Messiah

1

It began indeed, like the first recorded shot of a war. The day after the explosion, we left the island and Cave was flown to another retreat, this time in the center of New York City where, unique in all the world, there can exist true privacy, even invisibility.

The Cavite history of the next two years is publicly known and the private aspects of it do not particularly reveal. It was a time of expansion and of battle.

The opposition closed its ranks. Several attempts were made on all our lives and, six months after our return from Florida, we were all, except the indomitable Clarissa, forced to move into the brand-new Cavite Center, a quickly built but handsome building of yellow glass on Park Avenue. Here on the top floor, in the penthouse which was itself a mansion surrounded by Babylonian gardens and a wall of glass through which the encompassing city rose like stalagmites, Cave and Paul, Stokharin and Iris and I all lived with our bodyguards, never venturing out of the building which resembled, during that time, a military headquarters with guards and adjutants and a maze of officials through whom both strangers and familiars were forced to pass before they could meet even myself, much less Cave.

In spite of the unnaturalness of the life, it was, I think, the happiest time of my life. Except for brief excursions to the Hudson, I spent the entire two years in that one building, knowing at last the sort of security and serenity which monks must have known in their monasteries, in their retreats. I think the others were also content, except for Cave who eventually grew so morose and bored by his confinement that Paul not only had to promise him a world tour but, for his vicarious pleasure, played, night after night in the Center's auditorium, travel films which Cave devoured with eager eyes, asking for certain films to be halted at various interesting parts so that he might examine some landscape or building (never a human being, no matter how quaint); favorite movies were played over and over again, long after the rest of us had gone off to bed, leaving Cave and the projectionist alone with the bright shadows of distant places… alone save for the ubiquitous guards.

There were a number of attacks upon the building itself but since all incoming mail and visitors were checked by machinery for hidden weapons there was never a repetition of that island disaster which had had such a chilling effect on all of us. Pickets of course marched daily for two years in front of the Center's door and, on four separate occasions, mobs attempted to storm the building: they were repulsed easily by our guards (the police, for the most Catholic, did not unduly exert themselves in our defense; fortunately, the building had been constructed with the idea of defense in mind).

The life in the Center was busy. In the penthouse each of us had an office and Cave had a large suite where he spent his days watching television and pondering journeys. He did not follow with much interest the doings of the organization though he had begun to enjoy reading the attacks which regularly appeared against him and us in the newspapers. Bishop Winston was the leader of the non-Catholic opposition and his apologias and anathemas inspired us with admiration.

He was, I think, conscious of being the last great spokesman of the Protestant churches and he fulfilled his historic function with wit and dignity and we admired him tremendously. By this time, of course, our victory was in sight and we could show magnanimity to those who remained loyal to ancient systems.

I was the one most concerned with answering the attacks since I was now an editor with an entire floor devoted to the Cavite Journal (we were not able to think up a better name). At first it was published weekly and given away free but after the first year it became a daily newspaper, fat with advertising, and sold on newsstands.

Besides my duties as editor, I was also the official apologist and I was kept busy composing dialogues on various ethical matters, ranging from the virtues of cremation to fair business practices. Needless to say, I had a good deal of help and some of my most resounding effects were contrived by others, by anonymous specialists. Each installment, however, of Cavite doctrine (or rationalization as I preferred to think of my work) was received as eagerly by the expanding ranks of the faithful as it was denounced by the Catholic Church and the new league of Protestant Churches under Bishop Winston's guidance.

We received our first serious setback when, in the autumn of our first year in the new building, we were banned from the television networks through a series of technicalities created by Congress for our benefit and invoked without warning. It took Paul's lawyers a year to get the case through the courts which finally reversed the government's ruling. Meanwhile, we counterattacked by creating hundreds of new Centers where films of Cave were shown regularly. Once a week he was televised for the Centers where huge crowds gathered to see and hear him and it was always Paul's claim that the government's spiteful action had, paradoxically, been responsible for the sudden victory of Cavesword: not being able to listen to their idol in their own homes the Cavites, and even the merely curious, were forced to visit the Centers where, in the general mood of camaraderie and delight in the same word, they were organized quite ruthlessly. Stokharin's clinics handled their personal problems. Other departments assumed the guidance and even the support, if necessary, of their children while free medical and educational facilities were made available to all who applied.

At the end of the second year, there were more enrolled Cavites than any other single religious denomination including the Roman Catholic. I published this fact and the accompanying statistics with a certain guilt which, needless to say, my fellow directors did not share. The result of this revelation was a special Congressional hearing.

In spite of the usual confusion attendant upon any of the vigorous old Congress's hearteningly incompetent investigations, this event was well-staged, preparing the way politically, to draw the obvious parallel, for a new Constantine. It took place in March and it was the only official journey any of us, excepting Paul, had made from our yellow citadel for two years. The entire proceedings were televised, a bit of unwisdom on the part of the hostile Congressmen who, in their understandable eagerness for publicity, overlooked their intended victim's complete mastery of that medium. I did not go to Washington but I saw Cave and Paul and Iris off from the roof of the Center. Because of the crowds which had formed in the streets, hoping for a glimpse of Cave, the original plan to fly to Washington aboard a chartered airplane was discarded at the last minute and two helicopters were ordered instead to pick up Cave and his party on the terrace in front of the penthouse, a mode of travel not then popular. Paul saw to it that the departure was filmed. A dozen of us who were not going stood about among the trees and bushes while the helicopters hovered a few feet above the roof, their ladders dangling. Then Cave appeared with Paul and Iris while a camera crew recorded their farewell and departure. Cave looked as serene as ever, quite pale in his dark blue suit and white shirt… a small austere figure with downcast eyes. Iris was bright-faced from the excitement and cold; there was a sharp wind on the roof which tangled her hair.

