Chapter VI: Part 6

“Exactly, and believe me there’s going to be a lot of them after his scalp.”

“Have they begun already?”

“Not yet. We have you to thank for that, too, making it so clear that though what we said certainly conflicts with all the churches we’re really not competing with them, that people listening to Cavesword can go right on being Baptists and so on.”

“I don’t see how, if they accept Cave.”

“Neither do I, but for the time being that’s our line.”

“Then there’s to be a fight with the churches?”

Paul nodded grimly. “And it’s going to be a honey. People don’t take all the supernatural junk seriously these days but they do go for the social idea of the church, the uplift kind of thing: that’s where we’ll have to meet them, where we’ll have to lick them at their own game.”

I looked at him for one long moment: I had of course anticipated something like this from the moment that Cave had become an organization and not merely one man talking. I had realized that expansion was inevitable: the rule of life is more life and of organization more organization, increased dominion. Yet I had not suspected Paul of having grasped this so clearly, using it so promptly to his, to our advantage. The thought that not only was he cleverer than I had suspected but that he might, indeed, despite his unfortunate approach, be even cleverer than myself, disagreeably occurred to me. I had until then regarded myself as the unique intellectual of the Cavites, the one sane man among maniacs and opportunists: it seemed now that there were two of us with open eyes and, of the two, he alone possessed ambition and energy, qualities neither of which I possessed to any useful degree.

“You mean this to be a religion, Paul?”

He smiled, “Maybe, yes ... something on that order perhaps. Something workable, though, for now: I’ve thought about what you said the other night.”

“Does Cave want this?”

Paul shrugged. “Who can tell. I should think so but this is not really a problem for him to decide. He has happened. Now _we_ respond. Stokharin feels that a practical faith, a belief in ways of behavior which the best modern analysts are agreed on as being closest to ideal, might perform absolute miracles. No more guilt-feeling about sex if Cave were to teach that all is proper when it does no harm to others ... and the desire to do harm to others might even be partly removed if there were no false mysteries, no terrible warnings in childhood and so on. Just in that one area of behavior we could work wonders! Of course there would still be problems but the main ones could be solved if people take to Cave and to us. Cavesword is already known and it’s a revelation to millions ... we know that. Now they are looking to him for guidance in other fields. They know about death at last. Now we must tell them about living and we are lucky to have available so much first-rate scientific research in the human psyche. I suspect we can even strike on an ideal behavior pattern by which people can measure themselves.”

“And to which they will be made to conform?” Direction was becoming clear already.

“How can we force anyone to do anything? Our whole power is that people come to us, to Cave voluntarily because they feel here, at last, is the answer.” Paul might very well have been sincere: there is no way of determining, even now.

“Well, remember, Paul, that you will do more good than harm by attempting to supplant old dogmas and customs with new dogmas. It will be the same in the end except that the old is less militant, less dangerous than a new law imposed by enthusiasts.”

“Don’t say 'you.’ Say 'we.’ You’re as much a part of this as I am. After all you’re a director. You’ve got a say-so in these matters. Just speak up Friday.” Paul was suddenly genial and placating. “I don’t pretend I’ve got all the answers. I’m just talking off the top of my head, like they say.”

A member of the team burst into the office with the news that Bishop Winston was outside.

“Now it starts,” said Paul with a grimace.

The Bishop did not recognize me as we passed one another in the office. He looked grim and he was wearing clerical garb.

“He’s too late,” said a lean youth, nodding at the churchman’s back.

“Professional con-men,” said his companion with disgust. “They’ve had their day.”

And with that in my ears, I walked out into the snow-swirling street, into the bleak opening of the new year, of Cave’s year.

I was more alarmed than ever by what Paul had told me and by what I heard on every side. In drugstores and bars and restaurants, people talked of Cave. I could even tell when I did not hear the name that it was of him they spoke: a certain intentness, a great curiosity, a wonder. In the bookstores, copies of my introduction were displayed with large blown-up photographs of Cave to accompany them.

Alone in a bar on Madison Avenue where I’d taken refuge from the cold, I glanced at the clippings Paul had given me. There were two sets. The first were the original perfunctory ones which had appeared, short, puzzled ... the reviewers, knowing even less philosophy than I, tended to question my proposition that Caveswood was anything more than a single speculation in rather a large field. I’d obviously not communicated his magic, only its record which, like the testament of miracles, depends entirely on faith and to inspire faith one needed Cave himself.

“What do you think about the guy?” the waiter, a fragile sensitive Latin with parchment-lidded eyes mopped the spilled gin off my table (he’d seen a picture of Cave among my clippings).

“It’s hard to say,” I said. “How did he strike you?”

“Boy, like lightning!” The waiter beamed; a smile which showed broken teeth spoiled the delicate line of his face. “Of course I’m Catholic but this is something new. Some people been telling me you can’t be a good Catholic and go for this guy. But why not? I say. You still got Virginmerry and now you got him, too, for right now. You ought to see the crowd we get here to see the TV when he’s on. It’s wild.”

It was wild, I thought, putting the clippings back into the folder. Yet it might be kept within bounds. Paul had emphasized my directorship, my place in the structure ... well, I would show them what should be done or, rather, _not_ done.

