Messiah

by Gore Vidal

  "What can I do?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea. It's enough that you were warned in advance."

  "What would you do?"

  "Exactly what I'm going to do: pull out for good and take a long trip."

  "I mean if you were I."

  She sighed. "Save your life, if possible; that's all you can do."

  "I have a few weapons, you know. I have the Journal and I'm a director. I have friends in every Center." This was almost true. I had made a point of knowing as many Residents as possible. "I also have Iris and Cave on my side since I'm willing to do all I can to keep him alive, that he not become a supreme symbol."

  "I wish you luck," Clarissa was most cynical. She rose "Now that I've done my bit of informing, I'm off."

  "Europe?"

  "None of your business. But I will tell you I won't go back there: they've gone quite mad too. In Madrid I pretended to be a Catholic and I watched them put Cavites up before firing squads. Of course our people, despite persecution, are having a wonderfully exciting time with passwords and peculiar college fraternity handclasps and so on." She collected her gloves and handbag from the floor where, as usual, she had strewn them.

  "Well, now good-by." She gave me a kiss; then she was gone. I never saw her again.

  2

  Events moved rapidly. I took to bolting my bedroom door at night and, during the day, I was careful always to have one or another of my assistants near me. It was a strange sensation to be living in a modem city with all its police and courts and yet to fear that, in a crisis, there would be no succor, no one to turn to for aid and protection. We were a separate government within the nation and the laws did not reach us.

  The day after Clarissa had said good-by, Paul appeared in my office. I was surrounded by editors but at a look from him and a gesture from me they withdrew. We had each kept our secret, evidently, for none of those close to us in that building suspected that there had been a fatal division.

  "I seem to be in disgrace," I said, my forefinger delicately caressing the buzzer which I had built into the arm of my chair so that I might summon aid in the event that a visitor proved to be either a bore or a maniac, two types curiously drawn to enterprises such as ours.

  "I wouldn't say that." Paul sat in a chair close to my own; I recall thinking, a little madly, that elephants are supposed to be at their most dangerous when they are quite still. Paul was noticeably controlled. Usually he managed to cross the room at least once for every full sentence; now he sat looking at me, his face without expression.

  "I've seen no one since our dinner except Clarissa," I explained; then I added, earnestly: "I wonder where she plans to go. She didn't . . ."

  "You've almost wrecked everything," he said, his voice tight, unfamiliar in its tension.

  "I didn't want to," I said, inaccurately. I was at the moment more terrified than I'd ever been, either before or since. I could get no real grip on him: the surface he presented me was as formidable, as granitic as a prison wall.

  "Who told you? Iris? Cave? or were you spying?" Each question was fired at me like a bullet.

  "Spying on whom?"

  "On me, damn you!" Then it broke. The taut line of control which had held in check his anger and his fear broke all at once and the torrent flowed, reckless and overpowering: "You meddling idiot! You spied on me; you found out; you thought you'd be able to stall things by springing it like that. Well, you failed." I recall thinking, quite calmly, how much I preferred his face in the congested ugliness of rage to its ordinary banality of expression. I was relieved, too, by the storm. I could handle him when he was out of control. I considered my counteroffensive while he shouted at me, accused me of hostility to him, of deviationism from Cavesword and of numerous other crimes. He stopped, finally, for lack of breath.

  "I gather," I said, my voice shaking a little from excitement, "that at some point recently you decided that Cave should apply Cavesword to himself and die, providing us with a splendid example, an undying (I mean no pun) symbol."

  "You know you found out and decided to get in on the act, to force my hand. Now he'll never do it."

  That was it then. I was relieved to be no longer in the dark. "Cave has refused to kill himself?"

  "You bet your sweet life he has." Paul was beginning to recover his usual poise. "Your little scene gave him the excuse he needed: 'Gene's right.'" Paul imitated Cave's voice with startling accuracy and malice. " 'Gene's right. I never did mean for everybody to kill themselves off . . . where'd the world be if that happened? Just a few people. That's all.' And he's damned if he's going to be one of them. 'Hate to set that sort of example.'"

