The Count of the Sahara

by Wayne Turmel

  A satisfied murmur rippled through the crowd. Iowa, especially Podunk towns like Grinnell didn’t often host famous people, and when it did, it was usually in between stops at bigger, more important cities like Chicago and Des Moines. This was big doings indeed, and explained the size of the crowd on a snowy Thursday. They were going to get their money’s worth this evening, and something good to rub in the noses of their snobbier friends in Ames and Dubuque.

  “As you no doubt know, the Count is justly famous for his explorations throughout North Africa, especially his findings at Carthage. Well, he has led an expedition—a joint venture of the French Government and our colleagues at Beloit College…”

  Bob and some of the other students let out a great “Boo” at the mention of the rival school. Main shot a withering look down at us, which made my cheeks burn and Bob beam with pride. “Save that for the playing field, this is a great honor for us here at Grinnell. I should think you want to show we’re worthy of it.”

  While I tried to figure out what the big deal was, the speaker scanned his notes to take another run at it. “…Ah, yes…at Beloit College. You may have read his exploits in uncovering one of the greatest archaeological sites ever found in the heart of the Sahara Desert. It was covered by the New York Times.” That got another ooh from the percentage of the audience who’d at least heard of the New York Times, even if they’d never actually read it.

  “He’s brought actual filmed footage with him tonight.” The president made a grand sweeping gesture, pointing to the heavy black film projector and the smaller magic lantern atop a small table at the front of the stage. I craned my neck to see. It was old equipment—a hand cranked Campbell instead of an electric one, but reliable enough. There was also a new electric Victor magic lantern. The stacks of film reels and boxes of slides told me we were in for a long night.

  “And so, without further ado, it is my honor to welcome to Grinnell, and indeed to all of Central Iowa, that world traveler and distinguished archaeologist, Count Byron Khun de Prorok.”

  The bandage on my right hand made applause difficult, so I sat back with my arms crossed. I watched the Count give his walking stick a slight toss in the air then he strode forward, caught it with a flourish and a quick baton twirl, and glided onto the platform. His eyes shone almost as brightly as his teeth.

  “Good evening, everyone, I’m truly humbled at the greeting you’ve afforded me. It proves I was right. I said to myself, ‘Byron, you’ve just returned from the heat and dangers of the Sahara. You’ve been feted in Paris and New York… what’s next?’ Then it occurred to me… Grinnell… Iowa.” The crowd laughed good-naturedly. “In January,” he added to wild applause. How lucky these yokels were he’d graced them with his presence. Not that they didn’t deserve it, of course, they were every bit as good as city folks. Still, it was really white of him to come, and they let him know it.

  His voice boomed out of his skinny frame, louder than I expected. It didn’t just get to the back of the hall, it reached out and grabbed the people in the cheap seats by their ears. He had an accent, but a slight one that I can only describe as vaguely European, but not from anywhere specific. It sure wasn’t from here, and it wasn’t so foreign you had to work at deciphering it. It was a strong voice, deep and resonant, and it held the crowd of upscale bumpkins spellbound.

  “I’d especially like to thank the lovely Miss Thompson for her hospitality in showing me around this institution today. A most charming young lady…” A gangly, bucktoothed girl leaned over and whispered in the co-ed’s ear, and they dissolved into giggles. The speaker paid them no mind and moved to the center of the stage.

  “But we’re here tonight to talk about another young woman—a legendary queen some thought to be mere myth. Was Tin Hinan just a figment of overactive, superstitious, primitive imaginations? You’ll learn the answer tonight.”

  He went on about his trip, and most of it I didn’t get. It was the first trip on pneumatic tires, which mattered to somebody for some reason, and involved some tribe called the “Toregs,” or “Tuaregs,” or something like that who were murderous, sword-wielding tribesmen, and treasure. That made me sit up straighter. Jewels, gold, swords… maybe this would be better than the pictures, or at least not as bad as I feared.

