Messiah

by Gore Vidal

  The committee members, important and proud, joined us and we took up the day's problem which was, by some irony, the standardization of facilities for Cavesway in the different Centers. Quietly, without raising our voices, in a most good-humored way, we broke neatly in half on Cavesway. I and one other Resident objected to the emphasis on death. Dallas and the fourth member were in favor of expanding the facilities, both physically and psychologically, until every Cavite at the moment when he felt his social usefulness ebbing could take Cavesway. We argued reasonably with one another until it became apparent that there was no possible ground for compromise.

  It was put to a vote and Iris broke the tie by endorsing Cavesway.

  4

  This morning as I finished the above lines I suffered a mild stroke . . . a particularly unusual one since I did not become, as far as I know, unconscious. I was rereading my somewhat telescoped account of the Council of Dallas when, without warning, the blow fell; a capillary burst in my brain and I felt as though I were losing my mind in one last fantastic burst of images. The pain was negligible, no worse than a headache, but the sensation of letting go one's conscious mind, one's control was terrifying. I tried to move from my work-table, to call for help, but I was too weak. For one long giddy moment I thought: I am dying; this is the way it is and, even in my anguish, I was curious, waiting for that approach of winged darkness which years ago I once experienced when I fainted and which I have always since imagined to be like death's swift entrance.

  But then my body recovered from the assault: the wall was breached, the enemy is in the city but the citadel is still intact and yet I live.

  Weakly I got up, poured myself a jigger of brandy and then, having drunk it all at once, fell across my bed and slept and did not dream, which is a rare blessing in these feverish last days.

  I was awakened by the sensation of being watched. I opened my eyes and saw above me, looking like a bronze figure of Anubis, Jessup who said, "I'm sorry . . . didn't mean to disturb you. Your door was open and I . . ."

  "Perfectly all right," I said, as smoothly as I could, drugged with sleep. I pulled myself up against the pillows. "Excuse me for not getting up but I'm still a little weak from my illness."

  "I wanted to see you," said Jessup, sitting down in the chair which I indicated beside the bed. "I hope you don't mind my barging in like this."

  "Not at all. How do you find Luxor?" I wanted to delay as long as possible the questions which I was quite sure he would want to ask me, questions concerning my identity.

  "The people are not so fixed in error as we'd been warned. There's a great curiosity about Cavesword." His eyes had been taking in the details of the room with some interest; to my horror I recalled that I had left the manuscript of my work on the table instead of hiding it as usual in the washstand. He saw it. "Your . . . memoirs?" He looked at me with a polite interest which I was sure disguised foreknowledge.

  "A record of my excavations," I said, in a voice which descended the scale to a whisper. "I do it for my own amusement, to pass the time."

  "I should enjoy reading it."

  "You exaggerate, in your kindness," I said, pushing myself higher on the bed, preparing if necessary for a sudden spring.

  "Not at all. If it is about Egypt, I should read it. There are no contemporary accounts of this country . . . by one of us."

  "I'm afraid the details of findings in the valley yonder," I gestured toward Libya and the last acres of the kings, "won't be of much use to you. I avoid all mention of people less than two millennia dead."

  "Even so." But Jessup did not pursue the subject. I relaxed a little.

  "I must tell you," he said suddenly, "that I was suspicious of you."

  Now I thought, now it comes; then I was amused: right at the end they arrive, when it was too late for them, or for me.

  "What form did your suspicions take?" My fear left me in one last flurry, like a bird departing in a cold wind for another latitude, leaving the branch which held it all summer through to wither in the snow.

  "I thought you might be the one we have so often heard of . . . in legend, that is: the enemy of Cave."

  "Which enemy?"

  "The nameless one or at least we know a part of his name if lutherist is derived from it."

  "What made you suspect me?"

  "Because were I an enemy of Cave and were I forced to disappear, I should come to just such a town in just such a country as this."

  "Perfectly logical," I agreed. "But there are many towns in the Arab League, in Asia too. Why suppose one old man to be this mythical villain?"

  Jessup smiled. "Intuition, I'm afraid. A terrible admission from one who has been trained in the logic of Cavesword. It seemed exactly right. You're the right age, the right nationality . . . in any case, I telephoned Dallas about you."

