Jerusalem Commands - [Between the Wars 03] Read online

  ‘I’ll buy a bottle.’ Nielsen seemed laconically enthusiastic. ‘Keep that pitch up and I’m liable to buy two.’

  It was 11.30 before a car was ready. ‘It’s five minutes to the station,’ Nielsen reassured me as he handed me my bag. Together we walked into the silent street. One trolley disappeared with an introspective clank around a corner, its lights blinking out even as it moved. A uniformed man was driving the car. Nielsen opened the door for me and helped me in. ‘Make sure he gets on that eleven fifty-one,’ he told the driver. This was the first time I realised he was not coming with me. ‘I’m very grateful to you, captain.’

  ‘Sure.’ He touched the brim of his hat. ‘Have fun in New York, professor.’

  With that, the car took off at top speed, its siren a caged gull, forcing me back into the seat. ‘What’s the hurry?’ I asked. ‘The captain said it was only five minutes to the station.’

  ‘That’s right.’ The driver took a corner at a terrifying angle. ‘But he’s forgotten there ain’t a eleven fifty-one no more. Last summer train leaves for New York eleven forty.’

  ‘And what’s the time now?’

  ‘Eleven forty.’ We moved downhill through the density of office buildings and hotels, passed through two traffic lights, crossed the tracks, heard the long, authoritative note of the great locomotive, and pulled up at the station in time to see the train lurching steadily into a blackness where its smoke resembled those mocking spirits who from time to time insinuate themselves into my dreams.

  I was in despair. I sat, unable to speak, and watched as a uniformed man ran from the station to the car. For a moment I thought my driver was going to ask him to telegraph up the line to stop the train, but it was only some message about a burglary near the marine terminal. ‘There’s a hotel across the street.’ The policeman opened the door for me. ‘You can get the first train in the morning.’ Then he left me to struggle from his car to stand with my bag on the steps of the Union Station while a railway employee informed me that the first morning train did not leave until eight that particular day and that the hotel was a good, clean ‘commercial’ place where I could get a decent night’s rest. By now I was almost gibbering with anxiety. I told him the urgency of my situation. I had to be on the quay when the ship docked. Esmé was innocent of New York and its dangers. He could not help me, he said. He did not really care if I met the ship or not. Several terrifying possibilities went through my head. I pointed to the yards, down the line, where a number of massive shadows showed locos still making steam. ‘You say there are no trains. Where are they going?’ He told me they were freights and laughed. ‘You could try and ride the rails with the bums. But be careful.’ He sniggered. ‘Between the bulls and the darkies, there might not be much left of you by morning!’ Again, he indicated the hotel and advised me to send a telegram to the ship to say I would be a little late then catch a few hours sleep. I ignored the fool. I looked about for a taxi, but I was not sure even the hundred dollars in my wallet would cover the fare to New York, assuming I could find someone to take me. I became still more frantic. I followed the railroad man up the steps but he locked his door and pulled down his blind and would not respond to my rapping. I became confused for a while and simply sat on the step with my head in my hands. Then the call of the trains from the nearby yards reminded me that there was still a way of reaching New York in a few hours. I set off down the tracks towards the great confusion of steel and steam. I would bribe a driver to let me ride with him on the footplate. It was commonly done, I had heard, by travelling salesmen with urgent business.

  Twice I fell full-length in my haste to reach the yards, stumbled to my feet, found my bag, lost my hat and did not stop to look for it. The third time I fell, I was only a few yards from the caboose of the nearest train and this time I was helped to my feet by a large, unkempt individual who, from his breath, might have been Roy Belgrade’s biggest customer. My bag was picked up by one of his several ragged companions, all yellow-eyed wastrels and loafers. I took them for the kind of scum which collects around any wealthy centre, hoping for a few free scraps from the rich people’s tables, willing to stoop to petty crime if necessary, but too cowardly to be a serious threat. ‘Thank you, my good fellow.’ I patted the large man on the back. ‘Help me to the nearest New-York-bound train, and I’ll make it worth your while. Fifty cents apiece! Hurry now! I am a plain-clothes police officer on urgent business!’