Then I went out into the snow-dimmed street and hailed a cab. All the way to Iris’s apartment I was rehearsing what I would say to Paul when next we met. “Leave them alone,” I said aloud. “It is enough to open the windows.”

“Open the windows!” The driver snorted. “It’s damn near forty in the street.”

4

Iris occupied several rooms on the second floor of a brownstone in a street with, pleasantest of New York anachronisms, trees. When I entered, she was doing yogi exercises on the floor, sitting crosslegged on a mat, her slender legs in leotards and her face flushed with strain. “It just doesn’t work for me!” she said and stood up without embarrassment for, since I’d found the main door unlocked, I’d opened this one too, without knocking.

“I’m sorry, Iris, the downstairs door was....”

“Don’t be silly.” She rolled up the mat efficiently. “I was expecting you but I lost track of time ... which means it must be working a little. I’ll be right back.” She went into the bedroom and I sat down, amused by this unexpected side to Iris: I wondered if perhaps she was a devotee of wheat germ and mint tea as well. She claimed not. “It’s the only real exercise I get,” she said, changed now to a heavy robe which completely swathed her figure as she sat curled up in a great armchair, drinking Scotch, as did I, the winter outside hid by drawn curtains, by warmth and light.

“Have you done it long?”

“Oh, off and on for years. I never get anywhere but it’s very restful and I’ve felt so jittery lately that anything which relaxes me ...” her voice trailed off idly. She seemed relaxed now.

“I’ve been to see Paul,” I began importantly.

“Ah.”

But I could not, suddenly, generate sufficient anger to speak out with eloquence. I went around my anger stealthily, a murderer stalking his victim. “We disagreed.”

“In what?”

“In everything, I should say.”

“That’s so easy with Paul.” Iris stretched lazily; ice chattered in her glass; a car’s horn melodious and foreign sounded in the street below. “We need him. If it wasn’t Paul, it might be someone a great deal worse. At least he’s intelligent and devoted. That makes up for a lot.”

“I don’t think so; Iris, he’s establishing a sort of supermarket, short-order church for the masses.”

She laughed delightedly. “I like that ... and, in a way, you’re right: that’s what he _would_ do left to himself.”

“He seems in complete control.”

“Only of the office. John makes all the decisions.”

“I wish I could be sure of that.”

“You’ll see on Friday. You’ll be at the meeting, won’t you?”

I nodded. “I have a feeling that between Paul and Stokharin this thing is going to turn into a world-wide clinic for mental health.”

“I expect worse things _could_ happen, but Paul must still contend with me and you and of course the final word is with John.”

“How is Cave, by the way? I haven’t seen him since the night of the first telecast.”

“Quite relaxed, unlike the rest of us. You should come out with me one day to Long Island and see him. I go nearly every day for a few hours. He’s kept completely removed from everyone except the servants and Paul and me.”

“Does he like that?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind. He walks a good deal ... it’s a big place and he’s used to the cold. He reads a little, mostly detective stories ... and then of course there’s the mail that Paul sends on. He works at that off and on all day. I help him and when we’re stuck (you should see the questions!) we consult Stokharin who’s very good on some things, on problems....”

“And a bore the rest of the time.”

“That’s right,” Iris giggled. “I couldn’t have been more furious the other night, but, since then, I’ve seen a good deal of him and he’s not half bad. We’ve got him over the idea that John should become a lay analyst: the response to the telecast finally convinced Stokharin that here was a racial 'folk-father-figure’ ... his very own words. Now he’s out to educate the father so that he will fulfill his children’s needs on the best post-Jungian lines.”

“Does Cave take him seriously?”

“He’s bored to death with him. Stokharin’s the only man who’s ever had the bad sense to lecture John ... who absolutely hates it; but he does feel that Stokharin’s answers to some of the problems we’re confronted with are ingenious. All that ... hints to the lovelorn is too much for John, so we need the Stokharins to take care of details.”

“I hope he’s careful not to get too involved.”

“John’s incorruptible. Not because he is so noble or constant but because he can only think a certain way and other opinions, other evidence, can’t touch him.”

I paused, wondering if this was true; then: “I’m going to make a scene on Friday. I’m going to suggest that Paul is moving in a dangerous direction, toward organization and dogma and that if something is not done soon we’ll all be ruined by that which we most detest: a militant absolutist doctrine.”

Iris looked at me curiously. “Tell me, Gene, what _do_ you want? Why are you still with Cave, with all of us when you so apparently suspect the general direction? You’ve always been perfectly clear about what you did _not_ want (I can recall, I think, every word you said at the farm that night) but, to be specific, what would you like all this to become? How would you direct things if you could?”

I’d been preparing myself for such a question for several months yet I still had no single answer to make which would sharply express my own doubts and wishes. But I made an attempt. “I would not organize, for one thing. I’d have Cave speak regularly, all he likes, but there would be no Cavite, Inc., no Paul planting articles and propagandizing. I’d keep just Cave, nothing more. Let him do his work. Then, gradually, there will be effects, a gradual end to superstition....”

Iris looked at me intently. “_If_ it were possible, I would say we should do what you suggest, even though it would be ruinous not only for us but for everyone....”

“Why ruinous? A freedom to come to a decision on one’s own without....”

