Read The Condition of Muzak Online
Authors: Michael Moorcock
The Condition of Muzak (31 page)
“Where did they come from, Mum?” Jerry asked. “Ireland? There were a lot of Irish moved in here, didn’t they—because of the convents?”
“Some finks Ireland—but this area’s orlways ’ad a lot o’ immigrants in it—Dutch, Italian, German, Swedish, French—it’s a common name. English an’ all. Wot abart
that
fer a tale o’ scandals, then? Incest on top a bloody incest, eh? D’yer believe it?” Her eyes glittered.
“Every word,” he said. “I’m glad it’s cleared up the mystery of my birth.”
She bawled with laughter. “Yer sarcy sod! Ker-ker-ker.”
“Others did well for themselves, did they?” He frowned. His mother never took him seriously.
“Oh, yers. One got a knight’ood, one opened a department store, anuvver started a rest’rant—gold mines, ships, factories, greengrocers—yer’ve on’y got ter name it! There wos a doctor or two an’ all—an’ some of ther girls married inter the English aristocracy. They spread all over, ther Corneliuses!” She gasped and laughed again. “Like muck! Like a fuckin’ plague, eh? Har, har, har, ker-ker-ker-fuck!”
Blood really was coming from her mouth now. Jerry helped her sit upright. Her body shook. Her skin sagged as if she shrank within it. “Oh, fuckin ’ell. Oh, fuckin’ ’ell. Jerry. ’Ere, did Caff tell yer?” She struggled. Her eyes ran with tears; her make-up smeared. She looked like an eight-year-old. She was full of fear. “Did she? Don’ let ’er ’ave it, Jer.”
“Have what, Mum?” He was distracted, holding her in one arm and trying to reach for the glass of Lucozade with his free hand. “Eh?”
“Ther baby…” Her frame reared in his grasp. “Yore fuckin’ bastard baby.” She began to cough but was too weak. Her body quivered. The fear fled. She grinned. “Yer got ter larf, incha?”
“Drink this, Mum. I’ll go and get the doctor.” He was weeping. He knew she was dying.
She cuddled against his chest, like a baby animal. She sighed. It took him a few moments to realise that she had not breathed in. She grew cold. He kissed her stiff, lacquered hair, the powder of her face, and then he was calm, standing up, pulling the sheet to her chin, kneeling to feel under the bed and pull out the box.
It was too dark to see properly in the bedroom and he did not like to turn on the light. He carried the cheap wooden writing chest into the other room and put it on the table in the window. He looked out, over the top of the area, through railings at the blocks of new flats. He shrugged and used the key to open the box. It folded back into a surface on which one could write, each half of the surface being the lid of a section. He pulled up the top flap, using the little loop of string his mother had nailed there, in place of the original tag. There was a bundle of papers amongst the cuttings of advertisements, beauty treatments, anecdotes his mother had accumulated or inherited from her mother. They stretched back more than a hundred years, to 1865. He took out the bundle and set it aside. He opened the bottom flap. There was a fairly new book there which he had bought while researching his part of a year or two earlier. It was called
Pantomime, A Story in Pictures
, by Mander and Mitchenson, published in 1973. He was puzzled. It was not like his mother to keep any book, let alone this one. Perhaps she had intended to sell it. He turned his attention to the bundle. He was very close to breaking down.
He fingered the papers, secured by rubber bands. He turned to call back into the cold, dark bedroom. “Don’t worry, Mum—old Corneliuses never die—they just fade into someone else. There’s too bloody many of us, eh?”
He was certain that he had heard her chuckle. He jumped up and went back to look into the bedroom, but she had not moved. She lay dead in her bed.
He returned to the table. He pulled the bands from the bundle. The bands were so old that they had perished and fell away beneath his fingers.