  I took this calmly. "You talked to the Chief Resident himself?"

  "Of course not." Jessup was surprised at my suggestion. "One just doesn't call the Chief Resident like that. Only the senior Residents ever talk to him personally. No, I talked to an old friend of mine who is one of the five principal assistants to the Historian General. We were in school together and his specialty is the deviationists of the early days."

  "And what did you learn from this scholar?"

  Jessup gave me a most charming smile. "Nothing at all. There was no such person as I thought existed, as a number of people thought existed. It was all a legend . . . a perfectly natural one for gossip to invent. There was a good deal of trouble at the beginning, especially over Cavesway. There was even a minority at Dallas which refused to accept the principle of Cavesway without which of course there could be no Establishment. According to the stories one heard as recently as my university days, ten years ago, the original lutherist had led the opposition to Iris, in the Council and out. For a time it looked as though the Establishment might be broken in two (this, you must remember since you were contemporary to it; fortunately, our Historical Office has tended more and more to view it in the long perspective and popular works on Cave now make no reference to it); in any case, there was an open break and the minority was soon absorbed by the majority."

  "Painlessly?" I mocked him. Could he be telling the truth? or was this a trap?

  Jessup shrugged. "These things are never without pain. It is said that an attempt was made on our mother Iris's life during the ceremony of Cave's ashes. We still continue it, you know."

  "Continue what?"

  "The symbolic gathering of the ashes. But of course you know the origin of all that. There was a grave misinterpretation of Cave's last wishes. His ashes were scattered over the United States when it was his wish to be embalmed and preserved. Iris, each year, traveled to the four cities over which the ashes had been distributed and she collected a bit of dust in each city to symbolize her obedience to Cavesword in all things. At Seattle, during this annual ceremony, a group of lutherists tried to assassinate her."

  "I remember," I said. I had had no hand in that dark episode but it provided the Establishment with the excuse they needed. My partisans were thrown in prison all over the country. The government, which by then was entirely Cavite, handed several thousand over to the Centers where they were indoctrinated, ending the heresy for good. Iris herself had secretly arranged for my escape . . . but Jessup could know nothing of this.

  "Of course you know these things, perhaps even better than I since you were alive then. Forgive me. I have got into the bad Residential habit of explaining the obvious. An occupational disease." He was disarming. "The point I'm trying to make is that my suspicions of you were unworthy and unfounded since there was no leader of the lutherists to escape; all involved responded nicely to indoctrination and that was the end of it. The story I heard in school was a popular one. The sort that often evolves . . . like Lucifer and the old Christian God, for instance . . . for white there must be black, that kind of thing. Except that Cave never had a major antagonist, other than in legend."

  "
I see. Tell me, then, if there was no real leader to the lutherists, how did they come by their name?"

  His answer was prompt. "Martin Luther. My friend in the H.O. told me this morning over the telephone. Someone tried to make an analogy, that's all, and the name stuck though, as a rule, the use of any words or concepts derived from the dead religions is frowned upon. You know the story of Martin Luther? It seems that he . . ."

  "I know the story of Martin Luther," I answered, more sharply than I intended.

  "Now I've tired you." Jessup was sympathetic. He got to his feet. "I just wanted to tell you about my suspicions, that's all; I thought it might amuse you and perhaps bring us closer together for I'd very much like to be your friend, not only for the help you can give me up here but also because of your memories of the old days when Cave and Iris, his mother, still lived."

  "Iris was at least five years younger than Cave."

  "Everyone knows that, my friend. She was his spiritual mother, as she is ours. 'From the dark womb of unbeing we emerge in the awful light of consciousness from which the only virtuous escape is Cavesway.' I quote from Iris's last testament. It was found among her papers after her death."

  "Did she take Cavesway?"

  Jessup frowned. "It is said that she died of pneumonia but had death not come upon her unexpectedly it was well known that she would have taken Cavesway. There has been considerable debate over this at Dallas. I hear from highly placed people that before many years have passed they will promulgate a new interpretation, applying only to Iris, which will establish that intent and fact are the same, that though she died of pneumonia she intended to take Cavesway and, therefore, took Cavesway in spirit and therefore in fact."