“That’s it. No one can be allowed that freedom. One doesn’t need much scholarship or even experience to see that. Everywhere people are held in check by stifling but familiar powers. People are used to tyranny: they expect governments to demand their souls, and they have given up decisions on many levels for love of security. What you suggest is impossible with this race at this time.”

“You’re talking nonsense. After all, obeisance to established religions is the order of the day, yet look at the response to Cave who is undermining the whole Christian structure.”

“And wait until you see the fight they’re going to put up!” said Iris grimly. “Fortunately, Cave’s word is the mortal blow though Cave himself would be their certain victim if he was protected, if there was no organization to guard him, and the Word.”

“So Paul and his--his team, his proselytes are to become merely an equivalent power, combating the old superstitions with their own weapons.”

“More or less, yes. That’s what it has come to.”

“Even though his talking to the people would be enough? Let them use him, not he them.”

“A good slogan,” Iris smiled. “But I think I’m right. No one would have a chance to see or hear him if it weren’t for Paul; you should read the threatening letters we’ve been getting.”

“I thought all the mail was most admiring?”

“All that came from people who’ve actually _heard_ him but there’s a lot coming in now from religious fanatics. They are very extreme. And of course the churches, one by one, are starting to take notice.”

“I saw Bishop Winston in Paul’s office today.”

“He’s been trying to see John all week. He finally settled for Paul, I gather. In any case, after the next telecast there will really be a storm.”

“The next? What’s going to happen then?”

“John will tell them that there’s no need for the churches, that their power derives from superstition and bloody deeds.”

I was startled. “When did this hit him? I thought he intended to go on as he was, without ever coming out openly against them.”

“I was surprised too. He told me yesterday; he’d been brooding all day and, suddenly, he started to attack them. It’s going to be murderous.”

“I hope not for him.”

“Oh, he’ll convince, I’m sure of that: but their revenge....” She gave a troubled sigh. “Anyway, Gene, you do see why we can’t, for our own safety, dispense with Paul and his financiers and press agents and all the squalid but necessary crew.”

“It may be too late,” I agreed. “But I fear the end.”

“No one can tell; besides, as long as you and I are there with John it will be all right.”

I felt her confidence was not entirely justified but I determined, for the moment, to defer my attack on Paul’s methods until a safer time.

We argued about the wisdom of the coming telecast: was it really necessary to confront the enemy explicitly? and in his own country, so to speak? Iris was not sure, but she felt Cave’s instinct was right even though he had, perhaps, been goaded into action sooner than we’d anticipated by the harsh letters of Christian zealots.

And then by slow degrees, by careful circling, the conversation grew personal.

“I’ve never told anyone else,” said Iris, looking at me speculatively.

“Don’t worry; I haven’t repeated any of it.” And, as always at such times, I felt a warm flood of guilt: any direct statement of personal innocence has always made me feel completely criminal.

“But since I’ve told you, I ... it’s a relief to have someone I can talk to about John. I don’t dare mention his name to my family, to my old friends ... I don’t think they even know yet that I’ve met him.”

“I thought it has all been in the papers.”

“I haven’t been mentioned but, after Friday, everyone will know. Paul says there’s no way for us to duck inquiries. After the directors’ meeting he’ll issue a statement naming directors, stockholders and so on.”

“But even then, why should anyone suspect you were interested in Cave or he in you? It’s possible merely to be a director, isn’t it?”

Iris shrugged. “You know how people are. Clarissa keeps wanting to have what she calls a comfy chat about _everything_ and I keep putting her off. Stokharin now takes it for granted that John and I sleep together, that he is the father-image to me and I the mother to him.”

It had an odd ring to it and I laughed. “Do you think that’s a sound post-Jungian analysis?”

Iris smiled faintly. “Whatever it is, the feeling, such as it is, is all on my side.”

“And he shows no sign of returning your affection?”

“None at all. He’s devoted to me, I think. He relies on my judgment. He trusts me, which is more than he does anyone else I know of....”

“Even me?” Always the “I” coming between me and what I wished to know: that insatiable, distressing “I.”

“Yes, even you, dear, and Paul too. He’s on guard against everyone, but not in a nasty or suspicious way. He ... what is the phrase? he keeps his own counsel.”

“And you are the counsel?”

“In a sense, and nothing more.”

“Perhaps you should give up. It would seem that ... love was not possible for him. If so, it’s unwise for you to put yourself in such a position ... harmful, too.”

“But there’s still the other Cave. I love him as well and the two are, finally, the same.”

“A _metaphysique_?”

“No, or at least I don’t see a paradox. It’s something else; it’s like coming out of an illness with no past at all, only a memory of pain and dullness which soon goes in the wonderful present.”

“It?”

“My love is _it_.” Her voice grew strong. “I’ve learned that in loving him I love life, which I never did before. Why, I can even value others now, value all those faceless creatures whom I knew without ever bothering to _see_, to bring in focus the dim blurs of all _that_ world alive. I lived asleep. Now I am awake.”

“He does not love you.”

“Why should he? It’s gone beyond that. I’m no longer the scales most lovers are, weighing the deeds and gifts and treasures proffered against those received or stolen from the other, trying always to bring into fatal balance two separate imponderables. I give myself and what I take is life, the knowledge that there is another creature in the world whose wonder, to me at least, is all-satisfying by merely being.”