  “Yes, my friends,” he continued, “This is the story of what the New York Times dubbed the ‘Prorok Expedition’, although officially it was the ‘Franco-American Sahara Expedition of 1925’. Mine was only the honor of leading the team. Maestro, if you please…” He grandly gestured to a redheaded college boy in an argyle sweater who squatted beside the magic lantern. There was a loud click, and a slide filled the screen.

  It was a picture of the expedition in front of their three trucks. At least I think that’s what it was. It was hard to tell because it was upside down.

  The audience laughed nervously. The Count launched a lightning bolt out of his eyes at College Boy, then popped off a quick, “As you can see, we really stood on our heads to make this trip a success.”

  While the crowd clapped appreciatively, the speaker hissed at the assistant, who was now redder than ever. “The slide is upside down… fix it,” as if the poor kid was too thick to recognize the fact. He muttered an apology and fumbled around; trying to pull the offending picture out of the hot frame and burning his fingers in the process.

  I’ve been there myself often enough. Those magic lanterns, especially the new electric ones, burned awfully hot. It was easy to burn yourself, and if you didn’t turn them off periodically the bulbs would flare out in a hurry. This one wasn’t going to last the night. I felt bad for the kid and squirmed a bit on his behalf.

  At last we heard the reassuring metal click of the carriage return and another picture loomed over the audience. It was the kind of snapshot you’ve seen a hundred times in newspapers or newsreels: a bunch of guys trying to show how important they are, and only succeeding in looking uncomfortable.

  The Count was dead center, of course; dressed for the desert heat with his pith helmet at a jaunty angle. You wouldn’t get any points for guessing who the Americans were. A tall, good looking older gent sucked on a pipe, and next to him was a much shorter guy who looked far less comfortable with the proceedings. The Frogs were represented by a short, ferret-faced joker with a thin moustache and a military uniform covered in ribbons and medals. On either side were some really unhappy specimens; two guys in native getup, two in matching mechanic’s outfits, and an arm, shoulder and right cheek that belonged to someone cut off by the frame.

  “This picture is in Constantine, Algeria in October of last year. This very important gentleman with the medals is Monsieur Maurice Reygasse, the director of the Bibliothèque National d’Algiers, who represented the French government. As you can see, he was a decorated hero of ‘La Guerre Mondiale’.” He effortlessly bounced between English and French, at least seamlessly enough to knock the socks off anyone in Grinnell. French sounded a whole lot classier than the languages usually heard in the Midwest—German, Swedish, various Slavic grunts and the odd, usually extremely odd, Italian, not to mention the Scots and Irish who allegedly spoke English but you couldn’t make out what they said half the time.

  He droned on. “The two Americans came courtesy of the Logan Museum at Beloit College. Representing the Logan was Mr. Bradly Tyrrell, and the shorter gent was Alonzo Pond, although everyone called him Lonnie. Like all graduate students, he proved invaluable doing the mundane research that is so often the lot of young men in college. Not that you’d know anything about that.” The student body chuckled knowingly. You had to hand it to him—this guy knew his audience.

  “We had at our disposal three brand new vehicles, straight from the Renault factory in Paris. These were built especially for the brutal conditions we’d encounter in the Sahara. They had twelve pneumatic tires, and each vehicle its own factory-trained driver. Let me show you our modern age chariots…” He nodded to College Boy, who clicked another slide into place that sho
wed the heroic team driving off. It would have looked like that, at least, if we were hanging from the rafters. It, too, was upside down.

  A groan rose from the crowd, and even Bob mustered up a “Poor son-of-a-bitch”.

  “It’s easy to d-d-do. They have to b-b-be upside down and backwards or they don’t show right.” Damn. My stutter was in rare form tonight.

  “Really? That seems ass-backwards,” Bob replied. I shrugged. It had to do with mirrors and reflections and stuff, but I couldn’t really explain it worth a damn, I just knew it. Like I knew it wasn’t the kid’s fault since he was just clicking the buttons. Whoever loaded the slides after the last show put them in wrong. It was a bad deal for the poor idiot who had to show them this time, and College Boy wasn’t dealing well with the pressure, and looked like he might explode any minute.

