The Breaking Point (29 page)

You ask how did the revolutionaries get past the Imperial guard? The Imperial guard had no orders from the Archduke to stop anyone.There never had been any such orders, through seven centuries. It was not a case of being taken by surprise or overrun. They allowed themselves to be cut down, to be slaughtered without defence of any kind. The massacre was complete. Every servant, every person, every animal found within the palace walls was cut down and slaughtered. All except the Archduchess, and I’ll tell you about that in a minute.

The revolutionaries entered that side door, and there must have been seven hundred of them - it was always said there were seven hundred, Markoi having a fancy that the number should be the same as the seven centuries - and it was the easiest thing in the world, so they declared afterwards, to cut down the inhabitants of the palace, simply because there was no resistance. It was easier than pruning the vines. In a sense, you might say they offered themselves as victims. And - it’s rather unpleasant, but it’s a fact, for the young people discussed it afterwards amongst themselves - the first blow with the knife brought the same sort of intoxication that you get with Ritzo, the contact with the flesh, and the sight of the blood. The young people said they just couldn’t stop, and could think of nothing else but cutting down the waiting victims whoever they were; servants, guards, princes, pet dogs, canaries, little lizards, whatever had life inside the palace had to go.

As for the Archduke . . . Yes, he came out on to the balcony. He had no jet. There was no sign of the spring-waters that made him immortal. He just stood there, in his white uniform with the red Order of the Just, and he waited. He waited for the people to storm forward over the heads of their fellows and climb the balcony, and he waited for them to join forces with those of the Big Knives who had already entered the palace. The older Rondese who had shut themselves away from it all within doors said afterwards that the cry of rage and hatred and envy - yes, above all, of envy - that went up from the throats of the Rondese revolutionaries as they flung themselves upon the Archduke could be heard right up on the high slopes of the Ronderhof, and away down to the banks of the Rondaquiver. And the snow was falling all the time. Yes, the snow was falling.

When there was no more life anywhere, and the staircase and the corridors ran with blood, the young men of the revolution sent a report to Markoi, who was still sitting in his office building, and the report said, ‘Justice has been done.’

Markoi came out of his office, and out of the building of the
Ronda News
, and walked through the falling snow to the palace. He made his way to the room of the Archduchess, with his followers falling into step behind him, and it is said that he knocked on the door and she told him to come in. She was standing there by the open window. She was quite alone. Markoi went straight up to her and said, ‘There is nothing more to fear, madam. We have liberated you. You are free.’

Now . . . I can’t tell you what he expected, or what the revolutionary Rondese expected, whether tears of gratitude or grief, or some expression of horror or fear or good-will: no one knew, for no one had any idea of the feelings or the emotions of the Archduchess. The only thing was this. She had changed from the kilted skirt she usually dressed in, which she had been wearing earlier in the day (this was corroborated by the servant spy afterwards) and she was wearing a white uniform with the Order of the Just upon it. She carried a sword as well. And she said to Markoi and the revolutionaries, ‘I wish you happiness. I am your Archduchess. The spring-waters are my inheritance, and I hold the secret of eternal youth. Do with me what you will.’

Then they took her out on to the balcony and showed her to the people. And the body of the Archduke was displayed for her to see. Some people may say this was cruel. It depends upon the point of view.The Rondese will continue to argue the question, and so will the tourists. The point is, which was massacred that night of the spring festival, that night of the Big Knives? Innocence or guilt?

Well, there it is. Some say that Ronda is spoilt beyond recognition, and that apart from natural scenic advantages - the heights of the Ronderhof, the islets on the Rondaquiver, the charm of the capital, and of course the climate - it could be any small European state decked out to catch the tourist’s eye, with the people falling over themselves to make money. Others disagree. Ronda is progressive, the new industries thrive, the towns springing up on the banks of the Rondaquiver are filled with energetic youngsters determined to make their voices heard in world councils.They even have a slogan about it - ‘Ronda speaks, the world echoes’ - and in a sense it’s true, for you see Rondese youth everywhere these days, in all the European capitals and in the United States; they are compensating for what they call centuries of apathy by a determined endeavour to lead the world.

