‘ ‘E’s started early,’ observed Mrs Cornelius with a placid smile. ‘I ‘ope that means we finish early, too. It’s gonna get effin’ ‘ot soon, Ivan.’
There came, as if in concert, a high-pitched wailing from the entrance of the valley where an enormous dust-cloud began to thrash upwards obscuring the sun. The children dropped back, knowing an afrit when they saw one. The wail dropped to a roar and then a cough, almost lion-like, as through the dispersing sand came a monstrous Rolls Royce half-track, the kind I had last seen abandoned on the Odessa road as we retreated to the sea. This one was not camouflaged but vivid with scarlet and yellow livery, with a great Ibis in outline above a motto reading Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo scrolled in elegant Gothic and above its head the angular words Egyptian universal moving picture co. Sir Ranalf Steeton himself sat at the wheel while behind him two servants held tightly to a rope-lashed mummy-case poking at an uneasy angle across two sets of back seats.
As it rolled to a rasping halt its tracks threw up a huge curtain of sand, which fell back to half-bury the Thackeray camp. ‘Don’t worry, sweet lads and lasses,’ Sir Ranalf assured us as he dusted his own coat free of the beige-coloured dust. ‘I’ve seen them here before.’ He glanced up briefly as the campers flapped over collapsed canvas. ‘They’re only Krauts. Well, what do you think? Isn’t she a beauty? The real McCoy, too, though I’m not so sure she’s a Queen exactly. Will she do? The slaves are coming by a separate route.’ And with a rap of his cane upon the mummy-case the little man, almost a pantomime pig in tropical whites, crossed the sands to help my Esmé free herself from her donkey, to flick a wisp of cotton from where it had caught on the saddle, to kiss her upon the cheeks and to pat her little head while Mrs Cornelius (dismounting with all the easy skill and grace of Buck Jones about to confront troublesome rustlers) called out to nobody in particular, ‘It’s orl right everybody, ther bloody star’s passed ‘er ordishun.’
If she thought to alert me to anything, she failed. Instead I was shocked and upset by this unseemly display of petty jealousy and spite from a woman whose integrity and judgement I habitually respected above all others. As she strode towards Professor Quelch, he looked almost in panic from her to Sir Ranalf. She paused beside him, clearly expecting moral support, but he peered over her shoulder and smiled apologetically at an expectant Steeton, who showed evident satisfaction at this display of equivocation. I wondered what had caused Quelch to change allegiances. As Mrs Cornelius stalked disgustedly across the sand in my direction I, too, found myself offering a placatory grin to our new master. And in betraying Mrs Cornelius, just for that instant, I knew in my heart I had betrayed myself.
NINETEEN
WHAT I EXPRESS IN SADNESS, she expresses in anger; but the pain is the same, the pain of watching people destroy themselves, destroying any hope for their children. ‘Yer carn’t save ev’rybody, Ive,’ says Mrs Cornelius. Yet I thought I had found a way. ‘They ‘ave ter make their own mistakes,’ she says. Sometimes she falls prey to that careless tolerance which is her caste’s bane but which the middle-class idealise as its greatest virtue. Their myth of the British sense of fair play is their most effective means of maintaining a status quo favouring an elite. If there was anything wrong with what they were doing, they say, the people would complain. Everyone knows the British will only complain about the weather to which their combined creative intellects have failed to make a jot of difference. And yet they are always surprised by it. They have a myth of snowy winters and hot summers, imprinted from childhood Annuals. What is more they have been conditioned so thoroughly to a Stoic conceit, wherein suffering is morally superior to pleasure, that they are now the chief guardians of their own confinement. I see this clearly. Anyone could. Observing the truth does not make me a Communist! It is easy enough to identify the disease but far harder to agree on a cure. This is what neither side will ever understand. I am not a fool. I know what it means to take an independent position in life. People do not appreciate the consequent pain and the loneliness of that position, the contempt and insulting threats one frequently endures. I do not think this is ‘amoral’, as those women say. Nor is it immoral. I am a man of profound and subtle conscience. Only a moron would disagree that it is not always possible to be sure of the best course of action. Why make politics confrontational? One cannot solve every moral dilemma in an instant. Am I the only man on earth who is naturally tolerant and unbiased? Who likes to weigh all arguments?
Why should I feel guilt because I refuse to march through the streets of Paris side by side with some semi-literate student? Does it make me a monster because I have actually seen the red flag flying over vanquished courts and parliaments and understood its immediate meaning? Why are the agents of Terror such figures of romance to the young? Bonnie and Clyde? I saw the movie. During their hey-day, ask anyone, it was no fun to step in their path.
Though lighting problems made it impossible to film just then in the tombs, our photoplay progressed fairly well during that first fortnight and the basic story was soon ‘in the can’. Sir Ranalf assured us that we should eventually receive a generator or, failing that, he would seek permission to shoot what we needed in the complexes of Karnak. The rest, he said, could be reconstructed in the studio. I still had my chief love scene to enact with Mrs Cornelius in the tomb. We would die in each other’s arms, to be resurrected centuries later as the young lovers of the opening. Then I must perform what we called ‘the seduction scene’ with Esmé when, for a few brief days, I had to fall under her spell, almost betraying my love for Mrs Cornelius. Few - even Wolf Seaman himself - denied this was my greatest acting achievement. If I never acted again the world would remember this film for the passion and sensuality I was able to bring to it! A monument, a testimony to my love and my aspiration, even should I die the day it was completed. This film would be seen in every picture-house in the world. Cornish and Peters would be as famous as Garbo and Gilbert. We performed our parts in the blazing sun, with an audience of grubby German tourists, local children and tarbooshed guides. They applauded every gesture and embrace. The lack of sleep and the sapping heat meant we resorted increasingly to our cocaine, of which our ‘technical producer’ Malcolm Quelch had an endless supply. Sir Ranalf Steeton expressed gargantuan delight in our achievements. Desert Passions would set new records at box-offices across Europe and America. During the day he now insisted upon Esmé accompanying him wherever he went. She was his ‘sweet little kiddy’, his ‘perfect girl’. At the time, I found cloying and unnatural these affected pronouncements of an older man for the charms of young flesh. Yet Esmé explained how important it was to keep his goodwill. She had overheard him praising the merits of the film to his partners, who were all Egyptians. She thought they expected something more sensational. By now I had seen a few examples of the local shadowy melodramas. I told her our own film was so much above those that there was no point in making a comparison. Egyptian ‘thrillers’ scarcely travelled out of their country, let alone to America. But I understood the importance of encouraging our producer not to drop artistic standards for short-sighted commercial gains, so I permitted my girl her time with the Englishman when, on more than one occasion, she attended meetings and helped reassure his partners as to the nobility and certain financial success of our venture. If any other relationship was developing between Sir Ranalf and my girl I did not detect it, although I must admit I suppressed suspicions now and again. I thought often of Kolya and I was desperate to ensure that my scenes with Mrs Cornelius would be as perfect as possible. I must admit I did not give as much time to my little girl as she deserved. It is folly to neglect a perfect flower, as we used to say in Kiev. Without appreciation, such a flower fades or is plucked by another. I blame myself as much as anyone. Sir Ranalf Steeton plucked my flower, but I do not think I was to blame for most of what followed. I suppose, too, I should not blame Esmé for feeling a certain jealousy while she watched those powerful scenes between my old friend and myself, though it was always clear we were platonic comrades off-screen. While Seaman did not suspect me, he was on the other hand deeply suspicious of Professor Quelch. Mrs Cornelius seemed the only person able to get a smile from the old boy. Quelch grew almost foolishly relaxed in her company and said he thought she was the most amusing companion he had ever known.