Contango (Ill Wind)

by James Hilton

  Never, it might be, for two and a quarter millenniums, since the days of Pericles and Plato, had there been such efflorescence of form and colour. Less than a thousand persons, men and women, but hardly any children, were clustered around the blue-green pool. Most were in brilliant-hued swimming-suits; some of the girls wore coloured frocks and wide-brimmed hats; a few of the men were robed in silk gowns of exotic design; but all, when the screen-star stepped into view, seemed to hold, for that extra moment, a position they had reached in some magical and impromptu ballet. There was a burst of cheering. Two men in immaculate cream flannels made some little purring speech that was lost in the general chatter; the saxophones blared; Sylvia was led to a basket-chair on the marble dais. She smiled—her well-advertised, million-dollar smile. An enormous pink and blue umbrella, like the roof of a pagoda, was hoisted over her; she threw out more individual smiles here and there, as she caught sight of friends; she laughed and gossiped to her neighbours on either side, while the programme was volleyed out by massed microphones. Swimming, trick-diving, water-polo, etc….

  Throughout the long slow-dying afternoon it continued, a golden pantomime reigned over by the sun. It was the sun that gave prismatic harmony to the crudely mingled colours; its strong slanting blaze filled the air, absorbed the rhythms of the jazz band into a single pattern of sight and sound; kindled the splashes made by the divers till the air was full of trembling rainbows. One had the feeling that the sun, as on ancient Attic hills, was ripening its children as they lay there, half naked under its rays.

  Perhaps, indeed, even Ancient Greece could not have shown such profusion of physical beauty. That group of living humanity might have been a eugenist’s dream of what all mankind could achieve, were it to allow itself to be bred for half a dozen centuries as rigidly as horseflesh. The women with their laughing oval faces and gleaming teeth, the men of massive thigh and torso, the young girls with their bud-like breasts and exquisite apricot legs—had there ever in all history been such a triumphant assembling of the body? For the world had been ransacked for these people; or, rather, they had drained into this paradise by every trickle of human migration. Tall blondes from Sweden and Finland, brunettes from Spain and the Argentine, dago litheness and Siegfried magnificence—all were merged here by the common desire to capitalise their excellences into earnings. They stared at one another with frankly physical appraisement, displaying their own personal charms as shamelessly as an applewoman displays ripe apples. Even the water-contests were valued less for their own sake than as an excuse for physical exhibitionism; it was the ritual of gaily-coloured silks, scented ointments, and sprawling sun-baskings that mattered most. Certainly none of the various diving competitions and polo-matches stirred as much excitement as the item that came last of all—the fin fleur of this Henry Ford Hellenism—a beauty show for men.

  Sylvia Seydel was cast for the role of adjudicator in this culminating affair. The competitors, most of them fresh from their water-games, paraded before her, smiling with that touch of harlotry that is in all athletic prowess; sun-bronzed and superb, they posed like kings—kings under a matriarchy. Not all were film-actors, by any means; some were camera-men, servants, job-seekers, nondescript vivandieres in Hollywood’s international army. In this inverted world it was the man, as often as the woman, whose looks could break down social barriers and unlock the doors to innumerable pleasaunces; and that he knew this was in every posturing, from the stiff games-master slouch of the public-school Britisher to the strutting pertness of the Italian chauffeur.

  Sylvia, three times married and twice divorced, would have been sufficiently equipped for the task in any case; but after ten years of film- work, five of which had been a rough-and-tumble fight for any job that came along, she was something of an expert; she knew a man’s points as a trainer knows those of racehorses. She had, moreover, the skilled camera eye; she saw that this face, though handsome enough, would photograph badly from a side-position, or that those well-muscled flanks, though finely virile, were too short for elegance in evening clothes. She scrutinised with dispassionate intentness—the whole thing was only a sort of “rag,” no doubt, but she did not see why, since she had to pick a winner, her choice should not be justifiable. But when two-thirds of the procession had passed, there came a competitor who left her in no remaining doubt at all; whatever else the rest might show, he was her man.

  He was very young, and offered no impressively masculine display of sinew; his arms and legs suggested Pan-like grace rather than strength; and his glance, as she appraised him, had in it a touch of mockery. She had not noticed him in any of the water-games, but he wore a cerise-coloured swimming-suit that contrasted quaintly with his brown limbs. His eyes were almost violet in their depths, and his lips and straight nose might have been copied from the Greek statues that adorned the garden temple. She guessed him to be Spanish or Italian, and she was surprised when, as she placed the chaplet of laurel on his head amidst thunderous applause, he made her a pretty little speech in English that had a rather English accent. Who was he? she wondered idly; but she did not trouble to enquire. She was a busy woman; she met so many men whose names and identities were of no consequence to her; she was more than a little worried, too, about other matters. Indeed, during most of that blazing afternoon at the water-party, she had been turning over in mind the problem of whether to accept her broker’s advice and sell for twenty-three dollars the Montgomery Ward stock that she had bought originally for a hundred and thirty-seven.

