‘But Maxim, I only have fifteen minutes! The car is waiting.’ She made a gesture of desperate, apologetic impatience.
‘The car?’ Stupefied, I gaped at this vision of my bride-to-be. Here at last in the flesh was the child I had rescued from the most vicious slums of Istanbul. My boyhood sweetheart, she had been fucked so much there were calluses on her cunt but this reincarnated Esmé was Esmé purified, my own sweet little angel, my little sister, my restored betrothed! And she said she was leaving? ‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to meet Willie. It’s so awful. He’s, you know, moody. I’ve been longing to see you. This is the first chance I’ve had, my darling!’ She writhed with helpless desires. I began to reach towards her, then halted the gesture.
‘You forgive me?’ Tears were starting in my eyes. I held them back.
‘For what?’ she said. ‘Kolya explained you had to do what you did. And when you weren’t at the ship, I simply assumed you were still in hiding and would contact me in Los Angeles. Willie was so kind. He had a train of his own which was going to the Coast from Chicago and offered me a lift. Now he’s putting me up. Well, you know how it is, darling. I have to be diplomatic. But here we are, together at last anyway, no harm done. There’s a strong chance I’ll have a part in a picture soon! Won’t you be proud of me?’
‘I’m already proud of you, my angel. I have so much to tell you, to explain. I am probably going to be working for the movies myself.’
‘Oh, darling! You’re already a film-star!’
‘Not exactly. I shall probably be directing the film I am currently writing. As to an acting role, well I have certainly had the experience. We shall see.’
‘I have read all your letters and your little notes and everything, Maxim.’ She was a distant bloom, a dream of heaven in white flowered silk and fur, her little heart-shaped face framed by a sculpted helmet of newly blonde hair, her blue eyes glowing dark against all that fairness. I had never seen her so beautiful, even on that first occasion when I had suddenly noticed her, my resurrected muse, at La Rotonde. Ma soeur! Meyn shvester! Moja rozy! Dans la Grande Rue, lallah . . . Hiya maride. Ma anish råyih . . . Qui bi’l’haqq, ma tikdibsh! Awhashtena! Awhashtena! Samotny, Esmé. Samotny! So lonely, Esmé. So lonely. Oh, I have longed for you down all those empty ages. They took you, my muse, my ideal, my reason for living, and they made a whore of you. Was it not a sign, I now wonder, of God’s eternal grace, that you should come back to me, time after time, as if in confirmation that real beauty, real love, real altruism, is imperishable, no matter to what depths we think the world has sunk and that these imperishable values should never be rejected or forgotten? And here you were, speaking rapidly of Meulemkaumpf’s kindness, and your situation in which you were now somewhat compromised, not having told Meulemkaumpf every exact detail of your story. ‘He thinks my brother was to meet me and was probably killed in the gangster-fights.’
How could I blame her for a white lie or two? I had told them myself, in exactly similar circumstances, and while they rarely do any harm, they can sometimes prove a shade embarrassing or produce unexpected complications, which is why I long since gave them up. ‘When can you get away to see me?’ I asked.
‘Very soon. We’re going north for a couple of days, to visit Hearst at his ranch, and should be back by the end of the week. Maybe you could speak to someone about a part for me?’ This last was begged with that disarming, humorous sweetness I could never forget. ‘Of course. But we must talk more soon.’ Even though her innocent mention of Hearst had produced an unwelcome frisson, I was far more terrified that she should leave me again and we should be parted for another eternity! I drank in her beauty. She had hardly changed. Rather more sophisticated than when I had last seen her, of course, because in Paris she had begun to learn the manners and demeanour of a well-bred lady and doubtless Kolya and his wife had helped her. Her marvellous poise could rival Theda Bara’s. I mentioned that Mrs Cornelius was now making a great success of her movie career and Esmé murmured a remark in Turkish which I did not catch. Nor was there time for her to repeat it. She dropped her voice and asked in French if I had some ‘neige’ I might spare her. She had run out and Willie Meulemkaumpf was disapproving of both drugs and alcohol, so was no help. ‘It’s what he and Hearst have in common apart from their millions.’ I was glad merely to be of service to my sweetheart.
The drug had already become a bond, a way of remaining in touch until such time as she was able to save Meulemkaumpf’s feelings and return to me. I had heard it was possible to get married in Nevada without producing too much in the way of identity papers and tried to communicate all this to her as I returned with the little paper packet and pressed it into her warm, childish hand. How extraordinarily beautiful she was! Louise Brooks was to model herself on my Esmé and make a fortune in Germany. But that, as I know too well, is the price one pays for being ahead of one’s time. Not only do you receive no credit, but you rarely receive the kind of money made by your imitators. And then I moved to kiss her, but thought better of it. In an explosion of silver, she had sped to the waiting Mercedes, flung herself into the cavernous upholstery and waved her negro chauffeur on, for all the world as if instructing a coachman to whip up his horses.
Only when she had disappeared did it come to me that her uniformed driver was also familiar. It had been none other than Jacob Mix himself. Perhaps I had him to thank for Esmé’s change of mood?
Me duele. Tengo hambre. Me duele. Me duele.
FIVE
I AM NOT ESPECIALLY PROUD of the ways in which I earned my living in 1925. There was little honour in it. Yet I do not think I knew a time since my childhood when I felt more light-hearted or thoroughly fulfilled. Spending so much of the year in a state of near-perfect euphoria, I almost forgot I was born to suffer for science and humanity, destined to build my great flying cities, not create the baroque palaces and Gothick villages, mediaeval castles and Futurist ballrooms that Fantasy demanded. Yet, during that year in Hollywood it seemed possible to realise every single dream I had ever entertained and to do so easily. I could have been happy there and lived out my life there, with Esmé, my wife, my children; an honoured illusionist as famous as Walt Disney or von Stroheim and probably richer. With his wealth ‘Uncle Dizzy’ created a Land populated by his petit-bourgeois dreams of a prosaic future. I should have built Pyatnitskiland! Each part of my world would have demonstrated an invention of my own - the solid-hulled, turbo-powered aerial cruiser, the Atlantic aeroplane refuelling platforms, the radio oven, the space-rocket, the radio satellite relay, the desert liner, the television, the dynamite engine and the super-rapid ocean-clipper - and would have realised my greatest vision. Uncle Dizzy and Uncle Joe had that dream in common: they longed for a world populated entirely by programmable robots. Ultimate predictability as a guard against death. However, I dreamed of ultimate freedom. My great cities of the skies would at last release humanity forever from its chains, from the sucking hampering mud of its origins. Almost single-handedly I could have built a glorious future, transforming the planet in a thousand ways, harnessing all the bountiful resources of the American continent. There would have been no Second World War, no triumph of Bolshevism. Indeed, Bolshevism would have crumbled under the weight of its own delusions. Russia and America would have formed a noble alliance, a united Christian nation. I should have been content to have been recognised merely as the architect of all this. I have never desired political power, certainly not for its own sake. But circumstances would alter my life radically. Another future would be built: its proudest achievements a man-sized, incoherent duck and a monstrous mechanical ape.