by Morris West
‘This is how I have disposed my affairs, Uncle. Maury Feldman has the necessary instructions and authorities. When I die, he will take over the Proteus files from safe-deposit and administer the organisation as I have done in the past.’
Uncle Andrea gripped his arm and steered him to the stone balustrade, from where they could look down on the fall of the vineyards and the olive groves towards the Tiber. Uncle Andrea said gravely:
‘You are too young to talk of dying, Giovanni; and you are not too old to found another family. You cannot spend the rest of your life in mourning.’
‘The mourning is over, Uncle. I am going round the world to make contact with our Proteus people and set up an information network for our publications . . . I am travelling with a woman, a long-time friend. She’s waiting for me now in the city.’
‘You should have brought her here.’
‘No, Uncle. This is she and me. It has nothing to do with family.’
‘In that case,’ Uncle Andrea was obviously relieved, ‘better you enjoy each other away from the tribe . . . But tell me, if you have a woman, why all this talk of dying?’
‘It’s an exercise.’ Spada tried to make a joke of it. ‘I want to get used to the idea, so that no one can ever frighten me with it again.’
‘It’s not a good thought to take to bed with a woman.’ Uncle Andrea grinned mischievously. ‘It could have disastrous consequences. Now, nephew . . .!’ Suddenly he was brusque and demanding, the old one jealous of his rights. ‘You have said much and told nothing. What are you going to do with your life from now on?’
‘Gamble with it,’ said John Spada.
‘For what stakes?’
‘One moment, one single moment in history, when the whole world will stop and listen and understand the lunacy that afflicts it.’
‘And you will be the man who tells them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you shout so loud?’
‘I can.’
‘What if the world rejects what you say?’
‘A lot of people will die.’
‘And you will be their executioner?’
‘Yes.’
‘You talk of lunacy. Are you sure you are sane, Giovanni?’
‘I believe I am. I am reasoning here with you.’
‘Are you using Proteus people for this?’
‘Yes. There are some who believe that benevolence is enough. There are others, like me, who believe that the time has come to fight. These will be my doomsday men.’
‘You have no right to command them to such a work!’
‘I have never commanded them, Uncle. They have always been free to say yea or nay to any project.’
‘I will not join you, Giovanni.’
‘I would not ask you, Uncle; just as I did not ask Maury Feldman.’
‘But what you propose still involves the rest of us.’
‘It has always been like that, Uncle. Long ago we set down a principle for all our Proteus family. Brothers may disagree, but they are brothers still. In a war they may be forced to fight each other; but the family goes on.’
‘I understand why you prepare yourself for death,’ said Uncle Andrea sombrely. ‘Even I, who love you, might find it necessary to kill you.’
‘I would probably bless you for the kindness.’ Spada put his arm round the old man’s shoulders and embraced him. ‘We’ve never quarrelled, you and I, let’s not start now. I am out to fight the butchers. You disapprove what I do, that’s your right. At least remember that my life is on the line . . .’
‘I know, Giovanni. I know.’ Uncle Andrea was distressed. ‘But I have seen a lot of dead; and young men drove tanks over their graves without a thought.’
‘The dying is not the tragedy, Uncle. It’s the forgetting. So I shall give the world a moment to remember . . . Ma noi due . . . almeno noi dobbiamo fare la pace, eh? . . . At least we two should make peace. I have to leave early in the morning.’
‘Will you still lay flowers in the Fosse Ardeatine?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what will you tell the dead? That they will soon have more company?’
‘That we are still in battle against the tyrants – and there is still a Spada among the partisans!’
The old man shivered. Spada drew him close to warm him.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Uncle Andrea brusquely. ‘I always feel cold when the sun goes down.’
‘It’s like a dream,’ said Kitty Cowan. ‘A beautiful quiet dream…’
They were standing in the temple garden of Ryoanji, looking over a sea of white sand, which rippled like waves round the dark rocks planted centuries ago by the great Soami. The sun was high, the shadows of the sandfurrows sharp, the rocks emphatic yet tranquil as the dreaming of the Lord Buddha. John Spada was silent for a long moment, then he responded.