  But the next morning she found out who he was, for on the front page of the newspaper she read, in huge block-letter headlines: “Lois Palmer’s Secretary Judged Handsomest Man. Laurels for Roumanian Prince. Sylvia Seydel’s Choice at Santa Katerina.”

  Sylvia was furious. The Palmer woman was, of course, only one of a hundred professional rivals, but her age and the rapidity of her recent rise to fame had made her, to Sylvia, a symbol of all the vaguely menacing future. Lois was twenty-two; her contract with Vox’s had already been renewed at some fantastically increased figure; her fan-mail was reckoned to be bounding up by hundreds a week. It was exasperating to Sylvia to think that her own unwitting action should have presented Lois with free publicity in every newspaper in America. Two years ago, Sylvia could have laughed at such a thing, could even have congratulated the scorer of such an amusing point. But the Sylvia of 1931 was less inclined to laugh. Her world had changed; she could feel it, without altogether understanding how or why. It was as if she were on a throne that might topple at any moment; and her arrogance before the big film-magnates became more and more consciously an effort as each time she wondered if they might suddenly decide to call her bluff. That last picture, “Her Husband’s Wife,” had done well enough, yet somehow not quite as well as had been hoped, and for the moment she was not engaged on any picture at all, though there was talk of another. Moreover, her high-figure contract expired six weeks hence.

  She called up her publicity agent immediately after breakfast. He was a shrewd little Scotsman with bright ideas that were never above anybody’s head. “Yes, she’s put it over you all right,” he sang out quite cheerfully over the wire from Los Angeles. “But of course she couldn’t have counted on you picking out the fellow. All she did was to seize the chance that you gave her yourself—you can’t blame her.”

  “I’m not blaming her,” Sylvia retorted, “but that doesn’t mend matters. Look here, I want you to find out about this Roumanian prince—find out all you can about him, will you?”

  He said he would.

  A fortnight later Sylvia was taking tea in her private suite on the tenth floor of the Santa Katerina clubhouse. She owned a fabulous palace at Beverley Hills, but she usually preferred Santa Katerina when she was not working on a picture. It was another of those flaming days of the Californian June, and through the open windows across the balcony rail the Pacific shone a deep turquoise blue. She had just signed over a hundred postcard photographs that were to be sent off by her secr
etary to admirers all over the world, when her maid entered with a card on which was inscribed “Prince Nicholas Petcheni,” with an address in Los Angeles. “Yes, I’ll see him,” she said.

  He entered, and watching him from her chair, she observed that his walk and clothes were fittingly exquisite. She did not trouble, then, to study his face, for she had already done that; but when he stooped to touch her fingers with his lips she noticed his dark, slightly curling hair and the absolute symmetry of his head. “This is indeed a charming sequel to our last meeting, Miss Seydel,” he began, smiling.

  Yes, she thought, he was damned good-looking enough for anything; almost absurd, really, the way everything was RIGHT about him…. “Do sit down, won’t you?” she said. “You’ll take tea?”

  He thanked her, and during the course of that dainty little ceremony he talked of the weather, of how much he liked America, of his interest in the film-industry, and his desire to study it at close quarters by actually working at Hollywood, and of his admiration for Santa Katerina above all other places. With a quick-witted tact which Sylvia could not help but admire, he did not mention the name of his employer. His chatter was amusing, and he knew English so perfectly that it was natural for her to compliment him on it. “But then, I have been in England a good deal,” he answered.

  “Yet you still have your home in Roumania?”

  “Oh, yes.” He sighed slightly. “Things are not what they were, though. The—the—crise mondiale—what do you call it?—the world-crisis?—has hit my country very hard. My family have lost much money. We of the younger generation must look to the future, not to the past. That is why I have come here, where everything points so surely ahead.”

  Sylvia was by no means certain that everything in her own life was pointing surely ahead, but she nodded. “I suppose your family is a very old one?” she remarked.

  “Not so old as some in my country, though my ancestors were ruling their provinces when America was still undiscovered. But what does all that matter now?” He shrugged his shoulders expressively. “In America it is of to-morrow that one thinks, not of yesterday. And, for myself, I must say that I prefer the attitude. It is more hopeful, more democratic.”

  “All the same, as a prince, you must have been rather surprised to receive an invitation from a mere commoner like myself to call and see her? Didn’t you think that was a little TOO democratic?”

  He smiled pleasantly. “Not at all. I was surprised, it is true, but I was also delighted. What prince would not be honoured by a command from a queen?”

  “You turn your compliments very prettily, but I think it’s time to put an end to the farce. I’ve caused enquiries to be made about you, and I known perfectly well that you aren’t a prince at all. Your name is Palescu, and you were in Paris last year trying to sell an invention. We aren’t all such fools over here as you seem to think, monsieur, or mein Herr, or whatever it ought to be.”

  He suddenly laughed, and she felt a pang of almost fearful admiration when she noticed that he showed not a trace of embarrassment. Indeed, his attitude, if anything, was even easier when he replied: “I perceive, at least, that you are not a fool, Miss Seydel. But, since you wish to call me by my real name, shall I not return the compliment and call you Mrs. Schmidt?”

