“I’ve made you angry,” Clarissa pretended contrition. “I was only
trying to compliment you. What I meant was that the sort of thing
you’re doing I think is nonsense only because action is what counts,
action on any level ... not theorizing.”
“There’s a certain action to _thinking_, you know, even to writing
about the thoughts of others.”
“Oh, darling, don’t sound so stuffy. Your dessert, by the way, poisons
the liver. Oh, isn’t that Bishop Winston over there by the door, in
tweed? In mufti, eh, Bishop?”
The Bishop, who was passing our table in the company of a handsomely
pale youth whose contemplation of orders shone in his face like some
cherished sin, stopped and, with a smile, shook Clarissa’s hand.
“Ah, how are you? I missed you the other night at Agnes’s. She told me
you’ve been engaged in social work.”
“A euphemism, Bishop.” Clarissa introduced me and the prelate moved on
to his table, a robust gray-haired man with good coloring and a look of
ease.
“Catholic?”
“No, Episcopal. I like them the best, I think. They adore society
and good works ... spiritual Whigs you might call them, a civilizing
influence. Best of all, so few of them believe in God, unlike the
Catholics or those terrible Calvinist peasants who are forever saving
themselves and damning others.”
“I think, Clarissa, you’re much too hard on the Episcopalians. I’m sure
they must believe what they preach. At least the clergy do.”
“Well, we shall probably never know. Social work! I knew Agnes would
come up with something altogether wrong. Still, I’m just as glad it’s
not out yet. Not until the big debut tomorrow afternoon. I hope you’ve
made arrangements to be near a television set. No? Then come to my
place and we’ll see it together. Cave’s asked us both to the station,
by the way, but I think it better if we not distract him.”
“Iris came East with him?”
“Indeed she did. They both arrived last night. I thought you’d talked
to her.”
“No. I haven’t been in touch with either of them since I got back to
New York. Paul’s the only one I ever see.”
“He keeps the whole thing going, I must say. One of those born
organizers. Now! what about you and Iris?”
This came so suddenly, without preparation, that it took me a
suspiciously long time to answer, weakly: “I don’t know what you mean.
What about Iris and me?”
“Darling, I know _everything_.” She looked at me in her eager,
predatory way: I was secretly pleased that, in this particular case at
least, she knew nothing.
“Then tell _me_.”
“You’re in love with her and she’s classically involved with Cave.”
“Classical seems to be the wrong word. Nothing has happened and nothing
_will_ happen.”
“I suppose she told you this herself.”
I was trapped for a moment. Clarissa, even in error, was shrewd and if
one was not on guard she would quickly cease to be in error, at one’s
expense.
“No, not exactly; but Paul who does, I think, know everything about
our affairs assures me that nothing has happened, that Cave is not
interested in women.”
“In men?”
“I thought you were all-knowing. No, not in men nor in wild animals
nor, does it seem, from the evidence Paul’s collected, in anything
except John Cave. Sex does not happen for him.”
“Oh,” said Clarissa, exhaling slowly, significantly, inscrutably. She
abandoned her first line of attack to ask: “But _you_ are crazy about
Iris, aren’t you? That’s what I’d intended, you know, when I brought
you two together.”
“I thought it was to bring me into Cave’s orbit.”
“That, too, but somehow I saw you and Iris ... well, you’re obviously
going to give me no satisfaction so I shall be forced to investigate on
my own.”
“Not to sound too auctorial, too worried, do you think it will get Cave
across? the introduction here?”
“I see no reason why not. Look at the enormous success of those
books with tides like 'Eternal Bliss Can Be Yours for the Asking’ or
'Happiness at Your Beck-and-Call.’”
“I’m a little more ambitious.”
“Not in the least. But the end served is the same. You got down the
main line of Cave’s thinking, if it can be called thinking. And your
book, along with his presence, should have an extraordinary effect.”
“Do you really think so? I’ve begun to doubt.”
“Indeed I do. They are waiting ... all those sad millions who want
to believe will find him exactly right for their purposes. He exists
only to be believed in. He’s a natural idol ... did you know that when
Constantine moved his court to the East, his heirs were trained by
Eastern courtiers to behave like idols and when his son came in triumph
back to Rome (what a day that was! hot, but exciting) he rode for hours
through the crowded streets without once moving a finger or changing
expression, a perfectly trained god. We were all so impressed ...”
I cut this short. “Has it occurred to you that they might not want to
believe anything, just like you and me.”
“Nonsense ... and it’s rude to interrupt, dear, even a garrulous relic
like myself ... yet after all, in a way, we _do_ believe what Cave
says. Death is there and he makes it seem perfectly all right, oblivion
and the rest of it. And dying does rather upset a lot of people.
Have you noticed one thing that the devoutly superstitious can never
understand is the fact that though we do not accept the fairy tale of
reward or punishment beyond the grave we still are reluctant to 'pass
on,’ as the nuts say? As though the prospect of nothing isn’t really,
in a way, without friend Cave to push one into acceptance, perfectly
ghastly, _much_ worse than toasting on a grid like that poor saint up
north. But now I must fly. Come to the apartment at seven and I’ll give
you dinner. He’s on at eight. Afterwards they’ll all join us.” Clarissa
flew.
I spent the afternoon gloomily walking up and down Fifth Avenue filled
with doubt and foreboding, wishing now that I had never lent myself to
the conspiracy, confident of its failure and of the rude laughter or,
worse, the tactful silence of friends who would be astonished to find
that after so many years of promise and reflection my first book should
prove to be an apologia for an obscure evangelist whose only eminence
was that of having mesmerized myself and an energetic publicist, among
a number of others more likely perhaps than we, to take to a crank.
The day did nothing to improve my mood and it was in a most depressed
state that I went finally to Clarissa’s baroque apartment on one of the
better streets and dined with her quietly, infecting her, I was darkly
pleased to note, with my own grim mood. By the time Cave was announced
on the vast television screen, I had reduced Clarissa, for one of the
few times in our acquaintance, to silence.
Yet as the lights in the room mechanically dimmed, as the screen grew
bright with color and an announcer came into focus, I was conscious of
a quickening of my pulse, of a certain excitement. Here it was at last,
the result of nearly a year’s careful planning. Soon, in a matter of
minutes, we would know.
To my surprise Paul Himmell was introduced by the announcer who
identified him perfunctorily, saying that the following half hour had
been bought by Cavite, Inc.
Paul spoke briefly, earnestly. He was nervous, I could see, and
his eyes moved from left to right disconcertingly as he read his
introduction from cards out of view of the camera. He described Cave
briefly as a teacher, as a highly regarded figure in the West. He
implied it was as a public service, the rarest of philanthrophies, that
a group of industrialists and businessmen were sponsoring Cave this
evening.
Then Paul walked out of range of the camera leaving, briefly, a view of
a chair and a table behind which a handsome blue velvet curtain fell in
rich graceful folds from the invisible ceiling to an imitation marble
floor. An instant later, Cave walked into view.
Both Clarissa and I leaned forward in our chairs tensely, eagerly,
anxiously: we were there as well as he. This was our moment too. My
hands grew cold and my throat dry.
Cave was equal to the moment. He looked tall: the scale of the table,
the chair was exactly right. He wore a dark suit and a dark unfigured
tie with a white shirt that gave him an austereness which, in person,
he lacked. I saw Paul’s stage-managing in this.
He moved easily into range, his eyes cast down. Not until he had placed
himself in front of the table and the camera had squarely centered him,
did he look up, look directly into the lens. Clarissa gasped and I felt
suddenly pierced: the camera, the lights had magnified rather than
diminished his power. It made no difference now what he said. The magic
was working.
