The Clowns of God

by Morris West

  Mendelius and Rainer closed themselves in the study to set their materials in order: Rainer’s files on the pontificate of Gregory XVII, Mendelius’ private correspondence with him, before and during his reign, lecture notes and bibliography on the millennial tradition, and, for cornerstone to the edifice, the three most recent documents: the letter, the encyclical and the list of names. On these last Georg Rainer rendered a curt judgment.

  “… If you’re not a believer—and I’m at best a vestigial Lutheran—the letter and the encyclical are like poetry, beyond rational discussion. Either you feel them or you don’t. I felt the man’s agony. However, for me, he was walking on the moon, far out of reach.… But the list of names—that was a different matter. I recognized most of them. I knew enough about them to observe certain common factors, and guess that a computer run might show even more. I want to work through the list again this morning before I commit to any conclusions.…”

  “Can you see them as Friends of Silence?”

  “No way at all. They’ve all been very vocal people, some of whom have suffered checks in their careers and may or may not recover.”

  “I’m going to try the name on Drexel.”

  Mendelius reached for the phone, dialled the number of Vatican City and asked to be connected with Cardinal Drexel. His Eminence sounded surprised and a little wary.

  “Mendelius? You’re stirring early. What can I do for you?”

  “I am working on my memoir. You were kind enough to offer your assistance on matters of fact.”

  “Yes?”

  “Who are Les Amis du Silence?”

  “I’m sorry.” Drexel was brusque. “I can give you no information at all on that question.”

  “Can you refer me, as you promised, to any other source?”

  “That would not be opportune.”

  “Others have informed me that the subject may be dangerous.”

  “As to that, I can offer no opinion.”

  “Thank you, Eminence, at least for accepting my call.”

  “My pleasure, Mendelius. Good morning!”

  Rainer was not surprised. “No luck?”

  Mendelius gave a snort of disgust. “The subject is inopportune!”

  “I love that word! They use it to bury all sorts of bodies.… Why not ring Monte Cassino and ask your friend for clarification?”

  “Because I don’t want him to bear any responsibility for what we write. You’re the reporter. Where else can we try?”

  “I suggest we forget it for the moment and block out the argument of the piece. As I see it we start with the abdication itself, a large, consequential act, the reason for which is still a mystery. We have now accumulated enough evidence to affirm that the members of the Sacred College engineered the situation. We demonstrate how it was done. Finally we come to the why; which depends on your testimony, the final three documents and your interviews with Drexel in Rome and the former Gregory the Seventeenth in Monte Cassino. I report all that and cite the evidence. Immediately our readers make judgments. The cynics say the man was mad and the Cardinals were right to get rid of him. The devout rest tranquil on the official line that whatever happened, the Holy Spirit will make it come right in the end. The curious and the critical will want to know more.… Which is where you take up the narrative with a portrait of the man and an examination of what he said and wrote. I know you’re a very lucid writer, but this time you’ll really have to spell things out in simple language—even for our sub-editors!… Well, do you agree with the form?”

  “As a beginning, yes. Let’s see how it looks in typescript.… You make yourself comfortable. I’m going to take a walk before I start work.”

  As he was walking through the lounge the telephone rang. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as Dieter Lorenz, senior investigator with the Landeskriminalamt. A matter of some importance had come up; he would like to discuss it with the Herr Professor.

  He arrived ten minutes later, a gangling shabby-looking fellow dressed in blue jeans and a leather jacket. While Lotte prepared coffee he displayed to Mendelius a grubby sheet of mimeograph paper on which was a line-drawn portrait of Mendelius with his name, address and telephone number. The paper was folded several times as if it had been carried in a wallet. Lorenz explained its provenance.