He found some photographs, very faded, of himself and Frank and Catherine when they were children. They had been at Brighton and had had their photographs taken in a booth, poking their heads through holes above cutout figures so that it looked as if they were three pierrots, with children’s faces and adult’s bodies, on the pier. Their mother, standing beside them, looked far more innocent than her children, just as she looked now. She had been thinner, then, too. He found a marriage certificate for his mother’s wedding.
Honoria Persson married to Jeremiah Cornelius at the Parish Church in the Parish of Tooting in the County of London on 22 July 1944 according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church after Banns by me, Wilfred H. Houghton, Curate
. At least he seemed legitimate, he thought. He could find no birth certificate for either his mother or the three children, though she had said his would be there. Perhaps she had been thinking of the marriage certificate. He found ticket stubs for his first appearance at the Prince of Wales Theatre as the vampire in
Soul of Frankenstein
, which had run for a week. He found ticket stubs for Catherine’s early appearances in the Jupiter Theatre repertory company, where she had met Una Persson and Elizabeth Nye. There was a Royal Première programme for
Queen Christina
, the successful follow-up to
Camille
, which his mother had attended in full regalia, outshining anything the Royal Family could produce. There was a programme for
Twelfth Night
, decorated with a Heath Robinson jester and a phrase from the play—
A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain. But that’s all one, our play is done, And we’ll strive to please you every day
—in which Una Persson had appeared as Viola and he as Sebastian. There was a number of other programmes and tickets, all of them connected with the careers of himself or his sister. There was a film company hand-out, giving the synopsis of a bad science fiction film in which he had appeared for a few seconds, as an extra, and on this had been scrawled a peculiar doodle, apparently in his own hand. He could remember nothing of it. He held it closer to the light from the window, trying to see if it made any sense at all. As he lifted it, his brother’s staring face appeared, grinning at his with comforting malevolence.
Jerry got up from the table and went to let Frank in. He opened the door, lifting the handle so that it would not scrape on the floor as it usually did. “She’s dead,” he said.
“Catherine?”
“No, Mum.”
Frank made a small, unpleasant sound and went to check.
Jerry again picked up the dirty hand-out:
He screwed it up and let it fall on the floor, then he called goodbye to his sobbing brother and left the basement, climbing aboard his Phantom, on his way to find Catherine. He turned on the stereo. The Beatles were singing ‘Hello, Goodbye’ again. The sky was dark grey. He switched on the windscreen wipers. It was raining heavily. He, too, had begun to cry by the time he reached Greyfriars Bridge, on his way to Blackheath, the bearer of bad news for the mother of his unborn son.
The following is reprinted from
The Nature of the Catastrophe
, London 1971:
This chronology begins with the convenient date of 1900, but there is evidence to support the existence of a Jerry Cornelius even in pre-Christian times (the first significant reference, of course, is the famous one in Virgil!) just as there is evidence to say he did not appear on the scene until much later. We are not here suggesting, for instance, that a child of one year could have been a spy during the South African War. The chronology merely lists well-supported references to Cornelius. It does not propose that they can possibly refer to the same individual!
The Compilers
1900
18 December
Birth of a boy, christened Jeremiah Cornelius, at the Bon Secours convent, Guatemala City. Mother died: father unknown. He lived in the convent until the age of about six when he was transferred to a monastery school some distance from the city. (Letter to David Redd of Haverford West from Sister Maria Eugene of the Bon Secours convent, who died in 1960.)
1901
25 January
Boer War double agent known as ‘Cornelius’ caught and shot by a party of Boers under Commandant Pretorius, about two miles west of Jericho, Transvaal. (Dispatch from Pretorius to Kruger.)
1903
9 April
Log of the SS
Maureen Key
reports picking up an English-speaking seaman in Bay of Biscay about noon. Seaman was adrift in small boat and was incoherent. Name: Jerry—possibly Cornell or Carnell, Carmelion or Cornelius. Was handed over to port authorities in Bilbao but disappeared shortly afterwards having stolen a coat and a piece of meat.