  "Well, you'll have to try something else then."

  "Why did you do it?" Paul's voice became petulant. "Did Iris put you up to it?"

  "Nobody put me up to it."

  "You mean to sit there and try to make me believe that it just occurred to you, like that, to suggest Cave would have to kill himself if he encouraged suicide?"

  "I mean that it occurred to me exactly like that." I looked at Paul with vivid loathing. "Can't you understand even the obvious relationship between cause and effect? With this plan of Stokharin's you'll make it impossible for Cave not to commit suicide and, when he does, you will have an international death cult which I shall do my best to combat."

  Paul's hands began nervously to play with his tie, his lapels: I wondered if he'd come armed. I placed my finger lightly upon the buzzer. Implacably, we faced one another.

  "You are not truly Cavesword," was all that he said.

  "We won't argue about that. I'm merely explaining to you why I said what I did and why I intend to keep Cave alive as long as possible. Alive and hostile to you, to your peculiar interpretation of his word."

  Paul looked suddenly disconsolate. "I've done what I thought best. I feel Cave should show us all the way. I feel it's both logical and necessary to the Establishment that he give back his life publicly."

  "But he doesn't want to."

  "That is the part I can't understand. Cavesword is that death is not to be feared but embraced yet he, the man who has really changed the world, refuses to die."

  "Perhaps he feels he has more work to do. More places to see. Perhaps, Paul, he doesn't trust you . . . doesn't want to leave you in control of the Establishment."

  "I'm willing to get out if that's all that's stopping him." But the insincerity of this protestation was too apparent for either of us to contemplate for long.

  "I don't care what his motives are. I don't care if he himself is terrified of dying (and I have a hunch that that is the real reason for his hesitancy) but I do know that I don't want him dead by his own hand."

  "You're quite sure of that?"

  "Absolutely sure. I'm a director of the Establishment and don't forget it, Paul: it's Iris, Cave and I against you and Stokharin. You may control the organization but we have Cave himself." I gathered courage in my desperation. I purposely sounded as though I were in warm concert with the others.

  "I realize all that." Paul was suddenly meek, conciliatory, sublimely treacherous. "But you must allow me as much sincerity as you withhold for yourself. I want to do what's best. I think he should die and I've done everything to persuade him. He was near agreement when you upset everything."

  "For which I'm happy . . . though it was something of an accident. Are you sure that it is only for the sake of Cavesword you want him dead?"

  "What other possible reason?" He looked at me indignantly. I could not be sure whether he was telling the truth or not. I doubted it.

  "Many other reasons. For one thing you would be his heir, in complete control of the Establishment; and that of course is something worth inheriting."

  Paul shrugged convincingly. "I'm as much in charge now as I would be with him dead," he said with a certain truth. "I'm interested in Cavesword, not in Cave. If his death enhances and establishes the Word more securely then I must do all I can to convince him to take that course."

&
nbsp; "There is another way," I said, smiling at the pleasant thought.

  "Another way?"

  "To convince us of your dedication and sincerity to Cavesword."

  "What's that?"

  "You kill yourself, Paul."

  There was a long silence. I pressed the buzzer and my secretary came in. Without a word, Paul left.

  Immediately afterwards, I took the private elevator to Cave's penthouse. Two guards stopped me while I was announced by a third. After a short delay, I was admitted to Cave's study, but not to Cave; instead, Iris received me.

  "I know what's happening," I said. "Where is he?"

  "Obviously you do." Her voice was cold. She did not ask me to sit down. Awkwardly, I faced her at the room's center.

  "We must stop him."

  "John? Stop him from what?"

  "Doing what Paul wants him to do."

  "And what you want as well."

  "You're mistaken. I thought I made myself clear the other night. But though my timing was apparently bad, under no circumstances do I want him to die."