Clarissa and I sat in the twilight of her drawing room, entirely
concentrated on that vivid screen, on the dark figure upon rich blue,
on the pale eyes and the hands which seldom moved. It was like some
fascinating scene in a skillful play which, quite against one’s wish
and aesthetic judgment, pulled one to it, became, at least for that
short time beyond real time, a part of one’s own private drama of
existence, all sharpened by artifice, by calculated magic.
Not until Cave was nearly finished did those first words of his, spoken
so easily, so quietly, begin to come back to me as he repeated them
in his coda. His voice increasing a little in volume, yet still not
hurrying, not forcing, not breaking the mood which his first glance
had created and which voice and eyes together maintained without once
letting go. The burden of his words was, as always, the same. Yet this
time it seemed more awesome, more final, undeniable ... in short, the
truth. Though I’d always accepted his first premise, I had never been
much impressed by the ways he found of stating it, even though I always
responded to his particular power. This night, before the camera and in
the sight of millions, he perfected his singular art of communication
and the world was his.
When he finished, Clarissa and I sat for a moment in complete silence,
the chirping of a commercial the only sound in the room. At last she
said: “The brandy is over there on the console. Get me some.” Then
she switched off the screen from her chair and the lights of the room
brightened again.
“I feel dragged through a wringer,” she said after her first mouthful
of brandy.
“I had no idea it would work so well, like this, on television.” I felt
strangely empty, let down. There was hardly any doubt now of Cave’s
effectiveness yet I felt joyless and depleted, as though part of my
life had gone, leaving an ache.
“What a time we’re going to have.” Clarissa was beginning to recover.
“I’ll bet there are a million letters by morning and Paul will be doing
a jig.”
“I hope this is the right thing, Clarissa. It would be terrible if it
weren’t.”
“Of course it’s right ... whatever _that_ means: if it works it’s right
... perfectly simple. Such conceptions are all a matter of fashion
anyway. One year women expose only their ankle; the next year their
_derrière_. What’s right one year is wrong the next. If Cave captures
the popular imagination, he’ll be right until someone better comes
along.”
“A little cynical.” But Clarissa was only repeating my own usual line.
I was, or had been until that night on the Washington farm, a contented
relativist. Cave, however, had jolted me into new ways and I was
bewildered by the change, by the prospect ahead.
2
That evening was a time of triumph, at least for Cave’s companions.
They arrived noisily. Paul seemed drunk, manically exhilarated,
while Iris glowed in a formal gown of green shot with gold. Two men
accompanied them, one a doctor whose name I didn’t catch at first and
the other a man from the television network who looked wonderfully
sleek and pleased and kept patting Cave on the arm every now and then,
as if to assure himself he’d not vanished in smoke and fire.
Cave, still dressed in his dark suit, was mute. He sat answering
questions and replying to compliments with grave nods of his head.
He sat in a high brocaded chair beside the fire and drank tea which
Clarissa, knowing his habits, had ordered in advance for him.
After our first burst of greetings at the door I did not speak to Cave
again and soon the others left him alone and talked around him, about
him yet through him, as though he had become invisible ... which seemed
the case when he was not speaking, when those extraordinary eyes were
veiled or cast down, as they were now, moodily studying the teacup, the
pattern in the Aubusson rug at his feet.
I crossed the room to where Iris sat on the wide couch. The doctor, in
the chair close to her, snuffled brandy and said, as I joined them:
“Your little book, sir, is written in a complete ignorance of Jung and
all those who have come after him.”
This was sudden but I answered, as graciously as possible, that I had
not intended a treatise on psychoanalysis.
“Not the point, sir, if you’ll excuse me.... I am a psychiatrist,
a friend of Mr Himmell’s” (so this was the analyst to whom Paul so
often referred) “and I think it impossible for anyone today to write
about the big things without a complete understanding of post-Jungian
development....”
Iris interrupted as politely as possible. “Doctor Stokharin is a
zealot, Gene. You must listen to him but, first, did you see John
tonight?”
“I did, here with Clarissa: he was remarkable, even more so than in
person.”
“It is the isolation,” said Stokharin, nodding. Dandruff fell lightly
like dry snow from his thick brows to his dark blue lapels. “The camera
separates him from everyone else. He is projected like a dream into....”
“He was so afraid at first,” said Iris, glancing across the room at
the silent Cave who sat, very small and still in the brocaded chair,
the teacup still balanced on one knee. “I’ve never seen him disturbed
by anything before. They tried to get him to do a rehearsal but he
refused. He can’t do rehearsals ... only the actual thing.”
“Fear is natural when ...” but Stokharin was in the presence of a
master drawing-room tactician: Iris was, I saw at that moment, a born
hostess. For all her ease and simplicity she was ruthlessly concerned
with keeping order, establishing a rightness of tone which Doctor
Stokharin, in his professional madness, would have completely undone,
reducing the drawing room to a seminar in mental therapy, receiving
public confessions judiciously, and generalizing to a captive audience.
I admired Iris’s firmness, her devotion to the civilized.
“At first we hardly knew what to do.” Iris’s voice rose serenely over
the East European rumblings of the doctor. “He’d always made such a
point of the audience. He needed actual people to excite him. Paul
wanted to fill the studio with a friendly audience but John said no.
He’d try it without. When the talk began there were only a half dozen
of us there: Paul, myself, and the technicians. No one else.”
“How did he manage?”
“It was the camera. He said when he walked out there he had no idea if
anything would happen or not, if he could speak. Paul was nearly out
of his mind with terror; we all were. Then John saw the lens of the
camera. He said looking into it gave him a sudden shock, like a current
of electricity passing through him, for there, in front of him, was the
eye of the world and the microphone above his head was the ear into
which at last he could speak. When he finished, he was transfigured.
I’ve never seen him so excited. He couldn’t recall what he had said but
the elation remained until....”
“Until he got here.”
“Well, nearly.” Iris smiled. “He’s been under a terrible strain these
last two weeks.”
“It’ll be nothing like the traumatizing shocks in store for him during
the next few days,” said Stokharin, rubbing the bole of a rich dark
pipe against his nose to bring out its luster (the pipe’s luster, for
the nose, straight, thick, proud, already shone like a gross baroque
pearl). “Mark my words, everyone will be eager to see this phenomenon.
When Paul first told me about him, I said, ah, my friend, you have
found that father image for which you’ve searched since your own father
was run over by a bus in your ninth (the crucial) year. Poor Paul, I
said, you will be doomed to disappointment. The wish for the father
is the sign of your immaturity. For a time you find him here, there
... in analysis you transfer to me. Now you meet a spellbinder and
you turn to him, but it will not last. Exactly like that I talked to
him. Believe me, I hold back nothing. Then I met this Cave. I watched
him. Ah, what an analyst he would have made! What a manner, what power
of communication: a natural healer. If only we could train him. Miss
Mortimer, to you I appeal. Get him to study. The best people, the
post-Jungians are all here in New York. They will train him. He would
become only a lay analyst but, even so, what miracles he could perform,
what therapy! We must not waste this native genius.”
“I’m afraid, Doctor, that he’s going to be too busy wasting himself to
study your ... procedures,” Iris smiled, engagingly, dislike apparent
in her radiant eyes. Stokharin, however, was not sensitive to hostility
... no doubt attributing such emotions to some sad deficiency in the
other’s adjustment.
Iris turned to me. “Will you be in the city the whole time?”
“The whole time Cave’s here? Yes. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“I’m glad. I’ve so much I want to talk to you about. So many things are
beginning to happen. Call me tomorrow. I’ll be staying at my old place.
