Jerusalem Commands

by Michael Moorcock

  In the morning I was awakened by the pretty aeronaut in her loose, hooded djellabah offering me a cup which, from its smell, could only hold Columbian coffee. I shook my head in surprised delight and sat up.

  ‘I hope your poor servant survived the night.’ She offered me the china sugar-basin. ‘He seemed very upset. Is it a kind of Bedouin blues? His singing sounded almost Wagnerian at times. Are you familiar with the composer’s work?’

  I explained how the poor creature had for some time been in the employ of a Beiruti gramophone-seller and had picked up snatches of German music from the records he had heard. Like certain other idiots, he had a gift for musical mimicry. He would calm down, I assured her, as soon as he was returned to us. It would be best, however, to avoid the subject of the Master of Bayreuth.

  ‘He seems quite good-looking,’ she said, ‘under all the filth and sunburn. Was his mother beautiful?’

  ‘She was a Russian aristocrat,’ I told her truthfully, ‘who became his father’s wife.’

  She nodded. ‘The genes sometimes do not withstand the shock. I myself have some of that dangerous old blood. Even mixed with its own kind it can produce mental deficients. My sister for instance is quite raving. It is the same with horses, of course. Would you care for a rusk and a little confiture? It’s all I have to offer for breakfast. The butter went off.’

  I agreed to join her as soon as I had said my prayers. It did no harm to show devotion, especially to the Gora, who would expect it from me. Indeed, they would become suspicious if I ignored the morning prayer.

  She was peering through a binocular when I came to the table. ‘He seems better rested, your fellow.’ She handed me the glasses. Kolya, a trifle less red-eyed than he had been, was staring up at us in baffled agitation. Then we watched as again he was put to work to display his stamina.

  It was probably better that he was occupied. It diverted him from Wagner who, after all, had contributed to his predicament. I think he had begun to realise this and his sense of humour returned. Once he glanced over his shoulder and called in Russian, quite cheerfully, ‘You see, Dimka dear—I promised you we’d find slavers here.’

  The problem, as I remarked drily, stroking my Bedouin beard, was not how to find the slavers, but how to lose them. I would guess that the only reason they had attacked the balloon in the first place was because they thought it undefended. Now honour had been restored and decent intercourse begun, they would almost certainly drift back towards the Sudan or whatever god-forsaken wasteland they recognised as home.

  ‘See!’ said the only Gora who spoke much Arabic. ‘He is good and strong and when he works he does not sing.’

  ‘But where will I keep him? He cannot work all the time.’

  ‘Work him hard, then he will be too tired to sing.’

  I considered this reasonable logic for a while. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he seems strong enough. We could perhaps use another ammunition-carrier.’ I took a step or two back, out of their view. When I returned I said that we did not all agree that we required another slave. We broke for coffee. Meanwhile Kolya staggered to and from the oasis with his waterskins.

  ‘He is very strong,’ said Signorina von Bek, munching a rather inexpertly pickled cucumber, ‘it seems wrong that you should have to bargain to buy your own slave back.’

  ‘Sadly,’ I said, ‘there are very few circuit judges in the desert. The law of possession carries considerable authority here.’

  She took my meaning and smiled. ‘It’s your job to keep what’s yours, eh? That’s the kind of individualism the New Order is encouraging in Europe. They could learn from you.’

  ‘Oh, I think my people have taught them much already,’ I quipped, almost chiding. She responded to this with a blush. I put out my hand to touch hers, to reassure her that I meant no ill-will. At which she smiled, and I was doubly entranced, yet still in that same delicious, platonically spiritual state where my ordinary senses seemed to quiver delicately on the brink of ecstasy, yet required no physical expression.