“Is it so terrible to be alive?”

“Beyond all expectation, my poor friend.” And then I left her to return to winter, to the snow-filled streets and my old pain.

5

The second telecast had the anticipated effect. The day after, Friday, nearly a hundred thousand letters and telegrams had been received, and Cave’s life had been threatened four times over the telephone.

I was awakened at five o’clock on Friday morning by a newspaper man begging an interview. Half-asleep, irritably, I told him to go to hell and hung up though not before I’d heard the jeer: “Thought you fellows did away with hell.” This woke me up and I made coffee, still keeping my eyes half-shut in the dim winter light, hoping sleep might return to its accustomed perch; but more telephone calls demoralized my fragile ally and I was left wide awake, unshaven, with fast-beating heart beside the telephone, drinking coffee.

Every few minutes there was a call from some newspaper man or editor requesting information: they had all been shocked by the telecast. When I told them they should get in touch with Cave himself, or at least with Paul’s office, they only laughed: thousands were trying to get to speak to Paul, tens of thousands to Cave; the result was chaos. Shakily, I took the phone off its hook and got dressed. When I opened my door to get the morning paper, a thin young man leaped past me into my living room and anchored himself to a heavy chair.

“What....” I began; he was only too eager to explain the what and the why.

“And so,” he ended, breathlessly, “the _Star_ has authorized me to advance you not only _that_ money but expenses, too, for an exclusive feature on Cave and the Cavites.”

“I wish,” I said, very gentle in the presence of such enthusiasm, “that you would go away. It’s five in the morning....”

“You’re our only hope,” the boy wailed. “Every paper and news service has been trying to get past the gate out on Long Island for three weeks and failed. They couldn’t even shoot him at long range.”

“Shoot him.”

“Get a picture. Now please....”

“Paul Himmell is your man. He’s authorized to speak for Cave. He has an office in the Empire State Building and he keeps respectable hours; so why don’t you....”

“We haven’t been able to get even a release out of him for three days now. It’s censorship, that’s what it is.”

I had to smile. “We’re not the government. Cave is a private citizen and this is a private organization. If we choose not to give interviews you have no right to pester us.”

“Oh, come off it.” The young man was at an age where the needs of ambition were often less strong than the desire for true expression; for a moment he forgot that he needed my forbearance and I liked him better. “This is the biggest news that’s hit town since the war. You guys have got the whole country asking questions and the big one is: who is Cave?”

“There’ll be an announcement today, I think, about the company. As for Cave, I suggest you read a little book called 'An Introduction to....’”

“Of course I’ve read it. That’s why I’m here. Now, please, Mr. Luther, give me an exclusive even if you won’t take the _Star’s_ generous offer. At least tell me something I can use.”

I sat down heavily; a bit of coffee splattered from cup to saucer to the back of my hand: it dried stickily. I felt worn-out already, the day only just begun. “What do you want me to tell you? What would you most like to hear? What do you expect me to say since, being a good journalist, that is what you’ll write no matter what I tell you?”

“Oh, that’s not true. I want to know what Cave’s all about as a person, as a teacher.”

“Well, what do _you_ think he’s up to?”

“Me? Why ... I don’t know. I never heard him on the air until last night. It was strong stuff.”

“Were you convinced?”

“In a way, yes. He said a lot of things I agreed with but I was a little surprised at his going after the churches. Not that I like anything about _them_, but still it’s some stunt to get up and talk like that in front of millions of people. I mean you just don’t say those things any more, even if you do think them ... can’t offend minorities; that’s what we learn first in journalism school.”

“There’s part of your answer then: Cave is a man who, unlike others, says what he thinks is true even if it makes him unpopular. There’s some virtue in that.”

“I guess he can afford to in his position,” said the boy vaguely. “You know we got Bishop Winston to answer him for the _Star_. Signed him last night after Cave went off the air. I’m sure he’ll do a good job. Now....”

We wrestled across the room; since I was the stronger, I won my privacy though muffled threats of exposure were hurled at me from behind the now-bolted door.

Acting on an impulse, I left the apartment as soon as I was sure my recent visitor had gone. I was afraid that others would try to find me if I stayed home; fears which were justified: according to the elevator man, he had turned away several men already. The one who did get through had come up the fire escape.

I walked quickly out into the quiet street, the snow now gone to slush as dingy as the morning sky. Fortunately, the day was neither windy nor cold and I walked to a Times Square automat for an early breakfast.

I was reassured by anonymity. All around me sleepy men and women clutching newspapers, briefcases and lunch pails sat sullenly chewing their breakfast, sleep not yet departed.

I bought a roll, more coffee, hominy grits which I detested in the North but occasionally tried in the hope that, by accident, I might stumble upon the real thing. These were not the real thing and I left them untouched while I read my paper.