14 October
Catholic mission in Djelfa, Algeria, contracts plague of unknown origin and all die. Scrawled on the side of the confessional are letters JE CORNELIU, plainly recently written by the monk who had been acting as Confessor when overcome by the disease. (
Le Monde Catholique
, 30 October.)
1904
24 January
Programme of the Empire Theatre, Leicester Place. The Grand Spectacular Tableau, No. 7 on the bill—‘The Treasure Island of Monte Cristo’: the part of Edmund Dantes played by Mnsr J. Cornelius. At No. 10 on the bill Mdlle Marguerite Corneille, Comédienne.
14 October
The St Petersburg uprising. A list of arrested “foreign elements” issued by the Okharna (secret police) includes a Jeremiah Cornelius (thought to be a pseudonym). It is unclear whether he was deported or executed. (Burns Collection.)
1905
November
Reports from the Carpathian Mountains in Romania that a bandit—“perhaps an Englishman”—called Jeremiah Cornelius has been operating there for more than a year, organising several bandit gangs into a single force. (Records of Transylvanian Central Police Bureau now at the Austrian War Museum, Vienna.)
1907
16 February
Reference to a Jerzy Cornelius in list of thirty prisoners tried by military court as Socialist Democrat terrorists, St Petersburg. All found guilty and shot. (Burns Collection.)
8 July
Rouveniemi, northern Finland. A gang of criminals thought to be Russian nihilists rob several banks, a post office, several shops and are thought to have escaped by train. One suspect, a Russian Jew calling himself Bronsky, claimed that the leader of the gang was known only by the name of ‘Cornelius’. The Russian thought the leader was probably a Swede. (
Dagbladet
, Sweden, 12 July.)
8 October
“A young man of well-bred appearance, speaking Danish with a French accent, giving the name of Jeremiah Cornelius and his country of origin as Australia, formally accused of indecent assault by Miss Ingeborg Brunner at the 11th Precinct Police Station, Göteborg, last night. So far police have failed to arrest the accused.” (Dispatch sent by Thomas Dell to
Sydney Herald
.) The story was not published, although a subsequent cable informed the newspaper that Miss Brunner had dropped the charges. (
Sydney Herald
correspondence files.)
12 November
The journal of Yüan Shih-k’ai, Commissioner of Trade for the Northern Ports, China, notes the employment of a Captain J. Cornelius, described as “an American soldier of fortune”, to “help in the training of officers for the Peiyang Army”, Tientsin. It appears that Yüan Shih-k’ai’s commission was later countermanded, but that an appeal to the Empress Dowager reinstated Cornelius, though his position with the Peiyang Army became poorly defined. When, in 1909, Yüan was dismissed from office, his American protégé, on leave in Shanghai, disappeared. (
The Journals of Yüan Shih-k’ai
, edited with an introduction by Prof. Michael Lucy Smith, Collett Press, 1942.)
1908
19 February
Calcutta. Aurobindo Ghose of the extremist Nationalist Party records that Tilak, leader of the party, sent “a Eurasian called Cornelius with a message” to Congress leader Gokhale, a moderate. Gokhale never replied to the message which, Ghose thought, contained some suggestion of a secret meeting, but Cornelius was later arrested in a waterfront brothel where he had disguised himself as a woman. He was charged with the attempted assassination of Gokhale’s close associate, Shastri. “A meaningless action,” comments Ghose. There is no reference to the result of any trial. (Ghose, India’s Lost Opportunity, Asia Publishing Co., Bombay, 1932.)
13 April
Afghanistan. Dispatch from Colonel R.C. Gordon commanding 25th Cavalry Frontier Force. Rumours that dissident hill tribes are united under a quasi-religious chief who appears to be of European or Eurasian ancestry and is referred to variously as Elia Khan, Shah Elia or Cornelius. “A tall man with burning eyes who rides better than any tribesman and who has already cost us some fifty men, including three lieutenants and our Risaldar Major.” Colonel Gordon asked for reinforcements but died with the rest of his post when it was wiped out two days later. (Michelson, ‘Lords of the North West Frontier’,
Strand Magazine
, April 1912.)
