Masters of Atlantis

by Charles Portis

  The Council agreed and even the cynical Huggins acquiesced. They rallied to the colors en bloc. Popper arranged for full press coverage of the swearing-in ceremony at the Federal Building in Chicago. Bates, Mapes and Epps wore their robes. Maceo and Huggins stood slightly to one side with the rest of the staff in fuzzy 1941 business suits. All were solemn and held their right hands up in a rigid way, fingers tightly closed. Popper himself did not take the oath, explaining to the others that the Secretary of the Navy had placed him on “strategic standby.” Just what this was and how he came to be placed on it, he was not free to disclose, other than to say that he was working for the Secretary in an undercover capacity. From high official sources, he said, he had learned that he was number eight on Herr Hitler’s American execution list, to be shot on sight as a public nuisance.

  Whatever Popper’s naval duties may have been, they did not require him to range far from Burnette, Indiana. He stayed close to the Temple, where he alone now had the ear of the Master, and where he worked long hours developing new schemes for gaining the patriotic spotlight.

  Their next move, he advised Mr. Jimmerson, should be to go to Washington with a carefully prepared plan for winning the war through the use of compressed air and the military application of Gnomonic science. He had already worked out a schedule. First they would pay a courtesy call at the White House and then go to the War Department for a working session with General Marshall. There the full plan would be presented. Afterwards they would hold a press conference and give a report, a kind of broad outline of the plan, cleared of secret matter but including a few tantalizing details. For the newsreel photographers there would be a demonstration of boktos, or Pythagorean butting, the old Greek art of self-defense, which was to be incorporated into the army’s physical training program. That same night, having arranged for five minutes of radio time on the Blue Network, Mr. Jimmerson would sit before the microphone and again discuss the Gnomon victory plan in a general way, closing with some brief inspirational remarks for the nation.

  “Air?” said Mr. Jimmerson.

  “Compressed air,” said Popper. “What you’re thinking of, sir, is ordinary air, the air we breathe, which is so soft and gentle we hardly notice it. Compressed air is something else again. It packs a real punch.”

  He explained, Mr. Jimmerson listened and became thoughtful. He had no qualms over releasing sharp blasts of air against such vicious enemies as the Jap and the Hun and sending them tumbling across the battlefield, but surely it would be wrong to allow the Hermetical Secrets to be used in the bloody business of warfare. He expressed his misgivings.

  Popper said, “Remember, sir, we’re talking about barbarians here. One of our early Masters wasn’t so squeamish in dealing with them. One of the very greatest of Masters.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Archimedes. Don’t you recall how he jumped into the battle with all his scientific tricks to help defend Syracuse against, who was it, Tamerlane, I believe, yes, and won the day? Or no, wait, they surrendered, and when it was all over Tamerlane found our man drawing triangles in the dust with his finger.”

  “Didn’t he ask Tamerlane to get out of his light?”

  “How right you are, sir. So he could finish working out his geometry problem.”

  “He couldn’t see to work for the shadow.”

  “No, sir.”

  “The fellow was blocking off his light.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Standing in the doorway, don’t you see, with the sun behind him so that his shadow made it hard for Archimedes to see what he was doing down there in the dust.”

  “With his figures, yes, sir.”

  “Down there on some kind of dusty floor.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand.”

  Mr. Jimmerson fell into another thoughtful silence. Presently he said, “We talk of light. Pletho Pappus tells us we must labor in darkness in order to bring light. I’m sure you know the passage, Austin, and yet you seem to think it is our business to attract attention and make a public spectacle of ourselves. How do you reconcile the two positions?”

  Popper finessed the question by not answering it. By way of reply he said that a news photograph of Lamar Jimmerson wearing his Poma and his Master’s gown and having a chat with President Roosevelt in the White House would cut the ground from under Sydney Hen. Such a picture would be of more value than a million pamphlets in showing to the world just who the true leader of Gnomonry was. Hen would seethe with rage and stamp his little feet like Rumpelstiltskin when he saw that picture in Life magazine.