Cave was on the front page. Not prominent, but still he was there. The now-standard photograph looked darkly from the page. The headline announced that: “Prophet Flays Churches as Millions Listen.” There followed a paraphrase of the telecast which began with those fateful and soon to be famous words: “Our quarrel is not with Christ but with his keepers.” I wondered, as I read, if anyone had ever taken one of the telecasts down in shorthand and made a transcript of it. I, for one, should have been curious to see in cold print one of those sermons. Cave himself knew that without his presence they would not stand up and, consequently, he allowed none of then to be transcribed; the result was that whenever there was a report of one of his talks it was, necessarily, paraphrased which gave a curious protean flavor to his doctrine, since the recorded style was never consistent, changing always with each paraphraser just as the original meaning was invariably altered by each separate listener as he adapted the incantation to his private needs.

A fat yellow-faced woman sat down with a groan beside me and began to ravish a plate of assorted cakes. Her jaws grinding, the only visible sign of life, for her eyes were glazed from sleep and her body, incorrectly buttoned into a cigarette-ash-dusted dress, was as still as a mountain, even the work of lungs was obscured by the torpid flesh.

I watched her above the newspaper, fascinated by the regularity with which her jaws ground the bits of cake. Her eyes looked past me into some invisible world of pastry.

Then, having finished the report on Cave’s telecast, I put the newspaper down and ate with deliberate finesse my own biscuit. The rustling of the newspaper as it was folded and placed on the table disturbed my companion and, beneath the fat, her will slowly sent out instructions to the extremities. She cleared her throat. Her head lowered. Her chewing stopped; a bit of cake was temporarily lodged in one cheek, held firmly in place by a gaudy plate. Her eyes squinted at the newspaper. She spoke: “Something about that preacher fellow last night?”

“Yes. Would you like to see it?” I pushed the paper toward her.

She looked at the picture, carefully spelling out the words of the headlines with heavy lips and deep irregular breaths. “Did you see him last night?” she asked when her eye finally got to the small print where it stopped, as though halted by a dense jungle.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”

“He sure gave it to them bastards, didn’t he?” Her face lit up joyously; I thought of _ça ira_.

“You mean the clergy?”

“That’s just what I mean. They had it too good, too long. People afraid to say anything. Takes somebody like him to tell us what we know and tell _them_ where to head-in.”

“Do you like what he said about dying?”

“About there being nothing? Why, hell, mister, I knew it all along.”

“But it’s good to hear someone else say it?”

“Don’t do no harm.” She belched softly. “I expect they’re going to be on his tail,” she added with gloomy pleasure, spearing a fragment of eclair which she had missed on her first circuit of her crowded dish.

I spent that morning in the street buying newspapers, eavesdropping. I heard several arguments about Cave: the religiously orthodox were outraged but clearly interested; the others were triumphant though all seemed to feel that _they_, as the automat woman had said, would soon be on his tail. Ours was no longer a country where the nonconformist could escape disaster if he unwisely showed a strange face to the multitude.

I tried to telephone Iris and then Clarissa but both telephones were reported busy; I called the office but was told by a mechanical voice that if I left my name and address and business Mr. Himmell would call me as soon as possible. The siege had begun.

I arrived at the Empire State Building half an hour before the meeting was to begin, hoping to find out in advance from Paul what was happening and what we were supposed to do about it.

A picket line marched up and down before the entrance, waving banners, denouncing Cave and all his works in the names of various religious groups. A crowd was beginning to gather and the police, at least a score, moved frantically about, not knowing how to keep the mob out of the building. When I stepped off the elevator at Cave’s floor, I found myself a part of a loud and confused mass of men and women all shoving toward the door which was marked Cavite, Inc. Policemen barred their way.

Long before I’d got to the door, a woman’s shoe went hurtling through the air, smashing a hole in the frosted glass. One policeman cocked his revolver menacingly. Another shouted, “Get the riot squad!” But still the crowd raved and shouted and quarreled. Some wanted to lynch Cave in the name of the Lamb, while others begged to be allowed to touch him, just once. I got to the door at last, thanks to a sudden shove which landed me with a crash into a policeman. He gasped and then, snarling, raised his club. “Business!” I shouted with what breath was left me. “Got business here. Director.”

I was not believed but, after some talk with a pale secretary through the shattered glass door, I was admitted. The crowd roared when they saw this and moved in closer. The door slammed shut behind me.

“It’s been like this since nine o’clock,” said the secretary, looking at me with frightened eyes.

“You mean after two hours the police still can’t do anything?”

“We didn’t call them right away. When we did it was too late. We’re barricaded in here.”

The team sat about at their desks pretending to work, pretending not to notice the noise from the corridor.

Paul, however, was not in the least disturbed. He was standing by the window in his office looking out. Clarissa, her hat and her hair together awry: a confusion of straw and veil and bolts of reddish hair apparently not all her own, was making-up in a pocket mirror.

“Ravenous, wild beasts!” she hailed me. “I’ve seen _their_ likes before.”

“Gene, good fellow! Got through the mob all right? Here, have a bit of brandy. No? Perhaps some Scotch?”

I said it was too early for me to drink. Shakily, I sat down. Paul laughed at the sight of us. “You both look like the end of the world has come.”

“I’d always pictured the end as being quite orderly....” I began stuffily but Doctor Stokharin’s loud entrance interrupted me. His spectacles were dangling from one ear and his tie had been pulled around from front to back quite neatly. “No authority!” he bellowed, ignoring all of us. “The absence of a traditional patriarch, the center of the tribe, has made them insecure. Only together do they feel warmth in great _swarming_ hives!” His voice rose sharply and broke on the word “hives” into a squeak. He took the proffered brandy and sat down, his clothes still disarranged.

