by Gore Vidal
Yet the creature was aborning that day: one seed had touched another and a monster began to live.
"The first day? The first time?" The smile faded. "Sure, I remember it. I'd just finished painting the face of a big dead fellow killed in an automobile accident. I didn't usually do make-up but I like to help out and I used to do odd jobs when somebody had too much to do and asked me to help; the painting isn't hard either and I always like it, though the faces are cold like . . . like . . ." He thought of no simile; he went on: "Anyway I looked at this guy's face and I remembered I'd seen him play basketball in high school. He was in a class or two behind me. Big athlete. Ringer, we called them . . . full of life . . . and here he was, with me powdering his face and combing his eyebrows. Usually you don't think much about the stiff (that's our professional word) one way or the other: it's just a job. But I thought about this one suddenly. I started to feel sorry for him, dead like that, so sudden, so young, so good-looking with all sorts of prospects; then I felt it." The voice grew low and precise. Iris and I listened intently, even the sun froze in the wild sky above the sea; the young night stumbled in the darkening east. His eyes on the sun, he described his sudden knowledge that it was the dead man who was right, who was a part of the whole, that the living were the sufferers from whom, temporarily, the beautiful darkness and non-being had been withdrawn and, in his crude way, Cave struck chord after chord of meaning and, though the notes were not in themselves new, the effect was all its own . . . and not entirely because of the voice, the cogency of this magician. No, the effect was achieved only in part through his ability to make one experience with him an occasion of light, of absolute knowing.
"And I knew it was the dying which was the better part," he finished. The sun, released, drowned in the Pacific.
In the darkness I asked, "But you, you still live?"
"Not because I want to," came the voice, soft as the night. "I must tell the others first. There'll be time for myself."
I shuddered in the warmth of the patio. My companions were only dim presences in the failing light. "Who told you to tell this to everyone?"
The answer came back, strong and unexpected: "I told myself. The responsibility is mine."
That was the sign for me. He had broken with his predecessors. He was on his own. He knew . . . and so did we.
2
I have lingered over that first meeting for, in it, was finally all that there was to come. Later details were the work of others, the exotic periphery to a simple but powerful center. Not until late that night did I leave the house near the beach. When I left, Cave stayed on and I wondered again, idly, if perhaps he was living there with Iris, if perhaps her interest in him might not be more complex than I had suspected. We parted casually and Iris walked me to the door while Cave remained inside, gazing in his intent way at nothing at all: daydreaming, doubtless, of what was to come.
"You'll help?" Iris stood by the car's open door, her features indistinct in the moonless night.
"I think so. I'm not sure, though, about the scale."
"What do you mean?"
"Must everyone know? Can't it just be kept to ourselves? for the few who do know him?"
"No. We must let them all hear him. Everyone." And her voice assumed that zealous tone which I was to hear so often again and again upon her lips and on those of others.
I made my first and last objection: "I don't see that quantity has much to do with it. If this thing spreads it will become organized. If it becomes organized, secondary considerations will obscure the point. The truth is no truer because only a few have experienced it."
"You're wrong. Even for purely selfish reasons, ruling out all altruistic considerations, there's an excellent reason for allowing this to spread: a society which knows what we know, which believes in Cave and what he says, will be a pleasanter place in which to live, less anxious, more tolerant." And she spoke of the new Jerusalem in our sallow land and I was nearly convinced.
The next day I went to Hastings' house for lunch. He was there alone; his wife apparently had a life of her own which required his company only occasionally. Clarissa, sensible in tweed and dark glasses, was the only other guest. We lunched on an iron-wrought table beside the gloomy pool in which, among the occasional leaves, I saw, quite clearly, a cigarette butt delicately unfolding like an ocean flower.
"Good to, ah, have you, Eugene. Just a bit of potluck. Clarissa's going back to civilization today and wanted to see you . . . I did too, of course. The bride's gone out. Told me to convey her . . ."
Clarissa turned her bright eyes on me and, without acknowledging the presence of our host, said right off: "You've met him at last."
I nodded. The plot was finally clear to me: the main design at least. "We had dinner together last night."
"I know. Iris told me. You're going to help out of course."
"I'd like to but I don't know what there is I might do. I don't think I'd be much use with a tambourine on street corners, preaching the word."
"Don't be silly!" Clarissa chuckled. "We're going to handle this quite, quite differently."
"We?"
"Oh, I've been involved for over a year now. It's going to be the greatest fun . . . you wait and see."
"But . . ."
"I was the one who got Iris herself involved. I thought she looked a little peaked, a little bored. I had no idea of course she'd get in so deep, but it will probably turn out all right. I think she's in love with him."
"Don't be such a gossip," said Hastings sharply. "You always reduce everything to . . . to biology. Cave isn't that sort of man."
"You know him too?" How fast it was growing, I thought.
"Certainly. Biggest thing I've done since . . ."
