I remember how my cabby reined in his horse with a fatalistic shrug. He said such congestion was unusual but it could never be anticipated. He suggested I walk the few blocks back to my apartment if I was in a hurry. It would soon be six. Since the cab had already been paid for, I gave him a good tip and wished him luck. I enjoyed making my way through that busy city thoroughfare. Unlike Washington, Memphis was a natural city. She had grown up spontaneously, out of the need to trade. If New York was the future, then Memphis was the familiar present. I moved amongst yelling drivers and dancing pedestrians, smiling with sheer pleasure. For too long I had known only capitals. Here at last was a city still chiefly characterised not by her ancient power, her monuments, but by her inhabitants. I did not feel overwhelmed by her. Indeed, it seemed possible to impress her. Perhaps here I could find a new starting point, as Kiev had been my first. I had been born in a city owing her existence to a river. Therefore I might easily flourish in Memphis.
I dined that evening with those generous elders, Roffy and Gilpin, at a restaurant called Jansenn’s, not far from my apartment. The food was unremarkable, but it was wholesome and seemed to the taste of my hosts. They had brought a young woman with them and I thought at first, with some delight, she was to be my companion. Pandora Fairfax was a bright-eyed, dark-haired little thing with a pert, bold manner who reminded me a little of Zoyea, the gypsy girl. To my astonishment I learned she was an aviatrix. She had recently come to Memphis to give flying displays. She was now thinking of settling. She and her husband were both flyers. ‘We’ve been barnstorming all over,’ she said, ‘but we think it’s time to quit.’
Charlie Roffy beamed. ‘Your teeth are bound to get too loose after a while.’ He explained genially: ‘Miss Pandora’s most famous trick is to hang by her teeth from a trapeze fixed to her husband’s plane. She also does wingwalking and parachute jumps.’
I was extremely impressed. Miss Fairfax was attractive and entertaining. She was eager to hear my own flying stories. Where had I flown, in what type of machines? I answered as best I could. She said she envied me the Oertz (‘for all it’s supposed to be a pig’). I was welcome to take up their De Havilland DH4 if I felt like it. Touched by her generosity I said I would clamber into that cockpit in a flash if the opportunity ever came. Gilpin had already told her about the new airport and aircraft I had designed. She wanted to see my plans. ‘You may study them whenever you wish,’ I said. She and her husband were in the process of trying to establish a private airfield, but our plans were complementary. ‘The more of us the merrier at this stage,’ she said. She left early. Shaking hands with me she smiled warmly. ‘I hope we’re able to help each other out, Colonel Peterson.’
When she had gone Dick Gilpin spoke of her admiringly. She was famous all over this part of the country. She had begun adult life as a typist but had learned to fly after only a few days of office work. ‘She proved a natural. Her husband’s a War ace. You might even have met him.’ I said I could recall nobody named Fairfax. ‘A fine man,’ said Charlie Roffy, offering me a large cigar. ‘And with more downright common sense than most of his breed.’
Dick Gilpin told me that, unless I objected, they had arranged for me to be interviewed for the Commercial Appeal. The paper was the best in Memphis. It might also wish to run a photograph of me, perhaps in uniform. I readily agreed. Charlie Roffy said it would help their case considerably. He asked if he could call on me at around nine the following morning. I was at his disposal, ‘I am here as your guest,’ I said. ‘And I wish only to do what will best serve our mutual interests.’
My friends dropped me off at the Adler Apartments before going their separate ways. For the first time in many months I went directly to bed and fell into a deep sleep. I dreamed of Memphis rising above the river on a silver cloud and I was the captain, steering a course over the prairies of Kansas and Dakota. Old Shatterhand, the buffalo hunter, was at my side, dressed in deerskins, his long gun crooked in his arm. The prairies will belong to the nomad cities of America again and death shall be abandoned. I could not have seen Brodmann in Memphis and mistaken him for Hernikof. Hernikof was murdered and his body desecrated on the cobbled wharves of Batoum. Why should Brodmann follow me? He was a Jew and a Communist. They would never have allowed him through. The city dips and wheels as I direct her towards the sun. I am blinded by too many reflections. What did I find in the City of Dogs that Brodmann desired so greedily? The horizon re-emerges. Saat kactir? Jego widzialem, ale ciebie nie widzialem. The dream shifts always to the West, always just a little out of reach. Surely it must stop at the sea. I am a man of courage. I can pilot the ship. I am in control. But what is this pursuit? I must concentrate. We are falling. I feel sick. Ich will nicht Soldat werden! What could Brodmann do to me? They think a piece of metal makes me their slave? I would not become a Mussulman. I am an enemy of the Sultans. Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt im Abendsonnenschein. Gibt es etwas Neues? I shall not go to Berlin.
After breakfast I found myself at the newspaper’s studios. The journalist who interviewed me said the story would be out next day. What did I think of Memphis? And the South? Both were beautiful. I said, and the people were very well-mannered. He asked me where I was from in England. Whitechapel, I told him (I almost believed I knew it, so often had Mrs Cornelius spoken of it). He asked if Whitechapel were anything like Memphis. I said it had quite remarkable similarities. The river, of course, and the numbers of darkies. The reporter wished me to elaborate. It was impossible to tell him much more than our darkies were decently behaved and worked chiefly in the docks and public conveniences, which proliferated everywhere in London: a fact frequently remarked upon by travellers. It was close enough to the truth, after all. My invention has often anticipated the actuality. The interview proved more exhausting than I had guessed and I was glad, that afternoon, to motor out with Pandora Fairfax to meet her husband. He was a tall, aquiline man whose good looks were unharmed by a couple of small scars on the right side of his face. Like many flying veterans he was not much of a talker and had a modest way with him which tended to add to his charm, as well as his authority. We agreed how terrible flying had been during the War. He had flown mainly English planes, as well as one or two French and American machines. He hoped I would stay for supper. That evening I said very little myself but drew Henry Fairfax out, or rather I asked him questions which frequently Pandora would answer on his behalf. He was from Minnesota and liked this part of the world better. The Memphians were very open-minded on the subject of flying. An air base had been sited nearby during the war and the local people had become familiar with all types of planes. He had been an instructor there briefly. I could do worse than to invest in Memphis. They were far more forward looking than was thought.