No sooner had we realised our destination than we understood our danger. Our only choice was to disembark. Already the train was shunting along the military quay to the waiting ships. The docks were thick with French soldiers, with Negro Zouaves. Our only hope was that they lacked the sense to recognise us. Mr Mix and I took familiar positions on both sides of the doors, slid them back and prepared to jump. As we had guessed, the soldiers assumed us to be workers. They paid us no attention. I was to go first. The quay moved slowly past. A gap appeared in the Zouave ranks. I threw my carpet bag and sack of films on to a pile of mail and with triumphant elation made to leap after them, but my celebration was short-lived, as at the very moment I began to jump, I found myself staring directly down into the seedy features of that treacherous little turncoat Bolsover, late of the Hope Dempsey. By providence or bribery the snivelling cockney hophead had escaped Egyptian justice, weaselled his way into a job with the French as a civilian clerk, and arrived at the free port just in time to recognise me! The worst possible luck!
I had no time to shout a warning to Mr Mix. Like me he was already jumping. Bolsover meanwhile became a maniac, tugging at the sleeves of every uniformed Negro nearby, screaming in English that a dangerous criminal was among us. As Mr Mix began to run, his hood blew back from his head revealing those magnificent, unmistakable features. We had no chance of making a discreet exit or of talking ourselves out of danger. The black had given us away! I saw his huge head snap up as he vaulted a barrier then ran through the yards towards the passenger station, a pair of baffled Zouaves in pursuit. He would have made a magnificent athlete.
Bolsover, a mass of excited duff, had poor success in attracting any further help. All attention was now on the boxes where a French officer, concerned that the animals should not injure themselves, struggled to command his unruly men and calm the horses.
My emotional resources were already very low. Rather than waste time remonstrating, I shouted for Mr Mix to keep running while my own strategy was to point to his fleeing back, crying in Arabic: ‘There he goes!’ and, with my hood over my head, my sack over my back and my bag in my hand, mingle with the gathering crowd of dock workers attracted by the double commotion. I heard Bolsover’s grating French: ’He’s a famous Parisian crook! He’s wanted for fraud and manslaughter!’The man had developed some bizarre grudge against me. He was obsessed. Who else would give credence to that Parisian airship business? Forced to leave for New York before I could prove my case to the Sûreté, which with its usual lazy prejudice had fixed on me as an easy scapegoat, I had been unable to defend myself.
By the time it was safe to trudge slowly up to the passenger station I saw that they had caught poor Mr Mix. I think he was wounded, as he shouted at them furiously in Arabic. I could do nothing for him, but I did not believe he was in serious danger. At worst he would be repatriated to his native USA. This could be the making of him, for he had a wonderful career awaiting him in the lucrative field of Race Kinema. If they were to catch me I would be lucky not to be sent to Devil’s Island. Nonetheless, I knew a pang of sadness. I was sure it was the last I would ever see of meyn hertrescher sidekick but meanwhile I was still at liberty.
Elijah raises his staff against black skies. He points, signalling the end of misery. My cities will fly. My sons will survive. Who will lift this burden from me? Did I not try to help them? But their blood is not mine, neither is it upon me. My flesh is clean and I have cleaned my heart. Le’shanah haba’ah bi-Jerushalayim. I know these things. I mourn their dead. Not all are ignorant. I do not lie. Barach dayan emet. You think I can accept this trayf, I say. Lashon ha-ra. They speak nothing but lies. Brit milah, indeed! What do they know?
For the next few months I was forced to enter Tangier’s notorious shadow world, where Spanish officers and the local demi-monde mingled and where, by a variety of undignified means, I was able to sustain myself. My life became almost civilised. I even managed to spend my birthday at the Hotel Cecil in the company of Captain Juan Lopez-Allemany of the Spanish Foreign Legion, the brute who was for a while my friend and patron. I was frequently a guest at the house of Hussein de Fora, one of the best-educated and wealthiest hide-merchants in the city, and I kept a liaison with Madame de Brille, wife of the French concessionaire.
To all these I was known as Gallibasta. In that name, Madame de Brille was kind enough to obtain for me a French diplomatic passport (she had some idea of continuing our liaison when she returned home). I was offered several permanent business opportunities which I was obliged to refuse. My duty I now knew was to get to Rome as soon as possible. Also, the jobs on offer were either unsavoury or liable to place me in peril again. I had had my fill of perils. The secure magnificence of Il Duces Italy so near at hand was much more attractive. Even this caution was not enough, however. Soon I learned that enquiries were being made about me in the Outer Market and shortly afterwards I was arrested. Happily it was on a trumped-up vice charge. Even the police thought it ludicrous. They told me they sensed the hand of a jealous woman but I could not help thinking of my old enemy Brodmann. I had nothing to gain by using the French passport. The authorities accepted my Spanish papers, so I was able to pay my way clear only, needless to say, to find myself the subject of extortion. I was rapidly growing reconciled to accepting a previously rejected prospect when one rainy afternoon in the Inner Market, not far from the British Post Office, I recognised two welcome faces.
Only a Russian, especially a South Russian, will understand the joy of meeting fellow countrymen in a world as alien as Tangier’s. When one of those countrymen is a relative it is no surprise that your Russian will shout out his pleasure and run, arms wide, to embrace him! The faces belonged to none other than my dear cousin Shura and his elegant boss, the Ukrainian turned Parisian, that famous eminence grise of French politics, Monsieur Stavisky, whom I had known when a boy and met later at a party of Mistinguett’s in Paris. I had not seen Shura since he had disembarked from our boat at Tripoli, on some business of Stavisky’s. Now the two sophisticates strolled through the market as if they took the air along the Arcadian corniche. Ignoring the light rain, they were chatting and enjoying the sights and the warm weather. Their stylish suits, in canary yellow and lavender respectively, with matching spats, drew admiring attention from the ever-present touts and beggars of the Tangier streets. Hugging him I noted that Shura’s sleeve, empty since the War, was now filled. I admired his artificial limb. The hand that projected from the crisp linen of his shirt-cuff looked almost real. ’Oh, Shura! Shura!’ Shura laughed heartily as he recognised me. Even the cool Stavisky showed pleasure at the coincidence. ‘It is a small world, this,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some of that terrible fig brandy they sell here.’ He pointed to a cafe and we soon took our seats at a little outside table. ‘What are you calling yourself these days, Dimka? Are you still a film star? Are you on location? Or on the run?’ He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.
My life was suddenly enriched. These true friends understood the necessity and usefulness of a nom de guerre, and only needed to learn that I was Señor Juan Miguel Gallibasta, an import/export agent, to accept that I was now, to all intents and purposes, a Spanish national.