The Clockwork Testament (Or: Enderby `s End)

TEN

This third heart attack, if that was what it had really been, did not seem to be really all that bad-a mere sketch, as to remind him of its shape. But he knew its shape intimately already, that of a Spenglerian parabola. Yet another interpretation seemed, as he sat in the toilet and excreted as quietly as he could, there being a guest in the apartment, possible, though he was fain to reject it. An inner hand showing in delicate deadly gesture the impending chop or noose. He was glad in a way that she had taken possession of the circular bed, no room for him, since bed was a place where people frequently died, sometimes in their sleep. She lay naked on her back, telling, say, ten-twenty with her arms and seven-thirty with her legs, her delicate snoring indicating that it was a fine February night and all was well. She had left her home in Poughkeepsie, it appeared, and was obviously welcome to stay here with Enderby so long as she did not go out to buy another gun. She at least knew his work. Anyway, there was no question of thinking in terms of a nice long future. These heart attacks had been as good to Enderby as a like and you know harangue from one of his students. But he did not really want the chop to come tonight and in his sleep. He fancied doing some more vigorous death-dodging in the light. There was this to be said for New York: it was not dull.

Wiped and having flushed, Enderby went out to the kitchen to make tea. There would be a hell of a row tomorrow, today that was, when that dusky bitch Priscilla came to do the chores (How come an educated man like you live in such Gadarene filth-she was, after all, a Bible scholar); but there always was a hell of a row. This time there would probably be something about fornication and Cozbi as well as dirt. Enderby ate pensively a little cold left-over stew while he waited for the water to boil: quite delicious, really. He seemed to have lost a fair amount of protein in the last few hours, perhaps cholesterol too. When the tea had sufficiently brewed or drawn (five bags only; not overtempt Providence) and had been sharply sweetened and embrowned, he took it into the living room. He piled pouffe on pouffe to make himself comfortable in order to watch for the dawn to come up. He switched on the television set, which gave him a silly film apt for these small hours. It was a college musical of the thirties (How come that such a scholar / Can put up with such squalor? / Just gimme hafe a dollar / And I'll make it spick and span, man. There was a coincidence!) but it was made piquant with girls in peach-looking camiknicks with metallic hairdos. Enderby did some random leafing through the slim volumes she had brought for him to defile. God, what a genius, etc. The film, with interludes of advertising suspiciously cheap albums of popular music, went harmlessly on while he sipped his tea and browsed.

You went that way as you always said you would,

Contending over the cheerful cups that good

Was in the here-and-now, in, in fact, the cheerful

Cups and not in some remotish sphere full

Of twangling saints, the-pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die

Of Engels as much as angels, whereupon I…

He could not well remember having written that. Besides, the type was blurring. He saw without surprise that the film had changed to one, in very good colour too, about Augustine and Pelagius. Thank God. The thing had after all been at last artistically dealt with, no need after all for him to worry about finding an appropriate poetic form.

A man vigorously whipping his donkey, which brays in great pain. His wife comes along to tell him to desist.

WIFE: Desist, desist. The poor creature meant no harm, Fabricius.

MAN: Farted in my face, didn't it? A great noseful of foul air.

(he continues beating)

WIFE: Foul, you say? She eats only sweet grass and fresh-smelling herbs, while you-you guzzle sour horsemeat and get drunk on cheap wine.

MAN: Oh, I do, do I? Take that, you slut.

(he beats her till she bleeds)

Pelagius and Obtrincius are watching. The noise and the cries are pitiable.

OBTRINCIUS: What think you of that, O man of the northern seas? Evil, yes? It comes of the primal fetor of Adam which imbrues the world.

PELAGIUS: Ah no, my dear friend. Adam's sin was his own sin. It was not inherited by the generality of mankind.

OBTRINCIUS: But this is surely foul heresy! Why was Christ crucified except to pay, in Godflesh whose value is incomputable, for the Adamic sin we all carry? Have a care, my friend. There may be a bishop about listening.

PELAGIUS: Ah no, he came to show us the way. To teach us love. Be ye perfect, he said. He taught us that we are perfectible. That what you call evil is no more than ignorance of the way. Hi, you, my friend.

The man Fabricius has now turned on his son, who, having apparently intervened to save his mother from the vicious blows, is bloody and bowed. The mother weeps bloodily. The ass looks on, sore but impassive, also bloody.

MAN: (temporarily desisting) Huh? You address me, sir?

PELAGIUS: (cheerfully) Yes, my good man and brother in Christ.

He moves our of the shot and into:

PELAGIUS: Ah, my poor friend, you have much to learn. Sweet reason has temporarily deserted you. Take breath and then blow out your anger with it. It is a mere ghost, a phantasm, totally insubstantial.

MAN: You use fine words, sir. But try using sweet reason to stop a donkey farting in your nose.

PELAGIUS: You should keep your nose away from the er animal's posterior. Sweet reason must surely tell you that.

