Live From Golgotha

by Gore Vidal

  186 Gore Vidal

  Thanks to modem surgery—cosmetic?—Cutler Two looks quite unlike his younger self, who is still wearing a hearing aid and thick glasses. Cutler One was, as always, nervous, and when Cuder Two lit a cigarette and puffed real smoke. Cutler One saw immediately that Cuder Two was flesh and blood. "So you're using my Cuder Effect."

  "Mine, too." The older Cuder was benign. Then an out-of-control bullock cart forced him and me to hurry into an arcade where legumes were on sale in huge pots, and flies buzzed and Macedons loitered as they tend to do, a lisdess race when not engaged in batde, sodomy, or croquet.

  The bullock cart went right through Cuder One, to the amazement of the driver who had, for once, been observant.

  "Ghosts!" he shouted, but no one paid the slightest attention to what is, after all, a common cry in Macedonia where the undead are prevalent and tiresome. Half of my official business is exorcism, sending ghosts back to purgatory or whatever staging-area Jesus is using until his return in 2001.

  "Why don't you use our Effect," said Cuder Two, "instead of poor Cynthia who is failing, health-wise?"

  "She's in rude health now, in my time frame. What have you done to my eyes?"

  Cuder Two raised his brows, a comical effect. "Nothing. Except I use contact lenses."

  "I don't like the way you look at all. If I didn't know you were me, I would say you were an impostor. ..."

  "Well, in no time at all you, too, will have eye surgery and then you will be just like me while I vvdll be . . . What?" Cuder Two looked mildly puzzled.

  "You two will have merged, won't you?" I was somewhat curious as to the physics involved, as opposed to the metaphysics which are perfecdy simple: The one are two at two times and the two one at one time.

  "No." Cutler One sounded bitter. "For diis period, for this one week in history, he is forever ahead of me and I am forever behind him." He turned to Cuder Two, who was examining some very fine miniature lentils. "You know what is going to happen in 2001, and I don't."

  "Why not"—I made my contribution—"go on fast forward and join your later self?"

  "The Cuder Effect cannot take you ahead of where you are in biological time, only to where you were or even before you were—as a tourist, of course."

  Cuder Two examined a tub of chickpeas under the suspicious eye of their vendor, a witch from the wild countryside. "Actually"—^he was extremely self-confident, thus maddening Cuder One—"if my early self could go on fast forward, a physical if not metaphysical impossibility, he would cease to be himself as he is, and become me." Cuder Two winked at Cutler One. "Something I don't think you would like to be, but of course you will be."

  Cuder One was grim. "What happens at Golgotha will now determine what you—or I—^will be." He tumed to me. "Could you show us the cathedral mop room.>"

  Cuder Two gave me a wink. "If only he knew what I know. ..."

  Cuder One was even grimmer. "If I knew, there would be no you."

  "Zealot," said Cutler Two, precisely.

  The basilica was empty at that hour. I led the two Cuders that are one—so like our three-in-one deity—to the mop room, full of dust and cobwebs. The sacristan no longer even pretends to go through the motions of keeping the cathedral clean and I must get Atalanta to find us a decent cleaning service.

  Cuder Two opened a small cupboard behind my spare bishop's throne, the gift of Flavia when she came to see

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  Atalanta and me just before her death. To my surprise, Ata-lanta got on like a house afire with Flavia, but then women are inscrutable, as Caligula is said to have said. "What do they want, really.^" he is said to have asked.

  "This is where the bishop will put the Gospel According to Saint Timothy." Cutler Two was so confident that I am convinced that whether or not I hide my book—^Mark's too—in the mop room, someone will place a crucial text in that cupboard, to be dug up at the end of the twentieth century afi:er the birth of Marvin Wasserstein, who entered the mop room with Selma Suydam beside him.

  "How icky!" Selma tried to brush a cobweb out of her face, but as she was a hologram the web did not budge. "I'm terrified of spiders."

