me for what I did in Kiev. Those people tear the skins from corpses. They carve their initials in the bodies. Their only sensation of living comes when they are performing some complicated act of cruelty on another wretched soul. And this we were told was to be the century of enlightenment!
Today on the television they discuss the problem of leisure. What leisure is that? We are all clearly on the brink of a new Dark Age but they discuss the party arrangements in paradise! They say I am mentally disturbed! Is there any aspect of their lives which is actually better than the lives of their forefathers? Their fathers had hope, at least. This generation looks into the future and sees only decay and dissolution.
Cautiously I checked that the sack really did contain only my film canisters, then I glanced back through the car’s window at Djema al Fna’a. As the twilight folded over the people and the yellow radiance of oil and tallow gave the scene the quality of Flemish paint, I wondered at this luscious ordinariness. It was unfortunate, I thought, there were no Arab old masters. An over-literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis is the reason for that. These people embrace rules the way most of us embrace life. The more rules they have, the more comfortable they are. I told this to that ill-tempered hysteric in the Post Office, that Pakistanischer. He behaves as if the Postmaster General is some Oriental tyrant who will behead anyone for the slightest use of their own initiative. Or is the man merely exercising his power?
As our car eased its way through the gateway and out onto the Route du Safi, the wide new road that led up to the darkened military train yards beyond the Villa Marjorelle, a big Mercedes tourer swung across our path, forcing the driver to stop. A pistol was waved from the passenger window and then a small man descended from the tourer and crossed to where we were stopped, our engine still running. He held a tray: on it were ink, pen and paper.
I picked up the pen and the Mercedes reversed to allow the taxi to pass. As soon as I had signed and returned the paper the Mercedes turned and was gone. It was only another five minutes to the railroad yards, but, with Mr Mix’s puzzlingly cool company, it seemed longer. There was no great activity in the yards. A few lights blazed in huts on the other side of the fence and the huge black sleeping outlines of military locomotives and goods wagons were everywhere. The place lacked the urgency of a commercial yard. Our car was allowed through the gates on the driver’s presentation of a pass already provided by the unfortunate Fromental. He drove towards the buildings on the other side of the tracks but I tapped him on the shoulder. We would stop here, I said. I gave him my last spare French banknote. Then Jacob Mix and I left the car and found the deeper shadows of the big trains. My bag was proving heavy and the films, loose in the sack, were awkward for Mr Mix, but we kept a firm, almost desperate, grip on my remaining belongings. They were all we had to get us to Tangier and from there to Europe. The Pasha or his vizier could change their minds at any moment and send soldiers in pursuit.
Fromental did not remain in the army, I heard. Someone told me he had made a great success running a radio business in Lyons (home of our Christian Testament) so in fact events were fortunate for him. Apparently he was shot by the Germans in 1943. When I heard this news I could not suppress a pang of sadness, remembering his bright enthusiastic face, his honest idealism. We had much in common. I have always said that the honour the Christian values highest is the honour of honest chivalry above so-called manly courage. Fromental is in honour now, no doubt a martyr. I think when we meet he will want to shake me by the hand.
Once we had got our bearings, we began to examine the trains with our expert eyes. Both of us had learned every trick of the American railroad bum, and the French authorities had never had to contend with a skilled hobo before. It was not long before we had identified the locomotive we wanted. It was already making steam and it was clear from the markings on its trucks that it was bound for Casablanca. From Casablanca we could easily transfer to Tangier, the Free City where neither Moroccan nor French law prevailed. Then we could get any one of a dozen ships to take us to Genoa. From Genoa we would be within easy reach of Rome.
Mr Mix found an unlocked door and slid it smoothly back. As we climbed into the truck we admired the modern rolling-stock, so much better maintained than civilian trains and then, with the security of familiarity we settled down, upon the slats, to sleep until our educated senses detected the first movements of the train. At that point we must be on the alert, in case of examiners finding us. But these trains made few of the sounds we were used to. Every so often a huge gasp of steam would fill the night, to be followed at once by further silence.
I sent up a prayer for Rosie von Bek, hoping she had managed to pilot the Bee all the way to Rome. I remembered Kolya and offered up a small prayer, too, for his safety. I thought of Esmé, my sister, my daughter, and how in the end she had failed to rise to my hopes. Yet I could not entirely condemn her. For a few years her life had been filled with a wonder and luxury, elegance and quality she would never have known had I left her to live out her days as a mere Galata whore. I still celebrated her loveliness, her quality of innocence, her child-like beauty. I still loved her.
At dawn the wagon rattled forward a few metres. I braced myself. It shuddered to a stop. We heard whistles and yells. The train shunted backwards for several revolutions of her pistons and then subsided, sniffing and hissing in a petulant undertone. We heard the locomotive giving off great masculine snorts and wheezes of impatience, like an old but dignified bulldog full of panting excitement at an outing. Suddenly I knew a moment of regret for all my lost expectations, all the pointless idealism I had invested in this world. Was it not thoroughly ironic we should be on our way to seek refuge in the ancient site of Carthage herself, to Tangier?
But perhaps it is true, and you are always safer in the cage when a lion is on the loose.
At last we were moving. There had been no check of our truck. As it rolled forward, sunlight shone through the slats of the roof and made bars of intense black and white on a floor still carrying recent traces of straw and excrement but now stinking of carbolic. The procession of stripes undulated over my sprawled body, like some ethereal tide, while Mr Mix’s face was thrown alternatively into vivid light and sudden darkness. Through the stink of the disinfectant and the heating engine oil I smelled for the last time the warm mint-flavoured air of Marrakech as the red city faded behind us and the train began its long climb through the gorges of the Atlas. There was a reassuring and familiar rhythm to the bumping of the wheels over the rails and I was able to reach into my bag to find one of my small packets of restorif. I offered Mr Mix a comradely thumbnail of the cheering drug, which he refused, saying he planned to sleep. We should be all day getting to Casablanca. With luck we would arrive at night. Otherwise we should have to wait to disembark at dark. It was October 28, 1929. In a few months I would be thirty. I planned to celebrate the event in Rome.