“My hair,” said Clarissa grimly, “may never come out right again today.” She put the mirror back into her purse which she closed with a loud snap. “I don’t see, Paul, why you didn’t have the foresight to call the police in advance and demand protection.”

“I had no idea it would be like this. Believe me, Clarissa, it’s not deliberate.” But from his excited chuckling, I could see that he was delighted with the confusion. The triumph of the publicist’s dark art. I wondered if he might not have had a hand in it: it was a little reminiscent of the crowds of screaming women which in earlier decades, goaded by publicists, had howled and, as Stokharin would say, _swarmed_ about singers and other theatrical idols.

Paul anticipated my suspicions. “Didn’t have a thing to do with it, I swear. Doctor, your tie is hanging down your back.”

“I don’t mind,” said Stokharin disagreeably, but he did adjust his glasses.

“I’d a feeling we’d have a few people in to see us but no idea it would be like this.” He turned to me as the quietest, the least dangerous of the three. “You wouldn’t believe the response to last night’s telecast if I told you.”

“Why don’t you tell me?” The comic aspects were becoming apparent: Stokharin’s assaulted dignity and the ruin of Clarissa’s ingenious hair both seemed to me suddenly funny; I cleared my throat to obscure the tickling of a smile. Paul named some stupendous figures with an air of triumph. “And there are more coming all the time. Think of that!”

“Are they favorable?”

“Favorable? Who cares?” Paul was pacing the floor quickly, keyed to the breaking-point had he possessed the metabolism of a normal man. “We’ll have a breakdown over the weekend. Hired more people already. Whole lot working all the time. By the way, we’re moving.”

“Not a moment too soon,” said Clarissa balefully. “I suggest, in fact, we move now while there are even these few police to protect us. When they go home for lunch (they all eat enormous lunches, one can tell), that crowd is going to come in here and throw us out the window.”

“Or suffocate us with love,” said Paul.

Stokharin looked at Clarissa thoughtfully; with his turned-around necktie he had a sacerdotal look. “Do you often think of falling from high places? of being pushed from windows or perhaps high trees?”

“Only when I’m on the top floor of the world’s highest building surrounded by raving maniacs do such forebodings occur to me, doctor. Had you a greater sense of reality you might be experiencing the same apprehension.”

Stokharin clapped his hands happily. “Classic, classic. To believe she alone knows reality. Madam, I suggest that you....”

There was a roar of sound from the hallway; a noise of glass shattering; a revolver went off with a sharp report and, frozen with alarm, I waited for its echo: there was none; only shouts of: Cave! Cave! Cave!

Surrounded by police, Cave and Iris were escorted into the office. More police held the door, aided by the office crew who, suddenly inspired, were throwing paper cups full of water into the crowd. Flash bulbs like an electric storm flared in all directions as the newspaper men invaded the office, let in by the police who could not hold them back.

Iris looked frightened and even Cave seemed alarmed by the rioting.

Once the police lieutenant had got Cave and Iris into the office, he sent his men back to hold the corridor. Before he joined them he said sternly, breathing hard from the struggle, “We’re going to clear the hall in the next hour. When we do we’ll come and get you people out of here. You got to leave whether you want to or not. This is an emergency.”

“An hour is all we need, officer.” Paul was smooth. “And may I tell you that my old friend, the Commissioner, is going to hear some extremely nice things about the efficiency and good sense of his men.” Before the lieutenant had got around to framing a suitably warm answer, Paul had maneuvered him out of the inner office; he locked the door behind him.

“There,” he said, turning to us, very businesslike. “It was a mistake meeting here after last night. I’m sorry, John.”

“It’s not your fault.” Cave, having found himself an uncomfortable straight chair in a corner of the room, sat very erect, like a child in serious attendance upon adults. “I had a hunch we should hold the meeting out on Long Island.”

Paul scowled. “I hate the idea of the press getting a look at you. Spoils the mystery effect; guess it was bound to happen, though. You won’t have to talk to them.”

“Oh, but I will,” said Cave easily, showing who was master here, this day.

“But ... well, after what we decided, the initial strategy being....”

“No. It’s all changed now, Paul. I’ll have to face them, at least this once. I’ll talk to them the way I always talk. They’ll listen.” His voice grew dreamy. He was indifferent to Paul’s discomfiture.

“Did you get a new place?” asked Iris, suddenly, to divert the conversation.

“What? Oh yes. A whole house, five stories on East Sixty-first Street. Should be big enough. At least for now.” The inter-office communicator sounded. Paul spoke quickly into it: “Tell the newspaper people to wait out there. We’ll have a statement in exactly an hour and they’ll be able ...,” he paused and looked at Cave for some reprieve; then, seeing none, he finished: “They’ll be able to interview Cave.” He flipped the machine off. Through the locked door, we heard a noise of triumph from the gathered journalists and photographers.

“Well, come along,” said Clarissa, “I thought this was to be a board of directors meeting. Cave, dear, you’ve got to preside.”