  The Count soldiered on, though. “Believe it or not, the tires were in contact with the ground the whole time. Perhaps the first of our moving pictures will give you a better idea.” He locked eyes with the flustered assistant, and jerked his head to the film projector.

  “Join me as we set off on our journey into the deepest Sahara.” Like I feared he would, the assistant cranked the handle much too hard and the first few frames ran through too quickly. Everyone looked like they were running around with their heads on fire.

  Before getting struck by another lightning bolt from the stage, he rewound it and ran the film again, slower. Those hand-cranked projectors are the devil’s own time, but once you have the rhythm it’s not so bad. It just takes practice, and it was obvious Red didn’t have much of that.

  Onscreen, a gang of folks, some native others—obviously local muckamucks—gathered around the trucks. I recognized the Count, smiling and waving. An older man shook his hand then a woman, obviously Madame Big Shot, kissed the Count on each cheek. He gallantly kissed her hand, just like in the movies, pleasing her no end and really ticking off the old guy.

  In the background, the natives did what natives always do on film; they jumped around, cheered the white men and fired their guns in the air. The trucks rolled off-screen amid puffs of white smoke. Then the screen burst into bright, blinding white as the film broke and College Boy was left turning the crank uselessly.

  I was already out of the seat before Bob could moan, “Oh come on”. It was none of my business, but it was going to be a long night if someone who knew what they were doing didn’t step in. Plus I felt bad for the poor sucker. I heard Bob ask, “Willy, where you going?” but I was already on my way.

  The Count continued speaking as I crouched next to the projection table. The redhead’s panicky eyes silently asked who the hell I was and what I was doing there. “Relax. I’m just going to help. You have to keep the tension even on the film, or it’ll b-b-b-unch up and b-break on you.” I may as well have spoken Swahili from the blank stare I got.

  “Get the next one loaded and I’ll show you.”

  “Can you do it for me?” This guy was a pip. I just held up my bandaged right hand in response.

  “Right, okay,” he said. He took the old reel off and set it on the table next to the empty canister. This guy was completely Amateur Night. I snatched the reel with my left hand and must have been a little noisy, because the Count shot us a dirty look from the stage, and I heard a distinct “Shush” from behind us. My cheeks burned red. Jeez, I was just trying to help.

  You always put the old reel in the tin right away, otherwise it can unspool on you. At best you’ll have to go back and do it all later, and there was no way to do that with these reels unmarked. How the heck were you supposed to know what went where? This setup was totally bush league.

  The Voice of God commanded another movie and my apprentice cranked the wheel like he was starting a car—sure to snap it again. I pushed him out of the way and, without thinking, grabbed it with my injured right hand. The burns had healed enough it didn’t hurt too badly. Good thing it didn’t take too much force to crank one of those old machines, just the right touch.

  I hissed at him. “Keep the rhythm smooth, so the tension’s tight. What’s next?” He squinted at the sheet of foolscap in front of him.

  “More slides,” he said as if it was a death sentence.

  “Start flipping them over. They have to go in upside d-d-d-own. Whoever did this last didn’t do it.”

  “It wasn’t me...” Jesus, this guy.

  “Doesn’t m-m-matter. It’ll be you who gets his ass chewed out. I’ll handle the projector, you just get the lantern right.”

  He set to work with agonizing slowness, flipping over each slide and putting it back in the carriage. He only had a couple done when the film I was showing ended with the flip-flip-flip of the film. The Count droned on, but I paid him no attention. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice me either.

  Even with one good paw, it wasn’t much of a chore to flip the release, pull off the reel, drop it in the can, and grab the next one so it was ready to go. Old Man Mayer would be none too happy with the timing, but it was good enough for this glorified tent show. Plus, I was doing it one-handed, and my left at that. It wasn’t too shabby, if I really thought about it.

  “And now, we find ourselves on the rim of the civilized world. Imagine being at the edge of a sea made entirely of sand, with not a tree, rock or landmark for miles. This was the fearsome Sahara, our home for the next five weeks.” A purposeful stare and a rap of his walking stick said this was Red’s cue.