‘This is where it all comes together: no argument, no distraction, just tranquillity.’
‘When you talked about it in Tokyo, with all that bustle and neon, I thought it would be sad and empty.’
‘The man who first showed it to me is dead now.’ John Spada was caught in reverie. ‘His name was Takeshi Saito. He had lived a strange, violent life, first as a soldier in the Sino-Japanese war, then as kind of muscleman for a big protection gang in Tokyo. After that he became a Zen monk.’
‘How? Why?’
‘He would never tell me exactly. The most he would say was that one day he walked into a silence . . . After a while I realised that, truly, no other explanation was necessary. I met him for the first time when some Japanese colleagues brought me here on a sightseeing tour. Takeshi showed us around. He and I got on well together. I was intrigued by the enormous calm that surrounded him. He, I think, saw in me something of his old, restless self. After that, whenever I came to Japan, I would call on him. Once or twice I stayed in the Monastery overnight . . . Anyway, it was Takeshi who explained the garden to me. He said: “The sand moves because it is still; the rocks speak because they are silent . . .”’
‘I’m glad you brought me here,’ said Kitty Cowan softly. ‘I’ve never seen you so relaxed.’
‘I haven’t quite stopped yet.’
Kitty Cowan was puzzled by the cryptic remark.
‘Stopped what?’
‘I was thinking of something else Takeshi used to say. “A man does not arrive until he stops travelling.”’
‘Arrive where?’
‘At a place which is no place; in a time which is no time.’ Spada smiled at her puzzlement. ‘It’s a Zen riddle. You worry at it, because it seems ridiculous. Then, if you are lucky, there comes a moment which is called satori, when you see that it is not ridiculous at all, but profoundly and simply true . . . There’s another garden here. It’s much easier to understand . . .’
He turned her gently from the stark, still sand-garden, led her back through the temple and out into a park of cedars and maples and rock-pools, fringed with azaleas and rhododendrons. He sat her on a bench with a great stone lantern beside it and showed her the golden carp cruising the calm water below. He asked quietly:
‘Have you enjoyed your picnic, Kitty Cowan?’
‘Oh God! Every hour of every day and every night.’
‘Even with Erwin Hengst?’
‘Because of Erwin Hengst . . . That was funny. At first I hated the whole idea, because the name was German, because I’d agreed to come with big John Spada, not with some – I don’t know – some actor playing a role I didn’t understand . . I wondered why you didn’t take me to all the places I’d heard you and Anna talk about: the Grand Canal, the Hermitage in Leningrad, the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, the famous hotels . . . I was disappointed, but I thought, well, you didn’t want to share with me the past you’d had with Anna. Then I realised you didn’t want to lodge in places where you were known, and that you were meeting people who didn’t want to be seen either . . . So I settled down to make the best of it…’
She broke off. Spada prompted her gently
.
‘And then?’
‘Then I understood how private and special an experience you were offering me, how much of yourself you were opening to me. Erwin Hengst was a dreamer, a kind of poet . . . Remember that day on Torcello when we sat in the old basilica holding hands and staring up at that marvellous mosaic of the Madonna? We were there nearly half an hour, all alone, hardly saying a word . . . And at night we lay in bed listening to the frogs and the night-birds, while you told me stories of the Old Doges and the traders of the Adriatic. They were like the fairy-tales I read when I was a child. That was when the magic started to work, and it’s gone on working ever since. Samarkand, Bangkok, Singapore, Sydney – those lovely days on the Reef island . . . and now this! I feel as if I’ve lived a whole lifetime in a few weeks. Me, Kitty Cowan from Brooklyn!’
‘And now,’ said John Spada gravely, ‘it’s almost time to go home.’
