Then the lighting of candles and the lowering of the chandelier lights in the dining room signaled a call to supper. Dinner bells chimed. Large silver salvers were borne in by uniformed waiters, and when uncovered, revealed roast chicken and duck à l’orange. The meal was begun amidst general revelry, to the accompaniment of a string quartet, which played discreetly in the background.
They both were soon engaged in discussions with other guests. Anna, on his right, was preoccupied with the curator of the British Museum, who was clearly enamored of her; Elijah made strained conversation, in the German language, with the young Chilean poet, who sat at his left. When he informed Elijah that he was a New-Marxist, the priest could not suppress a smile, which the poet interpreted accurately. He looked insulted and furious, and for the remainder of the meal refused to acknowledge Elijah’s presence. Still, Elijah preferred this seatmate to the gregarious von Tilman, who was entertaining most of the people at the far end of the table with wicked and witty gossip about Catholic prelates. The President was obviously enjoying the court jester, but every so often his glance would dart toward Elijah and Anna without lingering overlong upon them. Within that glance was a great seriousness.
The coordinator of the conference was two places up from Anna, on the other side of the table. He reached over and handed a sheet of paper to Elijah.
“Before I forget,” he said coldly, “here is the itinerary. The time and place of your talk are listed there.”
“Thank you.”
“You will be discussing the recent findings at the Dead Sea, I understand.”
“That is correct.”
The coordinator turned to the person on his left and muttered in English, just loud enough to be heard, “The emissary from the Dead See of Rome.”
There were embarrassed chuckles from those around him.
Elijah looked at Anna, but she gave no indication that she had heard.
“Tell me, Father, when is your presentation? And where?” she said.
“At ten tomorrow morning, at the Palace of Culture.”
“I would like to attend.”
“I would be honored.”
The sting of the coordinator’s comment gradually faded.
Over dessert and wine, the President rose and bid the party adieu. He must go to prepare for the opening address, scheduled to begin in an hour from now. Please, he said, the guests must take their time over dessert and make their way to the palace at their leisure. And if, alas, they should arrive too late for his talk, rest assured that they had chosen the better part, for wine and friendship were the highest truth of all.
This was greeted by hearty reproaches all round. Of course they would be there! They wouldn’t miss it for the world! No one else could do what he was going to do tonight! An historic occasion! Best of luck! Bravissimo!
Kisses were thrown and much applause spattered around like shrapnel.
Elijah, warmed by two glasses of white wine, was feeling flushed and weary, but happy—inexplicably happy, considering his predicament. He entertained a desire to rise and go after the President, to take his hands in his own and wish him well. Light-headed, he tried to rise but failed to complete this maneuver. He fell back, soaked in a glowing beneficence, a rejuvenated optimism, a conviction that perhaps a second chance was being offered to mankind in this good and noble man, the President.
Two glasses of wine? he said to himself. What an extraordinary change in my attitude. What amazing spirits are in this bottle?
He laughed aloud, and Anna shot a perplexed glance at him.
“Anna”, he said.
“Yes?”
“Nothing—just Anna. Such a lovely name, so gracious on the tongue, so sweet.”
She touched his sleeve. She gave him a severe look. “No more wine, professor. And please, eat your duck.”
He found this hilarious and began to laugh uncontrollably, but the laughter was inaudible, compressed within his body. He shook with the power of this savage humor, and then when it dissolved into a pool of grief, he wished to weep. But the weeping also was kept within, emitting not the least exterior evidence. No lawyer, jury, or judge in the world would have found him guilty of inordinate emotion.
Shortly after, the dinner party broke up, and it was announced that the private guests of the President were to be taken by limousine to the Palace of Culture. Standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, Elijah and Anna let the others go ahead. Anna waved away the last car that stood waiting for them.
“It’s not too far”, she said. “Why don’t we walk and get some fresh air?”
She took his arm and led him west on Kralewska, then turned south on Marszalkowska, heading toward the massive tower of the Palace of Culture. It took them twenty minutes, during which Elijah’s head began to clear.
“What is that building?” he said.
“That is a monstrosity the Soviets built. There are many meeting halls, cinemas, and auditoriums in it. The conference is being held there.”
“It is unspeakably ugly.”
“The people of Warsaw say that from the tower of the Palace of Culture one has the most beautiful view of Warsaw, because from there one cannot see the Palace of Culture.”
He laughed.
“The Polish government is planning to build a new facade over it,” she continued, “to disguise the last vestiges of Stalinist architectural realism.”
“Let us hope the face-lift comes quickly.”
“One step at a time. At least the streets have been changed back to their prewar names.”
“It is a step, as you say. But the city cannot be restored to what it once was.”
“You were born here, weren’t you?”
“I was. I left during the War.”
“You were very young.”
“I was young, but the memory is as sharp as if it had happened yesterday. There are few sensations in life stranger than returning to a place that was one’s whole world and finding that it is gone.”
“Surely it’s not gone entirely?”
“Not entirely. I have been walking the streets of my boyhood, and I have found remnants of it. My past was real. It was here.”