1909
30 March
A man known only as ‘the English assassin Cornelius’ is arrested in Innsbruck after hurling a bomb at the Kronprinz Frederik of Statz-Pulitzberg whose horse reared in time so that the bomb missed and exploded in the crowd. The assassin later escaped under circumstances which indicated help (or even orders) from someone highly placed in the government. (
Daily Mail
, 2 April.)
17 May
Secret dispatch from Captain Werner von K. (probably Koenig) dated Linz, 17 May, to Ludendorff of the German General Staff, Berlin: “I am sending to you Herr Cornelius, who has convinced me that he can supply much exact information concerning our good neighbours!” (Records in Berlin Military Museum Document PRS-188.)
1910
29 January
Gustav Krupp writes to his chief ordnance technician Fritz Rausenberger: “You were quite right to employ the Herr Doktor Cornelius. His efforts have contributed greatly to the speedier development of our new gun. Please convey to him the firm’s congratulations.” (Krupp correspondence files.)
1911
22 May
Passenger list of the SS
Hope Dempsey
, leaving Southampton 22 May, bound for Rangoon, via Aden, Karachi, Bombay and Madras, gives a Mr Jeremiah Cornelius (who later disembarked at Port Said).
August
Sir James Keen, an amateur archaeologist exploring ruins in Chad, reports meeting a fellow Englishman in the town of Massakori. “A tall, youngish chap, very brown, affecting native dress and living, apparently as the sheik’s chief lieutenant, with one of the tribes of armoured nomad horsemen. He was civil, but reticent about his origins, offering me only his local name, which I did not catch. However, I learned the day after he had left that he was regarded by the French as one of the most painful thorns in their sides and that the garrison at Fort-Lamy had orders to shoot him on sight, no matter what the circumstances. I was informed that his name was Gerard Cornelius and that he was a deserter from the Foreign Legion.” (
The Lost Civilisations of Africa
, Harrap, 1913, p. 708.)
2 November
Report of Lieutenant Kurt von Winterfeld, commanding a company of Protectorate Troops stationed temporarily at Makung on the Njong River, Cameroons, states that a European called Cornelius was shot while attempting to steal the steam launch serving the garrison. He had passed himself off as a German trader in order to board the vessel, but von Winterfeld suspected that he was an English spy. His body fell into the water and was not recovered. (
German Imperial Year Book for 1911
.)
1912
7 March
The Bight of Biafra. The
Santa Isabella
, a Portuguese schooner, hailed by a European sailing a dhow. The European gave his name as Cornelius and offered to work his passage to Parades, the ship’s home port. In Parades Cornelius was believed to have transferred to the
Manité
, an American barque bound for Charleston via Boston. (Log of the
Santa Isabella
.)
1 June
Captain Simons of the
Manité
records loss of the seaman Cornelius overboard three miles off Nantucket in heavy seas. (Log of the
Manité
.)
13 November
Discovery of a cabin, recently built, on Tower Island, Galapagos, by crew of an Indian fishing boat blown off course and seeking shelter. No sign of cabin’s occupant. Indians frightened, left island as quickly as possible after one of them, a half-caste known as ‘Cortez’, had taken an empty metal box bearing the lettering ‘Asst. Comm. J. Cornelius, Sandakan’. (Journals of Father Estaban, San Lorenzo mission, San Domingo, Ecuador.)
27 November
An English engineer Jeremiah Cornelius offers his services to help in the completion of the Panama Canal but cannot produce satisfactory references. He is not employed. Later, parts of the canal near Cristoban are dynamited. Colombian guerrillas are suspected. Manager of the Company hears rumours that Cornelius is working with the Colombians. (Records of the Panama Canal Co.)