  “… There’s a beer hall frequented by Turkish workmen from the paper factory. It’s one of the centers for drug traffic in the city and among the students. Last night there was an affray between some Turks and a bunch of young Germans. A man was knifed. He was dead before they got him to hospital. We’ve identified him as Albrecht Metzger, onetime clerk at the paper-works, sacked six months ago for petty theft. We found that paper in his wallet.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “In brief, Professor, it means you are under terrorist surveillance. The sketch is mimeographed, which indicates it has been circulated to a number of people. The paper is German. The drawing was probably done in Rome. It was made from one of the photographs of you which appeared in the Italian press.… The rest of the story is not yet clear. We do know that some underground groups finance themselves by trafficking in drugs which originate in Turkey. There are twenty thousand students at the University—so that’s a highly significant market for the dealers. The dead man was not on any of our wanted lists. However, the terrorist groups do use fringe operators, paid in cash, in order to protect the central organization. The way things are now—with high unemployment and social unrest—there’s no trouble finding pickup labour for jobs like this.…”

  Lotte brought the coffee and while she served it Mendelius explained the situation. She took it calmly enough; but her face was pale and her hand trembled as she set down the coffeepot. Lorenz continued his exposition:

  “You have to understand how the terrorist system works. Using people like our deceased friend Metzger—we call them ‘spotters’—they build up a picture of the habits and movements of the intended victim. In a big city it’s more difficult; but in a small one like Tübingen and with a professional man like yourself, it’s comparatively easy. You go always to the same place of work. You shop at the same stores.… You can’t introduce too many variations. So you get inattentive and careless. Then, one day, they move in a hit team—three, four people, with a couple of vehicles, and—poof!—the thing is done.”

  “It’s not a very hopeful picture, is it?” Lotte’s voice was unsteady.

  “No, dear lady, it is not.” Lorenz offered no comfort at all. “We can give your husband a pistol permit; but unless he’s prepared to take small-arms training, it’s not much use. You can hire bodyguards, but they’re ruinously expensive—unless of course your students are prepared to help.”

  “No!” Mendelius refused flatly.

  “Then the only answer is personal vigilance, and constant contact with us. You must report even the most trivial incident that appears strange or out of the ordinary. I’ll leave you my card.… Call that number at any time, day or night. There’s always a man on desk duty.”

  “One thing I can’t understand,” said Lotte. “Why do they pursue Carl like this? He made his depositions in Rome. The information is already on file. Dead or alive he can’t change that.”

  “You miss the point, dear lady.” Lorenz explained patiently. “The whole object of terror is to create fear and uncertainty. If the terrorist does not exact retribution, he loses his influence.… It’s the old idea of vendetta, which never stops until one side is wiped out. In a settled society, our job as policemen was easier. Now it gets harder every day—dirtier, too!”

  “That’s what bothers me,” said Mendelius moodily. “You know, I presume, that the University staff may be asked to supply security information on our students?”

  Lorenz gave him a swift hooded glance and nodded. “I know.… I gather you don’t like the idea.”

  “I loathe it.”

  “It’s a question of priorities, isn’t it? How much are you prepared to pay for
safety in the streets?”

  “Not that much,” said Carl Mendelius. “Thank you for your help. We’ll keep in touch.”

  He handed back the sketch. Lorenz folded it carefully and put it back in his wallet. He gave Mendelius his card and repeated:

  “Remember! Anytime, day or night.… Thank you for the coffee, ma’am.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” said Mendelius. “Back in a minute, liebchen. I want to walk awhile before I begin work with Georg.”

  “Who is Georg?” The policeman was suddenly cautious.

  “Georg Rainer. He’s the Rome correspondent for Die Welt. We are doing a story together on the Vatican.”

  “Then please don’t let him print this story. There’s too much attention focused on you already.”

  As they strolled up the Kirchgasse towards the Old Market, Dieter Lorenz added a brusque afterthought to their discussion.

  “I didn’t want to say this in front of your wife. You’ve got two children. From the terrorist point of view kidnapping is an even better bargain than murder. It gives them a huge press and it puts them in funds. When your kids get back from vacation, you’d better teach them the drill, too.”

  “We’re really getting back to the jungle, aren’t we?”