  “A wonderful scene, don’t you agree, sir? Hen furioso. What I wouldn’t give to see that little dance.”

  Mr. Jimmerson agreed that Sydney’s fit would make an amusing show, and he had to agree too that in these dark days the President certainly had a call on his best advice. “I suppose you’re right, Austin. We must do what we can.”

  The ten-point victory plan was prepared and in early June of 1942 the two Gnomons took it to Washington in a locked briefcase. Some thought was given to having Maceo drive them in the black Buick, but then there was the problem with gasoline ration stamps—and Mr. Jimmerson would countenance no dealings with the black market—and so in the end they went by rail. They traveled by day coach, no Pullman space being available, and had to stand part of the way. Fanny had wanted to go but she was five months along in a surprise, mid-life pregnancy and her husband would not allow it. Hotel rooms were all but impossible to get. At the last minute their congressman was able to secure them one small room at an older downtown hotel called the Borger. It was a threadbare place near the bus station. The trip was hot and tiring. At the Borger a midget bellboy called Mr. Jimmerson a “guy.”

  “Is that guy with you?” he said, in his quacking midget voice, as Mr. Jimmerson, a little dizzy from his long train ride, veered off course in crossing the lobby.

  “Yes, he is,” said Popper.

  “Hey! Hey! Hey! Yeah, you! Where do you think you’re going? The elevator’s over here!”

  Their room was just wide enough for the two single beds and a little leg space between them. Popper sat on one bed and began at once to make telephone calls. He seemed to be trying to make appointments. It struck Mr. Jimmerson that he had left all this until very late. Mr. Jimmerson lay on the other bed and looked over his speaking notes. Tomorrow was the big day.

  Popper winked at him and said he had just arranged a double date with two hostesses named Bobbie and Edna who worked at a nearby night spot that had a good rumba band. “I think you’ll like Edna, sir. She’s a fine, strapping girl. A real armful, Bobbie tells me.”

  Mr. Jimmerson was astonished. Popper said, “My little joke, sir, nothing more. When people are hot and weary I’ve often found that a light note is just what the doctor ordered.”

  That night three Gnomons from the local Pillar came to call on the Master. One was a chubby young man named Pharris White. He was a part-time postal clerk who attended law school at night and who wrote long letters to the Temple on the subject of certain prime numbers and their Pythagorean significance, or lack thereof. Sometimes he sent telegrams. In the hollow place under his lower lip there was a tuft of seven or eight yellow bristles. He carried a satchel. Though he was only a Neophyte, he spoke very freely to the Master, even offensively, demanding to know why he, White, as an ordinary Gnomon, was denied access to the truly secret books by Those Who Know, and kept in dismal ignorance of the truly secret rituals and the truly secret numbers.

  Mr. Jimmerson politely told him that he could hardly be expected to discuss such matters on a social occasion like this. White took notes. The other two Gnomons were older men, a municipal judge and a retired streetcar motorman, who simply wanted to meet Mr. Jimmerson and bask in his radiance and have him sign their copies of Why I Am a Gnomon.

  Popper, still on the telephone, became annoyed with them as they chattered and shuffled about in the tiny room, adding their body heat and cigar smoke to the stifling
air, and when he saw Pharris White stealthily rooting around in Mr. Jimmerson’s bag he jumped up from the bed and ordered them all to leave. The Master had given them quite enough of his time. He was here on an important government mission and had papers to study.

  As they trooped out, Popper caught White by the sleeve. “One moment, White. Let’s have a look at your Gnomon card. I want to check the watermark.”

  “My card is in order.”

  “Then you won’t mind.”

  White produced his membership card. Popper glanced at it and then whipped out a rubber stamp and stamped VOID across it in purple block letters. “There. You are now a P.S. Get out.”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “On your way. We don’t know you.”

  “You’re making a big mistake.”

  “And don’t write us any more letters. Understand? You savvy?”