  This changed their scowls to smiles. One of them even bowed to me. What happened in the next few seconds has always been hard to explain. I felt a violent blow in the kidneys and fell again to my hands and knees. A metal-shod boot struck me on my forehead and I was blinded, shouting with pain. I felt one more violent blow on my thigh and heard a guttural voice say something about a ‘fucking squarehead bastard’ before I passed out. Even at that moment it was clear to me that the Klan had never been far away and that it had been a mistake to use the name of Van der Kleer. Evidently he remained connected to that perverted quasi-Klan which had overthrown the old, pure-hearted band of idealists now jailed, framed for crimes they did not commit, or scattered across the continent. I had been led very cleverly into a trap.

  I awoke to hear more yelling. Someone who had been tugging at my shoes suddenly stopped and cursed. Then I felt a warm hand on my jugular and for a second thought they meant to finish me off. But the hand was simply looking for a pulse. ‘How bad are you hurt, do you know?’ I heard the deep, lazy voice of the better type of black man, my rescuer. Nobody can ever reasonably call me a racialist. I am the first to tell the story of how a negro saved my life by single-handedly driving away the white men who would cheerfully have killed me. The cur-dog pack of the KKK, operating like cowards out of darkness, were all that remained of those hooded vigilantes who had sworn to wipe away the evils of the world but had been betrayed by cross-bred infiltrators of every foul persuasion, united only in their determination to destroy the best and noblest blood of Christendom. The black giant was lifting me to my feet. I was in almost as much pain as after the Klan’s last attack. I was becoming something of an expert on their strongarm methods. Next, I checked for my wallet and found that, together with my left shoe, my overcoat, my bag and my belt, it had disappeared with my assailants. ‘We’ll get you to the cops,’ declared the noble black. Like some friendly, large dog, he had attached himself to me for reasons best known to himself. I was not ungrateful and made it clear he would be well rewarded once we reached New York and I cabled Los Angeles for funds. Ich furchte, die Tiere betrachten den Menschen als ein Wesen ihresgleichen, das in hõchst gefährlicher Weise den gesunden Tierverstand verloren hat. . . ‘But our first priority,’ I informed him, ‘is to get there before dawn. I am due to meet my sweetheart’s boat when it docks. My innocent knows nothing of America.’

  He was clearly sympathetic. He helped me along the track towards the wailing locos, the stink of smoke, the sudden beams of tested lights, the flash of oiled metal, the gleam of polished brass, the sputtering sparks from the boiler stacks. ‘She’s starting for the Smoke.’ The negro indicated a massive freight train some distance away on our left. ‘And she’s pretty well guarded, so we’ll have to jump her when she gets going or the bulls’ll spot us for sure.’

  ‘You’re going to New York, too?’

  ‘Pilgrim,’ said my dusky guardian angel, ‘I am now.’ And he lifted a great, African head and opened a red mouth to bellow his cryptic amusement. I felt as Androcles must have felt to be befriended by some jungle beast for reasons that had little to do with the motives of a more advanced species. And yet there was a certain kind of self-contained dignity about my rescuer, a quality of loyalty, which more civilised whites might envy and seek to emulate. An intelligent black, like an intelligent woman, is one who recognises his limitations as well as his natural skills and virtues and puts himself at the service of some decent citizen who appreciates and respects him for what and who he is. This is a natural symbiosis. Again I do not speak of ‘superior
ity’ and ‘inferiority’ but of difference. There are few rational people who would question the white man’s natural grasp of technology and the nuts and bolts of the civilised world, or his sophistication in matters of political and religious institutions, and it is these things, of course, which have put us a rung or two above the others on the great Ladder of Civilisation. Make no mistake. I am the first to extend a hand down to my less-developed cousins, but that is not the same thing as artificially setting them on the rung above me. What good can that do for anybody? Many a negro has told me sincerely how he wants no part of this unnatural elevation, just as the majority of women are contemptuous of the so-called suffragists and feminists who make such fools of themselves in their ludicrous pseudo-male masquerading. Why assume the vices of an envied race and ignore the virtues of one’s own? I have never understood this impulse. We Russians have an instinctive grasp of the fundamentals of life, the great forces which are always at work in nature and which dictate so much of our fate. Woman serves man but man also serves woman, each fulfilling a role which, when in complete harmony, can make for almost heavenly happiness. Such is the relationship between master and servant, between priest and God. Christianity tells us these facts. Why are we forever forgetting or ignoring them?