  "A most inspiring definition."

  "It is beautifully clear, though perhaps difficult for an untrained mind. Can I read your memoir? His eyes strayed curiously to the table.

  "When it's finished," I said. "It's almost done now. In a few days perhaps; I should be most curious to see how it strikes you."

  "Well, I won't take up any more of your time. I hope you'll let me come to see you."

  "Nothing could give me more pleasure." And then, with a pat on my shoulder and a kind suggestion that should I choose Cavesway he would be willing to administer the latest drug, Jessup departed.

  I remained very still for some minutes, holding my breath for long intervals, trying to die. Then, in a sudden rage, I hurled my pillow across the room and beat the mattress with my fists: it was over. All was at an end except my own miserable life which will soon enough be gone. My name erased; my work subverted; all that I most detested regnant in the world. I could have wept had there been one tear left in me. Now there is nothing I can do but finish this narrative . . . for its own sake since it will be thought, I know, the ravings of a mad man when Jessup reads it, as he surely will after I am dead.

  I have tried now for several hours to describe my last meeting with Iris but I find that my memory is at last seriously impaired, the result, no doubt, of that tiny vein which broke this morning in my brain. It all seems a jumble. I think there were several years in which I was in opposition. I think that I had considerable support and I am almost sure that, until the attempted assassination of Iris at Seattle, I was close to dominating the Council of Residents. The idiotic attempt on her life, however, ruined everything. She knew of course that I had had nothing to do with it but she was a resolute leader and she took this opportunity to annihilate my party. I believe we met for the last time in a garden. A garden very like the one where we first met in California. No, on the banks of the Hudson . . . I must reread what I have written to refresh my memory. It is all beginning to fade rapidly.

  In any case, we met in a garden in the late autumn when all the trees were bare. She was white-haired then, though neither of us was much over forty.

  I believe that she wept a little: for we were the last who had been close to Cave, heirs both though now adversaries, she victrix and I vanquished. I never loved her more than at that last moment; of this I am sure. We talked of possible places of exile. She had arranged for my passage on a ship to Alexandria under the name of Richard Hudson (yes, she who erased my name, in her compassion, gave me a new one). She did not want, however, to know where I intended to go from there.

  "It would be a temptation to the others," she said. I remember that one sentence and I do remember the appearance of the garden though its location I have quite forgotten: there was a high wall all around it and the smell of moldering leaves was acrid. From the mouth of a satyr no water fell in a mossy pool.

  Ah yes! the question and the answer. That's it of course. The key. I had nearly lost it. Before I left, I asked her what it was that Cave had said to her when he was dying, the words the rest of us had not heard. At first she hesitated but then, secure in her power and confident of her own course, she told me: "He said: 'Gene was right.'" I remember looking at her with shock, waiting for her to continue, to make some apology for the monstrousness of her deeds, for her reckless falsification of Cave's life and death. But she said no more: there was, I suppose, no explanation she might have made. We parted without farewells, without more words.

  I left the gray garden which had become bitter cold during our conversation. I left America that same day and my real life ended.

  There's more to it than this but I cannot get it straight in my mind. Something has happened to my memory. I wonder if perhaps I have not dreamed all this: a long nightmare drawing to its bitter close in this dry ruin of an older world.

  It is late now. I still live though I am exhausted and indifferent to everything except that violent living sun whose morning light has just this moment begun to strike upon the western hills across the river: all that is left, all that ever was, the red fire.

  I shall not take Cavesway even though I die in pain and confusion. Anubis must wait for me in the valley until the last and, even then, I shall struggle in his arms for I know now that life, my life was more valuable than I knew, more significant and virtuous than the other's was in her bleak victory.

  Though my memory is going from me rapidly, the meaning is clear and unmistakable and I see the pattern whole at last, marked in giant strokes upon the air: I was he whom the world awaited. I was that figure, that messiah whose work might have been the world's delight, and liberation. But the villain death once more undid me and to him belongs the moment's triumph. Yet life continues, though I do not. Time bends upon itself. The morning breaks. Now I will stop for it is day.

  1947 to November, 1953: Barrytown, N. Y.