  After lunch, as Kolya lay panting in the shade of a small palm, I returned to the lip of the rocky spur, Lee-Enfield crooked in my arm, and said that I had been elected to inspect the slave. I began the courtesies of approach and they responded. Carefully I climbed down the path towards where they waited on the far side of the dark water. The heavy limestone overhang, which protected the place from the sun’s rays and had allowed the pool to form, was reflected in the oasis, together with the few clumps of date palms planted here, no doubt, by the civilisation which had abandoned Zazara. Beyond the gathered Gora were their somewhat threadbare woollen tents, some skinny goats and a few tethered camels. These people looked like outlaws, irregular and amateur slavers at best. I had seen the powerful Bedouin slave-masters. They were grandly dressed and heavily armed, with tents, servants, wives and beasts of burden befitting their station. They would only have taken pity on Kolya as their code demanded, and helped him to his destination. Pride would not have allowed them to spend a minute of their time considering his sale. By deigning to bargain I was myself risking losing face, but I must also give these black rogues enough face so that to trade would suffice. They could then leave with all honour. I was certain they had not instructed scouts to come round on us and did not know how few our numbers were. Perhaps they did not want to know a truth they suspected. Ignorant, they would not feel called upon to take violent action, especially since our Gatling remained our chief argument.

  I reached the level rock and approached them, pausing to lay my rifle and my knife on the ground. The Arabic-speaking princeling in his white turban stepped forward and put down his own bow and spears. We had now established an understanding which would pertain no matter how heated our argument became. I was welcomed into their camp. They led me to where Kolya, grinning and still half-mad, said to me in French, ‘Damn you, Dimka, if you don’t like the look of me let them sell me to someone who does!’

  I shook my head at this and said to the chief, ‘See, it is true. Allah’s mercy on him. He is possessed. A djinn speaks through him. What is that monkey jabbering?’

  ‘It is Frank. Perhaps we should take his tongue off,’ proposed the chief thoughtfully, looking around for a blade. ‘That would make no difference to his work.’

  I agreed that this might be the short-term remedy but he might as well stay intact for the moment. Suppose the djinn were driven out, then the poor creature would have been maimed for nothing and so rendered less valuable. Kolya seemed relieved by what he could overhear of this.

  I next explained how we travelled with little to spare, all we had were a few small measures of good-quality cloth. Perhaps they would accept a foot or two for the madman. The chief smiled appreciatively at this gambit and invited me to squat down on the ground with him. So the serious bargaining began. We made jokes, exchanged insults, acted out a range of emotions from incredulity to despair, shared several cups of bitter tea, reflected on the state of the world, agreed that faith was the only road out of our dilemma and that the Jews and also the Christians were the cause of our troubles (any other analysis tended to shift the blame to God, which was of course a blasphemy). From time to time we brought the conversation back to the issue at hand and began another enjoyable round of bargaining. Sometimes trade is all the desert-dweller has in common with others of his kind and bartering becomes as elaborate a means of social intercourse as it is of arriving at a fair price. Eventually, just after three o’clock on the second day at the Zazara Oasis, I declared that my friends would curse me for a headstrong fool but I would throw in an ornamental dagger with the bale of tartan cloth they coveted. They agreed suddenly and so my friend was returned to me. I believe the tension of the moment had sobered him. He no longer spoke of Wagner but thanked me with his old civility. ‘You are a natural diplomat, Dimka dear. Do you still have all our camels?’

  I assured him that I had kept our little caravan together. Although weary, he was cheerful. The water and food offered him by t
he Gora so that he should be a better purchase had given him the strength to take hold of his senses again. ‘What happened, Dimka?’ He paused for breath as we climbed back towards the ledge. ‘Did the Italian army find you? Are we in need of identities?’

  I assured him he was in no further danger. He stopped again to get his breath and stared down at the net and the silk which draped the surrounding rocks. ‘If it isn’t the army, who is it? The Italian air force?’

  But I would tell him no more until I had helped him ascend, pretending to curse him and goad him, until he reached the top of the ridge and stood staring in astonishment at the basket and its charming occupant.

  Signorina von Bek now wore a pale green frock with dark-blue fringes, a dark-blue cloche and matching stockings. Her shoes were the colour of her dress. ‘How is the poor fellow?’ she asked me over his head.

  ‘Praising Allah for His mercy, Signorina von Bek, as are we all.’

  Their business done, the Gora were already striking camp. I guessed that they were on their way to another outlaws’ rendezvous where they hoped to pick up work. But they would also speak of us.

  As Kolya approached, Signorina von Bek wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, dear! He’d better have a bath, don’t you think?’

  I agreed with her. I would also bathe, I said. Meanwhile, she decided, as soon as the slave was rested perhaps he could bring her up some water for her own ablutions. Gladly, I said, but first I must see to my camels. Our poor patient beasts had suffered too long. Leaving the loads near the balloon’s basket, Kolya and I led the eager animals at last to stretch their elegant necks over the oasis. The water was good but had a peculiar taste to it from an old palm which had fallen in at the far side and rotted. The camels sniffed the pool carefully before they drank.

