Mr Weeks had told me as much, but he feigned ignorance.
‘A gift from God,’ said the Pasha. ‘With that one excellent German gun - ‘ a further acknowledgement of Schmaltz’s somewhat tender feelings ‘ - we were able to bacify rebellious tribesmen, unite the whole region as one beoble and imbrove our friendshib with the French.’ He smacked his lips. He dipped his fingers to be washed and dried. ‘But there are certain barts of the South which even a Krubb cannon cannot reach, where we are still irritated by unregenerate outlaws and rebels who make cowardly raids into our lands and then skulk away again. We discussed this frequently with General Lyautey, that great man. In Tangier and in Baris.’ El Glaoui nodded in deep self-approval. ‘He told me that if I wanted an air force I should not ask the French for one. It would be imbolitic. But if I were to build my own small fleet, merely a squadron or two, no one would steb in my way.’ He looked into the middle distance as if his eyes already rested on his gleaming battle-birds, ready to carry the flame of a great new Moorish civilisation, an empire which, arm-in-arm with the French Empire, would civilise the whole of Oriental Africa. I recognised a man of vision as thoroughly as he recognised me. I felt like leaping to my feet and swearing that, in a year or two, I would give him the air power that he craved. I would give him more than that. I would give him nomad cities, moving slowly across the dunes on their mighty tracks. I would give him roads burned into existence by fusing the sand with heat-beams, just as my Violet Ray had fused the stones of Kiev. At that moment, our eyes met. He smiled, a little dazed. I would give him Utopia.
I became immediately loyal to this shared vision. I was in no doubt that it would soon begin to materialise and, once my ideas were in full realisation, I would be invited to Rome.
The conversation turned to other matters and I was left with my own optimistic thoughts. Only once did I become aware of anyone’s attention on me. I looked through the lumping shadows of the firelight, through the smoke and the little wisps of mist which came up from the valley. Rose von Bek was observing me from under her long lashes even as she pretended to listen to her new lover. It was as if I had whetted her curiosity for a second time. I think she was beginning to see me for the man I was, rather than the fantasy she had created. I half-closed my own eyes before I returned, steadily, her stare. The Pasha, absorbed in some weighty philosophical discussion with Count Schmaltz and Mr Weeks, paid us no attention. Only Francois Fromental threw me an amused glance as he settled himself deep into his cushions and drew luxuriously upon a good Havana.
Ma sha’ allah! Ma teru khush ma’er-ragil da! A ‘ud bi-rabb el-fulag! A ‘ud billah min esh-shaitan ev-ragim!
A little later I heard my name called. ‘Mr Peters! Ace!’ The young Frenchman was reaching across and shaking my arm. I opened my eyes.
I realised with a shock that I had, for an instant, been travelling again in the Land of Dreams.
It was not until the next day that I had my third vision of paradise - the great palmeries of Marrakech, filling the verdant mesa surrounded by the Atlas’s noble crags and, at their centre beneath the pure blue sky, the Red City, the city which only Timbuktu rivalled as a mysterious legend, crenellated walls rising above the surrounding palms and poplars; the city who had given a whole nation her name and given the word Moor to the world. Dreaming Marrakech, as old as romance, as sweet as forbidden wine, says Wheldrake.
I stood in awe, that evening, and wondered how any Moor could ever turn his back on such unique beauty.
El Glaoui joined me, reaching almost delicately to touch my shoulder. ‘Mr Beters, I want you to helb me build the future - here in Marrakech.’ It was impossible to refuse him. At that moment I forgot my dreams of Hollywood and returned, with rising spirits, to my true vocation.
My cities will be filled with gardens. Surrounded by a halo of golden light they will rise above the earth and settle upon the mountains like proud hawks. And the first of these shall be Marrakech.
I must admit I had expected nothing like the reception I received as we rode into Marrakech. Bit by bit a crowd formed, chattering and pointing at me, and when I cheerfully waved back a great gasp went up, then an ululation of sheer joy.
Glad to ride beside me at that moment, El Glaoui grinned. ‘You must be used to this, Mr Beters, wherever you go. I feel very small fish beside you.’
I do not think he was entirely pleased as the cheering increased and I heard the name ‘Bookh’aroo!’ on all their lips. By some peculiar fluke I was adored in Marrakech as Valentino was adored in Minneapolis. Lieutenant Fromental was almost drunk with reflected glory. ‘One day,’ he proclaimed excitedly, ‘they will know about you in France. You will be as famous, my dear friend, in Paris and Marseilles as you are now in Meknes and Fez!’ I had no other option but to wave and salaam as, with horribly aching muscles, I tried to control my lively horse. And so we passed through the walls of Marrakech and only Rose von Bek took no notice of my fame.
TWENTY-FIVE
NARCOTICS POSSESS none of the curative properties of the white psychedelics. By these I refer not to hippy pleasure trips on LSD but to the mind-expanding and mind-focusing properties of pure cocaine. These boys and girls today know nothing of cocaine. They have never sniffed it. They have had the illusion of pleasure on lavatory cleaner and baby laxative and they presume to condescend to the man who has imbibed ‘the woman-drug’ with the great and famous of the twentieth century - and by this I mean no innuendo to our present rulers and their families. I speak my mind when I have to, but otherwise am well known for my discretion. I learned the virtues of silence in Egypt and Morocco. To these people ‘free speech’ is synonymous with ‘blasphemy’.
At a Moorish court self-discipline becomes a question of survival. I learned the old, mediaeval virtues, and began to understand the meaning of Chivalry. I had travelled in Time. On such ancient understandings were the codes of the Black Hand founded, as I have reason to know. The so-called mafia were in their own world the old forms of Law pitted against the new, just as today the Arab is pitted against the institutions of democracy.
At Talouet, the seat of his family’s original power, El Hadj T’hami Ben Mohammed Mezouari el Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakech, had already proposed his plan to me, even before we reached the capital. The great mediaeval pile had been filled, almost like Hearst’s strange fantasy, with a mixture of Moorish treasure and expensive European furniture, with unselected objets d’art. The castle housed much of the Pasha’s great collection of concubines, at least half of whom, it was said, were French. Staffed by his huge Nubians, the palace was never completely silent.
He had been irritated, he said, by an unpleasant little Frenchman of the worst class, a man called Lapin - a Communist journalist with some profession to the Law. He was in league with an old enemy of the Glaoui, a certain discredited kai’d called El Hakim, who had enlisted this turncoat to bring suit against the Pasha. El Hakim’s supporters had even brought Lapin a newspaper in which he uttered every kind of calumny against the Pasha and his family. One of the accusations which El Glaoui found especially rankling was that none of his wealth was put back into the region. Nothing was spent on cultural projects or scientific schemes. If the Glaoui was truly enlightened, Lapin had argued, why did he not encourage scientific and social progress in his realm? In response to this the Pasha pointed to Mr Mix, employed to record the cultural and varied rule of the great Pasha and his world ‘for bosterity’. He had founded a film industry in Marrakech which would ultimately be the rival of Hollywood. And now an aeronautics industry. Nothing could be more modern. Every day his city became a second Los Angeles. Suddenly, from advising on defences, Mr Mix was commissioned to draw up plans for a series of solid English public works, ‘Like the lavatories,’ commanded the Pasha, ‘in Leicester Square.’ Other guests were recruited. Count Schmaltz’s advice, concerning discipline and the chains of command appropriate to a modern standing army, was also sought, though the German, like Miss von Bek, was only the Pasha’s guest.