It’s in the book.”
“Cave?”
“Is staying with Paul, out on Long Island at someone’s house. We want
to keep him away from pests as much as possible.”
“Manic depression, I should say,” said Stokharin thoughtfully, his
pipe now clenched between his teeth and his attention on Cave’s still
figure. “With latent schizoid tendencies which ... Miss Mortimer, you
must have an affair with him. You must marry him if necessary. Have
children. Let him see what it is to give life to others, to live in a
balanced....”
“Doctor, you are quite mad,” said Iris and she crossed the room, cool
in her anger. I too got away from the doctor as quickly as I could:
“False modesty, inhibited behavior, too early bowel training,” and
similar phrases ringing in my ears.
Paul caught me at the door. I’d intended to slip away without saying
good night, confident that Clarissa would understand, that the others
would not notice. “Not going so soon, are you?” He was a little
drunk, his face scarlet with excitement. “But you ought to stay and
celebrate.” I murmured something about having an early appointment the
next day.
“Well, see me tomorrow. We’ve taken temporary offices in the Empire
State Building. The money has begun to roll in. If this thing tonight
turns out the way I think it has, I’m going to be able to quit my other
racket for good and devote all my time to Cave.” Already the name Cave
had begun to sound more like that of an institution than of a man.
“By the way, I want to tell you what I think of the Introduction:
superior piece of work. Tried it out on several highbrow friends of
mine and they liked it.”
“I’m afraid....”
“That, together with the talks on television, should put this thing
over with the biggest bang in years. We’ll probably need some more
stuff from you, historical background, rules and regulations, that kind
of thing, but Cave will tell you what he wants. We’ve hired a dozen
people already to take care of the mail and inquiries. There’s also a
lecture tour being prepared, all the main cities, while....”
“Paul, you’re not trying to make a religion of this, are you?” I could
hold it back no longer even though both time and occasion were all
wrong for such an outburst.
“Religion? Hell, no ... but we’ve got to organize. We’ve got to get
this to as many people as we can. People have started looking to us (to
him, that is) for guidance. We can’t let them down.”
Clarissa’s maid ushered in a Western Union messenger, laden with
telegrams. “Over three hundred,” said the boy. “The station said to
send them here.”
Paul paid him jubilantly and, in the excitement, I slipped away.
3
The results of the broadcast were formidable. My small book which
until then had enjoyed the obscurity of being briefly noted among the
recent books was taken up by excited editors who used it as a basis for
hurried but exuberant accounts of the new marvel.
One night a week for the rest of that winter Cave appeared before the
shining glass eye of the world and on each occasion new millions in
all parts of the country listened and saw and pondered this unexpected
phenomenon, the creation of their own secret anxieties and doubts, a
central man.
The reactions were too numerous for me to recollect in any order or
with any precise detail; but I do recall the first few months vividly:
after that of course the work moved swiftly of its own and one lost
track of events which tended to blur, the way casualties late in a
large war do, not wringing the wearied heart as the death of one or a
particular few might earlier have done.
A few days after the first broadcast, I went to see Paul at the offices
which he had taken in the Empire State Building ... as high up as
possible, I noted with amusement: always the maximum, the optimum.
Halfway down a corridor, between lawyers and exporters, Cavite, Inc.
was discreetly identified in black upon a frosted-glass door. I went
inside.
It appeared to me the way I’d always thought a newspaper office during
a crisis might look. Four rooms opening in a row off one another,
all with doors open, all crowded with harassed secretaries and
clean-looking young men in blue serge suits carrying papers, talking in
loud voices which together made the room sound like a hive at swarming
time.
Though none of them knew me, no one made any attempt to ask my
business or to stop me as I moved from room to room in search of Paul.
Everywhere there were placards with Cave’s picture on them, calm
and gloomy-looking, dressed in what was to be his official costume:
a dark suit, an unfigured tie, a white shirt. I tried to overhear
conversations as I passed the busy desks and groups of excited
debaters, but their noise was too loud. Only one word was identifiable,
sounding regularly, richly emphatic like a cello note: Cave, Cave, Cave.
In each room I saw piles of my Introduction which pleased me even
though I had come already to dislike it.
The last room contained Paul, seated behind a desk with a dictaphone
in one hand, three telephones on his desk (none fortunately ringing at
this moment) and four male and female attendants with notebooks and
pencils eagerly poised. Paul sprang from his chair when he saw me. The
attendants fell back. “Here he is!” He grabbed my hand and clung to it
vise-like: I could almost feel the energy pulsing in his fingertips,
vibrating through his body ... his heartbeat was obviously two to my
every one.
“Team, this is Eugene Luther.”
The team was properly impressed and one of the girls, slovenly but
intelligent-looking, said: “It was you who brought me here. First you I
mean ... and then of course Cave.”
I murmured vaguely and the others told me how clear I had made all
philosophy in the light of Cavesword. (I believe it was that day,
certainly that week, Cavesword was coined by Paul to denote the entire
message of John Cave to the world).
Paul then shooed the team out with instructions he was not to be
bothered. The door, however, was left open.
“Well, what do you think of them?” He leaned back, beaming at me from
his chair.
“They seem very ... earnest,” I said, wondering not only what I was
supposed to think but, more to the point, what I _did_ think of the
whole business.
“I’ll say they are! I tell you, Gene, I’ve never seen anything like it.
The thing’s bigger even than that damned crooner I handled ... you may
remember the one. Everyone has been calling up and, look!” He pointed
to several bushel baskets containing telegrams and letters. “This is
only a fraction of the response since the telecast. From all over the
world. I tell you, Gene, we’re in.”
“What about Cave? Where is he?”
“He’s out on Long Island. The press is on my tail trying to interview
him but I say no, no go, fellows, not yet; and does that excite them!
We’ve had to hire guards at the place on Long Island just to keep them
away.”
“How is Cave taking it all?”
“In his stride, absolute model of coolness which is more than I am. He
agrees that it’s better to keep him under wraps while the telecasts are
going on. It means that curiosity about him will increase like nobody’s
business. Look at this.” He showed me a proof sheet of a tabloid story:
“Mystery Prophet Wows TV Audience,” with a photograph of Cave taken
from the telecast and another one showing Cave ducking into a taxi, his
face turned away from the camera. The story seemed most provocative
and, for that complacent tabloid, a little bewildered.
“Coming out Sunday,” said Paul with satisfaction. “There’s also going
to be coverage from the big circulation media. They’re going to cover
the next broadcast even though we said nobody’d be allowed on the set
while Cave was speaking.” He handed me a bundle of manuscript pages
bearing the title “Who Is Cave?” “That’s the story I planted in one of
the slick magazines. Hired a name-writer, as you can see, to do it.”
The name-writer’s name was not known to me but, presumably, it would be
familiar to the mass audience.
“And, biggest of all, we got a sponsor. We had eleven offers already
and we’ve taken Dumaine Chemicals. They’re paying us enough money to
underwrite this whole setup here, and pay for Cave and me as well. It’s
terrific but dignified. Just a simple 'through the courtesy of’ at the
beginning and another at the end of each telecast. What do you think of
that?”
“Unprecedented!” I had chosen my word some minutes before ... one which
would have a cooling effect.
“I’ll say. By the way, we’re getting a lot of stuff on that book of
yours.” He reached in a drawer and pulled out a manila folder which he
pushed toward me. “Take them home if you like. Go over them carefully
... might give you some ideas for the next one; you know: ground which
needs covering.”
“Is there to be a next one?”
