Messiah (21 page)

"But do you think it will?" I asked. "Free speech is still on the books."

Paul chuckled grimly. "That's just where it stays, too." And he quoted the national credo: In a true democracy there is no place for a serious difference of opinion on truly great issues. "Sooner or later they'll try to stop Cave."

"But they can't!" said Iris. "The people won't stand for it."

"He's the father of too many now," said Stokharin sagely. "No son will rise to dispute him, yet."

"No use to get excited in advance." Paul was reasonable. "Now let's get a statement ready for the press."

While Paul and Cave worked over the statement, the rest of us chatted quietly about other problems. Stokharin was just about to explain the origin of alcoholism in terms of the new Cavite pragmatism, when Iris said: "Look!" and pointed to the window where, bobbing against the glass, was a bright red child's balloon on which had been crudely painted: "Jesus Saves."

Stokharin chuckled when he saw it. "Very ingenious. Someone gets on the floor beneath and tries to shake us with his miracle. Now we produce the counter-miracle." He slid the window open. The cold air chilled us all. He took his glowing pipe and jabbed it into the balloon which exploded loudly; then he shut the window beaming. "It will be that easy," he said. "I promise you. A little fire and: pop! they disappear like bad dreams."

Seven

1

The next six months after the directors' meeting were full of activity, and danger. Paul was forced to hire bodyguards to protect Cave from disciples as well as from enemies while the rest of us who were now known publicly as Cave's associates were obliged to protect our privacy with unlisted telephone numbers and numerous other precautions none of which did much good for we were continually harassed by maniacs and interviewers.

The effect Cave had made on the world was larger than even Paul, our one optimist, had anticipated. I believe even Cave himself was startled by the vastness and the variety of the response.

As I recall, seldom did a day pass without some new exposé or interpretation of this phenomenon. Bishop Winston attacked after nearly every telecast. The Catholic Church invoked its entire repertory of anathemas and soon it was whispered in devout Christian circles that the anti-Christ had come at last, sent to test the faith. Yet, despite the barrage of attacks, the majority of those who heard Cave became his partisans and Paul, to my regret but to the delight of everyone else, established a number of Cavite Centers in the major cities of the United States, each provided with a trained staff of analysts who had also undergone an intensive indoctrination in Cavesword. Stokharin headed these clinics with great energy. At Cave's suggestion, one evening a week, the same evening, Cavites would gather to discuss Cavesword, to meditate on the beauty of death, led in their discussions and meditations by a disciple of Cave who was, in the opinion of the directors, equal to the task of representing Cave himself and his word before vast congregations.

Iris was placed in charge of recruiting and training the proselytizers, while Paul handled the business end; obtaining property in different cities and managing the large sums of money which poured in from all over the world. Except for Cave's one encounter with the press that day in the Empire State Building (an occasion which, despite its ominous beginning, became a rare triumph: Cave's magic had worked even with the hostile), he was seen by no one except his intimates and the technicians of the television studio. Ways were found to disguise him so that he would not be noticed in the lobbies or elevators of the television network building. Later he spoke only from his Long Island retreat, his speeches being recorded on film in advance.

By the time summer had arrived, there were over three million registered Cavites in the United States as well as numerous, unorganized believers abroad. Paul was everywhere at once, flying from city to city (accompanied by two guards and a secretary); he personally broke ground in Dallas for what was to be the largest Cavite Center in the United States and although the inaugural ceremonies were nearly stopped by a group of Baptist ladies carrying banners and shouting "Onward Christian Soldiers," no one was hurt and the two oil millionaires who had financed the Center gave a great barbecue on the foundation site which was attended by many distinguished guests.

Iris was entirely changed by her responsibilities. She had become, in the space of a few months, brisk, energetic, as deeply involved in details as a housewife with a new home. I saw very little of her that spring. Her days were mostly spent in a rented loft in the Chelsea district where she lectured the candidates for field work and organized a makeshift system of indoctrination for these potential Residents, as the heads of the various centers were known.