  ‘I trust you do not seriously expect me to take that girl’s bathwater up to her,’ murmured my friend as we stripped off and waded into the shadowy pond where we could not easily be seen from above.

  I smiled at his dismay and said we would carry some up in a fantasse on the camel. ‘Since, dear Kolya, you were not in your senses I had no choice but to fall back on the familiar excuse of congenital idiocy.’

  ‘It is not a rôle to which I’m much suited,’ he admitted, but he understood my point. ‘The girl I take it is here on government business?’

  ‘Only in a manner of speaking. Hers is the first one-woman flight for the Italian Geographical Society. I gather Mussolini’s giving a lot of backing to such enterprises at the moment.’ It was only at that second that the inspiration came to me that Italy was the country I should offer my talents to. I could help build the power-plants and machines needed to make that country truly the nation of the future, the New Rome in every sense. They also possessed, I understood, a thriving film industry. Perhaps my meeting with Signorina von Bek had been opportune in more ways than one.

  Already Kolya was discussing the next stage of our route across the desert. Now we had found Zazara and the Thieves’ Road, all we had to do was head west on it. Eventually, ‘in less than a thousand miles,’ we should reach Morocco.

  By now, of course, I saw my future following a rather different course, but I said nothing. ‘First we must help Signorina von Bek reflate her balloon.’ I stretched in the water. I floated. ‘And then we can be on our way. It is the least we can do, Kolya, since she, effectively, saved our bacon.’

  ‘By crashing in the desert?’ (I had sketched the story for him.)

  ‘By trusting us,’ I reminded him. ‘We could be a pair of rogues for all she knows.’

  He was offended at this. Surely I had seen how she had already taken note of the man beneath the rags? When he was properly dressed again, he would thank her himself for her timely arrival, though she had not, after all, deliberately helped us. It was merely good fortune that she happened to be there. I protested this was a parsimonious compliment to her aerial navigation, especially since Kolya’s own sense of direction was unremarkable. He was being churlish. He apologised at once. His privations, his nerves, the exhausting fetching of water, had all taken their toll.

  By now it was sunset and the Gora had filed out of the gorge, doubtless on their way across the desert and as glad to be free of conflict as ourselves. Leaving Kolya sleeping at the water’s side, I filled the metal fantasse myself, loaded it onto Uncle Tom and led her back up the steep path to where the aviatrix waited. Signorina von Bek had been reading to pass the time. I had already noticed the little bundle of brightly coloured paper-covered books and magazines she kept. They were all English and seemed to be tales of adventure. She had developed a taste for blood-and-thunder, she said, at Cheltenham. ‘It was so uneventful, you know, otherwise.’

  Carefully marking her place, she put the book on her table and drew from another fitted locker a collapsible canvas bathtub which she stretched carefully upon its frame. Into this, I emptied the four-gallon fantasse. She clapped her hands. ‘I have longed desperately for this for three days!’ Discreetly I returned to the oasis and saw to Uncle Tom’s grooming. She grumbled and snapped the whole time but could not disguise the pleasure she took in my attention. What was more, the mechanical and familiar actions helped me gather my thoughts. Our best escape from the desert must surely be in the repaired balloon. But what if it also delivered us directly into the hands of the authorities? If we continued on the Thieves’ Road it would be months, perhaps longer, before we reached civilisation. If we took the balloon and kept our disguises we had every chance of slipping away into a town before the Italians or French became over-curious. There was also a good possibility we would again be waylaid and this time murdered for our camels and goods. The Gora were doubtless not the only outlaw band in these parts. They would pass on the news. At best we must expect a fight or two. And we must consider the camels.

  ‘My dear, your feeling for those camels is positively obscene.’ Kolya had risen and walked over to one of our grazing pack animals to feel for something on the beast’s hump. It was only then I noticed the recently healed scars. ‘I grew concerned that you would decide to trade a couple of our camels for me!’

  ‘I would have been ashamed if I had bid more than your value,’ I replied. This badinage was usual with us. In my heart I was of course deeply relieved at my friend’s survival. Save for Captain Quelch I do not think I have ever had quite such love for a man. We were Roland and Oliver, fellow adventurers, followers of the Code of Chivalry.