‘I was afraid of that.’ Her eyes filled up with tears. She groped for a handkerchief and blew her nose violently. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn! I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. And now I’m spoiling it all.’
‘No!’ John Spada took out his own handkerchief and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘I’m not feeling so happy myself; but I want you to know that I’ve enjoyed the picnic as much as you have. I’m glad you liked Erwin Hengst.’
‘I love the silly Kraut.’
‘He loves you too, Kitty. That’s funny. Having another name made it easy to be in love.’
‘But what’s going to happen to him now?’
‘Better you don’t ask, girl; because when you go back you’ll be questioned, and you’re not a very good liar. You had a nice romance with a German guy. You kissed goodbye and came home. Basta! It was great while it lasted and a lady’s got a right to her privacy. If they start to press harder you spit in their eye.’
‘I can’t bear not knowing what’s going to happen to you.’
‘In the end, you’ll know. I promise.’
‘And you think I can let it go at that?’
‘You must!’ There was a ring of steel in his voice. ‘That’s the one thing I demand of you.’
‘What about all those people you wouldn’t let me meet . . . do they know more than I do?’
‘Yes, but you will be under greater threat. Please, girl! Trust me!’
‘All right. But will you answer me one question?’
‘I’d like to hear it first.’
‘What really happened about Mike Santos? When I showed you the report of his death in the Herald Tribune, you said you didn’t want to talk about it. Finel I was a good girl and I didn’t want to spoil our picnic; but now, I have to know. What if I meet his wife again . . .?’
‘She’s buried her dead,’ said John Spada. ‘Let him stay buried.’
‘He was our man, John . . .’
‘No! He was never our man. You remember that great speech he made about his peasant ancestors who tasted the earth to tell whether it was sweet or sour? I think everything tasted sour to Mike Santos except his own ambition. He could only be happy at the top; he would stop at nothing to stay there. He conspired to kill Anna and Teresa and Rodo. I was next on his list. He used the money he got paid to buy his first block of shares in Spada Consolidated. After that, he could have built up his holdings, year by year, until he held the balance of power.’
‘That’s horrible! . . .’ Kitty gaped at him in amazement.
‘Horrible, but true.’
‘Then who killed him?’
‘I had him killed,’ said John Spada. ‘It can’t be proved. I doubt anyone will try very hard.’
‘And how does John Spada feel about it?’
‘He feels nothing at all. He’s a dead man already. That’s why Erwin Hengst brought you on your picnic’
‘Thanks for telling me.’ Kitty drew him to her and kissed him on the lips. ‘It makes things easier in a way. I loved John Spada too, you see. It’s not every girl who gets two big bites at the cherry. Thanks, my love. I think we should leave now. I’m ready to go home.’
‘Before we go,’ said John Spada. ‘In all this, Maury Feldman is clean; so, don’t tell him anything.’
‘I wouldn’t have anyway. I’ve forgotten everything except the fairy-tales – and the loving!’
As they walked back through the woodlands, a small, chill wind stirred among the leaves and ruffled the surface of the lily-ponds. It was still high summer, but soon it would be autumn, which the Japanese call ‘the time of maples-in-flame’.
The day after Kitty Cowan left Tokyo, John Spada began the last rites of his private existence. He made a package of all his personal documents – passport, credit cards, cheque book – sealed it and despatched it by registered airmail to Maury Feldman. He went through his clothes, rejected every garment with a New York label and retained only those which he had bought on the Continent. He went to the American Consulate and filed an application for a visitor’s visa for Erwin Hengst. Then he took a taxi to Nihonbashi, where, in a small, old-fashioned tea-house, he sat two hours over a lunch with a graduate bacteriologist from Tokyo University.
After lunch he went to a print-maker in Yoshiwara, who delivered to him a package of hand-made paper, headed with a wood-block symbol of the fish in a box. From the print-maker he went to an elderly calligrapher who undertook to inscribe for him, in Romaji, a handwritten document, whose contents were written in English so the old man could not understand. In the evening, alone and lonely, Spada went to a noisy nightclub. At two in the morning, weary of the clatter, he went back to his hotel and wrote a letter to Kurt Deskau at his private address in Munich.
