I refuted that one too. Druce’s features came to mind. I very nearly told Shumway about the self-inflicted wound, but wisely decided against it. Shumway wrote everything down in a notebook. Two days later on page 4 of the L.A. Times a small two-column piece appeared, headed “Director Todd Slams British Smears.”
Nobody read it, or at least nobody commented on it. But the lies had their effect on me. Coupled with the failure of my reunion with Doon, they sent me into something of a nervous decline. I imagined people I knew reading these stories and believing them. I wrote to my family — even Sonia — asking them to spread the truth. I saw the way the world’s perception of a person could change so easily. Who would now recall the triumphs of Julie and The Confessions: Part I? What was Julian Teague’s letter against this huge tide of calumny and innuendo? I felt my life had been wasted, both as an artist and as a human being. All my films were forgotten. The emotional center of my life — Doon — had disappeared and abandoned me. The world and the future seemed dull, hostile, uninviting. I began to drink more than was good for me, not venturing out of my house for days at a time. I knew I had to do something soon or I would go under. Eddie, who was delighted with The Equalizer, was offering me a script about Jesse James. But the unfair stories about my craven absence from the war unsettled me. I began to feel guilty. Guilt infected me. Me, of all people … But that sort of accusation is insidious — it touches the very core of our self-esteem. I forgot about the Salient, the horrors I had endured in the Great War. Fool that I was, only one course of action seemed open to me: I began to plan my return to Europe.
But in what capacity? I was too old to enlist. And besides, I had no desire to kill anyone — except Leo Druce. Ramón Dusenberry solved my problem when I confided in him. I became an accredited war correspondent for the Dusenberry press syndicate. I would report the latest news from the European battle fronts for the Chula Vista Herald-Post, the El Cajon Sentinel, the Imperial County Gazette, and the Calexico Argus. I had my old job back. I packed my Leica, bought a portable typewriter and headed east to New York to embark for London.
VILLA LUXE, June 26, 1972
For some reason Emilia didn’t come today. At lunchtime I went into the village to buy some oranges, but no one knew if she was ill or not. I cleaned up the kitchen, and washed the dirty dishes, partly to please her, partly to make her feel guilty. I’m alarmed at the rapid growth in the complexity of my feelings for her. She’s been working here for at least three years and until recently I never gave her more than a passing thought.
This evening I take my drink out to the seat on the cliff edge and watch the sun set. I notice that although the hill on the crocodile promontory casts a shadow onto the villa, my small beach on the bay below still gets the sun for another half hour or so. Perhaps I will go down tomorrow. I feel like a bathe.
And so I took myself off to a war once more again for just as idiotic motives as led me off to the first. However, before I left for Europe I paid a visit to Hamish in Zion.
I had some spare days in New York before I embarked, and decided to spend one of them visiting Hamish. I telephoned him and made the arrangements. I caught a train to Princeton and from there took a taxi over to Zion. It took several inquiries before we discovered where the National Research Institute was. We found it eventually, situated in an old school on the outskirts of the small town. It was a pleasant red-brick single-storied building around a grassy quadrangle. I waited in a sort of porter’s lodge until Hamish came to collect me.
He hadn’t changed a great deal. He was even wearing the same clothes I’d last seen him in: gray flannels, stout shoes, a tweed jacket — still pervaded by his musty bachelor smell. I noticed he had some teeth missing. Hamish was not a man overburdened with vanity. His only concession to the warmth and American taste was the absence of a tie. His collar was open, exposing his white throat. We shook hands with some nervousness.
“I thought you’d be in uniform,” he said.
“Well, I’ve got one but I’m not comfortable wearing it, not yet.”
“Same here. I’ve got one too. It seems silly, somehow.”
We chatted a little awkwardly as we walked through the wide quadrangle. On the other side of the building were playing fields and tennis courts, but the courts were now covered by neat rows of new Quonset huts. Power lines looped from the main building. Some of the huts had whitewashed windows. Here and there were incomprehensible signs: NRI/77/DEC. 1/2 55TH.
“We’ve doubled our staff,” Hamish said. “Hence these rabbit hutches.”
“What do you do here?”
“Oh, government stuff. Mainly maths.”
He led me to his hut, which was raised on brick piles on the edge of the football field. On the door it said NRI MAJOR H. MALAHIDE.
“Are you a major?” I asked astonished.
Hamish laughed. “It seems they had to make me one, because of my work. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference; they just pay me more money.”
Inside the hut was an orthodox desk, a couple of old leather armchairs, a sink and a stove. Beyond them were row upon row of automatic electronic calculators. A small bespectacled man was bent over one of them, reading the numbers it had printed out.
“Fancy a dry martini?” Hamish asked. “The most wonderful invention known to man.”
“Yes, please,” I said.
“Not for me, Hamish,” said the little man. “I must be going.” He had a strong mid-European accent.
“By the way,” Hamish said, “this is Kurt.” I shook hands with him. “Kurt, this is John — the friend I was telling you about.”
“My God! My good heavens! John James Todd.” My hand was re-shaken vigorously by Kurt. “I am honored to meet you, Mr. Todd. Truly honored.” He shook hands with delighted incredulity.
He had a high voice. He was very warmly dressed with a thick jersey under his gray suit and had an unwrapped woollen scarf around his neck. His dark hair had dramatic broad streaks of gray and was brushed straight back off his forehead. There was a marked intensity in his gaze: friendly but profoundly curious.
“I never forget that evening in Berlin. Never,” he said. “Nineteen thirty-two. Your film, Die Konfessionen.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes. Three times in one week. Gloria-Palast.… Mr. Todd, I tell you. The most extraordinary film. A work of genius.”
“Thank you very much.”
He tied his scarf and took a tweed overcoat off the back of the door. The sun shone strongly on the green of the playing fields. He buttoned the coat.
“My only regret is I never saw Part II and Part III.”
“They were never made. I started Part II—we had to abandon it.”
“That’s a shame.… But you must finish it, Mr. Todd, you must. It is most extraordinary work. You mustn’t leave it incomplete.” At this he glanced at Hamish and gave an odd, high yelping laugh. Hamish joined in.
“Good one, Kurt,” he said.
Kurt shook my hand for the third time. “I mean it, Mr. Todd. I’ve never seen a movie like it. Finish it. I would be the most terrible waste.” He folded up the collar of his overcoat and turned to Hamish. “It looks fine, Hamish. I think you’re on the right track. Good-bye, Mr. Todd. It has been a most memorable meeting.” He left.
I looked at Hamish. “Who the hell was that?”
“Probably the most brilliant mathematician in the world.”