  “We’re deep inside it,” said Dieter Lorenz drily. “This used to be a nice quiet town; but if you could see some of the stuff that crosses my desk, it would make your hair stand up.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “Christ knows. Maybe we need a good war to kill off some of the bastards and let us start clean again!”

  It was a wild sad thought from an overworked man. It did nothing to allay the prickling fear that filled Mendelius as he walked down to the newsstand, that made him jump when a housewife jostled him and a boy on a motorcycle roared past him with an open exhaust. There was no Francone now to shepherd him. Point, flanks and rear, he was exposed to the silent hunters, who carried his image like a juju doll wherever they walked.

  VII

  Rainer was a fast worker, trained to meet daily deadlines with clean, accurate copy. Mendelius was accustomed to the ambling gait of an academic author. He finicked over points of style, argued over the refinement of a definition. He insisted on writing his copy in longhand; his corrections demanded two or three drafts of typescript.

  In spite of their apparent incompatibility they produced, at the end of four days, the first and most important stage of the project—a twenty-thousand-word version for immediate serial publication in newspapers and magazines. Before handing it over to the translator—an English version being mandatory under the contracts—they had it read in turn by Lotte, Pia Menendez and Anneliese Meissner. The readings elicited some frank and unexpected comments.

  Lotte tried hard to be gentle but succeeded only in devastating the scribes.

  “… There’s something wrong. I can’t say exactly what it is… or perhaps I can. I know Jean Marie. He’s a warm man, complex and always interesting to a woman. I don’t feel him in anything that you’ve written there. It’s too detached, too… I don’t know! I’m quite uninterested in the character you’ve described! I don’t really care what happens to him.”

  Pia Menendez weighed in with a qualified agreement and an explanation.

  “… I think I see what has happened. I know how Georg’s mind works.… You’ve always said, darling, that you’re reporting from Rome for believers and unbelievers alike. You can’t indulge the one, for fear of alienating the other. So you have to show a touch of the cynic. I think Professor Mendelius has fallen into the same trap. He’s trying so hard to be detached from a dear friend that he sounds like a censor of morals. And he’s trying so hard to be scholarly about the Doctrine of Last Things that it sounds like an exercise in higher mathematics. I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

  “Don’t apologize!” Anneliese Meissner was brusque as always. “I agree with you and Lotte. We’ve lost the man who is, after all, the center-point, the pivot of this whole historic episode. In his discussion of a prophet Carl has abdicated poetry for pedantry.… I’ve got another complaint, too, Carl! I believe this one may be very important. In your discussion of the Last Things you duck two important questions: the nature of evil, the presence of evil in a man-made cataclysm, and the nature of the Parousia itself. What are we going to see? Or, more accurately, what do the apocalyptic prophets—Jean Marie among them—promise that we will see? What will distinguish the Christ from the Antichrist?… I’m your reader now, even if I’m not a believer! Once you open the box, I’m anxious as anyone to see what’s inside…”

  Mendelius and Rainer looked at each other in dismay. Rainer grinned and made a gesture of defeat.

  “If the readers don’t like us, Carl, we’re dead. And if we can’t move them to pity and terror with this subject, we deserve to be dead.”

  “Back to the desk then.” Mendelius began restacking the manuscript.

  “Not tonight!” Lotte was very firm. “I’ve booked dinner for the five of us at the Hölderlinhaus. The food’s good and the atmosphere seems to do something for Carl. It’s the only place I’ve seen him tipsy enough to recite Empedocles on Etna with the roast and sing Schubert with the dessert.… Both very well, I might add!”

  “I might get drunk again tonight,” warned Mendelius. “I’m profoundly discouraged. I’m only glad Lars Larsen didn’t read this version.”

  “A word of advice then,” said Anneliese Meissner. “Scrap your part of the piece, Carl! Start from the beginning. Let your heart speak as it did on the tapes you sent me from Rome!”