"I'm terrified," she whispered fiercely in my ear as we shook hands formally for the camera.

"Paul seems in full command," I said, comfortingly. And Paul, not Cave, was making a short speech to the camera while Cave stood alone and still; then, in a gust of wind, they were gone and I went to my office to watch the hearings. The official reason for the investigation was based upon certain charges made by the various churches that the Cavites were subverting Christian morality by championing free love and publicly decrying the eternal institution of marriage. This was the burden of that complaint against Cave which the Committee most wished to contemplate since it was the strongest of the numerous allegations and, in their eyes, the most dangerous to the state, the one most likely to get the largest amount of publicity. For some years the realm of public morals had been a favorite excursion grounds for the Congress and their tournaments at public expense were attended delightedly by everyone. This particular one, affecting as it did the head of the largest single religious establishment in the country would, the Congressmen were quite sure, prove an irresistible spectacle. It was.

At first there was a good deal of confusion. Newspaper men stumbled over one another; flash bulbs were dropped; Congressmen could not get through the crowd to take their seats. To fill in, while these preliminaries were got over, the camera was trained upon the crowd which was beginning to gather in front of the Capitol; a crowd which grew, as one watched, to Inaugural size. Though it was orderly, a troop of soldiers in trucks soon arrived, as though by previous design, and they got out, forming a cordon of fixed bayonets before the various entrances to the Capitol.

Here and there, against the gusty blue sky, banners with the single word "Cave," gold on blue, snapped: In hoc signo indeed!

Then the commentators who had been exclaiming at some length on the size of the crowd, excitedly announced the arrival of Cave. A roar of sound filled the plaza. The banners were waved back and forth against the sky and I saw everywhere the theatrical hand of Paul Himmell.

The scene shifted to the House of Representatives entrance to the Capitol. Cave wearing an overcoat but bare-headed, stepped out of the limousine. He was alone. Neither Paul nor Iris was in sight. It was most effective that he should come like this, without equerries or counselors. He stood for a moment in the pillared entrance, aware of the crowd outside; even through the commentator's narrative one could hear, like the surf falling: Cave! Cave! Cave! For a moment it seemed that he might turn and go, not into the Capitol, but out onto the steps to the crowd; but then the chief of the Capitol guard, sensing perhaps that this might happen, gently steered him up the stairs.

The next shot was of the Committee Room where the hearings had at last begun. A somewhat phlegmatic Jesuit was testifying. His words were difficult to hear because of the noise in the committee room, and the impotent shouts of the chairman. The commentator gave a brief analysis of the Jesuit's attack on Cave and then, in the midst of a particularly loud exchange between the chairman and the crowd, the clerk of the court proclaimed: John Cave.

There was silence. The crowd parted to make way for him. Even the members of the committee craned to get a good look at him as he moved quietly, almost demurely, to the witness chair. The only movement in the room was that of the Papal Nuncio who, in his robes, sat in the front rank of the audience. He crossed himself as Cave passed and shut his eyes.

Cave was respectful, almost inaudible. Several times he was asked to repeat his answers even though the room was remarkably still. At first Cave would answer only in monosyllables, not looking up, not meeting the gaze of his interrogators who took heart at this, professionals themselves: their voices which had almost matched his for inaudibility, began to boom with confidence.

I waited for the lightning. The first intimation came when Cave looked up. For nearly five minutes he had not raised his eyes once during the questioning. Suddenly he looked up and I saw that he was trying to locate the camera; he did, and it was like a revelation: a sudden shock went through me and as well as I knew him, as few illusions as I had about him, I was arrested by his gaze… it was as though only he and I existed, as though he were I; all of those who watched responded in the same fashion to that unique gaze.

The Committee, however, was not aware of what had happened, that their intended victim had with one glance appropriated the eye of the world. The subsequent catechism is too well known to record here; we used it as the main exposition of Cavesword, the one testament which contained the entire thing. It was almost as if the Congressmen had been given the necessary questions to ask, like those supporting actors whose minor roles are designed to illuminate the genius of the star. Two of the seven members of the Committee were Cavites. This was soon apparent. The other five were violently in opposition. One as a Catholic, another as a Protestant, and two as materialistic lovers of the old order. Only one of the attackers, a quiet scholarly-looking Jew, made any real point. He argued the perniciousness of an organization which, if allowed to prosper, would replace the state and force all dissenters to conform; it was his contention that the state prospered most when no one system was sufficiently strong to dominate. I wanted to hear more of him but his Catholic colleague, a bull-voiced Irishman, drowned him out, winning the day for the Cavites.