My dear Kurt,
I am sure you will understand why I have not written to you sooner. I have been like an earthquake victim, stunned and shocked, struggling to hold on to my sanity. I am grateful for your concern over my safety and for the friendship that prompts it. However, I must tell you that I am now nearly at the end of the road which leads to the place where my last battle will be fought. I am calm in the knowledge that I shall probably not survive it; but at least I shall have given an open testament – made one final stand against a creeping iniquity.
You ask me about the documents of Erwin Hengst. I have one more use for them. Then I shall post them back to you before any questions, embarrassing to you, can be asked about them.
What more can I say? I send you a last salute from a man standing on the edge of the world and looking into nowhere. I have no regrets, and only one small hope: that what I do now will demonstrate the inevitable consequence of man’s violence against his fellows.
Affectionate greetings and my heartfelt thanks,
John Spada
He put down the pen and sat a long time, staring at the signature. It was the last time he would use it on any document, the last affirmation that John Spada was numbered among the living.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The first annual session of the United Nations General Assembly was scheduled for the third Tuesday in September. One week before that date a sealed package was delivered to the mail-room of the United Nations. It was marked: ‘Personal and Urgent’ and addressed to the Secretary-General. The customary security check revealed that the package contained a letter, a bulky schedule in typescript and a small box padded with cotton-wool, in which were two sealed glass capsules: one containing a liquid, the other a small quantity of white crystalline powder. The capsules were sent out immediately for laboratory testing. The Chief of Security personally delivered the letter and the schedule into the hands of the Secretary-General. At eight o’clock in the evening he read it aloud to his senior colleagues in the Secretariat:
The symbol which heads this paper represents Proteus, shepherd of the creatures of the sea, custodian of knowledge, the elusive God of many shapes. It is also the symbol of the organisation of which I am the founder, and which, like Proteus, functions in many places and in many disguises.
When you read this letter for the first time, you will be temp
ted to say: ‘This is the work of a madman.’ I beg you, do not yield to the temptation. As you will see, it contains no proposition to which you and your colleagues do not subscribe, no demand which the United Nations Organisation has not made, over and over again: the liberation of prisoners of conscience, the abolition of torture, the restoration of the rights of free speech, free assembly, fair trial, the right to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That you have made these demands is a matter of history. That you have been unable to enforce them is a matter of universal regret. However, now that they are enforceable, I beg you and your colleagues, in the name of humanity, not to abrogate them.
With this letter you will receive two glass phials. The liquid in one phial is a live culture of Botulinus, Type A. The powder is Botulinus toxin, a deadly poison. Any competent bacteriologist will inform you that both the culture and the toxin can be produced quickly under elementary laboratory conditions and that quite small amounts can contaminate the water supplies of any large city.
My organisation, which exists in all the major countries, possesses cultures, toxin and laboratory facilities and is, therefore, in a position to create, throughout the world, a serial biological disaster, against which there is no adequate remedy.
At this moment, I know, the familiar words will spring to your mind: hijack, blackmail, terrorism. I beg you to reflect on another word: sanction. I am placing in your hands, Mr Secretary-General, the one power you have never had: the power to impose a decision of the United Nations by sanction, by penalty without redress. If you are not prepared to use this power, then I shall use it, and continue to use it, until my and your legitimate demands are met.
With this letter I send you a schedule, necessarily incomplete, of those places of detention, where men and women are confined, interrogated, tortured in defiance of every principle of humanity. I send you lists of prisoners, again incomplete, because secrecy is the weapon of all tyrants. I request and require that these places of detention be opened, their inmates released, and dispersed to their homes within twenty-one days of this date, and that their release and dispersal be supervised and confirmed by observers from international agencies appointed by United Nations.