  “Bravo!” said Lotte. “And if a little drinking helps the heart to speak, I’m all in favour!”

  “And what’s your prescription for me?” asked Georg Rainer.

  “For you it’s less difficult,” said Anneliese Meissner boldly. “I think you’ll do better if you stick to the history of the event, leave the interpretation to Carl and then simply swing back at the end with a straight question that makes the readers judge and jury.”

  Georg Rainer thought about it for a moment and then nodded agreement. “You could be right. I’ll try it.… But tell me one thing, Frau Doctor Meissner. You’re a nonbeliever. You deal with the sick and the deluded. Why do you care so much about this piece of religious history?”

  “Because I’m scared,” said Anneliese Meissner curtly. “I read the omens in every newspaper. I hear the distant drums and the mad trumpets.… I think we’ll have our Armageddon. I dream about it every night—and I wish I could find a faith to comfort me in the dark.”

  The air was still soft with summer. The Neckar flowed tranquil under the willows, while the lovers plied their lazy traffic of punts and rowboats under the windows of the Bursa and the Old Hall, where once Melanchthon had taught and the great Johannes Stöffler had lectured in astronomy and mathematics—and designed the Town Hall clock!

  The Hölderlinhaus was a small antique villa with a round tower that looked across the river to the botanical gardens. Friedrich Hölderlin had died there in 1843, a sad, mad genius overshadowed by his contemporary Uhland, in whom, as Goethe had prophesied, the politician would gobble up the poet.

  The alleys were quiet now, because the University was still in recess; but the restaurant was busy with a dinner party for staff from the Evangelical Institute and another for a group of actors in town for rehearsals at the University theatre. Mendelius presented Georg Rainer and Pia to his colleagues, and as the meal went on and the wine flowed, there were constant exchanges of talk between the three tables.

  As the well-known correspondent of a famous newspaper, Rainer was the center of attention and Mendelius noted with admiration how skilfully he drew the scholars into talk, baiting them with scraps and snippets of information about the Roman scene. Finally, in a sedulously casual aside, he asked:

  “Has any of you ever heard of an organization called The Friends of Silence?” He did not use the original French phrase but the German one: Die Freunde de
s Schweigens.

  He was talking to the academics; but a response came in startling fashion from the actors at the other table. A tall, cadaverous young man stood up, and in a ceremonious announcement introduced himself and his troupe.

  “We,” he told them, “we are the friends of silence. To understand us, you must be silent, too. We will, in silence still, tell you a tale of love and fear and pity.…”

  And there, in the old room, where poor Hölderlin had tried to grasp the last tatters of his dreams, they played out a mimed version of the man who lost his shadow and the woman who gave it back to him again.

  It was one of those strange, spontaneous encounters that turned a sober evening into a magical event, that went on with wine and singing and tale-telling until Master Stöffler’s clock struck two in the morning from the tower of the Town Hall. As they were saying their good-nights an elderly colleague from the Institute tugged at Mendelius’ sleeve and volunteered a suggestion.

  “… Your friend Rainer really didn’t get an answer to his question. We were all distracted by those talented young people. You take the Review of Patristic Studies, don’t you?… There’s an article in the April issue on the Discipline of the Secret. It makes a couple of references that may help his enquiry.…”

  “Thank you. I’ll look them up in the morning.”

  “Oh, and there’s one thing, Mendelius…”

  “Yes?” He was anxious to be gone. Lotte and the others were already drawing away.

  “I heard about your stand on the question of student surveillance. I agree with it; but you should be warned; the President is less than happy. He claims you affronted him. My guess is he’s scared of a faculty revolt—which is the last thing he needs before his retirement. Well… good night, my dear fellow. Walk carefully. A man can break an ankle on these damned cobbles!”

  At three and at four in the morning Mendelius was still tossing restlessly between sleep and waking. At five he got up, made himself coffee and settled himself at his desk with the April edition of the Review of Patristic Studies. The edition had been published before the abdication and clearly had been in preparation several months before.