Psychologically, they make an interesting study.You see, for all the nationalistic spirit, the progressive movement, the slogan of Ronda for the Rondese, and the what-we-say-today-you-say-tomorrow attitude, they still haven’t succeeded in winning for themselves the secret of eternal youth. And this was really what the revolution was all about. They bottle the waters, yes, Grandos saw to that.You can buy them in any country in the world - at a price. But they are not the waters of the formula. The formula is still the secret of the Archduchess. As I told you before, they have tried everything, beginning with flattery and progressing to rape, torture, imprisonment, starvation and disease. They can’t break her. She must be nearly eighty, as I’ve said, and after all she has endured you would think it would show somewhere, somehow, but her face is a girl’s face, the face of the flower of Rovlvula, and no degradation can mar the perfect beauty. The only thing is that if you go close to her, when she is dancing in the palace, or rather in the museum, square, and should see her eyes, should have the fortune - or perhaps misfortune - to look into her eyes, they say that you can read there the agony of the whole world, and compassion too.

Nobody knows what will happen when she dies. It can’t be long now. There is no one left of the blood royal to whom she could pass on the formula. And one can’t help wondering if it is worth possessing. I mean, it has not brought her anything except a legacy of pain.The men who wished so much to possess her secret are both dead, ironically enough. Grandos died of some stomach trouble on a visit to the United States - he had done himself too well for years - and Markoi was attacked by a wasting disease: he visibly shrank before his friends, and in the end was hardly more than a shadow. The older Rondese, who had never cared for him, said he was eaten up with envy of the Archduchess, and because his plan of mockery and ridicule had not succeeded. But that was probably just old people’s talk.

No, when the Archduchess dies the secret of eternal youth dies too. There will no longer be an immortal one in Ronda or the world. So it’s worth visiting the country - you can buy a ticket at any tourist agency - because, as the tough young Rondese say, you never know. She might break tomorrow, or next week, or next season, and if she does it would be worth watching. And if she never breaks, but just dies, dancing there night after night in the square, then something will have gone from the world that no one, now or in the future, will ever see again. Even today it may be too late . . .

The Menace

B
arry Jeans - when his fans did not call him Barry, and wanted a bigger word for him - was known as The Menace. The Menace, in movie language, and especially among women, means a heart-throb, a lover, someone with wide shoulders and no hips. A Menace does not have long lashes or a profile; he is always ugly, generally with a crooked nose and if possible a scar; his voice is deep; and he does not say much. When he does speak, the scriptwriters give him short, terse snaps of dialogue, phrases like ‘Lady, take care!’, or ‘Break it up!’, or even just ‘Maybe’. The expression on the ugly face has to be dead-pan and give nothing away, so that sudden death or a woman’s passion leaves it unmoved. Only the muscle at the side of the lean jaw tautens, and then the fans know that Barry is either going to hit someone, and hit him hard, or stagger in a torn shirt through a jungle carrying on his back a man who hates him, or lie in an open boat after shipwreck with the woman he loves but is far too honourable to touch.

Barry Jeans, the Menace, must have made more money for the movie world than anyone living. He was English by birth; his father was a clergyman, and vicar of Herne Bay for many years. Old people say they remember Barry as a boy singing in the choir, but it is not true. His mother was half-Irish, and that is why they called their son Barry. He went to grammar-school and was just too young to join up for World War I, which puts him in the mid-fifties age-group. Everyone knows this and nobody minds. It’s a good age for Menaces. The fans don’t want to see a youngster stagger through the jungle or lie in an open boat - it would not look right.