Cave, to my astonishment, had memorized most of the dialogues I'd written and he said my words with the same power that he said his own. I was startled by this. There had been no hint that such a thing might happen and I couldn't, for some time, determine the motive until I recalled Cave's reluctance to being quoted in print; he had apparently realized that now there would be a complete record of his testimony and so, for the sake of both literacy and consistency, he had committed to memory those words of mine which were thought to be his. At the great moment, however, the peroration (by which time there were no more questions and Cave's voice alone was heard), he became himself, and spoke Cavesword.

Then, without the Committee's leave, in the dazzled silence which followed upon his last words, he got up abruptly and left the room. I switched off the television set. That week established Cavesword in the country and, except for various priests and ministers of the deserted gods, the United States was Cavite.

2

The desertion of the old establishments for the new resembled, at uneasy moments, revolution.

The Congressional Committee, though anti-Cavite, did not dare even to censure him… partly from the fear of the vast crowd which waited in the Capitol plaza and partly from the larger, more cogent awareness that it was politically suicidal for any popularly elected Representative to outrage a minority of such strength.

The hearing fizzled out after Cave's appearance and though there were a few denunciatory speeches on the floor of Congress, no official action was taken; shortly afterwards the ban on Cave's television appearances was lifted but by then it was too late and millions of people had got permanently into the habit of attending weekly meetings at the various Centers to listen to Cave, to discuss with the Residents and their staffs the points of doctrine… and doctrine it had become. The second year in our yellow citadel was more active than the first. It was decided that Cave make no personal appearances anywhere. According to Paul, the mystery would be kept intact and the legend would grow under the most auspicious circumstances. He did not reveal his actual motive in Cave's presence but I was aware, from private conversations we had, just the two of us, of the wisdom of his plan.

He explained himself to me late one afternoon in my office.

"Get him in front of a really hostile crowd and there'd be no telling what might happen." Paul was restlessly marching about the room in his shirtsleeves… a blunt cigar in his mouth gave him the appearance of a lower-echelon politician.

"There's never been a hostile audience yet," I reminded him. "Except for the Congressional hearings and I thought he handled himself quite well with them."

"With your script in his head," Paul chuckled and stopped his march to the filing cabinet by way of that huge television screen which dominated every office and home. "What I mean is, he's never been in a debate. He's never had a tough opponent, a heckler. The Congressmen were pretty mild and even though they weren't friendly they stuck to easy issues. But what would happen if Bishop Winston got him up before an audience? Winston's a lot smarter and he's nearly as good in public."

"I suppose Cave would hypnotize him, too."

"Not on your life." Paul threw himself into a chair of flimsy chrome and plastic. "Winston's been trying to arrange a debate for over two years. He issues challenges every Sunday on his program (got a big audience, too… though not close to ours; I keep checking it)."

"Does Cave want to give it a try?"

"He's oblivious to such things. I suppose he would if he thought about it. Anyway it's to our advantage to keep him out of sight. Let them see only a television image, hear only his recorded voice. It's wonderful copy! Big time." He was out of the chair and playing with the knob of the television set: the screen was suddenly filled with a romantic scene, a pulsating green grotto with water falling in a thin white line… so perfected had the machine become that it was actually like looking through a window, the illusion of depth quite perfect and the colors true. A warm deep voice off-screen suggested the virtues of a well-known carbonated drink. Paul turned the switch off. I was relieved since I, alone in America, was unable to think or work or even relax while the screen was bright with some other place.

"He won't like it. He expects next year, at the latest, to start his world tour."

"Perhaps then," said Paul thinly. "Anyway, the longer we put it off the better. Did you know we turn away a thousand people a day who come here just to get a glimpse of him?"

"They see him at the Center meetings."

"Only our own people… the ones in training to be Residents. I keep those sessions carefully screened. Every now and then some outsider gets in but it's rare."

I glanced at the tear-sheet of my next day's editorial; it contained, among other useful statistics, the quite incredible figures of Cavite membership in the world. Dubiously, I read off the figure which Paul had given me at a directors' meeting.

"It's about right," he said complacently, coming to a full stop at the files. "We don't actually know the figures of places without proper Centers like the Latin countries where we are undergoing a bit of persecution. But the statistics for this country are exact."

"It's hard to believe." I looked at the figure which represented so many human beings, so much diversity, all touched by one man. "Less than three years…"

"Three more years and we'll have most of Europe too."

"Why, I wonder?"

"Why?" He slammed shut the cabinet drawer which he'd been examining. He looked at me sharply. "You of all people ask why? Cavesword… and all your words too, did the trick. That's what. We've said what they wanted to hear… just the opposite of my old game of publicity where we said what -we wanted them to hear. This time it's just the other way around and it's big, ah, it's big."

I could agree with that but I pressed him further. "I know what's happened, of course, and your theory is certainly correct if only because had we said the opposite of what they wanted to hear nothing would have happened. But the question in my mind, the real 'why,' is Cave and us. Why we of all the people in the world? Cavesword, between us and any school of philosophy, is not new. Others have said it more eloquently. In the past it was a reasonably popular heresy which the early popes stamped out…"

"Timing! The right man at the right time saying the right thing. Remember the piece you did on Mohammed…"

"I stole most of it."