“Man, a flock of next ones! We’ve got a lot to do, to explain. People
want to know all kinds of things. I’m having the kids out in the front
office do a breakdown on all the letters we’ve got: to get the general
reaction ... what it is people most want to hear, and, believe me,
we’ve been getting more damned questions, and not just the main thing
but family problems too, things like that: 'Please, Mr. Cave, I’m
married to two men and feel maybe it’s a mistake since I have to work
nights anyway.’ Lord, some of them are crazier than that.”
“Are you answering all of them?”
“Oh, yes, but in my name. All except a few of the most interesting
which go to Cave for personal attention. I’ve been toying with the idea
of setting up a counselor-service for people with problems.”
“But what can _you_ tell them?” I was more and more appalled.
“Everything in the light of Cavesword. You have no idea how many
questions that does answer. Think about it and you’ll see what I mean.
But of course we follow standard psychiatric procedure only it’s
speeded up so that after a couple of visits there can be a practical
and inspirational answer to their problems. Stokharin said he’d be
happy to give it a try, but we haven’t yet worked out all the details.”
I didn’t want to hear anything more about this; I changed the subject.
“What did you have in mind for me to do?”
“Cavesword applied to everyday life.” He spoke without hesitation; he
had thought of everything. “We’ll know more what people want to hear
after a few more telecasts, after more letters and so on. Then supply
Cavesword where you can and, where you can’t, just use common sense and
standard psychiatric procedure.”
“Even when they don’t always coincide?”
Paul roared with laughter. “Always the big knocker, Gene. That’s what
I like about you ... the disapproving air ... it’s wonderful and I’m
quite serious. People like myself ... visionaries, you might say,
continually get their feet off the ground and it’s people like you who
pull us back ... make us think. Anyway, I hope you’ll be able to get to
it soon. We’ll have our end taken care of by the time the telecasts are
over.”
“Will you show Cave to the world then? I mean in person?”
“I don’t know. By the way, we’re having a directors’ meeting Friday
morning. You’ll get a notice in the mail. One of the things we’re
going to take up is just that problem, so you be thinking about it in
the meantime. I have a hunch it may be smart to keep him away from
interviewers for good.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m not so sure. He’s pretty retiring except when he speaks. I don’t
think he’d mind the isolation one bit. You see how dull he gets in
company when he’s not performing.”
“Would he consent, do you think?”
“I think so. We could persuade him, I’m sure. Anyway, for now he’s a
mystery man. Millions see him once a week but no one knows him except
ourselves. A perfect state of affairs, if you ask me.”
“You mean there’s always a chance he might make a fool of himself if a
tough interviewer got hold of him?”
“Exactly, and believe me there’s going to be a lot of them after his
scalp.”
“Have they begun already?”
“Not yet. We have you to thank for that, too, making it so clear that
though what we said certainly conflicts with all the churches we’re
really not competing with them, that people listening to Cavesword can
go right on being Baptists and so on.”
“I don’t see how, if they accept Cave.”
“Neither do I, but for the time being that’s our line.”
“Then there’s to be a fight with the churches?”
Paul nodded grimly. “And it’s going to be a honey. People don’t take
all the supernatural junk seriously these days but they do go for the
social idea of the church, the uplift kind of thing: that’s where we’ll
have to meet them, where we’ll have to lick them at their own game.”
I looked at him for one long moment: I had of course anticipated
something like this from the moment that Cave had become an
organization and not merely one man talking. I had realized that
expansion was inevitable: the rule of life is more life and of
organization more organization, increased dominion. Yet I had not
suspected Paul of having grasped this so clearly, using it so promptly
to his, to our advantage. The thought that not only was he cleverer
than I had suspected but that he might, indeed, despite his unfortunate
approach, be even cleverer than myself, disagreeably occurred to me.
I had until then regarded myself as the unique intellectual of the
Cavites, the one sane man among maniacs and opportunists: it seemed
now that there were two of us with open eyes and, of the two, he alone
possessed ambition and energy, qualities neither of which I possessed
to any useful degree.
“You mean this to be a religion, Paul?”
He smiled, “Maybe, yes ... something on that order perhaps. Something
workable, though, for now: I’ve thought about what you said the other
night.”
“Does Cave want this?”
Paul shrugged. “Who can tell. I should think so but this is not really
a problem for him to decide. He has happened. Now _we_ respond.
Stokharin feels that a practical faith, a belief in ways of behavior
which the best modern analysts are agreed on as being closest to
ideal, might perform absolute miracles. No more guilt-feeling about sex
if Cave were to teach that all is proper when it does no harm to others
... and the desire to do harm to others might even be partly removed
if there were no false mysteries, no terrible warnings in childhood
and so on. Just in that one area of behavior we could work wonders! Of
course there would still be problems but the main ones could be solved
if people take to Cave and to us. Cavesword is already known and it’s
a revelation to millions ... we know that. Now they are looking to him
for guidance in other fields. They know about death at last. Now we
must tell them about living and we are lucky to have available so much
first-rate scientific research in the human psyche. I suspect we can
even strike on an ideal behavior pattern by which people can measure
themselves.”
“And to which they will be made to conform?” Direction was becoming
clear already.
“How can we force anyone to do anything? Our whole power is that people
come to us, to Cave voluntarily because they feel here, at last, is the
answer.” Paul might very well have been sincere: there is no way of
determining, even now.
“Well, remember, Paul, that you will do more good than harm by
attempting to supplant old dogmas and customs with new dogmas. It will
be the same in the end except that the old is less militant, less
dangerous than a new law imposed by enthusiasts.”
“Don’t say 'you.’ Say 'we.’ You’re as much a part of this as I am.
After all you’re a director. You’ve got a say-so in these matters. Just
speak up Friday.” Paul was suddenly genial and placating. “I don’t
pretend I’ve got all the answers. I’m just talking off the top of my
head, like they say.”
A member of the team burst into the office with the news that Bishop
Winston was outside.
“Now it starts,” said Paul with a grimace.
The Bishop did not recognize me as we passed one another in the office.
He looked grim and he was wearing clerical garb.
“He’s too late,” said a lean youth, nodding at the churchman’s back.
“Professional con-men,” said his companion with disgust. “They’ve had
their day.”
And with that in my ears, I walked out into the snow-swirling street,
into the bleak opening of the new year, of Cave’s year.
I was more alarmed than ever by what Paul had told me and by what I
heard on every side. In drugstores and bars and restaurants, people
talked of Cave. I could even tell when I did not hear the name that
it was of him they spoke: a certain intentness, a great curiosity, a
wonder. In the bookstores, copies of my introduction were displayed
with large blown-up photographs of Cave to accompany them.
Alone in a bar on Madison Avenue where I’d taken refuge from the cold,
I glanced at the clippings Paul had given me. There were two sets.
The first were the original perfunctory ones which had appeared,
short, puzzled ... the reviewers, knowing even less philosophy than
I, tended to question my proposition that Caveswood was anything more
than a single speculation in rather a large field. I’d obviously not
communicated his magic, only its record which, like the testament of
miracles, depends entirely on faith and to inspire faith one needed
Cave himself.
“What do you think about the guy?” the waiter, a fragile sensitive
Latin with parchment-lidded eyes mopped the spilled gin off my table
(he’d seen a picture of Cave among my clippings).
“It’s hard to say,” I said. “How did he strike you?”
“Boy, like lightning!” The waiter beamed; a smile which showed broken
teeth spoiled the delicate line of his face. “Of course I’m Catholic
but this is something new. Some people been telling me you can’t be a
good Catholic and go for this guy. But why not? I say. You still got
Virginmerry and now you got him, too, for right now. You ought to see
the crowd we get here to see the TV when he’s on. It’s wild.”