  "Hi," said Marvin, showing his bad teeth. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood and so I thought I'd drop by and see you folks, and who should I run into in the street but the gorgeous Selma Suydam. ..."

  "Marvin and I used to date," sfaid Selma. "Until we had the silliest row over getting that wrong table at Spago. ..."

  "My fault, Selma. I was too dumb then to know how important it is for your image to be able to sit at a table overlooking Sunset Boulevard in that top-notch restaurant where I like to sit way in the back near the stove because I only go to Spago for the pizza. Anyway, I don't hold that silly spat against you, while Wolfgang was a brick ..." During this weird rambling, Marvin was staring at Cutler Two. "I don't think we've met," he said.

  "No." Cuder Two extended his hand. As they shook hands, each realized that the other was not a hologram, like Cuder One and Selma, but flesh and blood like me. "I am Dr. Cuder, a bit later on in the twentieth century. In fact, I'm

  almost into the twenty-first century, as we speak, in my time frame, of course."

  "Watch out for him." Cutler One turned to Marvin. "He's up to no good. Also, it's not safe for you here. It's not safe for any of us to come back here as flesh and blood "

  "Spirit incarnate," intoned Selma, "is how Dr. Schuc-man calls it."

  "Diseases abound," said Cuder One. "And worse."

  I assumed my natural role as bishop and leader. "I propose we now leave this crowded mop room, fascinating as it will prove to be to archaeologists as yet unborn, and repair to the nave of my proto-Romanesque cathedral since we—at least I—am living in Roman times and Romanesque is the name of the only game there is, architecture-wise."

  I wanted to speak intimately to Marvin, but Cuder One had drawn him to the far side of the pulpit for a confidential chat. Selma was as full of herself as ever. "Now, Saint Timothy—^may I call you Tim?"

  "No, my child."

  "Tim, I want you to level with me. Has Marianne seen you yet.>"

  "Not that I know of"

  "She is relendess. We're all in Federal Court now. The Foundation for Inner Peace is being tom to bits."

  "Hardly," observed Cuder Two, who was slipping some loose mosaics into his pocket—souvenirs.>—"a tribute to the aims of the founder and authoress of that divine screed, Helen Schucman."

  "What I would give to meet her!" Selma looked radiant. "To get her on my side."

  Cuder Two setded himself on my marble throne in the roomy green marble apse v^th its tasteful porphyry decora-

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  tions. "If your medium can get you here, she—^he?—can certainly get you back to 1970 or whenever Dr. Schucman was still funct."

  Selma is not your average rocket-scientist, I fear. "Why, that never occurred to me." She frowned. "I'll bet Marianne has already gone back to her and poisoned her mind against me."

  "Then," I said, "you must poison, too." I turned to Cuder Two, and indicated Marvin and Cuder One. "What are they up to.^"

  "No good, certainly. I suspect that they are going to try and plant a false gospel in the mop room. ..."

  "Will they.> Or should I say—"

  Cuder Two shrugged. "We'll soon know."

  Selma was staring at Marvin. "Imagine running into Marvin here of all places!"

  "The channels grow ever more crowded," I intoned. "How did you two meet in your time frame.>"

  "He's a friend of my sabra boyfriend. So when Marvin was in Hollywood for this computer convention, my boyfriend took him and me to a ftind-raiser for Israel at the Hotel Roosevelt. Marvin was very supportive of Inner Peace, by the way, even though he's also very active with the Khabad movement in Israel, who want to blow the world up, as does Jerry Falwell, which is why he turns me on so. He really believes that the messiah is about to come, which goes against all our Inner Pea
ce teachings which are not elitist since we are, all of us, messiahs, just as each and every one of us is God, as Shirley MacLaine explained on that television program of hers. You haven't seen Shirley lately, have you?"

  I said that I had not had the honor since the one encounter in Stephanie's apartment. Then while Selma babbled, confidingly, to Cutier Two, I joined Marvin and Cuder One at the pulpit.