MAN: Oh, well, mayhap you're right, sir. Anger wastes time and uses up energy. Come, wife. Come, son. I will be reasonable, God forgive me.

(sketching a blessing, Pelagius moves out of shot) Sweet reason, my ass.

40. EXTERIOR DAY ROME: A SCENE OF UNBRIDLED REVELRY

A LS of a sort of carnival. Instruments of the fifth century A.D. are blaring and thumping, while unbridled revellers frisk about, kissing and drinking and lifting kirtles.

A group of gorgers are greasily fingering smoking haunches and swineshanks, stuffing it in, occasionally vomiting it out.

PELAGIUS (OS): My friends!

They all look in the same direction, open mouths exhibiting half-chewed greasy protein.

He stands with pilgrim's staff, looking with calm sorrow.

PELAGIUS: Does not reason tell you that such excess is unreasonable? It coarsens the soul and harms the body.

(There is a noise of lavish vomiting) There, you see what I mean.

The gorgers look somewhat abashed, but a bold fat bald one speaks up baldly and boldly.

FAT GORGER: We cannot help it, man of God, whoever you are, a stranger by your manner of speech. The seven deadly sins, of which gluttony, as thou mayhap knowest, is one, are the seven worms in the apple we ate at the great original feast which still goes on, and of which Adam and Eve are the host and the hostess.

ANOTHER GORGER: (much thinner, as with a worm, or even seven, inside him) Aye, he speaketh truly, monk, whoever thou art. We are born into sin through none of our willing, and has not Christ atoned for our sins, past, future, and to come?

PELAGIUS: (very loudly) No He Has Not.

Mitred bishops, bearded, venerable, lusty, look up from clipping their well-favoured whores. They look at each other, frown.

46. INTERIOR NIGHT THE HOUSE OF FLACCUS

The bishop Augustine sits at the end of dinner with his friend Flaccus, a public administrator. There are other guests, including Bishop Tarminius-one of the bishops who frowned in Scene 45.

FLACCUS: (while a slave proffers a dish) Perhaps an apple, my lord bishop?

AUGUSTINE: (shuddering) Ah no, Flaccus my friend. If you only knew what part apples have played in my life-

TARMINIUS: And one apple in the life of all mankind.

AUGUSTINE: (looking at him for an instant, then nodding gravely) Yes, Tarminius, very true. But oh, the moonwashed apples of wonder in the neighbour orchard. I did not steal the apples because I needed them-indeed, my father's apples were far better, sweeter, rosier. I stole them because I wished to steal. To sin. It was my sin I loved, God help me.

FLACCUS: Aye, it is in all of us. Baptism is but a token of extinguishing the fire-

AUGUSTINE: Burning burning burning burning-

FLACCUS: But Christ paid, atoned, still makes the impact of our daily sin on the godhead less acute.

AUGUSTINE: Beware of theology, Flaccus. These deep matters have driven mad many a young brain.

TARMINIUS: You speak very true, Augustine. There is a man from Britain in our midst-didst know that?

AUGUSTINE: There are many from Britain in our midst-that misty northern island where the damp clogs men's brains. They are harmless enough. They blink in our southern light. They go down with the sun. (laughter)

TARMINIUS: I refer to one, Augustine, who seems not to be harmless, whose gaze is very steady, who is impervious to sunstroke. His name is Pelagius.

FLACCUS: (frowning) Pelagius? That is not a British name.

TARMINIUS: His true name is Morgan, which, in their tongue, means man of the sea. Pelagius, in Greek, means exactly the-

AUGUSTINE: (testily) Yes yes, Tarminius. I think we all know what it means. Hm. I have heard a little about this man-a wandering friar, is he not? He has been exhorting the people to be kind to their wives and asses and warning of the dangers of gluttony. Also, I understand-

(he looks sternly at Tarminius, who looks sheepish rather than shepherdish)

Fornication. I see no harm in such simple homiletic teaching. They are a puritanical lot, our brothers of the north.

TARMINIUS: But, Augustine, he is doing more. He is denying Original Sin, the redemptive virtues of God's grace, even, it would seem, our salvation in Christ. He seems to be saying-that man does not need help from heaven. That man can better himself by his own efforts alone. That the City of God can be realised as the City of Man.

AUGUSTINE: (astounded) But-this-is-heresy! Oh my God-the poor lost British soul-

There is a sudden spurt of flame which ruddies the scene. All look to its source. The camera whip-pans to the spit, where flames are fierce. A toothless scullion grins, touching a forelock in apology.

SCULLION: Sorry, my lords, sir, gentlemen. A bit of fat in the fire.

Augustine, Tarminius, Flaccus look very grim.

AUGUSTINE: Fat in the fire, indeed.

Pelagius is talking gently and wisely to a group of poor men, artisans, layabouts, who all listen attentively. A pretty girl named Atricia sits at his feet and looks up in worship.