But, though he said he’d rather not, Clarissa, in a sudden storm of legality, insisted that he must: she also maliciously demanded a complete reading of the last meeting’s minutes by Paul, the secretary. We were able to save him by a move to waive the reading which was proposed, recorded and passed by a show of hands, only Clarissa dissenting. Cave conducted the meeting solemnly. Then Clarissa demanded a report from the treasurer and this time Paul was not let off.

For the first time I had a clear picture of the company of which I was a director. Shares had been sold. Control was in the hands of Clarissa, while Paul and several West Coast industrialists whose names were not familiar to me, also had shares. The main revenue of the company now came from the sponsor of Cave’s television show. There was also a trickle of contributions which, in the last few weeks, had increased considerably.

Then Paul read from a list of expenses, his voice hurrying a little over his own salary which was, I thought, a bit large. Cave’s expenses were recorded and, with Clarissa goading from time to time, Paul gave an accounting of all that had been spent since the arrival in New York. John Cave was a big business.

“The books are audited at standard intervals,” said Paul, looking at Clarissa as he finished, some of his good humor returning. “We will not declare dividends unless Mrs. Lessing insists the company become a profit-making enterprise.”

“It might not be a bad idea,” said Clarissa evenly. “Why not get a little return....”

But Paul had launched into policy. We listened attentively. From time to time, Cave made a suggestion. Iris and I made no comment. Stokharin occasionally chose to illuminate certain human problems as they arose and Paul, at least, heard him out respectfully. Clarissa wanted to know all about costs and her interruptions were always brief and shrewd.

Several decisions were made at that meeting. It was decided that a Center be established and headed by Dr. Stokharin to take care of those Cavites whose problems might be helped by therapy. “We just apply classical concepts to their little troubles,” he said.

“But it shouldn’t _seem_ like a clinic,” said Iris suddenly. “It’s all part of John, of what John says.”

“We’ll make that perfectly clear,” said Paul quickly.

Stokharin nodded agreeably. “After all it is in his name they come to us. We take it from there. No more problems ... all is contentment.” He smacked his lips.

It was then decided that Cave would spend the summer quietly and, in the autumn, begin a tour of the country to be followed by more telecasts in the following winter. “The summer is to think a little in,” were Cave’s words.

Next, I was assigned the task of writing a defense of Cave for certain vast syndicates; I was also requested to compose a set of dialogues which would record Cave’s views on such problems as marriage, the family, world government and various other problems all in urgent need of answering. I suggested, diffidently, that it would be very useful if Cave were to tell me what he thought about such things before I wrote my dialogues. Cave said, quite seriously, that we would have the summer in which to handle all these subjects.

Paul then told us the bad news; there was a good deal of it. “The Cardinal, in the name of all the Diocesan Bishops, has declared that any Catholic who observes the telecasts of John Cave or attends in person his blasphemous lectures commits a grave and mortal sin. Bishop Winston came to tell me that not only is he attacking Cave in the press but that he is quite sure, if we continue, the government will intervene. It was a hint, and not too subtle.”

“On what grounds intervene?” asked Cave. “What have I done that breaks one of their laws?”

“They’ll trump up something,” said Clarissa.

“I’m afraid you’re right. They can always find something to get us on. So far, that is about the worst that can happen.”

“But do you think it will?” I asked. “Free speech is still on the books.”

Paul chuckled grimly. “That’s just where it stays, too.” And he quoted the national credo: In a true democracy there is no place for a serious difference of opinion on truly great issues. “Sooner or later they’ll try to stop Cave.”

“But they can’t!” said Iris. “The people won’t stand for it.”

“He’s the father of too many now,” said Stokharin sagely. “No son will rise to dispute him, yet.”

“No use to get excited in advance.” Paul was reasonable. “Now let’s get a statement ready for the press.”

While Paul and Cave worked over the statement, the rest of us chatted quietly about other problems. Stokharin was just about to explain the origin of alcoholism in terms of the new Cavite pragmatism, when Iris said: “Look!” and pointed to the window where, bobbing against the glass, was a bright red child’s balloon on which had been crudely painted: “Jesus Saves.”

Stokharin chuckled when he saw it. “Very ingenious. Someone gets on the floor beneath and tries to shake us with his miracle. Now we produce the counter-miracle.” He slid the window open. The cold air chilled us all. He took his glowing pipe and jabbed it into the balloon which exploded loudly; then he shut the window beaming. “It will be that easy,” he said. “I promise you. A little fire and: pop! they disappear like bad dreams.”

SEVEN

1

The next six months after the directors’ meeting were full of activity, and danger. Paul was forced to hire bodyguards to protect Cave from disciples as well as from enemies while the rest of us who were now known publicly as Cave’s associates were obliged to protect our privacy with unlisted telephone numbers and numerous other precautions none of which did much good for we were continually harassed by maniacs and interviewers.

The effect Cave had made on the world was larger than even Paul, our one optimist, had anticipated. I believe even Cave himself was startled by the vastness and the variety of the response.