"So what? Most effective. You figured how only at that one moment in Arabian political history could such a man have appeared."

I smiled. "That is always the folly of the 'one unique moment.' For all I know such a man could have appeared in any of a hundred other Arab generations."

"But he never did except that one time… which proves the point."

I let it go. Paul was at best not the ideal partner in the perennial conversation. "There is no doubt but that Cave's the man," I said, neutrally. "Not the last of the line but at least the most effective, considering the shortness of the mission so far."

"We have the means. The old people didn't. Every man, woman, and child in this country can see Cave for themselves, and at the same moment. I don't suppose ten thousand people saw Christ in action… it took a generation for news of him to travel from one country to the next."

"Parallels break down," I agreed. "It's the reason I wonder so continually about Cave and ourselves and what we are doing in the world."

"We're doing good. The people are losing their fear of death. Last month there were twelve hundred suicides in this country directly attributable to Cavesword. And these people didn't kill themselves just because they were unhappy, they killed themselves because he had made it easy, even desirable. Now you know there's never been anybody like that before in history, anywhere."

"I'll say not." I was startled by the figure he had quoted.

In our Journal we were always reporting various prominent suicides and, though I had given orders to minimize these voluntary deaths, I had been forced every now and then to record the details of one or another of them. But I'd had no idea there had been so many. I asked Paul if he was quite sure of the number.

"Oh yes." He was blithe. "At least that many we know of."

"I wonder if it's wise."

"Wise? What's that got to do with it? It's logical. It's the proof of Cavesword. Death is fine so why not die?"

"Why not live?"

"It's the same thing."

"I would say not."

"Well, you ought to play it up a little more anyway. I meant to talk about it at the last directors' meeting but there wasn't time."

"Does Cave know about this? About the extent…"

"Sure does." Paul headed for the door. "He thinks it's fine. Proves what he says and it gives other people nerve. This thing is working."

There was no doubt about that of course. It is hard, precisely, to give the sense of those two years when the main work got done in a series of toppling waves which swept into history the remaining edifices of other faiths and institutions. I had no real first-hand impressions of the country for I seldom stirred from our headquarters.

I'd sold the house on the river. I had cut off all contacts with old friends and my life, simply, was Cave. I edited the Journal, or rather presided over the editors. I discussed points of doctrine with the various Residents who came to see me in the yellow tower. They were devoted men and their enthusiasm was heartening, if not always communicable to me. Each week was published further commentaries on Cavesword and I found my time grew short if I tried to read them all. I contented myself, finally, with synopses prepared for me by the Journal's staff and I felt like a television emperor keeping abreast of contemporary letters, but there was not enough time, as it was, in which to contemplate the great things. Once a week we all dined with Cave. Except for that informal occasion we seldom saw him; though he complained continually about his captivity (and it was exactly that; we were all captives to some degree), he was cheerful enough. Paul saw to it that he was kept busy all day addressing Residents and Communicators, answering their questions, firing them by the mere fact of his presence. It was quite common for strangers to faint upon seeing him for the first time, as a man and not as a figure on a bit of film. He was good-natured, though occasionally embarrassed by the chosen groups which were admitted to him. He seldom talked privately to any of them, however, and he showed not the faintest interest in their problems, not even bothering to learn their names. He was only interested in where they were from and Paul, aware of this, as an added inducement to keep Cave amenable, took to including each group at least one Cavite from some far place like Malaya or Ceylon.

Iris was busiest of all. She had become, without design or preparation, the head of all the Cavite schools throughout the country where the various Communicators of Cavesword were trained, thousands of them each year, in a course which included not only Cavesword but history and psychology as well. There were also special classes in television-producing and acting. Television, finally, was the key. It was the primary instrument of communication. Later, with a subservient government and the aid of mental therapists and new drugs, television became less necessary but, in the beginning, it was everything.

Clarissa's role was, as always, enigmatic. She appeared when she pleased and she disappeared when she pleased. I discovered that her position among the directors was due to her possession of the largest single block of stock, dating back to the first days. During the crucial two or three years, however, she was often with us merely for protection since all our lives had been proscribed by the last remnants of the old churches who, as their dominion shrank, fought more and more recklessly to destroy us.

Stokharin spent his days much like Iris, instructing the Communicators and Center-therapists in psychology. His power over Paul had fortunately waned and he was far more likeable: Paul was "freed," Stokharin would say with some satisfaction, due to therapy… and a new father-image.

Less than two years after the Congressional hearings, Paul, in his devious way, entered politics and in the following Congressional elections, without much overt campaigning on our part, the majority of those elected to both Houses of the Congress were either Cavite or sympathetic.

3

At last I have met him. Early this evening I went downstairs to see the manager about an item on my bill which was incorrect. I had thought that I should be safe for this was the time when most of the hotel guests are bathing and preparing for dinner. Unfortunately, I encountered Butler and his newly arrived colleague in the center of the lobby. I suddenly found myself attempting, by an effort of will, very simply to vanish into smoke like one of those magicians in a child's book. But I remained all too visible. I stopped halfway across the lobby and waited for them.