It was wild, I thought, putting the clippings back into the
folder. Yet it might be kept within bounds. Paul had emphasized my
directorship, my place in the structure ... well, I would show them
what should be done or, rather, _not_ done.
Then I went out into the snow-dimmed street and hailed a cab. All the
way to Iris’s apartment I was rehearsing what I would say to Paul when
next we met. “Leave them alone,” I said aloud. “It is enough to open
the windows.”
“Open the windows!” The driver snorted. “It’s damn near forty in the
street.”
4
Iris occupied several rooms on the second floor of a brownstone in
a street with, pleasantest of New York anachronisms, trees. When I
entered, she was doing yogi exercises on the floor, sitting crosslegged
on a mat, her slender legs in leotards and her face flushed with
strain. “It just doesn’t work for me!” she said and stood up without
embarrassment for, since I’d found the main door unlocked, I’d opened
this one too, without knocking.
“I’m sorry, Iris, the downstairs door was....”
“Don’t be silly.” She rolled up the mat efficiently. “I was expecting
you but I lost track of time ... which means it must be working a
little. I’ll be right back.” She went into the bedroom and I sat down,
amused by this unexpected side to Iris: I wondered if perhaps she was a
devotee of wheat germ and mint tea as well. She claimed not. “It’s the
only real exercise I get,” she said, changed now to a heavy robe which
completely swathed her figure as she sat curled up in a great armchair,
drinking Scotch, as did I, the winter outside hid by drawn curtains, by
warmth and light.
“Have you done it long?”
“Oh, off and on for years. I never get anywhere but it’s very restful
and I’ve felt so jittery lately that anything which relaxes me ...” her
voice trailed off idly. She seemed relaxed now.
“I’ve been to see Paul,” I began importantly.
“Ah.”
But I could not, suddenly, generate sufficient anger to speak out with
eloquence. I went around my anger stealthily, a murderer stalking his
victim. “We disagreed.”
“In what?”
“In everything, I should say.”
“That’s so easy with Paul.” Iris stretched lazily; ice chattered in her
glass; a car’s horn melodious and foreign sounded in the street below.
“We need him. If it wasn’t Paul, it might be someone a great deal
worse. At least he’s intelligent and devoted. That makes up for a lot.”
“I don’t think so; Iris, he’s establishing a sort of supermarket,
short-order church for the masses.”
She laughed delightedly. “I like that ... and, in a way, you’re right:
that’s what he _would_ do left to himself.”
“He seems in complete control.”
“Only of the office. John makes all the decisions.”
“I wish I could be sure of that.”
“You’ll see on Friday. You’ll be at the meeting, won’t you?”
I nodded. “I have a feeling that between Paul and Stokharin this thing
is going to turn into a world-wide clinic for mental health.”
“I expect worse things _could_ happen, but Paul must still contend with
me and you and of course the final word is with John.”
“How is Cave, by the way? I haven’t seen him since the night of the
first telecast.”
“Quite relaxed, unlike the rest of us. You should come out with me one
day to Long Island and see him. I go nearly every day for a few hours.
He’s kept completely removed from everyone except the servants and Paul
and me.”
“Does he like that?”
“He doesn’t seem to mind. He walks a good deal ... it’s a big place
and he’s used to the cold. He reads a little, mostly detective stories
... and then of course there’s the mail that Paul sends on. He works
at that off and on all day. I help him and when we’re stuck (you
should see the questions!) we consult Stokharin who’s very good on some
things, on problems....”
“And a bore the rest of the time.”
“That’s right,” Iris giggled. “I couldn’t have been more furious the
other night, but, since then, I’ve seen a good deal of him and he’s not
half bad. We’ve got him over the idea that John should become a lay
analyst: the response to the telecast finally convinced Stokharin that
here was a racial 'folk-father-figure’ ... his very own words. Now he’s
out to educate the father so that he will fulfill his children’s needs
on the best post-Jungian lines.”
“Does Cave take him seriously?”
“He’s bored to death with him. Stokharin’s the only man who’s ever had
the bad sense to lecture John ... who absolutely hates it; but he does
feel that Stokharin’s answers to some of the problems we’re confronted
with are ingenious. All that ... hints to the lovelorn is too much for
John, so we need the Stokharins to take care of details.”
“I hope he’s careful not to get too involved.”
“John’s incorruptible. Not because he is so noble or constant but
because he can only think a certain way and other opinions, other
evidence, can’t touch him.”
I paused, wondering if this was true; then: “I’m going to make a scene
on Friday. I’m going to suggest that Paul is moving in a dangerous
direction, toward organization and dogma and that if something is not
done soon we’ll all be ruined by that which we most detest: a militant
absolutist doctrine.”
Iris looked at me curiously. “Tell me, Gene, what _do_ you want? Why
are you still with Cave, with all of us when you so apparently suspect
the general direction? You’ve always been perfectly clear about what
you did _not_ want (I can recall, I think, every word you said at the
farm that night) but, to be specific, what would you like all this to
become? How would you direct things if you could?”
I’d been preparing myself for such a question for several months yet I
still had no single answer to make which would sharply express my own
doubts and wishes. But I made an attempt. “I would not organize, for
one thing. I’d have Cave speak regularly, all he likes, but there would
be no Cavite, Inc., no Paul planting articles and propagandizing. I’d
keep just Cave, nothing more. Let him do his work. Then, gradually,
there will be effects, a gradual end to superstition....”
Iris looked at me intently. “_If_ it were possible, I would say we
should do what you suggest, even though it would be ruinous not only
for us but for everyone....”
“Why ruinous? A freedom to come to a decision on one’s own without....”
“That’s it. No one can be allowed that freedom. One doesn’t need much
scholarship or even experience to see that. Everywhere people are held
in check by stifling but familiar powers. People are used to tyranny:
they expect governments to demand their souls, and they have given up
decisions on many levels for love of security. What you suggest is
impossible with this race at this time.”
“You’re talking nonsense. After all, obeisance to established religions
is the order of the day, yet look at the response to Cave who is
undermining the whole Christian structure.”
“And wait until you see the fight they’re going to put up!” said Iris
grimly. “Fortunately, Cave’s word is the mortal blow though Cave
himself would be their certain victim if he was protected, if there was
no organization to guard him, and the Word.”
“So Paul and his--his team, his proselytes are to become merely an
equivalent power, combating the old superstitions with their own
weapons.”
“More or less, yes. That’s what it has come to.”
“Even though his talking to the people would be enough? Let them use
him, not he them.”
“A good slogan,” Iris smiled. “But I think I’m right. No one would
have a chance to see or hear him if it weren’t for Paul; you should
read the threatening letters we’ve been getting.”
“I thought all the mail was most admiring?”
“All that came from people who’ve actually _heard_ him but there’s a
lot coming in now from religious fanatics. They are very extreme. And
of course the churches, one by one, are starting to take notice.”
“I saw Bishop Winston in Paul’s office today.”
“He’s been trying to see John all week. He finally settled for Paul,
I gather. In any case, after the next telecast there will really be a
storm.”
“The next? What’s going to happen then?”
“John will tell them that there’s no need for the churches, that their
power derives from superstition and bloody deeds.”
I was startled. “When did this hit him? I thought he intended to go on
as he was, without ever coming out openly against them.”
“I was surprised too. He told me yesterday; he’d been brooding all day
and, suddenly, he started to attack them. It’s going to be murderous.”
“I hope not for him.”
