128
PARTISAN REVIEW
crime! Help me! You have to help me! Oh, in case you are wondering how
I escaped, I had a steel file in my hand. The audience saw it in close- up. I
cut through the ropes. I slashed through the sack. Then I swam to George
Sanders, who was waiting for the signal to blow up the fleet. [ attacked
him with juji tsu, wi th judo. Right on the chin! [f only this were a picture.
In pictures ['m fearless. Alas, this is real life. Magda! Do you know what
real life is full of? Doubts! And fears! Why did the Germans let me take
those pictures? Why was [ allowed into Germany at all? Did they want to
let me in on their secret? What do you think? [s it an excuse to kill me?
The way they killed that girl? That Geli? We used a water tank. The whole
picture was shot on the lot. The camels and fezzes and the streets of Port
Said. But there was no extra in the water. That was me. With my buck
teeth, like a beaver. With my Wildroot hair."
The next time up we didn't go to the top but stopped at the fifth
floor, one beneath the Fiihrer's. Moreover, when we descended we didn't
reach the bottom, but halted at the second. And when we rose again we
only went as far as the fourth. It had finally begun to dawn upon me what
was occurring less than a yard from where [ stood. [ turned away my eyes.
[ put out my arms, so as to brace myself against the walls of the lift, which,
from Magdalena's exertions, had started to rock. Now I didn't allow
myself the least of pauses; if I did so there was no way to avoid hearing
the way she gasped with pleasure as she drew in her breath.
"Maybe I'm lying about my motives. Maybe I'm not so high-minded.
I might be fooling myself, I admit it. Listen, Magda . If [ have to do anoth–
er Moto it will kill me. If it doesn't kill me I'll commit hara- kiri. This
summer I finished my work in Huston's new picture. The remake of
Maltese Falcon.
We open next month in New York. I'm going to get raves.
I'm going to be offered a Warner's contract. It's the way out of the sack!
Out of the elevator! You've simply got to help me! You've got to come
back! I've seen the script they'll give me if you don' t.
Mr. Mota Meets the
Sphinx.
Oh, my God. My God. Back to Egypt! People are dying from a
new kind of plague, of poison, only it's an old kind, and - can you believe
this? - the antidote is buried inside the Pyramid of Cheops! They want
me to take a time machine so that I can learn the secret formula from the
Pharaoh himself. Meanwhile here we are in the twentieth century in the
middle of a tragedy. What's going to happen in the city of Kiev? It's sur–
rounded. It's overrun. They will slaughter tens of thousands of Jews. If
they're going to have a time machine, why do I have go back to the Fourth
Dynasty, for pity's sake? Let Moto travel to the 1880s, as a peddler or a
gardener or a household servant. He's good at that. A master of disguises!
Time for your tea, honorable Mister Schicklgruber.
Or,
How does the honorable lady
wish me to prepare her pork sausage, her pork dumplings, her pig's feet, her bacon?