They came toward me. Butler murmuring greetings and introductions to Communicator Jessup (soon to be Resident of Luxor "when we get underway"): "And this, Jack, is the Mr Hudson I told you about."

The Resident-to-be shook my hand firmly. He was not more than thirty, a lean, dark-eyed mulatto whose features and coloring appealed to me, used as I now am to the Arabs; beside him, Butler looked more red and gross than ever.

"Butler has told me how useful you've been to us," said Jessup. His voice was a little high but he did not have the trick of over-articulation which used to be so common among educated Negroes in earlier times, a peculiarity they shared with Baptist clergymen and professional poets.

"I've done what I could, little as it is," I said ceremoniously. Then, without protest, I allowed them to lead me out onto the terrace which overlooked the setting sun and the muddy river.

"We planned to see you when Jack, here, arrived," said Butler expansively when we were seated, a tray of gin and ice and tonic water set before us by a waiter who was used now to American ways. "But you had the sign on your door so I told Jack we'd better wait, till Mr Hudson is feeling better. You are okay now, aren't you?"

"Somewhat better," I said, enjoying the British gin: I'd had none since I left Cairo. "At my age one is either dead or all right. I seem not to be dead."

"How I envy you!" said Jessup solemnly. His voice though high was strong.

"Envy me?" For a moment I did not quite understand.

"To be so near the blessed state! Not to see the sun again and feel the body quivering with corrupt life… oh, what I should give to be as old as you!"

"You could always commit suicide," I said irritably, forgetting my role as an amiable soft-headed old cretin.

This stopped him for only the space of a single surprised breath. "Cavesway is not possible for his servants," he said at last, patiently. "You have not perhaps followed his logic as carefully as you might had you been living in the civilized world." He looked at me with his bright dark eyes inscrutably focused.

Why are you here? I wanted to ask furiously, finally, but I only nodded my head meekly and said, "So much has changed since I came out here. I do recall, though, that Cavesway was considered desirable for all."

"It is… but not for his servants who must, through living, sacrifice their comfort… it is our humiliation, our martyrdom in his behalf. Even the humblest man or woman can avail themselves of Cavesway unlike us, his servants, who must live, disgusting as the prospect is, made bearable only by the knowledge that we are doing his work, communicating his word."

"What courage it must take to give up Cavesway!" I intoned with reverent awe.

"It is the least we can do for him."

The bright sun resembled that red-gold disk which sits on the brow of Horus. A hot wind of Numidia stirred the dry foliage about us. I could smell the metallic odor of the Nile's water. A muezzin called, high and toneless in the evening.

"Before I slip off into the better state," I said at last, emboldened by gin, "I should like to know as much as possible about the new world the Cavites have made. I left the United States shortly after Cave took his way. I have never been back."

"How soon after?" The question came too fast. I gripped the arms of my chair tightly.

"Two years after, I think," I said. "I came to Cairo for the digging out in El Abul."

"How could you have missed those exciting years?" Jessup's voice became zealous. I remained on guard. "I was not even born then… and I've always cursed my bad luck. I used to go about talking to complete strangers who had been alive in those great years. Of course most were laymen and knew little about the things I had studied but they could tell me how the sky looked the day he took his way. And, every now and then, it was possible to meet someone who had seen him."

"Not many laymen ever saw him," I said. "I remember with what secrecy all his movements were enveloped. I was in New York much of the time when he was there."

"In New York!" Jessup sighed voluptuously.

"You saw him too, didn't you, Mr Hudson?" Butler was obviously eager that I make a good impression.

"Oh yes, I saw him the day he was in Washington. One of his few public appearances! I was very devout in those days. I am now too, of course," I added hastily. "But in those days when it was all new one was, well, exalted by Cavesword. I made a special trip to Washington just to get a glimpse of him." I played as resolutely as possible upon their passionate faith.

"Did you really see him?"

I shook my head sadly. "Only a quick blur as he drove away. The crowd was too big and the police were all around him."

"I have of course relived that moment in the library, watching the films, but actually to have been there that day…"

Jessup's voice trailed off as he contemplated the extent of my good fortune.

"Then afterwards, after his death, I left for Egypt and I've never been back."

"You missed great days."

"I'm sure of that. Yet I feel the best days were before, when I was in New York and each week there would be a new revelation of his wisdom."

"You are quite right," said Jessup, pouring himself more gin. "Yours was the finer time even though those of us who feel drawn to the mother must declare that later days possessed some virtue too, on her account."

"Mother?" I knew of course before he answered what had happened.

"As Cave was the father of our knowledge, so Iris is its mother," said Jessup. He looked at Butler with a half-smile. "Of course there are some, the majority in fact, of the Communicators who deprecate our allegiance to the mother, not realizing that it enhances rather than detracts from Cave. After all, the Word and the Way are entirely his."

Butler chuckled. "There's been a little family dispute," he said. "We keep it out of the press because it really isn't the concern of anybody but us, Cave's servants. Don't mind talking to you about it since you'll be dead soon anyway and up here we're all in the same boat, all Cavites. Anyway, some of the younger fellows, the bright ones like Jessup, have got attached to Iris… not that we don't all love her equally. It's just that they've got in the habit of talking about death being the womb again, all that kind of stuff without any real basis in Cave."