“Oh, he’ll convince, I’m sure of that: but their revenge....” She gave
a troubled sigh. “Anyway, Gene, you do see why we can’t, for our own
safety, dispense with Paul and his financiers and press agents and all
the squalid but necessary crew.”
“It may be too late,” I agreed. “But I fear the end.”
“No one can tell; besides, as long as you and I are there with John it
will be all right.”
I felt her confidence was not entirely justified but I determined, for
the moment, to defer my attack on Paul’s methods until a safer time.
We argued about the wisdom of the coming telecast: was it really
necessary to confront the enemy explicitly? and in his own country, so
to speak? Iris was not sure, but she felt Cave’s instinct was right
even though he had, perhaps, been goaded into action sooner than we’d
anticipated by the harsh letters of Christian zealots.
And then by slow degrees, by careful circling, the conversation grew
personal.
“I’ve never told anyone else,” said Iris, looking at me speculatively.
“Don’t worry; I haven’t repeated any of it.” And, as always at such
times, I felt a warm flood of guilt: any direct statement of personal
innocence has always made me feel completely criminal.
“But since I’ve told you, I ... it’s a relief to have someone I can
talk to about John. I don’t dare mention his name to my family, to my
old friends ... I don’t think they even know yet that I’ve met him.”
“I thought it has all been in the papers.”
“I haven’t been mentioned but, after Friday, everyone will know. Paul
says there’s no way for us to duck inquiries. After the directors’
meeting he’ll issue a statement naming directors, stockholders and so
on.”
“But even then, why should anyone suspect you were interested in Cave
or he in you? It’s possible merely to be a director, isn’t it?”
Iris shrugged. “You know how people are. Clarissa keeps wanting to have
what she calls a comfy chat about _everything_ and I keep putting her
off. Stokharin now takes it for granted that John and I sleep together,
that he is the father-image to me and I the mother to him.”
It had an odd ring to it and I laughed. “Do you think that’s a sound
post-Jungian analysis?”
Iris smiled faintly. “Whatever it is, the feeling, such as it is, is
all on my side.”
“And he shows no sign of returning your affection?”
“None at all. He’s devoted to me, I think. He relies on my judgment. He
trusts me, which is more than he does anyone else I know of....”
“Even me?” Always the “I” coming between me and what I wished to know:
that insatiable, distressing “I.”
“Yes, even you, dear, and Paul too. He’s on guard against everyone, but
not in a nasty or suspicious way. He ... what is the phrase? he keeps
his own counsel.”
“And you are the counsel?”
“In a sense, and nothing more.”
“Perhaps you should give up. It would seem that ... love was not
possible for him. If so, it’s unwise for you to put yourself in such a
position ... harmful, too.”
“But there’s still the other Cave. I love him as well and the two are,
finally, the same.”
“A _metaphysique_?”
“No, or at least I don’t see a paradox. It’s something else; it’s like
coming out of an illness with no past at all, only a memory of pain and
dullness which soon goes in the wonderful present.”
“It?”
“My love is _it_.” Her voice grew strong. “I’ve learned that in loving
him I love life, which I never did before. Why, I can even value others
now, value all those faceless creatures whom I knew without ever
bothering to _see_, to bring in focus the dim blurs of all _that_ world
alive. I lived asleep. Now I am awake.”
“He does not love you.”
“Why should he? It’s gone beyond that. I’m no longer the scales most
lovers are, weighing the deeds and gifts and treasures proffered
against those received or stolen from the other, trying always to bring
into fatal balance two separate imponderables. I give myself and what I
take is life, the knowledge that there is another creature in the world
whose wonder, to me at least, is all-satisfying by merely being.”
“Is it so terrible to be alive?”
“Beyond all expectation, my poor friend.” And then I left her to return
to winter, to the snow-filled streets and my old pain.
5
The second telecast had the anticipated effect. The day after, Friday,
nearly a hundred thousand letters and telegrams had been received, and
Cave’s life had been threatened four times over the telephone.
I was awakened at five o’clock on Friday morning by a newspaper man
begging an interview. Half-asleep, irritably, I told him to go to hell
and hung up though not before I’d heard the jeer: “Thought you fellows
did away with hell.” This woke me up and I made coffee, still keeping
my eyes half-shut in the dim winter light, hoping sleep might return to
its accustomed perch; but more telephone calls demoralized my fragile
ally and I was left wide awake, unshaven, with fast-beating heart
beside the telephone, drinking coffee.
Every few minutes there was a call from some newspaper man or editor
requesting information: they had all been shocked by the telecast.
When I told them they should get in touch with Cave himself, or at
least with Paul’s office, they only laughed: thousands were trying to
get to speak to Paul, tens of thousands to Cave; the result was chaos.
Shakily, I took the phone off its hook and got dressed. When I opened
my door to get the morning paper, a thin young man leaped past me into
my living room and anchored himself to a heavy chair.
“What....” I began; he was only too eager to explain the what and the
why.
“And so,” he ended, breathlessly, “the _Star_ has authorized me to
advance you not only _that_ money but expenses, too, for an exclusive
feature on Cave and the Cavites.”
“I wish,” I said, very gentle in the presence of such enthusiasm, “that
you would go away. It’s five in the morning....”
“You’re our only hope,” the boy wailed. “Every paper and news service
has been trying to get past the gate out on Long Island for three weeks
and failed. They couldn’t even shoot him at long range.”
“Shoot him.”
“Get a picture. Now please....”
“Paul Himmell is your man. He’s authorized to speak for Cave. He has an
office in the Empire State Building and he keeps respectable hours; so
why don’t you....”
“We haven’t been able to get even a release out of him for three days
now. It’s censorship, that’s what it is.”
I had to smile. “We’re not the government. Cave is a private citizen
and this is a private organization. If we choose not to give interviews
you have no right to pester us.”
“Oh, come off it.” The young man was at an age where the needs of
ambition were often less strong than the desire for true expression;
for a moment he forgot that he needed my forbearance and I liked him
better. “This is the biggest news that’s hit town since the war. You
guys have got the whole country asking questions and the big one is:
who is Cave?”
“There’ll be an announcement today, I think, about the company. As for
Cave, I suggest you read a little book called 'An Introduction to....’”
“Of course I’ve read it. That’s why I’m here. Now, please, Mr. Luther,
give me an exclusive even if you won’t take the _Star’s_ generous
offer. At least tell me something I can use.”
I sat down heavily; a bit of coffee splattered from cup to saucer to
the back of my hand: it dried stickily. I felt worn-out already, the
day only just begun. “What do you want me to tell you? What would you
most like to hear? What do you expect me to say since, being a good
journalist, that is what you’ll write no matter what I tell you?”
“Oh, that’s not true. I want to know what Cave’s all about as a person,
as a teacher.”
“Well, what do _you_ think he’s up to?”
“Me? Why ... I don’t know. I never heard him on the air until last
night. It was strong stuff.”
“Were you convinced?”
“In a way, yes. He said a lot of things I agreed with but I was a
little surprised at his going after the churches. Not that I like
anything about _them_, but still it’s some stunt to get up and talk
like that in front of millions of people. I mean you just don’t say
those things any more, even if you do think them ... can’t offend
minorities; that’s what we learn first in journalism school.”
“There’s part of your answer then: Cave is a man who, unlike others,
says what he thinks is true even if it makes him unpopular. There’s
some virtue in that.”
“I guess he can afford to in his position,” said the boy vaguely. “You
know we got Bishop Winston to answer him for the _Star_. Signed him
last night after Cave went off the air. I’m sure he’ll do a good job.
Now....”