  We held our breath until the picture appeared right side up and an ironic “hooray” arose from the college pukes. The kid beside me let out a shaky sigh of relief while I settled to my knees on the other side of the table. I was there for the evening, apparently. Being a big guy for nineteen, I was plenty used to people whining, “down in front”. It wasn’t my fault or anything, but I always felt bad when I blocked someone’s view.

  My father told me often enough I was good for nothing, but it wasn’t completely true; I knew how to do this. As the Count’s stick went “rap rap rap” on the wooden stage, my hand went round and round. In the background, I heard people whispering excitedly, just like at the Odeon back home. And just like when the pictures ran, I was so busy tending to the job I didn’t see or hear much. I just cranked away, mindful of the speed people crossed the screen to make sure it was as natural as possible, but not much caring what they were doing up there.

  “Hey, pssst, hey.” My assistant was so wrapped up in the lecture I had to push him to get his attention. “Get two spare bulbs ready.”

  “Why? These are fine.” Yes they were, but who knew for how long. It was a sure thing they’d burn out at the worst possible time. He meekly slipped away and came back with the bulbs, handing them over. I placed them between the projectors within easy reach.

  “Thanks.” I nodded to the box of slides. “Those done?” He gave me the “oops” face and went back to work. Then he stopped again and held his hand out.

  “I’m Reggie.” The pest was persistent, you had to give him that.

  “Willy.” Maybe that would shut him up. There was a show on, and a good projectionist never put himself above the show. The audience hated that, and it was more than your job was worth to have them complain. I could hear Meyer’s voice, “vat if dey never come back?”

  Somehow we made it through the next hour. Like I knew it would, the bulb went out in the Campbell first with a loud “pop” and a small cloud of smoke. With all that practice under my belt, I got it done before anyone could even yell “lights.” It wasn’t that tough if you knew what you were doing. The problem was most people, like Reggie the College Boy, didn’t have clue one.

  It also helped if you didn’t mind getting the tips of your fingers scorched a bit. The bulbs were less dangerous than the commercial projectors in the movie houses, but being smaller, they burned out more often and took a finer touch to replace. Especially left handed.

  I have no idea what the Count talked about that night. I was too busy watching the sheet for cues a
nd nudging Reggie to pay attention, sometimes a little too forcefully, but hey it was his job, not mine. He should be paying attention.

  It was easy to get caught up, though. I learned that the hard way my first few days working at the Odeon back home. At first, I’d be so busy watching Fairbanks, or Garbo, or Theda Bara, or pretty much any of the comics, that I’d start cranking too fast or miss a reel change. Then I learned to block it all out. In fact, someone would ask me what a picture was like, and I couldn’t really tell them despite having shown it four times that day. Sometimes I’d stay late, just so I could actually watch the darned thing.

  I paid just enough attention to hit my cues. That certainly wasn’t the case with the rest of the audience. When I could look around, I saw Bob on the edge of his seat, uncynically hanging on every word. The Lovely Miss Thompson was in raptures by the door, and as were the rest of Grinnell’s hoi polloi. They held their breath before releasing it in gasps, or chuckles, or whatever other response the speaker demanded of them. My experience with college lectures was exactly zero, but I could tell this guy knew his stuff.

  “And in conclusion…” That snapped me back, because the first rule of surviving any speech is to hear when it’s about to end. That way you’re not caught napping, and if you have to, you have at least one thing you can repeat if really pressed.

  A dramatic final meeting of the cane and stage floor sent Reggie into spasmic action. The last slide appeared, upside right and focused. It was a headline from the New York Times, 6th December, 1925: “De Prorok Expedition Arrives in Paris, Treasure in Tow.”

  With just the right balance of humility and bragging, the Count finished up. “Our mission ended in Paris, with Queen Tin Hinan and her treasure ready to return home to the Sands of Africa, and yours truly headed home to America to share this adventure with you fine people, and prepare for our next adventure, wherever it leads us.”