  "Can't wait to read your book," said Marvin, all boyish excitement.

  "Neither can I," I said, but the irony was missed.

  "The world needs you, Saint Timothy, more than ever now." Cutler One was even more phony than usual.

  "I think your older self would like to have a word with you. He's in the apse."

  Rather unwillingly, I thought, Cuder One left me alone with Jesus Christ. I came straight to the point.

  "Frankly, I never thought I'd ever see you in this church, in the flesh. . . ."

  "You know who I am.>" The voice was suddenly low and deeply compelling. I could see how he had attracted such a large following in the early part of the century—our first century, that is, after his birth, naturally.

  "Yes, I know who you are. Dr. Cutier, the older one, made a film of your sudden departure fi-om Gethsemane."

  Jesus laughed. "Cuder's idea, actually. There was poor fat Judas, all set to betray me and then I turn him in and he's the one who has to serve time up there on my cross—^the look on his face! Don't you love it.>" He whisded with delight. "Anyway, let's face it, the Roman administration of Palestine under Pontius Pilate was easily the stupidest and most corrupt until the British, of course, in the twentieth century after my birth in a . . . what was it they say I was bom in?"

  "A manger. For horses. In a stable. At Bethlehem. A star shone overhead. ..."

  Jesus winced. "How I hate all that pagan stuff! That star shone at the birth of Mithras, on December twenty-fifth, so in order to con the Mithraists, they added all his shit to my story where it doesn't belong. Bom in a stMe> My father, Joseph, was the pretender to the throne of Israel, and a direct descendant of King David. That's why diose 'begats' are about the only true thing in the so-called 'Christian Story.'

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  We were also in the lumber business, wholesale cind retail. Anyway, I was—and I still am—^the King of the Jews and the messiah, and what that goy-loving creep Solly did to my story is, frankly, actionable. First Amendment or not, libel and slander are libel and slander!"

  The black eyes shone. I began to understand the actual Jesus all too well. He was and is a zealot. A fanatic. A revolutionary. A Zionist first, last and always. He is also clever. With no previous training except with an abacus, he has made himself into a computer analyst. He even handled the extremely tricky business about the table at Spago with extraordinary finesse, if Selma is to be believed. He is a formidable enemy of the church that we have based upon his teachings and his crucifixion and his resurrection, except we had no way of knowing that we had based the whole thing on Judas, who may or may not have risen from the dead.

  Since Judas was so fat that he could hardly stand up in life, I don't see him rising with any ease from the dead, much less pushing aside that rock which was the door to the tomb. But James and all the other disciples knew—even if the dim-witted Romans did not—^that Jesus had vanished and the wrong man was being crucified. Why, I wondered, had they never let on.>

  Jesus knew a thing or two about mental telepathy. He answered my unspoken question. "My kid brother, James, and the other members of our gang, later to be duplicated rather more successfully by the Stem and Irgun gangs of the century where I'm currently in residence—^they knew about my getaway at Gethsemane, and they were quite happy to go along with the Roman fuck-up. Then, thanks to Dr. Cuder, I appeared to them, as a hologram, three days after Judas was crucified, and I told James how he was to carry on the work of liberating Palestine from the Romans. Meanwhile, as soon

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  as I work out the technology, FU be back with the Day of Judgment and all the fireworks. Because I am the messiah forever^

  The voice was chilling. Reflexively, I made the sign of the cross.

  Jesus laughed. "The cross was Solly's double cross of me. Well, we'll soon get rid of that logo. At the end, there will be only King David's star."

  "In 2001 A.D.>"

  "In the year 5761 after Moses, as I count. Anyway, the phony records have all been pretty much erased."

  "You are the Hacker, aren't you?"

  Jesus nodded modesdy. "With some help from Dr. Cuder, of course." Then Jesus frowned. "I still don't know why he left GE and went over to Gulf + Eastern. I do know that my savior—^that is, my Dr. Cutier—^is very disturbed by his own abrupt change of heart, as the saying goes."