"It runs all through his work, Bill. It's implicit in all that he said." Jessup was amiable but I sensed a hardness in his tone. It had come to this, I thought.

"Well, we won't argue about it," said Butler, turning to me with a smile. "You should see what these Irisians can do with a Cavite text. By the time they finish you don't know whether you're coming or going."

"Were you at all active in the Mission?" asked Jessup, abruptly changing the subject.

I shook my head. "I was one of the early admirers of Cave but I'm afraid I had very little contact with any of his people. I tried once or twice to get in to see him… when they were in the yellow tower, but it was impossible. Only the Residents and people like that ever got to see him personally."

"He was busy those days," said Jessup, nodding. "He must have dictated nearly two million words in the last three years of his life."

"You think he wrote all those books and dialogues himself?"

"Of course he did." Jessup sounded surprised. "Haven't you read Iris's accounts of the way he worked? The way he would dictate for hours at a time, oblivious of everything but Cavesword."

"I suppose I missed all that," I mumbled. "In those days it was always assumed that he had a staff who did the work for him."

"The lutherists," said Jessup, nodding. "They were extremely subtle in their methods but of course they couldn't distort the truth for very long…"

"Oh," said Butler. "Mr Hudson asked me the other day if I knew what the word lutherist came from and I said I didn't know. I must have forgotten for I have a feeling it was taught us, back in the old days when we primitives were turned out, before you bright young fellows came along to show us how to do Caveswork."

Jessup smiled. "We're not that bumptious," he said. "As for lutherist, it's a word based on the name of one of the first followers of Cave. I don't know his other name or even much about him. All that I know I've been told… as far as I remember, the episode was never even recorded. Much too disagreeable… and of course we don't like to dwell on our failures."

"I wonder what it was that he did," I asked, my voice trembling despite all efforts to control it.

"He was a nonconformist of some kind. He quarreled with Iris, they say."

"Wonder what happened to him?" asked Butler. "Did they send him through indoctrination?"

"No, as far as I know." Jessup paused. When he spoke again his voice was thoughtful. "According to the story I heard… legend really… he disappeared. They never found him and though we've wisely removed all record of him, his name is still used to describe our failures: those among us, that is, who refuse Cavesword without indoctrination. Somewhere, they say, he is living, in hiding, waiting to undo Caveswork. As Cave was the anti-Christ so he, or rather another like him, will attempt to destroy us."

"Not much chance of that." Butler's voice was confident. "Anyway, if he was a contemporary of Cave he must be dead by now."

"Not necessarily. After all Mr Hudson was a contemporary and he is still alive." Jessup looked at me then; his eyes, in a burst of obsidian light, caught the sun's last rays. I think he knows.

4

There's not much time left and I must proceed as swiftly as possible to the death of Cave and my own exile.

The year of Cave's death was not only a year of triumph but one of terror as well. The counter-offensive reached its peak in those busy months, and we were all in danger of our lives.

In the South, groups of Baptists stormed the new Centers, demolishing them and killing, in several instances, the Residents. Despite our protests and threats of reprisal, many state governments refused to protect the Cavite Centers and Paul was forced to enlist a small army to defend our establishments in those areas which were still dominated by the old religions. Several attempts were made to destroy our New York headquarters; fortunately, they were all apprehended before any damage could be done though one fanatic, a Catholic, got as far as Paul's office where he threw a grenade into a wastebasket, killing himself and slightly scratching Paul who had, in his usual fashion, been traveling nervously about the room, getting out of range at the proper moment. The election of a Cavite-dominated Congress eased things for us considerably, though it made our enemies all the more desperate.

Paul fought back. Bishop Winston, the most eloquent of the Christian prelates and the most dangerous to us, had died, giving rise to the rumor, soon afterwards confirmed by Cavite authority to be a fact, that he had killed himself and that, therefore, he had finally renounced Christ and taken to himself Cavesword.

Many of the clergy of the Protestant sects, aware that their parishioners and authority were falling away, became, quietly, without gloating on our part, Cavite Residents and Communicators.

The bloodiest persecutions, however, did not occur in North America. The Latin countries, the seat of the old Catholic power which was itself the shadow of the Roman Empire, provided the world with a series of massacres remarkable even in that murderous century. Yet it was a fact that in the year of Cave's death, Italy was half-Cavite while France, England and Germany were nearly all Cavite while only Spain and parts of Latin America held out, imprisoning, executing, deporting Cavites against the inevitable day when our Communicators, undismayed, proud in their martyrdom, would succeed in their assaults upon these last citadels of paganism.

On a hot day in August, our third and last autumn in the yellow tower, we dined on the terrace of Cave's penthouse overlooking the city. The bright sky shuddered with heat. Clarissa, who had just come from abroad where she had been enjoying several seasons under the guise of an official tour of reconnaissance, was entirely the guest of honor. She sat wearing a large picture hat beneath the striped awning which sheltered our glass-topped table from the sun's rays. Cave insisted on eating out-of-doors as often as possible even though the rest of us preferred the cool interior where we were not disturbed by either heat or by the clouds of soot which floated above the imperial city, impartially lighting upon all who ventured out into the open.