As I recall, seldom did a day pass without some new exposé or interpretation of this phenomenon. Bishop Winston attacked after nearly every telecast. The Catholic Church invoked its entire repertory of anathemas and soon it was whispered in devout Christian circles that the anti-Christ had come at last, sent to test the faith. Yet, despite the barrage of attacks, the majority of those who heard Cave became his partisans and Paul, to my regret but to the delight of everyone else, established a number of Cavite Centers in the major cities of the United States, each provided with a trained staff of analysts who had also undergone an intensive indoctrination in Cavesword. Stokharin headed these clinics with great energy. At Cave’s suggestion, one evening a week, the same evening, Cavites would gather to discuss Cavesword, to meditate on the beauty of death, led in their discussions and meditations by a disciple of Cave who was, in the opinion of the directors, equal to the task of representing Cave himself and his word before vast congregations.

Iris was placed in charge of recruiting and training the proselytizers, while Paul handled the business end; obtaining property in different cities and managing the large sums of money which poured in from all over the world. Except for Cave’s one encounter with the press that day in the Empire State Building (an occasion which, despite its ominous beginning, became a rare triumph: Cave’s magic had worked even with the hostile), he was seen by no one except his intimates and the technicians of the television studio. Ways were found to disguise him so that he would not be noticed in the lobbies or elevators of the television network building. Later he spoke only from his Long Island retreat, his speeches being recorded on film in advance.

By the time summer had arrived, there were over three million registered Cavites in the United States as well as numerous, unorganized believers abroad. Paul was everywhere at once, flying from city to city (accompanied by two guards and a secretary); he personally broke ground in Dallas for what was to be the largest Cavite Center in the United States and although the inaugural ceremonies were nearly stopped by a group of Baptist ladies carrying banners and shouting “Onward Christian Soldiers,” no one was hurt and the two oil millionaires who had financed the Center gave a great barbecue on the foundation site which was attended by many distinguished guests.

Iris was entirely changed by her responsibilities. She had become, in the space of a few months, brisk, energetic, as deeply involved in details as a housewife with a new home. I saw very little of her that spring. Her days were mostly spent in a rented loft in the Chelsea district where she lectured the candidates for field work and organized a makeshift system of indoctrination for these potential Residents, as the heads of the various centers were known.

She was extraordinarily well fitted for this work, to my surprise, and before the year ended she had what was in fact a kind of university where as many as three hundred men and women at a time were regularly transformed into Residents and Deputy Residents and so on down through an ever proliferating hierarchy. For the most part, the first men and women we sent out to the country were highly educated, thoughtful people, entirely devoted to Cavesword. They were, I think, the best of all, for later, when it became lucrative to be a Resident, the work was largely taken over by energetic careerists whose very activity and competence diminished their moral effectiveness.

Iris used me unmercifully those first months. I lectured her students; I taught philosophy until, in exasperation at the absurdity of _that_, I told her to hire a professional teacher of philosophy which she did.

Yet I enjoyed these men and women. Their sincerity, their excitement communicated itself to me and I became aware of something I had only known before from reading, from hearsay: the religious sense which I so clearly lacked, as did both Paul and Stokharin. I don’t think Cave really possessed it either because, although he believed entirely in himself and in the miraculous truth of his word, he did not possess that curious power to identify himself with creation, to transcend the self in contemplation of an abstraction, to sacrifice the personality to a mystical authority; none of us, save Iris in love, possessed this power which, as nearly as I can get at it, is the religious sense in man. I learned about it only from those who came to learn from us in that Chelsea loft. In a sense, I pitied them for I knew that much of what they evidently believed with such passion was wrong but, at the same time, I was invigorated by their enthusiasm, by the hunger with which they devoured Cavesword, by the dignity which their passion lent an enterprise that in Paul’s busy hands resembled more often than not, a cynical commercial venture. And I recognized in them (oh, very early, perhaps in the first weeks of talking to them) that, in their goodness and their love they would, with Cavesword, smudge as it turned each bright new page of life; yet, suspecting this, I did not object nor did I withdraw. Instead, fascinated, I was borne by the tide to the shore ahead whose every rock I could imagine, sharp with disaster.

Once a week the directors met on Long Island in the walled estate where Cave now lived with his guards (his host had thoughtfully moved elsewhere until Cave chose for him to return).

The meetings soon demonstrated a division in our ranks between Paul and Stokharin on the one side and Iris, Clarissa and Cave on the other with myself as partisan, more often than not, to Cave. The division was amiable but significant. Paul and Stokharin wanted to place the Centers directly under the supervision of the analysts while the rest of us, led by Iris (Cave seldom intervened, but we had accepted already the fact that Iris spoke for him), preferred that the Centers be governed by the Residents. “It is certainly true that the therapists are an important part of each Center,” said Iris briskly, at the end of a long wrangle with Stokharin. “But these are _Cavite_ Centers and not clinics for the advancement of post-Jungian analysis. It is Cavesword which draws people to the Centers, not mental illness. Those who have problems are of course helped by Stokharin’s people but, finally, it is Cave who has made it possible for them to face death. Something no one has done before.” And thus the point was won in our council though Stokharin and Paul were still able at times, slyly, to insinuate their own creatures into important Residencies.

My own work went on fitfully. I composed an answer to Bishop Winston which brought down on my head a series of ecclesiastical thunderbolts, each louder than the one before. I wrote a short life of Cave in simple declarative sentences which enjoyed a considerable success for many years and, finally, seriously, my first attempt at a real counterattack, I began the several dialogues in which Cave and I purportedly traversed the entire field of moral action.