  “You think you can treat me this way because I’m poor and have to go to night law school.”

  “All law schools should be conducted at night. Late at night, in rooms like this. No, I’m turning you out of the Society, White, because there’s something wrong with your mind. I can see it in your eyes. They don’t look right to me. Your eyes and your pallor tell me all I need to know. Maybe you can get some help elsewhere. We just don’t have the time to fool around with people like you. Why aren’t you in the army, anyway?”

  Pharris White left with his satchel.

  Mr. Jimmerson slept badly. He couldn’t get his limbs distributed comfortably on the narrow bed. The scene with the young man had been disturbing and he was homesick and concerned about his wife—a middle-aged woman expecting a child—and he had forebodings about what the next day would bring. Popper continued to ring up people far into the night. His telephone manner was unctuous. Mr. Jimmerson turned away from the wheedling voice and the glow of the table lamp and tried to rest. When at last he did sleep his exhalations were moist and troubled.

  The next morning, as he inspected himself in a mirror, he told Popper that it had been a mistake to leave Fanny at home. She would have remembered to unpack his gown and hang it up. It was now all wrinkled and puckered. The garment was made of unbleached linen, with a few golden threads interwoven in the cloth to catch the light. Just below the right shoulder, in gold leaf, there was the figure of a gnomon, enclosing a staring all-seeing eyeball.

  Popper assured him that the wrinkles would go away after he had walked about some; gravity and the steamy Washington air would do the trick.

  “But where is my Rod? My Rod is not here, Austin.”

  “You can’t find your Rod of Correction?”

  “I know I packed it. I saw it yesterday.”

  “That slug Pharris White. He must have taken it.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Yes, I saw him pawing over your things with his nimble, mail-sorting fingers. He probably thought it was gold. I should have searched him.”

  “Do you know, he pulled my necktie.”

  “I wish you had spoken up, sir.”

  A hasty inventory showed that White had made off not only with the Rod, in its rosewood box with silver fittings, but also with Mr. Jimmerson’s knotted rope, for escape from burning hotels, and some miscellaneous papers and a complete suit of the Master’s cambric underwear. The strange clerk had apparently stuffed away in his satchel whatever fell to hand.

  The missing Rod of Correction was a bronze bar about as long as a new pencil and just a bit thicker. Better suited perhaps for poking than for administering any sort of serious beating, it had nonetheless great symbolic power, the power of the Magisterium, and Mr. Jimmerson had only to raise it a fraction of an inch to silence even a roaring speaker like Austin Popper.

  “Well, if it’s gone, it’s gone,” said Popper. “Anyway, good riddance to Pharris the white rat and much good may it do him. We need to shake a leg, sir. Here, let me help you with your Poma.”

  He pulled the cap down snugly against the ears and fastened the chin strap. The strap was a recent innovation strictly for street wear, a protective measure against the Poma’s being blown away or snatched in broad daylight by one of Hen’s men. He walked around the listless figure, tugging here and there at the gown, then stepped back to appraise the effect. “Behold! The Master of Gnomons! Ready to go forth! Come on, sir, chin up. Take it from me, things will look much brighter after some coffee and scrambled eggs.”

  But Mr. Jimmerson did not feel much better after breakfast. The sidewalk was already hot at nine o’clock and the soles of his ceremonial sandals were very thin. People looked at him. Children stopped to stare openly at his feet, great spreading white organs that were coated with hair like the feet of some arctic bird. He danced about on the hot concrete, alternately placing one foot atop the other, as Popper tried to hail a cab.

  It was a long day, full of disappointments, and in later years Mr. Jimmerson’s memory mercifully failed him as to the sequence of events. His congressman was kind enough to pose with him on the Capitol steps for a photograph but after that he met with nothing but indignities.