It was our first "family dinner" in some months (Paul insisted on regarding us as a family and the metaphors which he derived from this one conceit used even to irritate the imperturbable Cave). At one end of the table sat Clarissa, with Paul and me on either side of her; at the other end sat Cave, with Iris and Stokharin on either side of him; Iris was on his left and on my right and, early in the dinner, when the conversation was particular, we talked.

"I suppose we'll be leaving soon," she said. A sea gull missed the awning by inches.

"I haven't heard anything about it. Who's leaving… and why?"

"John thinks we've all been here too long; he thinks we're too remote."

"He's quite right about that." I blew soot off my plate. "But where are we to go? After all, there's a good chance that if any of us shows his head to the grateful populace someone is apt to blow it off."

"That's a risk we have to take. But John is right. We must get out and see the people… talk to them direct." Her voice was urgent. I looked at her thoughtfully, seeing the change that three years of extraordinary activity had wrought: she was overweight and her face, as sometimes happens in the first access of weight, was smooth, without lines, younger-looking but also without much character or expression… I kept thinking irrelevantly of a marshmallow for, in the light of day, her casually made-up face did resemble a pale smoothly powdered confection. Her wonderful sharpness, her old fineness was entirely gone and the new Iris, the busy, efficient Iris had become like… like… I groped for the comparison, the memory of someone similar I had known in the past, but the ghost did not materialize; and so haunted, faintly distrait, I talked to the new Iris I did not really know, to the visible half of a like-pair whose twin was lost somewhere in my memory.

"I'll be only too happy to leave," I said, helping myself to the salad which was being served us by one of the Eurasian servants Paul, in an exotic mood, had engaged to look after the penthouse and the person of Cave. "I don't think I've been away from here half a dozen times in two years."

"It's been awfully hard," Iris agreed. Her eyes shifted regularly to Cave, like an anxious parent. "Of course I've had more chance than anyone to get out but I haven't seen nearly as much as I ought. It's my job, really, to look at all the Centers, to supervise in person all the schools but of course I can't if Paul insists on turning every trip I take into a kind of pageant."

"It's for your own protection."

"I think we're much safer than Paul thinks. The country's almost entirely Cavite."

"All the more reason to be careful. The die-hards are on their last legs; they're maniacal, some of them."

"Well, we must take our chances. John says he won't stay here another autumn. September is his best month, you know. I think he's a little superstitious about it: it was September when he first spoke Cavesword."

"What does Paul say?" I looked down the table at our ringmaster who was telling Clarissa what she had seen in Europe.

Iris frowned. "He's doing everything he can to keep us here… I can't think why. John's greatest work has been done face to face with people yet Paul acts as if he didn't dare let him out in public. We have quarreled about this for over a year, Paul and I."

"He's quite right, I know. I'd be nervous to go about in public without some sort of protection. You should see the murderous letters I get at the Journal."

"We've nothing to fear," said Iris flatly. "And we have everything to gain by mixing with people. We could easily grow out of touch, marooned in this tower."

"Oh, it's not that bad." To my surprise, I found myself defending our monastic life. "Everyone comes here. Cave speaks to groups of the faithful every day. I sit like some disheveled hen over a large newspaper and I couldn't be more instructed, more engaged in life, while you dash around the country almost as much as Paul does."

"But only seeing the Centers, only meeting the Cavites. I have no other life any more." I looked at her curiously. There was no bitterness in her voice yet there was a certain wistfulness which I'd never noticed before.

"Do you regret all this, Iris?" I asked. It had been some time, three years, since I had spoken to her of ourselves, of personal matters: we had become, in a sense, the offices which we held; our symbolic selves paralyzing all else within, true precedent achieved at a great cost. Now a fissure had suddenly appeared in that monument which Iris had become and, through the flaw, I heard again, briefly, the voice of the girl I had met on the bank of the Hudson in the spring of a lost year.

"I never knew it would be like this," she said, almost whispering, her eyes on Cave while she spoke to me. "I never thought my life would be as alone as this, all work."

"Yet you wanted it: you do want it. Direction, meaning, you wanted all that and now you have it. The magic worked, Iris. Your magician was real."

"But I sometimes wonder if I am real anymore." The words, though softly spoken, fell upon my ear like rounded stones, smooth and hard.

"It's too late," I said, mercilessly. "You are what you wanted to be. Live it out, Iris. There is nothing else."

"You're dead too," she said at last, her voice regaining its usual authority.

"Speaking of dead," said Cave suddenly turning toward us (I hoped he had not heard all our conversation), "Stokharin here has come up with a wonderful scheme."

Even Clarissa fell silent. We all did whenever Cave spoke which was seldom on social occasions. Cave looked cheerfully about the table for a moment. Stokharin beamed with pleasure at the accolade.

"You've probably all heard about the suicides as a result of Cavesword." Cave had very early got into the habit of speaking of himself in the third person whenever a point of doctrine was involved. "Paul's been collecting the monthly figures and each month they double. Of course they're not accurate since there are a good many deaths due to Cavesword which we don't hear about. Anyway, Stokharin has perfected a painless death by poison, a new compound which kills within an hour and is delightful to take."

"I have combined certain narcotics which together insure a highly exhilarated state before the end, as well as most pleasant fantasies." Stokharin smiled complacently.

