I do not understand her. I hear Sir Ranalf in urgent conversation with her, but cannot make out the words. She is adamant. Sir Ranalf comes up to me. ‘My sweet boy, this is our most important backer. It would be very foolish of any one of us to give offence to such a personage. If you could please find the inspiration from somewhere, I would be deeply obliged.’
I stand there and shake my head. Suddenly the negress advances, a pillar of swirling vividly-coloured silks and rolling black flesh, she walks with the deliberation of a colossus.
A gusty sigh escapes the creature. Her rich voice is now full of sadness. ‘I had hoped to be associated with one of the century’s great picture-plays. The rape will provide the catharsis. The resolution. You understand Freud?’
I say I am not prepared to pretend to rape my girl.
‘We did not suggest that you pretend.’ The negress’s bulk moves as if to silent laughter.
‘Then I will act no further.’ I am barely able to focus on the creature. From her radiates an aura of extraordinary power. Her eyes refuse any disobedience. Yet I stand my ground. For my girl. For myself.
‘This is deeply shame-making, dear boy,’ murmurs Sir Ranalf from behind his partner. ‘It is so important for us all to achieve this.’
‘What you are asking, however, is too much.’ My lips are dry, my words sluggish. ‘Esmé and I will return to Cairo in the morning. I believe you have genuinely frightened her.’ I reach backwards to clutch for her grateful fingers. ‘This has all gone too far.’
‘ Very well,’ Sir Ranalf turns away with a small shrug. ’Once your debts are cleared up and everything else sorted out, you can be on your way.’
‘You can have every penny of my wages.’ I am cool. ‘All I want is a ticket home for Esmé and myself.’ I speak clearly. My demands are exact. I refuse compromise.
‘Sweet boy, I fear your back wages, generous as they were by Egyptian standards, are not enough to cover your IOUs.’ Sir Ranalf’s tone is one of deep regret. ‘Not so?’ And he turns blue, enquiring eyes upon his backer.
The negress waves a confirming hand.
I cannot read their signs.
‘Professor Quelch will explain.’ Sir Ranalf is curt.
‘I got behind with my own bills, I fear, dear boy. My hands are tied. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, you might say. Your IOUs were my only collateral.’
Sir Ranalf clarifies Quelch’s meaning. Esmé and I owe some £2,500 in back debts. Our salaries would yield perhaps £500. Accommodation costs have also been deducted, as well as local taxes, bar bills and so on. There is also a question of a dishonoured contract. ‘It is very simple,’ he says. ‘If you wish to leave the project, merely pay your bills, reimburse us for your expenses and go.’
‘But what of our film?’
‘You may have what has been shot, I suppose.’
‘The negative as well?’
‘If you can reach agreement with Mr Seaman.’ But when I look at him Seaman withdraws. I realise he has already made his own irreversible compromises.
‘We should leave.’ This from Esmé. I turn back to her. She moves her drugged hands in the chains. ‘We must get home, Maxim. To America. It was my fault. Help me.’
I do not know whether to blame her for all this or whether to take her in my arms and comfort her. It is clear, however, that we are for the moment trapped. All I can do now is bide my time until we can escape. Tomorrow I will seek the help of the American Consul.
‘We will leave,’ I determined, still bleary.
‘We shall keep the film, I understand, as security.’ This is the negress. I cannot bear the idea of my naked Esmé becoming her property. I cannot think clearly. I stand there, trying to determine the best course of action.
‘You must make a decision, Maxim. You must make a decision.’ Never before have I heard such urgency in her voice.
‘But the film is ours. We are its creators!’
‘I am afraid that as the producer I must confirm it belongs to my company,’ said Sir Ranalf. ‘And our friend here, of course, is our major shareholder.’
‘I own you all, I think.’ A thin smile plays behind the negress’s veil. ‘I think so. But we need not quarrel. You will be good, I know.’
Esmé whispers to me again. She must escape. She must get to Cairo. I have so many duties. I have a duty to our film. She will not respect me if I abandon it. After all, her chances of fame are also linked to it. We need only return to Hollywood and our fortunes are made. But we have no money here. I look towards Quelch. There is a suggestion of guilty triumph in his eyes and it occurs to me he could actually be chief architect of our predicament. Has he nursed some dreadful plan of vengeance since Esmé and I, the only witnesses, inadvertently stumbled upon him and the Nubian boy?
‘We can compromise.’ Sir Ranalf is persuasive. ‘We can still be friends and comrades. After all, we have the basics of a jolly good film!’
‘But he must rape the girl.’ The negress speaks quietly, in a tone of threatening finality.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
I turn to test Esmé’s bonds. She is chained firmly to the slab. I understand something of the trap into which we are falling, yet I can see no easy way out.
‘Decide, Maxim!’ She is desperate with tension. But how can I decide? After all, she betrayed me. She was nothing but a little whore I rescued from Constantinople’s gutters. What did I owe her? Up to now she had already enjoyed a far superior life with me than any she might have expected. She was born a whore. Let her suffer the fate of a whore.
Within me my love for my angel, my sister, my rose burns as strong as ever. But I cannot let this inform my common sense.
‘Yes. You really must make up your mind.’ Sir Ranalf clearly fears the negress. ‘After all, you’re not exactly on the right side of the law now, are you, dears? Drugs and prostitution are both crimes in Egypt, ha, ha! The authorities would be deeply shocked to find a white man doing business in both.’
Sir Ranalf is of course describing himself but he is too well-protected to be caught, whereas Esmé and I are already on film. Quelch will doubtless turn State’s evidence to convict us of our drug-using. Worse, without money we have no guarantee we would ever get out of Cairo again. Had the negress bought or merely taken Quelch’s IOUs? Clearly she had a firm hold over both Sir Ranalf and the professor while I had no friends here. Common sense said that Kolya had long since gone on about his business and was by now back in Algiers.
‘Consider your assets.’ The negress is persuasive, impatient. ‘What do you own? A pretty fiancée and a young, healthy body? You also have brains and talent. But these are rather tenuous things. What can you sell me for two thousand five hundred pounds?’
‘My talent, apparently.’ I am growing steadily more frightened. ‘And my designs. I am an engineer. There are many other things I can do.’
‘Certainly. So there is no quarrel between us! If you wish to dissolve your partnership with us, that will be absolutely agreeable. If you are unhappy, you should not stay against your will. So, let us say the girl is worth two and a half thousand and call it even. She will be happy with us. That will discharge your whole debt. What do you say?’
The suggestion is loathsome. I am in their power for the moment but I retain my integrity.
From behind me Esmé still murmurs, begging me to make a decision. But it is impossible. I have no worthwhile choices. I am confused by the shocking suddenness of their threats, by the narcotics Quelch has pumped into me. It is true, I have a duty to the film, but I have a duty to my own destiny. She, after all, has already broken her trust. What does it matter if we indulge in a few moments of animal high spirits for the camera? The film will still be a great one. The world will see Gloria Cornish in my embrace. We have already found immortality. Esmé is calmer now. Her breasts rise and fall very slowly; her eyes, dark with emotion, stare mindlessly up at me.