  For all his telephoning, Popper had come up with nothing more than a brief note from the congressman, which asked in guarded language that courtesy be shown to his two constituents, Mr. Jimmerson and Mr. Popper. There were no appointments. The note availed them nothing at the White House gates. There they were stopped by guards, suspicious of the Master’s unusual attire, and were not even permitted to enter the grounds with the tourists, much less see the President. One guard said, “Is the circus in town? I didn’t know the circus was in town.” Another kept saying, “So solly, no can do,” as Popper protested the treatment.

  Next they were turned away from the State Department. Then on to the War Department, where the note did get them past the duty officer in the lobby. They wandered about in that labyrinth for hours. The Battle of Midway was taking place at this time and anxious military men were racing up and down the corridors shouting bulletins at one another. The two Gnomons were bounced from office to office. No one had time to hear them out or look at the victory plan or even allow them to sit down for a moment. Mr. Jimmerson’s gown became soaked with sweat. The peak of his Poma wilted and toppled over. Popper finally cornered a young army captain who agreed to give them a few minutes of his time. But he seemed to think they were astrologers and that their plan had to do with the stars and he sent them on to the Naval Observatory.

  It was there, on Observatory Hill, that the two became separated. Mr. Jimmerson found a bench under a big tree and stopped there to rest while Popper went inside the main building to reconnoiter and to confer with such pipe-smoking men of science as he might find there. They would be receptive to new ideas, unlike the military blockheads downtown.

  Mr. Jimmerson dozed off. When he woke, with a start, he was hungry and thirsty. There was no sign of Popper, no sign of life at the Observatory. He heard a bell. It was the bell that had wakened him. He looked about and saw a man pedaling along on an ice-cream cart down on the broad avenue. He called out to the man and stumbled down the hill after him, only to realize on arrival that he had no money. His gown was pocketless. He asked the man where the nearest water fountain and public toilet might be. Probably at the zoo, said the ice-cream man, over that way. Over yonder. Out over in there.

  At the zoo a bum called Mr. Jimmerson a “schmo.” The bum was reclining on the grass with a friend and said, “I wonder who that schmo is.” The other bum ventured no guess. Mr. Jimmerson passed the rest of the day there admiring the great cats and looking into the queer dark eyes of the higher apes. There was reckoning behind those eyes but the elegance of the triangle would forever escape them. In the lion house he found a dime. His corset would not allow him to bend over far enough to pick it up. He pushed it along with his foot while trying to form a recovery plan, and then a boy came along and grabbed it.

  By the most direct route it was about three miles from the zoo to the Borger Hotel, but Mr. Jimmerson, confused by the radial s
treet pattern, hiked the better part of five miles before he reached his room that evening, gasping and barefooted, his golden sandals having disintegrated along the way.

  “Here he is now,” said Popper, jumping up from the bed. There was another man in the room. “Come in, sir, you’re just in time. Were your ears burning? We were just talking about you. I was telling Cezar all about you. Here, I want you to meet Cezar. I want you to meet the most interesting man in Washington, D.C.”

  He made no reference to the aborted mission. He said nothing about compressed air or the victory plan or the bedraggled appearance of the Master, whose bloody feet, if nothing else, certainly invited comment. The stranger was a neat little package of a man, well finished, in a belted European suit. He had a spade beard and curly black hair. Popper introduced him as Professor Cezar Golescu, assistant custodian of almanacs and star catalogues at the Naval Observatory.

  “Cezar is like you, sir, a great seeker of truth. I’ve been telling him a bit about Pletho Pappus. He wants very much to read the Codex and have a look at our archives. And let me tell you something. This fellow has some very exciting ideas about the reclamation of gold. Some ideas that have made me sit up.”

  Mr. Jimmerson said, “I think I’d like something to eat, Austin, if you don’t mind. And some cold tomato juice.”

  “Of course you do. I should have thought of that. Any civilized person would have thought of it, but no, not me. I was too busy talking. Me and my big mouth!”

  He called room service and had some food sent up on a rolling table. The professor wasn’t hungry, and in any case, he said, he always dined alone. He spoke with sleepyeyed hauteur.