Barry’s father was broad-minded and let his son go on the stage. He was in repertory for a while, and then got a job as understudy in a London production. From understudy he graduated to small parts in drawing-room comedies, which were fashionable in those immediate post-war years, but he never did much good. Producers found him too stiff, and he got the name for being, in theatrical jargon, a ‘stick’. Nowadays producers who have long retired, and others still active but in their dotage, say they always foretold a big future for Barry. But in fact the only person who ever believed in him was his wife May, and perhaps because of that belief they have never parted, but are still together after thirty years. Everyone knows May. She is not one of those wives who remain hidden, and then appear shy and rather sweet at Gala Performances. May is there - in the dressing-room, and very often on the set. Barry says he would be lost without her.

It was May who pushed Barry into having an audition for the Lonsdale play that was going into production in New York at the end of the twenties. It was a small part, and the chap the producer and Lonsdale wanted had appendicitis at the last moment, so they were obliged to take Barry. After that he never looked back. It’s a curious thing how actors who fail to make the grade in London go over big in New York. Like ne’er-do-wells in Australia. A fellow slips away below decks, and the next thing you hear is that he has a million sheep on a ranch the size of Cornwall.

It was the women who went for Barry. They adored the way he stood there on the stage, in his English clothes, with his hands clenched. It was strange it had meant so little to the women in England.

When the Lonsdale comedy came off Barry was offered a part in an American play, and although it folded quickly he hit the headlines. He hadn’t a great deal to do, but he had to bring the curtain down in the second act with the words ‘Scram, baby, scram!’, and the way he said it did something to the American women. Barry’s future was assured, and he had an offer from Hollywood the opening night. May told him to accept, and three weeks later they were on the Coast. Barry Jeans the Menace.

In a matter of months his face was more familiar to women all over the world than that of their own husbands. And the husbands did not mind. In a sense, it was a sort of compliment if a girl married a chap at all. It must mean that the chap they married was a super-Barry. His hat - a trilby with a dent in it - his cigarette, never hanging from his lips but always held between his fingers, the little scar on the side of the temple that suggested a brush with a rhino or a knife thrown in a Shanghai joint (in fact he had slipped on the breakwater at Herne Bay when he was not looking) - it all exercised a subtle and indefinable magic which left every other movie star standing at the post. But above all it was the mouth, firm and decisive above that square jaw with the cleft in the chin, which maddened millions. It never relaxed, it never smiled, it never, in fact, did anything. That was what got them.Women were weary of close-ups of their favourite stars lip-to-lip in a passionate embrace, and Barry did not give them that. Instead, he turned away. Or stared over the girl’s shoulder. Or just murmured the word ‘You!’ and nothing else. Then there would be a fade-out into the next scene, and the fans would be left writhing.

Barry Jeans the Menace really started the fashion that became so prevalent between the two wars on both sides of the Atlantic of men and women not making love at all. What was vulgarly called ‘making a pass’ was no longer done. If a fellow took a girl home in his car, and drew up in front of her house, there was no question of parking and staying put for half-an-hour. Barry Jeans never did that. He pulled the trilby hat still further over his eyes, his mouth became more stern, and he said something like ‘Quit . . .’ The next thing you saw was the girl on the front door-step, fitting a key in the lock and crying, and Barry Jeans banking the corner in his Cadillac. It was the same on mountains or in the desert. If Barry Jeans got himself on the edge of a crevasse in the Andes or the Alps, or lay beside a mud-pool oasis with three palm-trees, five hundred miles from the nearest Legion outpost, the woman of course by his side, he never touched her. He did not even have a rope to help her out of the crevasse, or a tin mug to scoop up the dirty water from the pool. He just said ‘This is it’, and either walked away or died.

It was his manner that made the Menace popular with men as well as with women. You did not have to take trouble any more. You did not have to kiss your girl. You did not have to make love. And all that tedious business of booking a table at a restaurant, and seeing the head waiter, and ordering the wine, became completely
vieux jeu
. Barry Jeans never did it. He walked into any place with his woman, and he just held up one finger, and everyone seemed to know what he meant. Waiters fell over themselves, guests already seated were told there wasn’t a table, and the Menace sat down with his woman watching him, waved the menu aside, and uttered the one word ‘Clams’.