  "You made your speech to force him."

  "And Paul thinks I made it to stop him." I couldn't help smiling. "I am, it seems, everyone's enemy."

  "Paul has told me everything. How you and he and Stokharin all decided, without consulting us, that John should die." I was astonished at Paul's boldness. Could he really be moving so swiftly? How else explain such a prodigious lie? I told her quickly, urgently what I felt, what I had said to Paul and he to me. She heard me to the end without expressing either belief or disbelief. When I'd finished she turned away from me and went to the window where, through yellow glass, the city rose upon the band of horizon.

  "It's too late," she said, evenly. "I hadn't expected this. Perhaps you're telling me the truth . . . if you are, you've made a terrible mistake." She turned about suddenly, with a precision which was almost military. "He's going to do it."

  The awful words fell like a weight upon a scale. I felt blindly for a chair and sat down, all strength gone. "Stop him," I said, all that I could say. "Stop him."

  "It's too late for that." She took pity on me. "I think you're telling me the truth, Gene." She came over to where I was sitting and looked down at me gently. "I'm sorry I accused you. I should have realized Paul was lying."

  "You can stop him."

  "I can't. I've tried but I can't." Her control was extraordinary. I did not then guess the reason for her calm, her strength.

  "Then I must try." I stood up. She backed away at the expression on my face.

  "You can't do anything. He won't see you. He won't see anyone but me."

  "I thought he told Paul he agreed with me, that he didn't want to . . . to countenance all this, that he . . ."

  "At first he took your side, if it is really what you yourself feel: then he thought about it and . . . this morning he decided to go ahead with Paul's plan."

  I was confused. "Does Paul know?"

  Iris smiled wanly. "John is reserving for himself the pleasure of doing what he must do without Paul's assistance."

  "Or knowledge?"

  Iris shrugged. "Paul will find out about it this evening, I suppose. There will be an announcement. John's secretary is getting it ready now . . . one for the public and another for the Establishment."

  "When will it happen?"

  "Tomorrow. I go with him, Gene."

  "You? You're not going to die too?"

  "I don't see that it makes much difference what I do when John dies."

  "You can't leave us now. You can't leave Paul in charge of everything. He's a dangerous man. Why, if . . ."

  "You'll be able to handle him." It was perfectly apparent to me that she was no longer interested in me or in the others; not even in the fate of the work we had begun.

  "It's finished, if you go too," I said bleakly. "Together we could control Paul; alone, I'd not last ten days. Iris, let me talk to him."

  "I can't. I won't."

  I contemplated pushing by her and searching the penthouse but there were guards everywhere and I had no wish to be shot myself on such an errand.

  She guessed my thought and said, quickly, "There's no possible way for you or anyone to get through to him. Sometime tonight or tomorrow he will leave and that's the end."

  "He won't do it here?" This surprised me.

  She shook her head. "He wants to go off alone, away from everyone. I'm to be with him until the end; then I'll send the body back here for burial . . . but he'll leave full instructions."

  "You mean I'm never to see either of you again? Just like that, you both go?"

  "Just like this." For the first time she displayed some warmth. "I've cared for you, Gene," she said gently. "I even think that of us all you were the one most nearly right in your approach to John. I think you understood him better than he did himself. Try to hold on after we go. Try to keep it away from Paul."

  "As if I could!" I turned from her bitterly, filled with unexpected grief: I did not want to lose her presence even though I had lost her or, rather, never possessed more of her than that one bright instant years before on the California coast when we had both realized with the unexpected clarity of the lovers we were not that our lives had come to the same point at the same moment and the knowledge of this confluence was the one splendor I had known, the single hope, the unique passion of my life.

  "Don't miss me, Gene. I couldn't bear that." She put her hand on my arm. I walked away, not able to bear her touch. Then they came.

  Paul and Stokharin were in the study. Iris gasped and stepped back when she saw them. I spun about just as Paul shouted: "It won't work, Iris! Give it up."