1913
5 April
United States troops in Nicaragua attacked by a well-organised band of ‘nationalist’ terrorists in several areas around Lake Nicaragua. US marines in Granada are wiped out and all arms, including several artillery pieces, stolen. Interrogation of suspects reveals that the terrorists are said to be led by an American, Jerry Cornelius. (Records of US Marine Corps.)
30 October
Peking. The missionary Ulysses Paxton mentions a conversation between himself and Liu Fang of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Referring to the possible conversion of the military leader Feng Yü-hsiang (later to be known as the “Christian General”), Liu told Paxton that a certain “Father Cornelius” had been responsible for Feng’s interest in Christianity. Neither Paxton nor Liu knew of a missionary of that name in the area, though Liu had heard it said that the so-called “White Wolf”, a remarkably intelligent and powerful bandit leader who had taken to roaming north-central China in the wake of the Second Revolution, was rumoured to be an ex-Catholic missionary called Kang Na Lu (“Acting with High Resolve”) or Cornelius. (
Devil against Devil
by Ulysses M. Paxton, Grossett and Dunlap, NY 1916, p. 179.)
1914
Summer
The White Wolf, pursued by Feng’s and other armies, is killed in Shensi during a pitched battle between his men and ‘government’ troops. Feng weeps beside the corpse and repeats the name ‘Cornelius’ over and over again. “Later he ordered the body burned, but it had been stolen, presumably by survivors of the White Wolf’s band.” (
North China Herald
, 25 August.)
1915
May
Rumours of the White Wolf’s reappearance in Kansu. In Kungchang Mission, Father King, an American priest, lends rail fare to a fellow missionary, Father Dempsey, who claims to have been the captive of a bandit gang. Father King notes the initials J.C. on the other priest’s bag. Father Dempsey claims that the bag belonged to a fellow missionary, Father Cornelius, who was killed by the bandits. Father Dempsey boarded train for Haichow and Father King comments on his surprising fitness, his apparent youth, his brilliant eyes. (Letter to Father King’s sister, Maureen O’Reilly of Brooklyn, 8 June.)
3 August
During the famous Okhotsk Raid (thought to be inspired by Germany), two of the attacking gunboats were sunk before the defender’s batteries were put out of action. The commander of a Russian launch heard the name Cornelius shouted several times during this engagement and gathered that this was the name of the officer in charge of the raid. He assumed the name to be German (although Germany continued to deny responsibility for the raid long after the end of the war). Upon the surrender of the garrison, the attackers disembarked, imprisoned all military personnel, and looted the city of most of its food, treasure and arms. The name Cornelius was heard by civilian witnesses who thought it referred to the tall man in elaborate Chinese dress who wore an ivory mask, carried no weapons, and appeared to supervise the pillage of Okhotsk. (
Report of the Official Committee Investigating the Fall of Okhotsk
, St Petersburg, March 1916, pp. 306–9.)
1916
4 February
Sale by Henrik van der Gees of Samarana, Java, of his estates (inc. rubber plantations and tin mines) throughout the East Indies. To: Mnr Jeremiah Cornelius, a Dutch banker. The estate was the largest singly held property in the East Indies and was sold for a disclosed sum of eighteen million guilders. (Samarana Land Office records.)
17 August
The Cornelius estate made a public company, the managing director being a Francis Cornelius, believed to be the brother of the purchaser who has returned to Rotterdam. The chairman is given as a Herr Schomberg of Sourabaya. (
Die Gids
, Batavia, 20 August.)
1917
14 July
Parish register for St Saviour’s Church, Clapham, records the marriage of a Captain Jeremiah Cornelius, RFC, to a Miss Catherine Cornell, respectively of Nos 32 and 34 Clapham Common South. Captain Cornelius was on a forty-eight hour leave and returned to France immediately after the marriage. (Note: There is no record of a Captain Jeremiah Cornelius having served with the Royal Flying Corps.)