  To my immense relief I discovered, in a waistcoat pocket, my packet of cocaine. Soon I would be able to banish much of the pain. Determined to put myself in the hands of this good-hearted darkie (whose name, he announced, was Mr Jacob T. Mix), I already planned to offer him in Los Angeles a permanent job as my body-servant. Through no fault of his own he had fallen on hard times, a victim of prejudice in a world which had been happy to use his services in its negro regiments but had no use for him in peace. This, of course, was the hard lesson of ‘emancipation’. What use is freedom without the dignity of work?

  In a daze, I was limping rapidly down the track, jumping over ties and rails, until I had reached a slow-moving box-car and was almost thrown into it by the strong arm of my new friend. I landed heavily on oily timber and banged my head again. Rolling over, I saw Mr Mix, his great tattered overcoat flying around him so that he resembled Dora’s Ancient Mariner, appearing to expand and fill the entire doorway. Then he had turned and banged shut the sliding door. ‘We’ll sit here in the dark until we’re through the town,’ he said. This suited me well enough, for I could now make surreptitious use of my cocaine. I did not offer him any, nor would he have expected it. There is a great difference between what happens to a white man under the influence of cocaine and the effects produced in the typical negro ‘hophead’. Besides, I heard the sound of a bottle being opened. ‘You’d better take a drink until you can get those bruises fixed up,’ murmured my concerned Man Friday, but I refused. I was already feeling considerably better, knowing that I was en route for the city and Esmé.

  When Jacob T. Mix lit a tiny pocket oil-lamp the car was suddenly illuminated by a wonderful radiance which turned every blade of straw to gold, every strand of wire to silver, made the walls glow like the warm, old wood of a comfortable cabin, while everything swayed gently, a huge, reassuring cradle, with Mr Mix’s enormous, scarred, kindly face peering down at me, enquiring with rough good will if I was sure I would not take a pull on his bottle and try to get some sleep.

  ‘How long will it be before we reach New York?’ I asked him.

  ‘Five or six hours, I’d reckon. She’s slow, this old train, but she’s steady. Then we have to look out for the bulls. In that early light they can stay hidden until they’re right up on you. But stick with me, Max. I’ll get you to your boat. Your girl promised to you, is she? From the old country?’

  In essence he was right so I did not correct him. While Mr Mix began to tell some story of a Nigerian sailor he had once known and the stories of Africa the Nigerian had told him, I drifted into a half-sleep where I consoled myself with a vision of Esmé and myself, a prince and princess of Hollywood, driving through the hills and valleys of California, the harbingers and personification of an inevitable and glorious Future.

  How cautious they were, those fools! Was ist Originalität? asks Nietzsche. I can tell him. It is what the majority would instinctively destroy. And how they have tried to destroy me! Yet I survived. I still survive! They cannot bear that.

  Even then, I knew that I could not perish. Mrs Cornelius told me this, only a week or two ago, when she came into my shop in search of a new jumper for her boy. ‘Yore bloody indestructible, Ivan!’ Perhaps that is why I have always had this particular relationship with her. We have in common the not unenviable achievement of surviving the greater part of the twentieth century.

  Adjusting the wick of his miniature lamp so that it should offer only the minimum necessary light, Mr Mix opened a book, remarking with some surprise at my stoicism and my powers of recovery. ‘You don’t complain much for a white boy.’

  ‘We Petersens,’ I told him, ‘are a hardy breed.’