  "Get out of here, Paul." Her voice was strong. "You have no right here."

  "I have as much right as you. Now tell me whose idea was it? yours? or was it John's? or Gene's? since he seems to enjoy playing both sides."

  "Get out. All of you." She moved to the old-fashioned bell cord which hung beside Cave's massive desk.

  "Don't bother," said Paul. "No one will come."

  Iris, her eyes wide now with fear, tugged the cord twice: the second time it broke off in her hand. There was no response.

  Paul looked grim. "I'm sorry to have to do it this way but you've left me no choice. You can't leave, either of you."

  "You read . . ."

  "I saw the release. It won't work."

  "Why not? It's what you've wanted all along. Everything will be yours. There'll be nobody to stop you. John will be dead and I'll be gone for good. You'll never see me again . . . why must you interfere?" She spoke quickly, plausibly but the false proportion was evident now, even to me: the plan was tumbling down at Paul's assault.

  "Iris, I'm not a complete fool. I know perfectly well that Cave has no intention of killing himself and that . . ."

  "Why do you think I'm going with him? to send you the body back for the ceremony which you'll perform right here, publicly . . ."

  "Iris." He looked at her for a long moment. Then: "If you two leave as planned tonight (I've canceled the helicopter by the way) there will be no body, no embalming, no ceremony, no point . . . only a mystery which might very well undo all our work. I can't allow that. Cave must die here, before morning. We might have put it off but your announcement has already leaked out. There'll be a million people out there in the street tomorrow. We'll have to show them Cave's body."

  Iris swayed; I moved quickly to her side and held her arm.

  "It's three to two, Paul," I said. "I assume we're still directors. Three of us have agreed that Cave and Iris leave. That's final." But my bluff was humiliatingly weak; it was ignored.

  "The penthouse," said Paul softly, "is empty . . . just the five of us here. The Doctor and I are armed. Take us in to him."

  "No." Iris moved instinctively, fatally, to the door which led to Cave, as if to guard it with her body.

  There was a brief scuffle which ended with Iris and myself, considerably disheveled, facing two guns. With an apol
ogy, Stokharin pushed us through the door.

  In a small sun-room we found Cave sitting before a television screen, watching the installation of a new Resident in Boston. He looked up with surprise at our entrance. "I thought I said . . ." he began but Iris interrupted him.

  "They want to kill you, John."

  He got to his feet quickly, his face pale and his eyes glaring. Even Paul was shaken by that glance. "You read my last statement?" Cave spoke sharply, without apparent fear.

  "That's why we've come," said Paul; he and Stokharin moved, as though by previous accord, to opposite ends of the little room, leaving the three of us together, vulnerable at its center. "You must do it here." Paul signaled Stokharin who, after some fumbling, produced a small metal box which he tossed to Cave.

  "Some of the new pills," he said nervously. "Very nice. We use peppermint in the outer layer and . . ."

  "Take it, John."

  "I'll get some water," said Stokharin; but Paul waved to him to keep his place.

  Cave smiled whitely. "I will not take it. Now both of you get out of here before I call the guards."

  "No more guards," said Paul. "We've seen to that. Now, please, don't make it any more difficult than it is. Take the pill."

  "If you read my statement you know that . . ."

  "You intend to take a pleasant trip around the world incognito with Iris. Yes, I know. As your friend, I wish you could do it. But, for one thing, sooner or later you'd be recognized and, for another, we must have proof . . . we must have a body."

  "Iris will bring the body back," said Cave. He was still quite calm. "I choose to do it this way and there's nothing more to be said. You'll have the Establishment all to yourself and I will be a most satisfactory figure upon which to build a world religion." It was the only time in my experience with Cave that I ever heard him strike the ironic note.

  "Leave us alone, Paul. You have what you want. Now let us go." Iris begged but Paul had no eyes for anyone but Cave.