PELAGIUS: In my land the weather is always gentle, rather misty, never lacking rain. The earth is fertile, and by our own efforts we are able to bring forth fair crops. The sheep munch good fat grass. There are no devilish droughts, there is no searing sun. It is no land for praying in panic-not like the arid Africa of our friend the Bishop Augustine.

ATRICIA: Oh, how I should love to see it. Could one be happy there without fear, without constant fear?

PELAGIUS: Fear of what, my dear child?

ATRICIA: Fear of having to suffer for one's happiness?

PELAGIUS: Ah yes, Atricia. In Britain we have no vision of hellfire-nor do we need to invoke heaven to make life's torments bearable. It is a gentle easy land, it is a kind of heaven in itself.

A LAYABOUT: But you said something about making a heaven there. And now you say it is a heaven already.

PELAGIUS: A kind of heaven I said, friend. We have many advantages. But we are not so foolish as to think we are living in the garden of Eden. No, our paradise is still to be built-a paradise of fair cities, of beauty and reason. We are free to cooperate with our neighbours, which is another way of saying to be good. No sense of inherited sin holds us in hopeless sloth.

ATRICIA: I can see it now-that misty island of romance. Oh, I should so love to breathe its air, smell its soil-

PELAGIUS: And why should you not, my dear? What the heart of man conceives may ever be realised. I was just saying the other day-

There is a noise of entering feet. They all look up. They are obscured somewhat by the gross shadow of those entering.

A VOICE (OS): Is your name Pelagius?

PELAGIUS: Why, yes-

Two gross authoritative men in imperial uniform stand in the way of the sunlight. They look sternly at the assembly.

FIRST MAN: You are to come with us. At once.

She clings to him in fear. He comforts her with a patting hand.

PELAGIUS: (smiling) You appear to be men of authority. It would be useless for me to ask why or where.

The two authoritative men look at him in burly contempt.

SECOND MAN: Quite quite useless.

52. INTERIOR DAY A CONVOCATION OF BISHOPS

Augustine speaks while the camera pans along a line of grave bishops. Pelagius is out of shot.

AUGUSTINE: Quite quite useless to deny that you have been spreading heresy.

Pelagius is sitting on a kind of creepystool, humble and tranquil during his episcopal investigation.

PELAGIUS: I do not deny that I have been spreading gospel, but that it is heresy I do most emphatically deny.

A number of beetle-browed bishops beetle at him.

AUGUSTINE (OS): Heresy-heresy-heresy.

Augustine strides up and down the line of bishops while he speaks. His mitre frequently goes awry with the passion of his utterance, but he straightens it ever and anon.

AUGUSTINE: Yes, sir. You deny that man was born in evil and lives in evil. That he needs God's grace before he may be good. The very cornerstone of our faith is original sin. That is doctrine.

The bishops nod vigorously.

BISHOPS: Originalsinriginalsinrignlsn.

He gets up lithely from his creepystool.

PELAGIUS: Man is neither good nor evil. Man is rational.

In CU the writhing mouth, rich-bearded, of Augustine sneers.

AUGUSTINE: Rational.

The Goths have arrived and are busily at their work of destruction. They pillage, bum, kill in sport, rape. A statue of Jesus Christ goes tumbling, breaking, pulverising itself on harmless screaming citizens. The Goths, laughing, nail an old man to a cross. Some come out of a church, bearing a holy chalice. One micturates into it. Then a pretty girl is made to drink ugh of the ugh.

Augustine and Pelagius stand together on the hill, looking grimly down.

AUGUSTINE: Rational, eh, my son?

PELAGIUS: (hardly perturbed) It is the growing pains of history. Man will learn, man must learn, man wants to learn.

AUGUSTINE: Ah, you and your British innocence-

A view of the burning city. Cheers and dirty songs. Screams.

AUGUSTINE (OS): Evil evil evil-the whole of history is written in blood. There is, believe me, much much more blood to come. The evil is only beginning to manifest itself in the history of our Christian West. Man is bad bad bad, and is damned for his badness-unless God, in his infinite mercy, grants him grace. And God foresees all, foresees the evil, foredamns, forepunishes.

Augustine takes Pelagius by the shoulders and shakes him. But Pelagius gently and humorously removes the shaking hands. He laughs.

PELAGIUS: Man is free. Free to choose. Unforeordained to go either to heaven or to hell, despite the Almighty's allforeknowingness. Free free free.

A vicious scene of mixed rape and torture and cannibalism. The song of a drunk is heard.

DRUNK (OS): (singing) Free free free,

We be free to be free…

The drunk, surrounded by dead-drunks and genuine corpses, spills pilfered wine, singing.

DRUNK: Free to be scotfree,

But

Not free to be not free,

Free free fr

There is a tremendous earthquake. A tear in the shape of a Spengkrian tragic parabola lightnings across the screen.

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