She was extraordinarily well fitted for this work, to my surprise, and before the year ended she had what was in fact a kind of university where as many as three hundred men and women at a time were regularly transformed into Residents and Deputy Residents and so on down through an ever proliferating hierarchy. For the most part, the first men and women we sent out to the country were highly educated, thoughtful people, entirely devoted to Cavesword. They were, I think, the best of all, for later, when it became lucrative to be a Resident, the work was largely taken over by energetic careerists whose very activity and competence diminished their moral effectiveness. Iris used me unmercifully those first months. I lectured her students; I taught philosophy until, in exasperation at the absurdity of
that
, I told her to hire a professional teacher of philosophy which she did.

Yet I enjoyed these men and women. Their sincerity, their excitement communicated itself to me and I became aware of something I had only known before from reading, from hearsay: the religious sense which I so clearly lacked, as did both Paul and Stokharin. I don't think Cave really possessed it either because, although he believed entirely in himself and in the miraculous truth of his word, he did not possess that curious power to identify himself with creation, to transcend the self in contemplation of an abstraction, to sacrifice the personality to a mystical authority; none of us, save Iris in love, possessed this power which, as nearly as I can get at it, is the religious sense in man. I learned about it only from those who came to learn from us in that Chelsea loft. In a sense, I pitied them for I knew that much of what they evidently believed with such passion was wrong but, at the same time, I was invigorated by their enthusiasm, by the hunger with which they devoured Cavesword, by the dignity which their passion lent an enterprise that in Paul's busy hands resembled more often than not, a cynical commercial venture. And I recognized in them (oh, very early, perhaps in the first weeks of talking to them) that, in their goodness and their love they would, with Cavesword, smudge as it turned each bright new page of life; yet, suspecting this, I did not object nor did I withdraw. Instead, fascinated, I was borne by the tide to the shore ahead whose every rock I could imagine, sharp with disaster.

Once a week the directors met on Long Island in the walled estate where Cave now lived with his guards (his host had thoughtfully moved elsewhere until Cave chose for him to return).

The meetings soon demonstrated a division in our ranks between Paul and Stokharin on the one side and Iris, Clarissa and Cave on the other with myself as partisan, more often than not, to Cave. The division was amiable but significant. Paul and Stokharin wanted to place the Centers directly under the supervision of the analysts while the rest of us, led by Iris (Cave seldom intervened, but we had accepted already the fact that Iris spoke for him), preferred that the Centers be governed by the Residents. "It is certainly true that the therapists are an important part of each Center," said Iris briskly, at the end of a long wrangle with Stokharin. "But these are Cavite Centers and not clinics for the advancement of post-Jungian analysis. It is Cavesword which draws people to the Centers, not mental illness. Those who have problems are of course helped by Stokharin's people but, finally, it is Cave who has made it possible for them to face death. Something no one has done before." And thus the point was won in our council though Stokharin and Paul were still able at times, slyly, to insinuate their own creatures into important Residencies.

My own work went on fitfully. I composed an answer to Bishop Winston which brought down on my head a series of ecclesiastical thunderbolts, each louder than the one before. I wrote a short life of Cave in simple declarative sentences which enjoyed a considerable success for many years and, finally, seriously, my first attempt at a real counter-attack, I began the several dialogues in which Cave and I purportedly traversed the entire field of moral action.

I felt that in these dialogues I could quietly combat those absolutist tendencies which I detected in the disciples. Cave himself made no pretense of being final on any subject other than death where, even without his particular persuasiveness, he stood on firm, even traditional ground. The attacks he received he no longer noticed. It was as simple as that. He'd never enjoyed reading and to watch others make telecasts bored him, even when they spoke of him. After the fateful Empire State Building conference he ceased to attend the world; except for a few letters which Paul forwarded to him and his relations with us, he was completely cut off from ordinary life, and perfectly happy. For though human contacts had been reduced to a minimum, he still possessed the polished glass eye of the world before whose level gaze he appeared once a week and experienced what he called: "Everyone: all of them, listening and watching everywhere."