"Since you married that brassy blonde," said Clarissa with her irrepressible rudeness. "Anyway, my dear, Iris took to the whole thing like a born proselyte, if that's the word I mean . . . the other's a little boy, isn't it? and it seems, from what she's told me, that you have too."
"I wouldn't say that." I was a little put out at both Iris and Clarissa taking me so much for granted.
"Say anything you like. It's still the best thing that's ever happened to you. Oh God, not avocado again!" The offending salad was waved away while Hastings muttered apologies. "Nasty, pointless things, all texture and no taste." She made a face. "But I suppose that we must live off the fruits of the country and this is the only thing which will grow in California." She moved without pause from Western flora to the problem of John Cave. "As for your own contribution, Eugene, it will depend largely upon what you choose to do. As I said, I never suspected that Iris would get in so deep and you may prove to be quite as surprising. This is the ground floor of course . . . wonderful expression, isn't it? the spirit of America: the slogan which broke the plains . . . in any case, the way is clear. Cave liked you. You can write things for them, rather solid articles based on your inimitable misreadings of history. You can educate Cave, though this might be unwise since so much of his force derives from his eloquent ignorance; or you might become a part of the organization which is getting under way. I suppose Iris will explain that to you: it's rather her department at the moment. All those years in the Junior League gave her a touching faith in the power of committees, which is just as well when handling Americans. As for the tambourines and cries of 'Come and Be Saved', you are some twenty years behind the times. We . . . or to be exact I ought to say 'they' . . . have more up-to-date plans."
"Committees? What committees?"
Clarissa unfolded her mushroom omelet with a secret smile. "You'll meet our number-one committee member after lunch. He's coming, isn't he?" She looked at Hastings as though suspecting him of a treacherous ineptitude.
"Certainly, certainly, at least he said he was." Hastings motioned for the serving-woman to clean away the luncheon dishes and we moved to other chairs beside the pool for coffee. Clarissa was in fine form, aggressive, positive, serenely indifferent to the effect she was having on Hasti
ngs and me.
"Of course I'm just meddling," she said in answer to an inquiry of mine. "I don't really give two cents for Mr Cave and his message."
"Clarissa!" Hastings was genuinely shocked.
"I mean it. Not that I don't find him fascinating and of course the whole situation is delicious . . . what we shall do! or you shall do!" she looked at me maliciously. "I can foresee no limits to this."
"It no doubt reminds you of the period shortly after Mohammed married Khadija." My own malice, however, could not pierce Clarissa's mad equanimity.
"Vile man, sweet woman. But no, this is all going to be different although the intellectual climate (I think intellectual is perhaps optimistic but you know what I mean) is quite similar. I can't wait for the first public response."
"There's already been some," said Hastings, crossing his legs which were encased in pale multicolor slacks with rawhide sandals on his feet. "There was a piece yesterday in the News about the meetings they've been having up near Laguna or wherever it is he's been speaking this time."
"What did they say?" Clarissa scattered tiny saccharine tablets into her coffee like a grain goddess preparing harvest.
"Oh, just one of those short suburban notes about how a Mr Joseph Cave, they got the name wrong, was giving a series of lectures at a funeral parlor which have been surprisingly well attended."
"They didn't mention what the lectures were about?"
"No, just a comment: the first one so far in Los Angeles."
"There'll be others soon but I shouldn't think it's such a good idea to have too many items like that before things are really under way."
"And the gentleman who is coming here will be responsible for getting them under way?" I asked.
"Pretty much, yes. It's been decided that the practical details are to be left to him. Cave will continue to speak in and around Los Angeles until the way has been prepared. Then, when the publicity begins, he will be booked all over the country, all over the world!" Clarissa rocked silently for a moment in her chair, creating a disagreeable effect of noiseless laughter which disconcerted both Hastings and me.
"I don't like your attitude," said Hastings, looking at her gloomily. "You aren't serious."
"Oh I am, my darling, I am. You'll never know how serious." And on that high note of Clarissa's, Paul Himmell stepped out onto the patio, blinking in the light of noon.
He was a slender man in his fortieth and most successful year, with hair only just begun to gray and a lined but firmly modeled face, bright with ambition. The initial impression was one of neatly contained energy, of a passionate temperament beautifully, usefully channeled. The twist to his bow tie was the work of a master craftsman.
The handshake was agreeable; the smile was quick and engaging; the effect on me was alarming: I had detested this sort of man all my life and here at last, wearing a repellently distinguished sports coat was the archetype of all such creatures, loading with a steady hand that cigarette holder without which he might at least have seemed to me still human. He was identified by Hastings who, with a few excited snorts and gasps, told me beneath the conversation that this was the most successful young publicist in Hollywood, which meant the world.