“Doesn’t it still live within you?”
“Yes, it does. Like an icon in the mind, an image of something that was once known and beloved, but which exists no more.”
“And yet it survives, submerged in memory.”
“Anna, you sound as if you have experienced this yourself.”
“I was born after the War. But loss and transformation are universal human experiences. We try to hold onto what once was, in the hope that it may be again. And we find that it can never be what it was. Life points us always toward the future.”
“I wonder if the people who went through the years of reconstruction have an advantage over people like me.”
“In what way?”
“After the War they saw the rebuilding of their world step by step, piece by piece. One reality gradually evolved into a new reality. They observed its progress daily. They even helped to lay the new stones. There was no radical break. Their minds shifted with the gradual changing of their world.”
“But you. . .?”
“Men like me must live with a split in the mind.”
“Is that so hard?”
“It is very hard. Man longs for a permanent home. But he does not know it until it is torn away from him.”
They climbed the steps to the palace in silence. She stopped at the entrance and turned toward him. “I would like to see the remnants with you.”
“The remnants?”
“Sometime before this week is over, would you take me to the places you knew as a child?”
He nodded assent. Then they went in.
* * *
Their invitation cards guaranteed Elijah and Anna a place in the front rows of the congress hall, main auditorium. They were led by an usher to seats in the second row. The crowd of several thousand delegates behind them was charge
d with electrified anticipation.
The stage was bare. An enormous white banner filled the back wall—a blue and green planet earth encircled by gold letters, written in several languages: Unitas—A New Civilization for Mankind.
The rumble of conversation died as the congress coordinator strode from the wings and took the solitary microphone at stage center. Gone was the man who had made the sarcastic comment at the dinner party, and in his place was a figure of great poise. His bearing was so replete with the mystique of his high station that the crowd was reduced instantly to silence; his manner, his clothing, and the set of his shoulders revealed a statesman at ease in public, but no less aware of the import of his role.
“Ladies and gentlemen, delegates, honored guests”, he said. “I bid you welcome to what may be known by future generations as a seminal moment in the development of human civilization on this planet.”
Headphones attached to every seat in the audience offered simultaneous translation in a dozen languages.
“I share with you the excitement that we all feel this evening. In a very real sense, this moment has been approaching for centuries. It is my task to do what one could never hope to do adequately, that is to introduce the man who will inaugurate our congress. He is no stranger to current affairs, and yet I wonder if anyone here fully realizes the significance of his coming among us. A man of vast erudition and profound humanity, one who has poured out his skills, his personal fortunes, and his immense concern upon the human scene, in a heroic effort to bring together the disparate, and often contentious, communities of mankind. Those of you who know his writings, or have listened to his speeches, or who have heard within the quiet confines of your own hearts a voice that bears witness to his role in the evolution of human consciousness will know that I do not exaggerate. In fact, the problem before me is how to so sufficiently reduce his significance in your minds” subdued laughter came from the audience, “that you will not accuse me of flattery.”
An outburst of appreciative laughter.
The coordinator beamed at the audience, enjoying his joke with them.
“You know him. You love him.” A storm of applause.
Returning to a serious tone, he went on: “The energies accompanying this man’s emergence on the world’s stage are truly phenomenal. By sheer moral force, he has made possible the transition of the former totalitarian states to economic and cultural communion with the West. He has reduced the tensions between other fractious states and has made significant progress in the struggle to end world hunger. In addition, he is emerging as the man of vision for the next millennium. In a series of bold strokes, he has captured the imagination of both the cultural elite and the common man, the masses of humanity for whom there has been so much suffering in our times, and for whom there has been little hope, until now. He is known by many names: Doctor, Professor, Visionary, Moderator, Author, Negotiator, President, and most recently, in last week’s declaration by UNESCO, a Worldhealer. I call him simply, the Teacher. I bid you welcome the keynote speaker for our congress. . .”
The applause was deafening. The entire crowd leapt to its feet as the President walked onto the stage. Elijah stood and clapped uncomfortably. The surge of adulation that flowed all around him was disconcertingly like worship. The applause continued for several minutes, until at last the coordinator and the President were able to quiet the crowd with hand gestures.
A hush fell as he took the microphone. He appeared handsome in a perfectly ordinary fashion, yet princely in a democratic mode, heavy with thought in a manner that did not discount joy. Overriding everything was a profound dignity that was neither pompous nor affected in any way whatsoever. He seemed a self-contained individual, composed and humble, yet within that containment was a quality that not a single soul present could fail to understand as greatness.
Elijah saw instantly that here was the quality he had misread until now. Not without reason did the myth of the Great Man prevail in all eras and cultures. Nature produced such figures from time to time, as if to remind mankind of what it could be. And here was one who rode high above the other great ones, beside whom the coordinator was reduced to normal proportions. Here too was a puzzle, thought Elijah. Was this not the humorous host, the man who had touched him and joked with him so disarmingly no more than a few hours ago? Was this not the scholar in his study at Capri, and the clear-eyed director of a flourishing business conglomerate? Was he a visionary or a pragmatist? He was both, it seemed, and the juxtaposition, or rather the perfect integration, of these seemingly incompatible qualities was startling. At the very least, it gripped the attention with a kind of magisterial authority. Only a fool would not listen to his every word.
