The gods had condemned him to keep rolling a huge stone uphill which, when he had pushed it to the top, always rolled back of its own accord.
CAMUS
M
ARK hitchhiked back to Cannes and found his father in the vast marble bathroom of their suite at the Hotel Majestic; the victo-rious Napoleon of the film festival was having a shower, washing off the sweat and dirt of a press conference. Shouting his all-but-incredible news over the noise of the water, Mark asked for ten thousand dollars.The actor turned off the taps and sought refuge in towels.
"All I need is my air fare and I can start in a couple of days," Mark went on without stopping for breath. After four years of hard work which his father and everybody else considered absolutely hopeless and point-less, he had succeeded in tracing the most famous treasure wreck in the world, and he assumed that the rest was just a matter of detail. "I have to buy a dive boat, metal detector, wet suit, a few things, and I'll need something to live on till I find the wreck. I'm planning to get everything I can secondhand, so I should be able to manage on ten–twelve thou-sand."
"Staying at a five-star hotel must have softened your brain," growled Niven, dashing into the bedroom to dress. "All this luxury is on the publicity budget, not us, kid — it's a one-week bash, remember?"
"Dad, you're not listening, we're rich!" exclaimed Mark, following him. His dark eyes shone with such brilliance that they seemed to be lighter in color. "Think — we can have a big bowl with eleven thou-sand two hundred and fifty-four pearls in it. You can put your hand in the bowl and let them roll around your fingers! The manifest says most of the pearls are flawless. Even if half of them got washed away, we can still play marbles. And you said it couldn't be done!"
To Niven all this meant that he was going to have more trouble with 48
his son than ever before. A trim and youthful forty-four, filled with the vigor of exercise, controlled appetite, fresh success, he nonetheless be-gan to feel old. Though he still had only his trousers on, he stepped out to the balcony, turning his back on Mark's enthusiasm. The balcony had a grand view of the Bay of Cannes: it faced the statue of King Edward VII in the little park on the other side of the Croisette, and beyond the park, the beach and the long range of hills rolling far out into the sea to form the western rim of the bay. The turreted U.S. warship on the vast sheet of water looked like a toy boat, and the myriad blues of the hills, the sea, the sky were blinding.
"When the festival's over we'll be back on the Earl's Court Road breathing air full of lead," Niven said, heaving a deep sigh. "That doesn't sound very rich to me."
Mark followed his father out to the balcony and slapped his bare back.
"Cheer up, Dad! We have seventeen tons of gold! We're on top of the world, and you're a star!"
"I'm an old man."
"You want me to leave the wreck lying there, when I'm the only per-son in the world who knows where to look for it?" asked Mark with bitter incomprehension.
Niven escaped back into the room. "What do you know? All you know is that it's somewhere around some island in the Bahamas. That sounds like a lot of sea to me."
"All it takes is time," argued Mark, still at his heels.
"Time and money."
"I'm only asking for ten thousand dollars, Dad." He pronounced ten thousand dollars in the deprecating tone of a man who was counting in millions.
"Only ten thousand! That's just about all we've got left from the movie since I paid off my overdraft! Only, only! How can you say only? Hell, I could have brought a girl here — we could have had a pretty good time watching those blue hills from the bed. But no, I bring my manic son for company, and by way of thanks he tries to rip the shirt off my back!" Niven was buttoning up his shirt as he said this, looking deter-mined never to part from it.
"What are you talking about? Twelve thousand dollars couldn't make any difference to you. You're famous. Your film is a hit and you're going to do your Kleist play with Olivier!"
"You can't be sure of anything! Remember all those articles raving about my Monte Cristo, and they didn't even finish the film? Well, I'm not going to burn money this time. No new apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, no custom-made shirts . . ."
"What have custom-made shirts got to do with it? You're the only one who wears custom-made shirts. All I'm asking —"
49
"No custom-made shirts for me and no big loans for you. And no fancy restaurants for either of us. Take-out food is as far as I'll go until I see money on a new contract."
"Poor Dad," Mark said, forgiving everything. "You were poor too long!"
"Yes, that's how you learn," replied Niven, frowning at the mirror as if it were an old poster. "I can be a giant on the billboards and still end up as a welfare case — and that's all there is to fame."
Hearing the fear in his father's voice, Mark was overcome by a joyful sense of being the stronger of the two. He put his arm around his old man's shoulder — they were now the same height — and shook him a little. "You have no worries, Dad. We'll stage plays, we'll produce films
— you've got the talent, now you'll also have the money!" The pros-pect of providing his father with the missing part of his luck so moved Mark that he couldn't help embracing him, nuzzling his strong neck smelling of soap. They hadn't been so physically close for years and both were moved by a sudden, surprising sense of being of the same flesh and blood; they hugged each other with a passion of family feeling that brought tears to their eyes.
