Messiah

by Gore Vidal

"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 it, 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 them 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 i
n 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."