“In this most warlike of centuries, we are invited to a joyous rebirth”, he began in a quiet voice.
He paused. The hall was filled with an immense listening.
“For millennia of existence, we have proceeded through time and space, going about our affairs on this little spinning planet as if being itself were not a miracle. We have lived in blindness. We have been burdened by guilt. We have huddled in fear. And as a result, we have produced a planet teeming with warring tribes and hungry children. This must cease.”
He paused again and stared out over the thousands of faces.
“The millennium that is fast approaching is a transcultural event of epic proportions. It is a climax that occurs once every thousand years, a psychic convergence felt by every soul on earth who is living at the time. It is a moment of tremendous blessing for mankind. And yet, throughout history we have misused this opportunity. We have watched it approach with dread or we have seen it as a time to strike an enemy or plunder a neighbor, to cringe before a mythological divine punishment, or to watch for the collision of stars. We have crawled into caves and awaited the end, searching the black skies for judgment. And when the judgment does not come—and it never does come, for it is entirely a creation of the human mind—we crawl out again and begin to reconstruct our little encampments, surround them with stockades, rearm, and continue on as always, projecting our terrors upon the cosmos and upon the neighboring tribes.”
His voice rose in intensity: “No generation until our own has discovered the great secret of the universe.”
He paused.
“The universe breathes!” he cried in an impassioned voice.
A ripple of awe washed through the audience, and all around him, Elijah heard the intake of breath as the power of the President’s words penetrated the consciousness of his audience. The sound of the room was just within the range of hearing; it was an indefinable radiation, a suffusion of expectancy.
“The universe lives. And we whom she has created are part of her. It is time to sink our wells deep into the earth, and to discover in the depths of her being what all wise souls eventually discover; there we shall see that at the source of everything is an underground river. There are African wells and European wells, aboriginal wells and Sufi wells, Jewish and Christian, Muslim and Buddhist, Hindu and Jain wells. There are Gaia wells and Confucian, and red and black and white and yellow wells. There are animist and wiccan and spiritist wells. And even, beneath the dry wastes of fundamentalism, there is a choked well, a yearning toward the one great truth. Each and every one is a point of access into the ultimate truth of human destiny. There we shall discover a primal awe, and an original sacredness. Every person in this room is radiating glory!”
He cried: “When will we begin to see ourselves for the first time and know ourselves? When? When will we come into the light? I tell you that we shall come out into the light on the day we lay down our weapons and our judgments and divisions and look into each other’s eyes. For in our own eyes, we shall see at last the radiance of divinity. Doxa! Glory! And on that day we will begin to worship in spirit and in truth!”
The ardor of the President’s voice hung in the stillness of the air as the crowd absorbed these words. Gradually, a soft rush of applause gathered momentum and crashed aga
inst the stage in wave after wave of euphoric intensity.
The President did not acknowledge this requited passion, did not drink it in, as some might have done. He merely looked down at the floor and waited until it was finished, and then he continued. He spoke movingly of the ecological revolution and of the various humanitarian movements that for more than a century had been groping with the problem of man. He praised them, each and every one, as prefigurements, as forerunners of the people of this generation who were converging toward a leap of consciousness into the age of universal harmony.
More applause, deeper, longer.
He spoke of the suffering of indigenous peoples, of women, and the poor. He displayed a flash of righteous anger against those unnamed forces still at work in the world that spread division and defended the destructive split in the human consciousness. Elijah shivered. Fear began to work its way up his spine. He understood now what was coming.
“Those who are committed to pessimism have condemned themselves to a tragic ending. They create their own demise. And I tell you, my friends, it is not for us to seek to bring the dead structures back to life. Systemic social philosophies, systemic religion, systemic economies, systemic forms of oppressive government are all dying, and no human being on earth can prevent this death. We who are called to usher in the new world order must leave the dead to bury the dead.”
Intense applause.
“Periodically, throughout history, civilization reaches a great turning point. As one era ends and another comes into being, there is a difficult transition period, during which societies undergo a series of crises threatening their very existence. It becomes painfully clear to all that the old systems and the old solutions are no longer working. At those times, individuals gifted with authentic vision must work together to restore peace and harmony, must unite in a marshaling of all human powers to spread worldvision to a frightened human community. An overwhelming convergence of truth has occurred in our century, and it is no accident. Even as the forces of death have vented their last outburst of rage upon the suffering human community, a new age is beginning. The tyrants are dead. A race of creators is being born. Great thinkers, artists, spiritual teachers, and mystics have appeared all around us, each bearing a flame of that universal light. If this congress is to assist successfully in the birthing of a new world, then we must lay aside our fears of one another, lay aside our endless suspicions, our dogmatism, and our cosmic dread. It is time for man to forge a new creation story, to reinvent the ancient myths without discarding them. By drawing upon the riches of our global cultural heritage, we shall do this!”
Father Elijah Page 31