"Thanks for the generous thought," said Niven as they disengaged,
"so long as you understand that we don't have ten thousand dollars for a treasure hunt."
"Sure, but now you're a name and you can borrow it!"
The suggestion that he should go into debt awoke so many anxieties in the actor that he lost his self-control. "And I was worried that you weren't rotten enough to be rich!" he groaned, hoarse with indignation.
"You'd ruin me without a qualm! You're turning into a rotten bastard, you know that?"
Mark reddened. "You don't have to insult me."
"I'm your father, it's my job to insult you," Niven insisted, letting go of his temper in the way most parents do, by thinking that it is for the good of the child. "I haven't done a thing for the past eighteen years without considering how it would affect you. You were still in the womb when I started to worry about you. And now you're trying to shake me down for some crazy gamble without giving a thought to my welfare.
Do you have a soul?"
"I told you we'll share!"
"Share what? You expect me to provide for you but you don't do anything for your keep — you hardly ever go to school and you don't take in a word I say. You'll never be any use to anybody."
Mark had never heard such abuse from his father; he was still at an age when words hurt more than anything and he was horribly shaken.
But he hated back, putting all the violence of his soul into his voice to 50
show that he wasn't beaten. "What are you so worked up about?" he shouted. "When I'm rich, I'll be useful! I'll finance oil-free cars, clear the air in Earl's Court for you."
"That's just something you heard from Jessica."
"What's wrong with listening to advice?"
"You mean you're ready to listen to advice?"
"I mean — You know what I mean."
The actor dismissed the subject with a look.
Muttering curses without moving his lips, Mark walked out. Leaving the Hotel Majestic, he ended up with the rest of the early evening stroll-ers on the promenade by the beach, breathing sea air spiced with per-fumes. He had planned to spend the evening with his father celebrating his triumphant breakthrough, and was bitterly conscious of being on his own. He was so agitated — his nerves stood on end — that he noticed girls more than at other times. He wished that one of them would run to him, embrace him, love him, live for him, knowing straight away that he was all right.
Most of the strollers were pretty girls who had converged on Cannes for the film festival and were showing off their legs and breasts on the Croisette — office girls, shop girls, divorcees, would-be actresses who made a point of spending their holidays in places frequented by the rich and famous, hoping that they would never have to go back to their jobs in Dusseldorf, Brussels, Birmingham or Melbourne. They paid no more attention to Mark than to the sailors from the U.S. warship in the bay;
their eyes searched constantly for the unappealing. Looking blankly past handsome youngsters in or out of uniform, they scanned the crowd for aging unattractive men — preferably short, bald, fat, disfigured — any man with something revolting about him, something gross enough for him to know that he couldn't be loved solely for himself. Many of them looked sullen, realizing that it was no use: there were just not enough ugly rich men in the world.
The spectacle drove all amorous thoughts from Mark's blood, and he suddenly knew why he loved the women of Perugino. Remembering beautiful faces ennobled by the disinterested curiosity and serene self-possession that come to those who are not for sale, he watched the pur-poseful girls with growing aversion. How different, how hideous was self-abasement! A delicate brunette on the Croisette greeted him with a smile, then immediately and visibly forgot him as a white Rolls-Royce with a uniformed chauffeur rolled by. There was no passenger in the car, but she seemed to offer herself to the empty back seat, her face glowing with submissive, craven avidity.
`Well, he won't see me with that kind of please-give-me look,' thought Mark. 'He won't see me beg. I'm not going to him on my knees.' He .5
longed to get away from people and pluck his fortune from the clear blue water.
Coming to a flight of steps leading from the promenade to the beach, he ran down to the sea to get his feet wet. He took off his sneakers, rolled up his jeans, and walked on the wet sand at the moving edge of the water shining with a dull glitter in the dark. The chill that ran through his body made him feel he was being charged with the strength of the earth and the sea, and for an instant he was intensely happy. But then his father's accusation that he didn't have a soul came back to bother him. What was so terrible about asking for a loan? Why, he planned to give away millions — millions! — to people in trouble. And whose pic-ture hung on the wall of whatever little room he could call his own?
Who was the man he admired more than anyone else? Why, General Jose de San Martin, who liberated half of South America from Spanish colonial rule and wanted nothing in return — the brilliant and incorrup-tible leader who was offered the kingdom of Chile and refused it! Mark was certain that only an honorable person could truly appreciate such a man. But then he remembered his library thefts, and thought of Signor-Ma Rognoni's blushing face when he had told her that her help was no use. She must have spent a lot of time hunting through the archives to find the logbook of the Sant'Andrea, and by way of thanks he had made her miserable with a lie.
One moment he saw himself as a monster, the next moment he re-called all the good he planned to do with his wealth, all his sympathies and ideals, which proved conclusively that he was a decent human being.
DANA Niven, who had gone to bed early, was wakened by his son storming into the room.