"I'm happy to meet you, Gene," he said as soon as Hastings had introduced us. He was perfectly aware that he had been identified while the first greetings with Clarissa had been exchanged: he had the common gift of the busy worldling of being able to attend two conversations simultaneously, profiting from both. I hate of course being called by my first name by strangers but in his world there were of course no strangers: the freemasonry of self-interest made all men equal in their desperation. He treated me like a buddy. He knew (he was, after all, clever) that I detested him on sight and on principle and that presented him with a challenge to which he rose with confidence . . . and continued to rise through the years, despite the enduring nature of my disaffection. But then to be liked was his business and I suspect that his attentions had less to do with me, with a sense of failure in himself for not having won me, than with a kind of automatic charm, a response to a situation which was produced quite inhumanly, mechanically: the smile, the warm voice, the delicate flattery . . . or not so delicate, depending on the case.
"Iris and Cave both told me about you and I'm particularly glad to get a chance to meet you . . . to see you too, Clarissa . . . will you be long in the East?" Conscious perhaps that I would need more work than a perfunctory prelude, he shifted his attention to Clarissa, saving me for later.
"I never have plans, Paul, but I've got one or two chores I've got to do. Anyway I've decided that Eugene is just the one to give the enterprise its tone . . . a quality concerning which you, dear Paul, so often have so much to say."
"Why yes," said the publicist genially, obviously not understanding. "Always use more tone. You're quite right."
Clarissa's eyes met mine for a brief amused instant. She was on to everything . . . doubtless on to me too in that way one can never be about oneself; I always felt at a disadvantage with her.
"What we're going to need for the big New York opening is a firm historical and intellectual base. Cave hasn't got it and of course doesn't need it. We are going to need commentary and explanation and though you happen to be a genius in publicity you must admit that that group which has been characterized as intellectual, the literate few who, in their weakness, often exert enormous influence, are not apt to be much moved by your publicity: in fact, they will be put off by it."
"Well, now I'm not so sure my methods are that crude. Of course I never . . ."
"They are superbly, triumphantly, providentially crude and you know it. Eugene must lend dignity to the enterprise. He has a solemn and highly respectable misunderstanding of philosophy which will appeal to his fellow intellectuals. He and they are quite alike: liberal, ineffectual, scrupulous, unsuperstitious, irresolute and lonely. When he addresses them they will get immediately his range, you might say, pick up his frequency, realizing he is one of them, a man to be trusted. Once they are reached the game is over, or begun." Clarissa paused and looked at me expectantly, the exuberant malice veiled by excitement.
I didn't answer immediately. Hastings, as a former writer, felt that he too had been addressed and he worried the subject of "tone" while Paul gravely added a comment or two. Clarissa watched me, however, conscious perhaps of the wound she had dealt.
Was it all really so simple? was I so simple? so typical? Vanity said not, but self-doubt, the shadow which darkens even those triumphs held at noon, prevailed for a sick moment or two: I was no different from the others, from the little pedagogues and analysts, the self-obsessed and spiritless company who endured shame and a sense of alienation without even that conviction of virtue which can dispel guilt and apathy for the simple, for all those who have accepted without question one of the systems of absolutes which it has amused both mystics and tyrants to construct for man's guidance.
I had less baggage to rid myself of than the others: I was confident of that. Neither Christianity nor Marxism nor the ugly certainties of the mental therapists had ever engaged my loyalty or suspended my judgment. I had looked at them all, deploring their admirers and servants, interested though by their separate views of society and of the potentialities of a heaven on earth (the medieval conception of a world beyond life was always interesting to contemplate even if the evidence in its favor was whimsical at best . . . conceived either as a system of rewards and punishments to control living man or as lovely visions of what might be were man indeed consubstantial with a creation which so often resembled the personal aspirations of gifted divines rather more closely than that universe the rest of us can only observe with mortal eyes). No, I had had to dispose of relatively little baggage and, I like to think, less than my more thoughtful contemporaries who were forever analyzing themselves, offering their psyches to doctors for analysis or, worse, giving their immortal souls into the hands of priests who would then assume much of their weltschmerz, providing
them with a set of grown-up games every bit as appealing as the ones of childhood which had involved make-believe or, finally, worst of all, the soft acceptance of the idea of man the mass, of man the citizen, of society the organic whole for whose greater good all individuality must be surrendered.
My sense then of all that I had not been, negative as it was, saved my self-esteem: I was, in this, unlike my contemporaries. I had, in youth, lost all respect for the authority of men and since there is no other discernible (the "laws" of nature are only relative and one cannot say for certain that there is a beautiful logic to everything in the universe as long as first principles remain unrevealed . . . except of course to the religious who know everything, having faith), I was unencumbered by belief, by reverence for any man or groups of men, living or dead, though their wit and genius often made my days bearable since my capacity for admiration, for aesthetic response was, I think, highly developed even though with Terence I did not know, did not need to know through what wild centuries roves the rose.
Yet Clarissa's including me among the little Hamlets was irritating, and when I joined in the discussion again I was careful to give her no satisfaction; it would have been a partial victory for her if I had denied my generic similarity to my own contemporaries.
Paul spoke of practical matters, explaining to us the way he intended to operate in the coming months; and I was given a glimpse of the organization which had spontaneously come into being only a few weeks before.