Cave nodded and continued. "I've already worked out some of the practical details for putting this into action. There are still a lot of wrinkles, but we can iron them out in time. One of the big problems of present-day unorganized suicide is the mess it causes for the people unfortunate enough to be left behind. There are legal complications; there is occasionally grief in old-fashioned family groups; there is also a general disturbance which, though only social, still tends to leave a bad taste, giving suicide, at least among the reactionaries, a bad name.

"Our plan is simple. We will provide at each Center full facilities for those who have listened to Cavesword and have responded to it by taking the better way. There will be a number of comfortable rooms where the suicidalist may receive his friends for a last visit. We'll provide legal assistance to put his affairs in order. Not everyone of course will be worthy of us. Those who choose death merely to evade responsibility will be censured and restrained. But the deserving, those whose lives have been devoted and orderly, may come to us and receive the gift."

I was appalled; before I could control myself I had said: "But the law! You just can't let people kill themselves…"

"Why not?" Cave looked at me coldly and I saw, in the eyes of the others, concern and hostility. I had anticipated something like this ever since my talk with Paul but I had not thought it would come so swiftly or so boldly.

Paul spoke for Cave. "We've got the Congress and the Congress will make a law for us. For the time being, though, it is against the present statutes; however, we've been assured by our lawyers that there isn't much chance of their being invoked except perhaps in the remaining pockets of Christianity where we'll go slow until we do have the necessary laws to protect us."

At that moment the line which had, from the very beginning, been visibly drawn between me and them, became a wall apparent to everyone. Even Clarissa, my usual ally, fearless and sharp, did not speak out. They looked at me, all of them awaiting a sign; even Cave regarded me with curiosity. My hand shook and I was forced to seize the edge of the table to steady myself. The sensation of cold glass and iron gave me a sudden courage. I brought Cave's life to its end. I turned to him and said, quietly, with all the firmness I could summon: "Then you'll have to die as well as they, and soon."

There was a shocked silence. Iris shut her eyes. Paul gasped and sat back abruptly in his chair. Cave turned white but he did not flinch. His eyes did not waver. They seized on mine, terrible and remote, full of power; with an effort, I looked past him. I still feared his gaze.

"What did you say?" The voice was curiously mild yet it increased rather than diminished the tension. We had reached the crisis, without a plan.

"You have removed the fear of death for which future generations will thank you, as I do. But you have gone too far… all of you." I looked about me at the pale faces; a faint wisp of new moon curled in the pale sky above. "Life is to be lived until the flesh no longer supports the life within. The meaning of life, Cave, is more life, not death. The enemy of life is death, an enemy not to be feared but no less hostile for all that, no less dangerous, no less wrong when the living choose it instead of life, either for themselves or for others. You've been able to dispel our fear of the common adversary; that was your great work in the world… now you want to go further, to make love to this enemy we no longer fear, to mate with death… and it is here that you, all of you, become the enemies of life."

"Stop it!" Iris's voice was high and clear. I did not look at her. All that I could do now was to force the climax.

"But sooner or later every act of human folly creates its own opposition. This will too, more soon than late, for if one can make any generality about human beings it is that they want not to die. You cannot stampede them into death for long. They are enthusiastic now. They may not be soon… unless of course there is some supreme example before them, one which you, Cave, can alone supply. You will have to die by your own hand to show the virtue and the truth of all that you have said."

I had gone as far as I could. I glanced at Iris while I spoke; she had grown white and old-looking and, while I watched her, I realized whom it was she resembled, the obscure nagging memory which had disturbed me all through dinner: she was like my mother, a woman long dead, one whose gentle blurred features had been strikingly similar to that frightened face which now stared at me as though I were a murderer.

Paul was the one who answered me. "You're out of your mind, Gene," he said, when my meaning had at least penetrated to them all. "It doesn't follow in the least that Cave must die because others want to. The main work is still ahead of him. This country is only a corner of the world. There's some of Europe and most of Asia and Africa still ahead of us. How can you even suggest he quit now and die?"

"The work will be done whether he lives or not, as you certainly know. He's given it the first impetus. The rest is up to the others, to the ambitious, the inspired… we've met enough of them these last few years: they're quite capable of finishing the work without us."

"But it's nothing without Cave."

I shrugged. I was suddenly relieved as the restraint of three furious years went in a rush. "I am as devoted to Cave as anyone," I said (and I was, I think, honest). "I don't want him to die but all of you in your madness have made it impossible for him to live. He's gone now to the limit, to the last boundary: he is the son of death and each of you supports him. I don't, for it was only my wish to make life better, not death desirable. I never really believed it would come to this: that you, Cave, would speak out for death, against life." I raised my eyes to his. To my astonishment he had lowered his lids as though to hide from me, to shut me out. His head was shaking oddly from left to right and his lips were pressed tight together.

I struck again, without mercy. "But don't stop now. You've got your wish. By all means, build palaces if you like for those who choose to die in your name. But remember that you will be their victim, too. The victim of their passionate trust. They will force you to lead the way and you must be death's lover, Cave."

He opened his eyes and I was shocked to see them full of tears. "I'm not afraid," he said.