We wrestled across the room; since I was the stronger, I won my privacy
though muffled threats of exposure were hurled at me from behind the
now-bolted door.
Acting on an impulse, I left the apartment as soon as I was sure my
recent visitor had gone. I was afraid that others would try to find me
if I stayed home; fears which were justified: according to the elevator
man, he had turned away several men already. The one who did get
through had come up the fire escape.
I walked quickly out into the quiet street, the snow now gone to slush
as dingy as the morning sky. Fortunately, the day was neither windy nor
cold and I walked to a Times Square automat for an early breakfast.
I was reassured by anonymity. All around me sleepy men and women
clutching newspapers, briefcases and lunch pails sat sullenly chewing
their breakfast, sleep not yet departed.
I bought a roll, more coffee, hominy grits which I detested in the
North but occasionally tried in the hope that, by accident, I might
stumble upon the real thing. These were not the real thing and I left
them untouched while I read my paper.
Cave was on the front page. Not prominent, but still he was there.
The now-standard photograph looked darkly from the page. The headline
announced that: “Prophet Flays Churches as Millions Listen.” There
followed a paraphrase of the telecast which began with those fateful
and soon to be famous words: “Our quarrel is not with Christ but with
his keepers.” I wondered, as I read, if anyone had ever taken one
of the telecasts down in shorthand and made a transcript of it. I,
for one, should have been curious to see in cold print one of those
sermons. Cave himself knew that without his presence they would not
stand up and, consequently, he allowed none of then to be transcribed;
the result was that whenever there was a report of one of his talks
it was, necessarily, paraphrased which gave a curious protean flavor
to his doctrine, since the recorded style was never consistent,
changing always with each paraphraser just as the original meaning
was invariably altered by each separate listener as he adapted the
incantation to his private needs.
A fat yellow-faced woman sat down with a groan beside me and began to
ravish a plate of assorted cakes. Her jaws grinding, the only visible
sign of life, for her eyes were glazed from sleep and her body,
incorrectly buttoned into a cigarette-ash-dusted dress, was as still as
a mountain, even the work of lungs was obscured by the torpid flesh.
I watched her above the newspaper, fascinated by the regularity with
which her jaws ground the bits of cake. Her eyes looked past me into
some invisible world of pastry.
Then, having finished the report on Cave’s telecast, I put the
newspaper down and ate with deliberate finesse my own biscuit. The
rustling of the newspaper as it was folded and placed on the table
disturbed my companion and, beneath the fat, her will slowly sent out
instructions to the extremities. She cleared her throat. Her head
lowered. Her chewing stopped; a bit of cake was temporarily lodged in
one cheek, held firmly in place by a gaudy plate. Her eyes squinted at
the newspaper. She spoke: “Something about that preacher fellow last
night?”
“Yes. Would you like to see it?” I pushed the paper toward her.
She looked at the picture, carefully spelling out the words of the
headlines with heavy lips and deep irregular breaths. “Did you see him
last night?” she asked when her eye finally got to the small print
where it stopped, as though halted by a dense jungle.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”
“He sure gave it to them bastards, didn’t he?” Her face lit up
joyously; I thought of _ça ira_.
“You mean the clergy?”
“That’s just what I mean. They had it too good, too long. People afraid
to say anything. Takes somebody like him to tell us what we know and
tell _them_ where to head-in.”
“Do you like what he said about dying?”
“About there being nothing? Why, hell, mister, I knew it all along.”
“But it’s good to hear someone else say it?”
“Don’t do no harm.” She belched softly. “I expect they’re going to be
on his tail,” she added with gloomy pleasure, spearing a fragment of
eclair which she had missed on her first circuit of her crowded dish.
I spent that morning in the street buying newspapers, eavesdropping.
I heard several arguments about Cave: the religiously orthodox were
outraged but clearly interested; the others were triumphant though all
seemed to feel that _they_, as the automat woman had said, would soon
be on his tail. Ours was no longer a country where the nonconformist
could escape disaster if he unwisely showed a strange face to the
multitude.
I tried to telephone Iris and then Clarissa but both telephones were
reported busy; I called the office but was told by a mechanical voice
that if I left my name and address and business Mr. Himmell would call
me as soon as possible. The siege had begun.
I arrived at the Empire State Building half an hour before the meeting
was to begin, hoping to find out in advance from Paul what was
happening and what we were supposed to do about it.
A picket line marched up and down before the entrance, waving banners,
denouncing Cave and all his works in the names of various religious
groups. A crowd was beginning to gather and the police, at least a
score, moved frantically about, not knowing how to keep the mob out of
the building. When I stepped off the elevator at Cave’s floor, I found
myself a part of a loud and confused mass of men and women all shoving
toward the door which was marked Cavite, Inc. Policemen barred their
way.
Long before I’d got to the door, a woman’s shoe went hurtling through
the air, smashing a hole in the frosted glass. One policeman cocked his
revolver menacingly. Another shouted, “Get the riot squad!” But still
the crowd raved and shouted and quarreled. Some wanted to lynch Cave in
the name of the Lamb, while others begged to be allowed to touch him,
just once. I got to the door at last, thanks to a sudden shove which
landed me with a crash into a policeman. He gasped and then, snarling,
raised his club. “Business!” I shouted with what breath was left me.
“Got business here. Director.”
I was not believed but, after some talk with a pale secretary through
the shattered glass door, I was admitted. The crowd roared when they
saw this and moved in closer. The door slammed shut behind me.
“It’s been like this since nine o’clock,” said the secretary, looking
at me with frightened eyes.
“You mean after two hours the police still can’t do anything?”
“We didn’t call them right away. When we did it was too late. We’re
barricaded in here.”
The team sat about at their desks pretending to work, pretending not to
notice the noise from the corridor.
Paul, however, was not in the least disturbed. He was standing by
the window in his office looking out. Clarissa, her hat and her hair
together awry: a confusion of straw and veil and bolts of reddish hair
apparently not all her own, was making-up in a pocket mirror.
“Ravenous, wild beasts!” she hailed me. “I’ve seen _their_ likes
before.”
“Gene, good fellow! Got through the mob all right? Here, have a bit of
brandy. No? Perhaps some Scotch?”
I said it was too early for me to drink. Shakily, I sat down. Paul
laughed at the sight of us. “You both look like the end of the world
has come.”
“I’d always pictured the end as being quite orderly....” I began
stuffily but Doctor Stokharin’s loud entrance interrupted me. His
spectacles were dangling from one ear and his tie had been pulled
around from front to back quite neatly. “No authority!” he bellowed,
ignoring all of us. “The absence of a traditional patriarch, the center
of the tribe, has made them insecure. Only together do they feel warmth
in great _swarming_ hives!” His voice rose sharply and broke on the
word “hives” into a squeak. He took the proffered brandy and sat down,
his clothes still disarranged.
“My hair,” said Clarissa grimly, “may never come out right again
today.” She put the mirror back into her purse which she closed with
a loud snap. “I don’t see, Paul, why you didn’t have the foresight to
call the police in advance and demand protection.”
“I had no idea it would be like this. Believe me, Clarissa, it’s not
deliberate.” But from his excited chuckling, I could see that he was
delighted with the confusion. The triumph of the publicist’s dark art.
I wondered if he might not have had a hand in it: it was a little
reminiscent of the crowds of screaming women which in earlier decades,
goaded by publicists, had howled and, as Stokharin would say, _swarmed_
about singers and other theatrical idols.
Paul anticipated my suspicions. “Didn’t have a thing to do with it, I
swear. Doctor, your tie is hanging down your back.”