  “You’ll perhaps be in time to do so if you hurry,” she retorted. “I’m expecting my divorce at any moment.”

  He laughed again. “I think you are really a very clever woman.”

  “Cleverer than Lois Palmer, I suppose you mean?”

  “Yes,” he replied, with meaning in his eyes. “Yes, far cleverer.”

  “Then what if I tell her the truth? What if I tell everybody?”

  “Nothing, except that I shall laugh. I don’t mind. It’s all been pretty good fun.”

  “Look here,” she said, intently. “I work it out like this. If I give you away, the laugh is against Lois, for being taken in, and against you, for being found out. But if you were to leave her employment and come to me, the laugh would only be against her.”

  “And you want the laugh to be against her, Miss Seydel?”

  “I shouldn’t object.”

  “Then will you pay me two hundred dollars a week? Miss Palmer gives me one-seventy-five.”

  “No, I can’t afford nearly so much. Besides, as a bogus article, you aren’t worth it. Come to me for a hundred and twenty, or be exposed. Those are my terms.”

  “A hard bargain.”

  “Yes, I’m a hard bargainer. As a matter of fact, I don’t know that I’m not being too generous. What can you do, anyway?”

  “Anything you wish. Sing, dance, play the piano, entertain your friends, invent publicity for you, answer your letters, create an impression on people who matter; also, I can swim, drive a car, fly an aeroplane, play most games tolerably well—”

  “Only tolerably? That’s disappointing of you, surely? Nevertheless, I’m willing to take you on at the figure I said. And if you’ve any sort of contract with Miss Palmer, see my lawyer and he’ll get you out of it. Can you move over at once?”

  Within a few days the newspapers were featuring the story of the princely Apollo’s change of employment. Their reporters interviewed him; he gave them drinks, an amusing half-hour, and— what was most of all—perfectly good copy which they did not need to embellish for themselves. His most quoted remark was that at last, in his new job, he had made contact with all that was most promising in the art of the cinema, and Miss Seydel was naturally pleased. Not only was the publicity good, but Nicky, as she called him, proved an immediate success in many other ways. At her parties his immaculate clothes and accent, as well as his extraordinary facility in saying things that were considered clever (sometimes they really were clever), made her, she felt, the envy of every other actress in the film- world. He was such a brilliant improviser on any given theme, and quite the most consummate liar she had ever met. He had to lie, doubtless, to sustain his reputation as a person of rank and pedigree; but his technique in doing so was a little awe-inspiring as well as unnecessary at times; he invented, for instance, a whole family for himself— father, mother, brothers, uncles, all of them fantastically titled; and the strange thing was that even Sylvia, who knew them to be spoof, found herself accepting them at least as readily as the characters in some rather well-written novel. Once, in the midst of a very amusing family saga with which he was enthralling her guests, she interjected suddenly: “Of course, Nicky, I don’t really believe you’re a prince at all. You’re much too good a talker.” Which everyone seemed to think a very daring sally.

  It was at the same party that a very gushing lady asked him: “Oh, yer Highness, would you ever be willing to marry morganatically?” Instantly, with a little bow across the table to her, he replied: “Certainly, madam—and Pierpont Morganatically too, if I could.”

  Afterwards, when the guests had gone, Sylvia congratulated him on a witticism which would doubtless go the usual rounds. He smiled and answered: “But what on earth made you say that you didn’t believe I was a prince at all?”

  “Merely an insurance premium, Nicky. If anyone finds you out, or if you leave me and I have to get my own back, I shall then be able to call witnesses that I suspected you all along.”

  “Clever of you, Sylvia.”

  “Not so very—only just a bit wise. Fetch me a drink. I’m tired.”

  He could, in addition to his numerous other accomplishments, invent and mix the most satisfying potions. She looked at him over the rim of the glass a moment later and was rather startled to reflect how well they were getting on together. She had so few illusions about him, or about anyone, for that matter. She knew that sooner or later some inquisitive person would look up the Almanach de Gotha or something and find out the fiction of his ancestry; indeed, she was a little surprised that such a thing hadn’t happened already. Still, it was being good publicity while it lasted, and it would do her no harm, provided she wouldn’t be left to look a fool. And apart from his status,
he was no doubt worth his wages. His company was amusing and his talents were useful; and her own experience of three husbands had disposed her to think that that was higher praise than could be accorded most men.

  Once, sitting at her feet in the bright starshine of her balcony, with the beat of the Pacific surf a murmur far below, he gave her a long account of the circumstances that had led to his coming to America. “You see, I was in Russia doing business for my uncle, who was head of a firm of engineers in Bukarest. In Moscow I met a young engineer who was dying; he gave me plans of an aeroplane invention of his; he wanted me to take them out of the country, because otherwise the Soviet people would get hold of them and pay nothing at all. I said I would, and I took them first of all to Germany, where I actually studied aeronautics to make myself understand the business. It was a method of landing from an aeroplane in flight—a sort of torpedo that you climbed into and steered down to the ground. Mighty risky, I thought, but I was hard up, and it looked as if there were just a chance of making some money out of it.”