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
counterattack, 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 firsthand 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 tides, 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.
With relief, I sat down on the bench beside Osiris. Butler joined me.
“Dallas of course is the main Residency,” he said.
“It used to be in New York, years ago,” I said, thinking of the
brownstone house, of the loft on Twenty-third Street.
“Around twenty years ago it was moved to Dallas by the Chief Resident.
Not only did they have the best-equipped Center there but the Texans
make just about the best Cavites in the country. What they won’t do for
Cavesword isn’t worth mentioning. They burned the old churches, you
know ... every one in the state.”
“And one or two Baptist Ministers as well?”
“You can’t break eggs without making an omelet,” said Butler
sententiously.
“I see what you mean. Still, Cave was against persecution. He always
felt it was enough for people to hear Cavesword....”
“You got a lot of reading to do,” said Butler sharply. “Looks like
you’ve forgotten your text: 'And, if they persist in superstition,
strike them, for one idolator is like a spoiled apple in the barrel,
contaminating the others.’” Butler’s voice, as he quoted, was round
and booming, rich in vowel-sounds while his protruding eyes gazed
without blinking into the invisible radiance of truth which hovered,
apparently, above a diseased hibiscus bush.
“I’ve forgotten that particular quotation,” I said.
“Seems funny you should since it’s just about the most famous of the
texts.” But, though my ignorance continued to startle Butler, I could
see that he was beginning to attribute it to senility rather than to
laxity or potential idolatry.
“I was a close follower in the first few years,” I said, currying
favor. “But I’ve been out of touch since and I suppose that, after
Cave’s death, there was a whole mass of new doctrine with which I am
unfamiliar, to my regret.”
“Doctrine!” Butler was shocked. “We have no doctrine. We are not one of
those heathen churches with claims to 'divine’ guidance. We’re simply
listeners to Cavesword. That’s all. He was the first to tell the plain
truth and, naturally, we honor him but there is no doctrine even
though he guides us the way a good father does his children.”
“I am very old,” I said in my best dying-fall voice. “You must remember
that when you are with me you are in the company of a man who was
brought up in the old ways, who uses Christian terms from time to time.
I was thirty when Cave began his mission. I am, as a matter of fact,
nearly the same age as Cave himself if he were still alive.”
This had its calculated effect. Butler looked at me with some awe.
“Golly!” he said. “It doesn’t really seem possible, does it? Of course
there’re still a few people around who were alive in those days but I
don’t know of anybody who actually _saw_ Cave. You did tell me you saw
him?”
“Once only.”
“Was he like the telecasts?”
“Oh yes. Even more effective, I think.”
“He was big of course, six feet one inch tall.”
“No, he was only about five feet eight inches, a little shorter than
I....”
“You must be mistaken because, according to all the texts, he was six
feet one.”
“I saw him at a distance of course. I was only guessing.” I was amused
that they should have seen fit to change even Cave’s stature.
“You can tell he was a tall man from the telecasts.”
“Do they still show them?”
“Still show them! They’re the main part of our weekly Get-togethers.
Each Residency has a complete library of Cave’s telecasts, one hundred
eight including the last. Each week, a different one is shown by the
Resident’s staff and the Resident himself, or someone assigned by him,
discusses the message.”
“And they still hold up after fifty years?”
“Hold up? We learn more from them each year. You should see all the
books and lectures on Cavesword ... several hundred important ones
which we have to read as part of our communication duties, though
they’re not for the laymen. We discourage nonprofessionals from going
into such problems, much too complicated for the untrained mind.”
“I should think so. Tell me, is there any more trouble with the
idolators?”
Butler shook his head. “Just about none. They were licked when the
parochial schools were shut down. That took care of Catholicism. Of
course there were some bad times. I guess you know all about them.”
I nodded. Even in Egypt I had heard of massacres and persecutions. I
could still recall the morning when I opened the Cairo paper and saw
a large photograph of St Peter’s Cathedral smoldering in its ruins,
a fitting tomb for the last Pope and martyr who had perished there
when a mob of Cavites had fired the Vatican. The Cairo paper took an
obvious delight in these barbarities and I had not the heart to read
of the wanton destruction of Michelangelo’s and Bernini’s works, the
looting of the art galleries, the bonfire which was made in the Papal
gardens of the entire Vatican library. Later, word came of a certain
assistant-Resident of Topeka who, with a group of demolition experts
and Cavite enthusiasts, ranged across France and Italy destroying
the cathedrals with the approval of the local governments, and to
the cheers of Cavite crowds who gathered in great numbers to watch,
delightedly, the crumbling of these last monuments to superstition.
Fortunately, the tourist bureaus were able to save a few of the lesser
churches.
“The edict of Washington which outlawed idolatrous schools did the
trick. The Atlantic government has always believed in toleration: even
to this day it is possible for a man to be a Christian, though unlikely
since the truth is so well known.”
“But he has no churches left and no clergy.”
“True, and if that discourages him he’s not likely to remain too long
in error. As I’ve told you, though, we have our ways of making people
see the truth.”
“The calculable percentage.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at Osiris in the green shade. His diorite face smiled secretly
back at me. “Did you have much trouble in the Latin countries?”
“Less than you might think. The ignorant were the big problem because,
since they didn’t know English, we weren’t able to use the telecasts.
Fortunately, we had some able Residents and after a little showmanship,
a few miracles (or what they took to be miracles) they came around,
especially when many of their ex-priests told them about Cavesword.
Nearly all of the older Residents in the Mediterranean countries were
once Catholic priests.”
“Renegades?”
“They saw the truth; not without some indoctrination, I suspect.
We’ve had to adapt a good many of our procedural methods to fit local
customs. The old Christmas has become Cavesday and what was Easter is
now Irisday.”
“Iris Mortimer?”
“Of course; who else? And then certain festivals which....”
“I suppose she’s dead now.”
“Why, yes. She died six years ago. She was the last of the original
five.”
“Ah, yes, the five: Paul Himmell, Iris Mortimer, Ivan Stokharin,
Clarissa Lessing and....”
“And Edward Hastings. We still use his introduction even though it’s
been largely obsoleted by later tests. His dialogues will of course be
the basis for that final book of Cave which our best scholars have been
at work on for over twenty years.”
Hastings, of all people! I nearly laughed aloud. Poor feckless Hastings
was now the author of _my_ dialogues with Cave: I marveled at the ease
with which the innumerable references to myself had been deleted. I
began to doubt of my own existence. I asked if Hastings were still
alive and was told that he too was long dead.