Thomas the Proclaimer

Nine A Crying of Proclaimers

Kraft enters the room as Thomas puts down the telephone. “Who were you talking to?” Kraft asks.

“Gifford the Discerner, calling from Boston.”

“Why are you answering the phone yourself?”

“There was no one else here.”

“There were three apostles in the outer office who could have handled the call, Thomas.”

Thomas shrugs. “They would have had to refer it to me eventually. So I answered. What’s wrong with that?”

“You’ve got to maintain distance between yourself and ordinary daily routines. You’ve got to stay up there on your pedestal and not go around answering telephones.”

“I’ll try, Saul,” says Thomas heavily.

“What did Gifford want?”

“He’d like to merge his group and ours.”

Kraft’s eyes flash. “To merge? To merge? What are we, some sort of manufacturing company? We’re a movement. A spiritual force. To talk mergers is nonsense.”

“He means that we should start working together, Saul. He says we should join forces because we’re both on the side of sanity.”

“Exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

“That we’re both anti-Apocalyptist. That we’re both working to preserve society instead of to bury it.”

“An oversimplification,” Kraft says. “We deal in faith and he deals in equations. We believe in a Divine Being and he believes in the sanctity of reason. Where’s the meeting point?”

“The Cincinnati and Chicago fires are our meeting point, Saul. The Apocalyptists are going crazy. And now these Awaiters too, these spokesmen for Satan—no. We have to act. If I put myself at Gifford’s disposal—”

“At his disposal?”

“He wants a statement from me backing the spirit if not the substance of the Discerner philosophy. He thinks it’ll serve to calm things a little.”

“He wants to co-opt you for his own purposes.”

“For the purposes of mankind, Saul.”

Kraft laughs harshly. “How naive you can be, Thomas! Where’s your sense? You can’t make an alliance with atheists. You can’t let them turn you into a ventriloquist’s dummy who—”

“They believe in God just as much as—”

“You have power, Thomas. It’s in your voice, it’s in your eyes. They have none. They’re just a bunch of professors. They want to borrow your power and make use of it to serve their own ends. They don’t want you, Thomas, they want your charisma. I forbid this alliance.”

Thomas is trembling. He towers over Kraft, but his entire body quivers and Kraft remains steady. Thomas says, “I’m so tired, Saul.”

“Tired?”

“The uproar. The rioting. The fires. I’m carrying too big a burden. Gifford can help me. With planning, with ideas. That’s a clever bunch, those people.”

“I can give you all the help you need.”

“No, Saul! What have you been telling me all along? That prayer is sufficient unto every occasion! Faith! Faith! Faith! Faith moves mountains! Well? You were right, yes, you channeled your faith through me and I spoke to the people and we got ourselves a miracle, but what now? What have we really accomplished? Everything’s falling apart, and we need strong souls to build and rebuild, and you aren’t offering anything new. You—”

“The Lord will provide for—”

“Will He? Will He, Saul? How many thousands dead already, since June 6? How much property damage? Government paralyzed. Transportation breaking down. New cults. New prophets. Here’s Gifford saying, Let’s join hands, Thomas, let’s try to work together, and you tell me—”

“I forbid this,” Kraft says.

“It’s all agreed. Gifford’s going to take the first plane west, and—”

“I’ll call him. He mustn’t come. If he does I won’t let him see you. I’ll notify the apostles to bar him.”

“No, Saul.”

“We don’t need him. We’ll be ruined if we let him near you.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s godless and our movement’s strength proceeds from the Lord!” Kraft shouts. “Thomas, what’s happened to you? Where’s your fire? Where’s your zeal? Where’s my old swaggering Thomas who talked back to God? Belch, Thomas. Spit on the floor, scratch your belly, curse a little. I’ll get you some wine. It shocks me to see you sniveling like this. Telling me how tired you are, how scared.”

“I don’t feel like swaggering much these days, Saul.”

“Damn you, swagger anyway! The whole world is watching you! Here, listen—I’ll rough out a new speech for you that you’ll deliver on full hookup tomorrow night. We’ll outflank Gifford and his bunch. We’ll co-opt him. What you’ll do, Thomas, is call for a new act of faith, some kind of mass demonstration, something symbolic and powerful, something to turn people away from despair and destruction. We’ll follow the Discerner line plus our own element of faith. You’ll denounce all the false new cults and urge everyone to—to—let me think—to make a pilgrimage of some kind?—a coming together—a mass baptism, that’s it, a march to the sea, everybody bathing in God’s own sea, washing away doubt and sin. Right? A rededication to faith.” Kraft’s face is red. His forehead gleams. Thomas scowls at him. Kraft goes on, “Stop pulling those long faces. You’ll do it and it’ll work. It’ll pull people back from the abyss of Apocalypticism. Positive goals, that’s our approach. Thomas the Proclaimer cries out that we must work together under God. Yes? Yes. We’ll get this thing under control in ten days, I promise you. Now go have yourself a drink. Relax. I’ve got to call Gifford, and then I’ll start blocking in your new appeal. Go on. And stop looking so glum, Thomas! We hold a mighty power in our hands. We’re wielding the sword of the Lord. You want to turn all that over to Gifford’s crowd? Go. Go. Get some rest, Thomas.”