"How could you say that I don't have a soul?" Mark demanded, pale with indignation.
"What . . .?" asked the poor man miserably. "Do I talk in my sleep?"
"Do you know anyone who works as hard as I do? Whatever I find, I'll have worked years for it. I'm not a parasite. I don't want anything for nothing."
"Who said you did?"
Mark sat down on the edge of his father's bed. "I want to know what you really think of me!" he begged feverishly, biting his lips, ready to listen. Only he could not wait; he got up again to unleash a torrent of words refuting every single critical remark his father had ever made.
Having listened to Mark's self-justifying arguments till dawn, the ac-tor suddenly remembered one of the consolations of leaving his youth behind. "Oh, God," he groaned, "I'd almost forgotten! What a relief it was when I stopped worrying about being good!"
52
THERE is a special torment fate reserves for ambitious and gifted people whose sound ideas and unsparing efforts bring them to the brink of great wealth only to see all their labor rendered null and void by lack of cap-ital.
Mark tried everything.
If he couldn't get money from his father, he would earn it. He would work his way to the Bahamas as a cabin boy or deckhand, take a job on Santa Catalina Island to earn his keep and the cost of equipment, and search for the wreck on his days off.
As soon as they got back to London he went to the Office of the Commissioner for the Bahama Islands to ask about job opportunities.
Since his father had always looked after their documents, he had no idea of the difficulties of settling in a foreign country and obtaining that awe-some piece of paper, the work permit.
"Job opportunities?" The tall young consular official, recently trans-ferred from the tourist office and as beautiful as the Queen of Sheba, had not yet learned the diplomatic art of hiding her feelings, and she laughed slowly and luxuriously, with the unhurried assurance of a woman who knew she had a mouth that drove men insane. "Job opportunities, you say? We have lots of our own people who would like to know about those!"
To obtain a work permit, she explained, he would have to find a local employer who was able to prove that no Bahamian could do the job in-tended for him. "We welcome tourists, of course," she added with a welcoming smile, "but you must have your return ticket on arrival and proof of sufficient funds for your stay."
"Are there no exceptions?"
"There are always exceptions. You're welcome to settle on any of the islands, if you don't have a criminal record and if you don't have to earn your living. All you need is a private income."
"A private income . . . I see," repeated Mark, straining to recover from the blow. "Please, could you tell me what sort of businesses are there on Santa Catalina? Maybe I can convince one of them that they need me."
The Queen of Sheba's huge bright eyes grew even brighter. "Santa Catalina? Say, you know people on the island?"
"No, not yet, but I can't wait to meet them."
She laughed as if Mark had said the funniest thing. "I'm afraid it's a very-very private place. Sir Henry Colville lives there."
"Who is Sir Henry Colville?" Mark hardly ever read the papers, and never bothered with the financial pages. He wanted a fortune, but he wasn't interested in the ins and outs of money.
"You don't know who Sir Henry is?" The Queen of Sheba looked 53
down at him from her superior height. "Well, he's the sort of person who's very particular about his neighbors. Santa Catalina is more or less his private island and he shares it with only a few families, the kind of people he can mix with, if you know what I mean. People a few cuts above millionaires."
"And who might they be?"
She made an 0 with her gorgeous mouth. "People with hundreds of millions. There's a hotel, but that's very-very private too. If they have any job opening, I'm sure they have dozens of Bahamians waiting for it. Don't take it to heart," she added, letting him see the tip of her pink tongue. "You know what they say — if it's not possible, then it's im-possible."
What if the wreck got washed away or buried too deep in the sand before he could get to the island? As Mark listened to her throaty laugh, he understood the terrible truth that rules and regulations can kill.
His father was delighted, though he tried not to show it.
"I can tell you what you could do at that hotel," he suggested. "You could be an interpreter. They must get a lot of tourists from South America and Europe these days, and I don't suppose there are many multilingual Bahamians looking for a place on that godforsaken island, so you could qualify for a work permit. But you would have to be at least a grammar school graduate. You can't expect them to argue with Bahamian Immi-gration for a dumbbell who couldn't finish school."
"Who's a dumbbell?" Mark protested. He was desperate, but in the way the young and healthy are desperate; he despaired of the world, not of himself. "Come on, Dad, I know a lot and I'm intelligent."
"Intelligent!" The actor shook his head mournfully. "Intelligence is no recommendation. Most people haven't the faintest notion of intelli-gence — it could be tall, short, black or blue — if you want to get a good job, any kind of good job anywhere, you need some official proof that you have brains. It seems to me the most sensible thing you could
"Intelligent!" The actor shook his head mournfully. "Intelligence is no recommendation. Most people haven't the faintest notion of intelli-gence — it could be tall, short, black or blue — if you want to get a good job, any kind of good job anywhere, you need some official proof that you have brains. It seems to me the most sensible thing you could