The pretty sportsters screamed and giggled and began, inexpertly, to make runs. Sir Ranalf’s interest in the cricket became intense. I had never understood the British enthusiasm for this mysterious game. Whenever I could catch his attention I continued to explain how I had reserved the lower decks for merchandise, the helmsman’s cabin, the motor-room, the repair-room, the water and fuel reservoirs. ‘If you want to put this to your business partners, the discussion will naturally arise as to the merits in conquering sandy wastes of a small motor vehicle over this “land leviathan”. Well, Sir Ranalf, as we have all read in The Egyptian Gazette, recent proof is provided that specially constructed small cars, such as your own, can cross the Sahara! But you will also have read that they are subjected to enormous dangers, including wild desert tribes!’
‘The desert, it’s true, my dear chap, is crammed with hazards. Those heathen fellows were Tripoli Berbers mostly, I suspect. The British police are powerless of course. Well run, pretty demoiselle!’
‘You will appreciate, Sir Ranalf, the superiority of my Desert Liner over the desert motor-car. A freight Desert Liner of three hundred and fifty tons would cost about twenty-six thousand pounds. Forty motor-trucks would cost, say, five hundred pounds apiece. Armed with Bofors and Bannings my liner costs about six thousand pounds more than the trucks, yet the running expenses of forty motor-trucks on a dirt-track without tank stations would be considerably higher than that of my luxury cruiser of the dunes. Each truck would require at least two chauffeurs, for instance, making a minimum staff of eighty men. A crew of twenty is sufficient to run and man my liner! The population of wild desert tribes is reckoned at some three and a half million. Wild beasts are another common danger. Where trucks would have to make camp and guard against these threats, my liner ploughs on day and night without a halt. Thomas Cook should be especially interested.’
‘Howzat! Ha! Ha! Howzat! Cook?’ Sir Ranalf glared at me almost in alarm. ‘Oh, no! We’ll sort something out without involving them. My partner in Aswan is always interested in daring new notions. I am sure he would love to back you to the hilt. And there are others I know in Alexandria and Cairo. Perhaps even here in Luxor. See me later, famous bard, and I shall be delighted to help you find someone for your ship!’ His eyes wandered again to the willow and the leather. ‘A scheme, my handsome mechanic, worthy of the Suez Canal and all who built her! I am mightily impressed.’ And then he could resist the contest no longer and went rolling and panting through the dust to snatch the bat from Esmé’s hands and call an incoherent challenge to Professor Quelch who, thoughtfully rubbing his ball upon his bottom, began the long stroll backwards which was a special feature of this game.
Everyone who knew me in 1926 knew where Bischoff of Kiel got his plans, lock, stock and barrel when he announced the building of the Countess Marianna. As it was, the Nazis scratched all Bischoff’s experiments and research when they came to power. I understood Hitler’s decision, but he was already growing into another short-sighted politician. Thanks to their ideology they needed to show the public immediate gains. As with Stalin, life, dignity, spirit, everything was sacrificed. Goebbels was right. He and his friends were, indeed, temperamental opposites of the patient Jew. Seaman was himself very Teutonic and determined. The Slav possesses both virtues, which is why he survives so successfully through history’s ups and downs, resisting all outside conquerors.
My patience saved me undue exertion, whereas Seaman grew increasingly frustrated at the antics of his inefficient crew and at Sir Ranalf’s interference. With the second problem, I sympathised. I had explained to Sir Ranalf how a producer’s function is to be the efficient medium of the artist’s creativity, but he had tasted previously unguessed-at power and wanted to embrace it forever. Did the film have sufficient ‘authority’? Sir Ranalf mused. When we did not follow his reasoning, he explained that so far we had to take too much in the film for granted. The characters needed deepening.
As a team we united against him. We were not sure what he meant by ‘deepening’, we said. All the actors, even Esmé, had given extremely good performances. They were real people on the screen, with whom other real people could identify.
‘But not every one!’ Sir Ranalf insisted the film have as universal an appeal as possible. He was not sure he really believed, for instance, that Esmé was actually a voluptuously sensual temptress. I was offended by this. Our rushes showed Esmé to be thoroughly sexual. Clara Bow herself had said as much about Esmé.
‘But do we believe she could seduce the greatest priest in Egypt, the noblest of men, your good self, Ah-ke-tep! You are the mightiest engineering genius the world had ever known, sweet esquire, Rameses the Second’s most powerful architect!’
He had no need to butter my parsnips. Better than any I understood my story’s symbolism! I could not deny, for instance, a certain autobiographical strain. Yet I was puzzled by his body language. I was reminded of a semaphoring squid.
‘I think we should show Ru-a-na in a scene of her own. Where she reveals her charms to you.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Wot?’
Mrs Cornelius came ploughing through the dust to gulp refreshment. She had been on a camel most of the morning and unlike myself had no affinity for the animal. ‘Dirt?’
‘A scene of artistic nudity.’ Sir Ranalf ignored Mrs Cornelius, fuming and scarlet, behind him.
‘Wot the effin’ butler sor!’ she declared. ‘I noo you wos a twisted ticket, Rannie. Someone tol’ me yer made yer pile in dirty pictures!’
‘Really, my dear Queen of the Nile, I assure you I speak for the whole of Europe, where the nude scene is an accepted convention of the medium. In America, where prudishness reigns, I would agree that is not so. But surely you, as cosmopolitans, understand that I demand nothing unworthy of your great talents?’
‘Too effin’ right, chum.’ Mrs Cornelius drew me forcefully on, speaking in a rapid whisper. ‘I’ve ‘ad enuff, Ive. This bastard’s up ter somefink filfy, I c’n smell it. Git art, nar. Take an ol’ trouper’s tip.’ And, laying her pink finger alongside her delicious nose, she informed me she had been in touch with Major Nye in Cairo. ‘Me an’ ther major are chums again, since that larst night. ‘E sent a ticket, firs’ class. An’ I gotta bit o’ spendin’ money. I’ve reelly ‘ad enuff o’ this, Ive. Next fing yer know I’ll be on some bloody pilgrim boat off ter ther bloody Sultan’s ‘areem. God knows wot they’ll do wiv you!’ And she smiled, though her grip on my arm was urgent. I had rarely known her so positive. Yet she was asking me to give up the project of a lifetime. I needed to see my film completed. True, all our main scenes were ‘in the can’, and we had only to shoot a few more interiors, which could be ‘faked’; but I needed her with me! I begged her to remain. We would insist on complete control over any doubtful material. ‘It’s orl bloody doubtful, Ivan. You know as well as I do wot that bunch o’ Bubbles an’ Eye-ties do fer a livin’. Git on ther bloody train, Ive. Same time as me.’