  * * * *

  TWO

  THESE CATTLE CARS have always depressed me. They smell and look much the same in Russia, America, North Africa or Germany and it is demoralising, whatever the circumstance, to travel in them. Inevitably, there will always be at least one bully-boy to terrorise you, even when you are on board and moving. Jacob Mix and myself were spared the sound, that night at least, of steel-shod boots pausing with invisible menace on the roof overhead. How they loved to piss on us! And we were grateful if that was all they did. Those who mourn the passing of the Age of Steam mourn a romantic myth, not the squalid reality so many experienced.

  Mr Mix proved to be a fellow of some intellectual ambition. He had educated himself in a rough and ready manner and, as such, proved a far more enjoyable companion than I had expected.

  The good-hearted, self-improving negro is the best type in the world. What he lacks in the more sophisticated intellectual functions he more than makes up for with his virtues of loyalty and integrity. He has time neither for black loafers nor ‘white trash’. Thus, unable to sleep and anxious to divert myself from anxieties concerning Esmé, I was more than happy to engage Jacob Mix in conversation. He had been born in Alabama, he said, but had come North, to Philadelphia, to work in the mills during the War. The War over, the white men had wanted their old jobs back. He did what menial work he could to stay alive and had just today made up his mind to put all that behind him and see if he could get work on a ship out of New York. I was delighted by the coincidence. ‘So all along we were heading in the same direction!’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Mr Mix and again grinned his indescribable and savage grin. I had found a friend and a guide in the urban jungle, a beast finely tuned to modern-day survival. It was only fair that I should let him know what sort of man he had befriended. As briefly as possible I told him a little of my own life and my plans. I do not remember falling asleep.

  A great shudder shook the train and I awoke feeling horribly chilled. Still asleep, Jacob Mix rolled a little until his face was in line with mine, then he opened his eyes and winked at me.

  ‘We should be in Jersey City.’ He peered through the slats at the grey, pre-dawn sky then climbed to his feet, brushing straw from his aged flannels and adjusting the shirt beneath his waistcoat. When he teased the door open I saw only cloud and a few gulls but the sound of an early-morning port was unmistakable. I knew it from Odessa and from Constantinople. It made my heart beat with fresh optimism. We were at the docks! Now all we had to do was find the Icosium’s assigned pier. I wanted to burst through the doors and run towards the water. I could smell the salt, the motor oil, the sea-wind. Esmé, meyn bubeleh. Es tut mir leyd. Esmé! Esmé! I looked at my watch. If on time, the ship had already docked, but would not yet be disembarking. I had forgotten the pier number, but some official was bound to help me.

  ‘Okay, colonel.’ Suddenly Mr Mix opened the door and beckoned me through. ‘Make for that stack of crates straight ahead. And go fast, man!’ I jumped easily to the concrete of a busy marshalling yard, surrounded by cra
nes, great locomotives and goods wagons of every description, quickly reaching the crates and a small gap created by careless stacking. Mr Mix joined me almost at once. ‘You can run good, too,’ he said. ‘You’ve had about as much practice as me, right?’ (I remember these questions because they struck me as so mysterious. I have never fathomed them. Sometimes I believe my companion was doing nothing but parrot phrases he had heard or read, without any real sense of meaning.) He took hold of my left foot and inspected it. There were some blisters, and the sock was a ruined mass of blood and cotton. Mr Mix said something about seeing to my foot before continuing, but I was anxious to reach the Icosium. ‘How are you going to do that, without no dough?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t need money to approach a ship’s pier, my dear fellow.’

  ‘But you need three cents to get on the ferry.’ Mix pointed across a stretch of dirty water in which every description of garbage floated. ‘That’s the Hudson, man. I guess the Cunarders dock over there, on the Manhattan side.’

  I had imagined the train would take me directly to the docks, as it would have done in Odessa! Foolishly I had made a too obvious assumption. I had no money. And all my papers were in my stolen wallet. But at least I had a companion who knew where we were. ‘I shall have to pawn my watch,’ I said. ‘We had best get out of here and seek the necessary Jew.’