In one year he had come a long way from the ex-embalmer who had studied a book of newspaper clippings on a Washington farm and brooded about an old man in a hospital. Though Paul was never to refer again to the victim of Cave's driving, I was quite sure that he expected, sooner or later, it would return to haunt us all.

By midsummer, however, Cave had grown restless and bored and since the telecasts had been discontinued until the following November, he was eager to travel. He was never to lose his passion for places. It was finally decided that he spend the summer on one of the Florida keys, a tiny island owned by a Cavite who offered to place everything at Cave's disposal. And, though warned that the heat might be uncomfortable, Cave and his retinue left secretly one night by chartered seaplane from Long Island Sound and for at least a month the press did not know what had happened to him. I declined to accompany Cave and Iris. Paul remained in New York while Iris's work was temporarily turned over to various young enthusiasts, trained by her. I went back to the Hudson Valley, to my house and . . .

2

I've not been able to write for several days. According to the doctor, it is a touch of heat but I suspect that this is only his kind euphemism.

I had broken off in my narrative to take a walk in the garden last Friday afternoon when I was joined by Butler whose attentions lately have been more numerous than I should like.

"He'll be here Sunday, Hudson. Why don't we all three have dinner together that night and celebrate."

I said nothing could give me more pleasure, as I inched along the garden path, moving toward the hot shaded center where, beneath fruit trees, a fine statue of Osiris stood, looted in earlier days by the hotel management from one of the temples. I thought, however, with more longing of the bench beside the statue than of the figure itself whose every serene detail I'd long since memorized. Butler adjusted his loose long stride to my own uneven pace. I walked as I always do now with my eyes upon the ground, nervously avoiding anything which might make me stumble for I have fallen down a number of times in the last few years and I have a terror of broken bones, the particular scourge of old bodies.

I was as glad as not that I didn't have to watch my companion while we chatted, for his red honest face, forever dripping sweat, annoyed me more than was reasonable.

"And he'll be pleased to know I've got us a Center. Not much of one but good enough for a start."

I paused before a formidable rock which lay directly in my path. It would take some doing to step over it, I thought, as I remarked, "I'm sure the Pasha doesn't know about this."

"Not really." Butler laughed happily. "He thinks we're just taking a house for ourselves to study the local culture. Later, after we get going, he can find out."

"I should be very careful," I said and, very careful myself, I stepped over the rock: my legs detested the extra exertion; one nearly buckled as it touched the ground. I threw my weight on my cane and was saved a fall. Butler had not noticed.

"Jessup is going to bring in the literature. We'll say it's our library. All printed in Arabic, too. The Dallas Center thinks of everything."

"Are they . . . equipped for such things?"

"Oh yes. That's where the main university is now. Biggest one in the world. I didn't go there myself. Marks weren't good enough, but Jessup did. He'll tell you all about it. Quite a crew they turn out: best in the business but then they get the cream of the crop to begin with."

"Tell me, are the Residents still in charge of the Centers or do they share the administration with the therapists?"

"Therapists?" Butler seemed bewildered.

"In the old days there used to be the Resident and his staff and then a clinic attached where . . ."

"You really are behind the times." Butler looked at me as though I'd betrayed a first-hand knowledge of earth's creation. "All Residents and their staffs, including the Communicators like myself, get the same training; part of it is in mental therapy. Others who show particular aptitude for it are assigned clinical work just as I do communication work in foreign countries. People who get to be Residents are usually teachers and administrators. Sometimes a Communicator gets a Residency in his old age as a reward for the highest services." He then explained to me the official, somewhat Byzantine structure of the Cavites. There were many new titles, indicating a swollen organization under the direction of a Counsel of Residents which, in turn, was responsible for the election from among their number of a unique Chief Resident whose reign lasted for the remainder of his lifetime.