“I don’t mind,” said Stokharin disagreeably, but he did adjust his
glasses.
“I’d a feeling we’d have a few people in to see us but no idea it would
be like this.” He turned to me as the quietest, the least dangerous of
the three. “You wouldn’t believe the response to last night’s telecast
if I told you.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” The comic aspects were becoming apparent:
Stokharin’s assaulted dignity and the ruin of Clarissa’s ingenious hair
both seemed to me suddenly funny; I cleared my throat to obscure the
tickling of a smile. Paul named some stupendous figures with an air of
triumph. “And there are more coming all the time. Think of that!”
“Are they favorable?”
“Favorable? Who cares?” Paul was pacing the floor quickly, keyed to the
breaking-point had he possessed the metabolism of a normal man. “We’ll
have a breakdown over the weekend. Hired more people already. Whole lot
working all the time. By the way, we’re moving.”
“Not a moment too soon,” said Clarissa balefully. “I suggest, in fact,
we move now while there are even these few police to protect us. When
they go home for lunch (they all eat enormous lunches, one can tell),
that crowd is going to come in here and throw us out the window.”
“Or suffocate us with love,” said Paul.
Stokharin looked at Clarissa thoughtfully; with his turned-around
necktie he had a sacerdotal look. “Do you often think of falling from
high places? of being pushed from windows or perhaps high trees?”
“Only when I’m on the top floor of the world’s highest building
surrounded by raving maniacs do such forebodings occur to me, doctor.
Had you a greater sense of reality you might be experiencing the same
apprehension.”
Stokharin clapped his hands happily. “Classic, classic. To believe she
alone knows reality. Madam, I suggest that you....”
There was a roar of sound from the hallway; a noise of glass
shattering; a revolver went off with a sharp report and, frozen with
alarm, I waited for its echo: there was none; only shouts of: Cave!
Cave! Cave!
Surrounded by police, Cave and Iris were escorted into the office. More
police held the door, aided by the office crew who, suddenly inspired,
were throwing paper cups full of water into the crowd. Flash bulbs
like an electric storm flared in all directions as the newspaper men
invaded the office, let in by the police who could not hold them back.
Iris looked frightened and even Cave seemed alarmed by the rioting.
Once the police lieutenant had got Cave and Iris into the office,
he sent his men back to hold the corridor. Before he joined them he
said sternly, breathing hard from the struggle, “We’re going to clear
the hall in the next hour. When we do we’ll come and get you people
out of here. You got to leave whether you want to or not. This is an
emergency.”
“An hour is all we need, officer.” Paul was smooth. “And may I tell you
that my old friend, the Commissioner, is going to hear some extremely
nice things about the efficiency and good sense of his men.” Before the
lieutenant had got around to framing a suitably warm answer, Paul had
maneuvered him out of the inner office; he locked the door behind him.
“There,” he said, turning to us, very businesslike. “It was a mistake
meeting here after last night. I’m sorry, John.”
“It’s not your fault.” Cave, having found himself an uncomfortable
straight chair in a corner of the room, sat very erect, like a child
in serious attendance upon adults. “I had a hunch we should hold the
meeting out on Long Island.”
Paul scowled. “I hate the idea of the press getting a look at you.
Spoils the mystery effect; guess it was bound to happen, though. You
won’t have to talk to them.”
“Oh, but I will,” said Cave easily, showing who was master here, this
day.
“But ... well, after what we decided, the initial strategy being....”
“No. It’s all changed now, Paul. I’ll have to face them, at least this
once. I’ll talk to them the way I always talk. They’ll listen.” His
voice grew dreamy. He was indifferent to Paul’s discomfiture.
“Did you get a new place?” asked Iris, suddenly, to divert the
conversation.
“What? Oh yes. A whole house, five stories on East Sixty-first Street.
Should be big enough. At least for now.” The inter-office communicator
sounded. Paul spoke quickly into it: “Tell the newspaper people to wait
out there. We’ll have a statement in exactly an hour and they’ll be
able ...,” he paused and looked at Cave for some reprieve; then, seeing
none, he finished: “They’ll be able to interview Cave.” He flipped the
machine off. Through the locked door, we heard a noise of triumph from
the gathered journalists and photographers.
“Well, come along,” said Clarissa, “I thought this was to be a board of
directors meeting. Cave, dear, you’ve got to preside.”
But, though he said he’d rather not, Clarissa, in a sudden storm of
legality, insisted that he must: she also maliciously demanded a
complete reading of the last meeting’s minutes by Paul, the secretary.
We were able to save him by a move to waive the reading which was
proposed, recorded and passed by a show of hands, only Clarissa
dissenting. Cave conducted the meeting solemnly. Then Clarissa demanded
a report from the treasurer and this time Paul was not let off.
For the first time I had a clear picture of the company of which I was
a director. Shares had been sold. Control was in the hands of Clarissa,
while Paul and several West Coast industrialists whose names were not
familiar to me, also had shares. The main revenue of the company now
came from the sponsor of Cave’s television show. There was also a
trickle of contributions which, in the last few weeks, had increased
considerably.
Then Paul read from a list of expenses, his voice hurrying a little
over his own salary which was, I thought, a bit large. Cave’s expenses
were recorded and, with Clarissa goading from time to time, Paul gave
an accounting of all that had been spent since the arrival in New York.
John Cave was a big business.
“The books are audited at standard intervals,” said Paul, looking at
Clarissa as he finished, some of his good humor returning. “We will
not declare dividends unless Mrs. Lessing insists the company become a
profit-making enterprise.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” said Clarissa evenly. “Why not get a
little return....”
But Paul had launched into policy. We listened attentively. From time
to time, Cave made a suggestion. Iris and I made no comment. Stokharin
occasionally chose to illuminate certain human problems as they arose
and Paul, at least, heard him out respectfully. Clarissa wanted to know
all about costs and her interruptions were always brief and shrewd.
Several decisions were made at that meeting. It was decided that a
Center be established and headed by Dr. Stokharin to take care of those
Cavites whose problems might be helped by therapy. “We just apply
classical concepts to their little troubles,” he said.
“But it shouldn’t _seem_ like a clinic,” said Iris suddenly. “It’s all
part of John, of what John says.”
“We’ll make that perfectly clear,” said Paul quickly.
Stokharin nodded agreeably. “After all it is in his name they come to
us. We take it from there. No more problems ... all is contentment.” He
smacked his lips.
It was then decided that Cave would spend the summer quietly and,
in the autumn, begin a tour of the country to be followed by more
telecasts in the following winter. “The summer is to think a little
in,” were Cave’s words.
Next, I was assigned the task of writing a defense of Cave for certain
vast syndicates; I was also requested to compose a set of dialogues
which would record Cave’s views on such problems as marriage, the
family, world government and various other problems all in urgent need
of answering. I suggested, diffidently, that it would be very useful if
Cave were to tell me what he thought about such things before I wrote
my dialogues. Cave said, quite seriously, that we would have the summer
in which to handle all these subjects.
Paul then told us the bad news; there was a good deal of it. “The
Cardinal, in the name of all the Diocesan Bishops, has declared that
any Catholic who observes the telecasts of John Cave or attends in
person his blasphemous lectures commits a grave and mortal sin. Bishop
Winston came to tell me that not only is he attacking Cave in the
press but that he is quite sure, if we continue, the government will
intervene. It was a hint, and not too subtle.”
“On what grounds intervene?” asked Cave. “What have I done that breaks
one of their laws?”
“They’ll trump up something,” said Clarissa.
“I’m afraid you’re right. They can always find something to get us on.
So far, that is about the worst that can happen.”
“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.”