  I owed my life to him. Nonetheless, it still seemed to me pure folly to continue with his original plan. It was even possible that we might convince the lady to drop us off at some convenient spot. ‘Please remember to take it easy, Kolya, dear. You are still weak and your sanity remains, I would guess, a trifle fragile.’

  He shrugged this off and casually hummed some jazz number, as if to prove to me that his mind was fully restored.

  When I mentioned her name my friend was anxious to be introduced to Signorina von Bek. ‘I have heard of the woman. She was Benito Mussolini’s mistress. I remember her from Paris! And she flew with the Spanish Barcelona-to-Rio expedition a couple of years ago.’

  I explained that, given his status, it would be both dangerous and unseemly for him to socialise with our hostess. Considering her history there was some small chance she could be an Italian government agent. At all costs we had to preserve our disguises until we knew we could trust her. He understood this but did not relish, he declared, remaining a fool for long. He would be glad when we were on our way. He remained obsessively fixed in his determination to follow the Thieves’ Road.

  I dined that evening with my new friend. Below us my old friend cooked himself kus-kus to which he added a hardboiled egg Signorina von Bek had given him. My female alter ego possessed the same spontaneous generosity which had led me into so many scrapes! Yet I do not regret being this way. Better to follow a virtuous impulse, I have always said, than to think always of self-interest. ‘Yer give ‘em too fuckin’ much, Ivan, and then yer regret it, silly bugger,
’ said Mrs Cornelius to me the other day and it is true. But I have few regrets of that sort. I have never quite understood what she and Signorina von Bek had in common, for they were chalk and chips, but it might have been a quality of self-possession. Certainly it was not a similarity of enthusiasms! The last time I described an engineering principle to Mrs Cornelius, she ran from the pub claiming a weak bladder and I had to borrow a pound from Miss B. to pay for the round. With Signorina von Bek, however, I had an uncanny affinity. Together we discussed enormous projects. As soon as Kolya was bedded down I told her a little about my Desert Liner. She, in turn, sketched for me her rocket-powered tube-train. She said the Italian government was about to commission an experimental prototype. Knowing Mussolini’s preference for co-opting famous people to help him, she had agreed to this flight for publicity reasons rather than from genuine scientific curiosity. ‘I was finding it all extremely jolly until I was shot down. It was partly my own fault for dropping too low to ask those Arabs where I was. Still, I suppose even that was providential. What larks, eh, Sheikh Mustafa!’

  From dawn until ten o’clock the next morning we worked on repairing the balloon fabric, and gathering material to build a fire which would funnel up air for the initial inflation. With Kolya’s reluctant help, we took the whole apparatus to the top of the hill looking out over the dead city and at Signorina von Bek’s instruction arranged the fabric to funnel heated air into the balloon proper. As I watched the huge egg-shaped canopy begin to fill I could hardly contain myself.

  Now the Italian flag swelled across the sky. I imagined Mussolini’s thrusting New Rome, his great African empire which would at last stamp Carthage into non-existence. His firmament would be full of such ships. Architecture grand and graceful as Ancient Rome’s would rise upon the ruins of an honourable past. The balloon was a vision! It was as if an angel had spoken. My manhood was returning. I knew I must make my way to Il Duce’s court as soon as I could and link my destiny with his. It was not idealists like me who gave fascism a bad name. However, I would not be a Christian gentleman if I did not admit to past loyalties. The excesses of Benito Mussolini’s lieutenants are best seen as the excesses, say, of the Spanish Inquisition which followed Ferdinand and Isabella into Moorish Spain. They discovered corruption, dark superstitions, decadence, voluptuous orientalism, academic abstraction and answered the Holy Call to cleanse eight centuries of evil and moral turpitude from their land. They revitalised their people and gave them back a history. Sometimes a man indulging in too many scruples fails to face the evil nature of his enemy. The Italians are a sentimental people. They need a dictator, the disciplines of fascism, to make them great, or their inherent laziness will always win. That they turned their backs on the only leader who could have made them great again is proof of my point. Now what are they? What is their wealth? A few ruins and Renaissance fountains they can hire out as props for the latest Cinerama epic! For all my powers of precognition, I saw, in this case, only a glowing future. I glimpsed perfection.