  "Any day now, the two Cuders will merge into one, and you will know the answer." I was soothing. Jesus aka Marvin Wasserstein is a raving maniac and I can see how his activity must have given poor Pontius Pilate the shivers, not to mention the Temple personnel, dedicated as they were to high interest rates and low inflation.

  "Unless the Day of Judgment comes first, erasing all Dr. Cutiers, the Kingdom of God will then be at hand, as foretold by John the Baptist, and as brought on by me but not, as I first thought, two thousand years ago. The Romans were too strong for me. Luckily, at exactiy the right moment. Dr. Cutier, a dedicated Zionist and true believer—"

  Jesus stopped and stared at the two Cutiers in the apse. "Do you think that the older Dr. Cutier has had some work done?"

  "Work done.>"

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  "Cosmetic surgery. My Dr. Cutler swears that the eyes have been done. Of course just about everyone you meet nowadays has had a tuck here and there; even I had my eyelids done in L.A.—^to emphasize their hypnotic power, which is just about nil when you have a sagging upper lid, what they call a Nordic fold—^me with a Nordic fold, oy vey is mit^. Where was I>"

  "Dr. Cutler, Zionist, Orthodox Jew . . ."

  "Oh, yes. At that crucial—no pun intended—^moment, he intervened in history. He got me out of what was, after all, the wrong time frame for the messiah. I mean there was no way that I was going to defeat the Romans and restore Israel. It was tough enough taking over the Temple so that I could lower interest rates. ..."

  "Potentially an inflationary move ..."

  "Not with increased productivity—and consumption— which cheaper money always brings. Anyway, to fulfill the prophecies, Israel would have to be restored, as it has been so triumphandy reinvented two thousand years after my first arrival. The birth pangs, as predicted by the rabbis, are over. I shall return Israel to glory—all enemies defeated as I establish the Kingdom of God. It will be awesomely beautifiil, I promise you, and those illuminated skies over Baghdad will pale by comparison. In fact, Baghdad, Damascus, Amman, and Cairo will be taken out during the first announcement, as I establish the so-called Ring of Fire, as predicted by Isaiah."

  For the first time, I realized that Saint really and truly had been not only a saint but our savior from this world-destroyer. Saint had deliberately reworked Jesus's hard-line message and substituted for it a much nicer, more mature religion with, of course, the usual vague end-of-the-world predictions but, meanwhile, all God's children would be living by the golden rule.

  "Excuse me," said Jesus, producing a modular phone of his own devising, or so he said. "I've got to ring the office. We're taking out the Book of Revelations tape." He winked at me. "About time, too. You know, the entire set of fireworks will be based on my blueprint. First, the plutonium trigger. Then the skies over Baghdad ... Oh, hi, Jim, Marvin here." Then, he lowered his voice so that I couldn't hear.

  Selma waylaid me as I tried to join the Cuders in the apse. "You know, in a previous incarnation, I was Mary Magdalene."

  "How could I have known that, Selma?" She was getting on my nerves.

  "M.M. was married to Jesus at one point but the marriage was later annulled, after the Crucifixion, of course, when it was decide
d that he should have been a confirmed bachelor all along."

  "Have you been to Golgotha yet.>" I was suspicious. Could she and Marvin be working together at the end of the second millennium.^ The story about the table at Spago is plainly a parable of some sort and requires the kind of close interpretation that we won't be getting until Thomas Aquinas or Mary Gordon, say, way up the line.

  "No. My medium is blocked. We've tried and tried but we can't seem to hit the right spot. I did manage to channel into Jerusalem on the very day of the Crucifixion, but I ended up at a horse show in Fort Antonia. Kind of ftm, actually. I'm into horses, you know. I guess you know what that means." Selma wriggled voluptuously, quite aware of the effect that she had on me.

  "Anyway, I landed in Pontius Pilate's box, and he couldn't have been nicer. Then someone said, 'The execution has taken place,' and someone else said, 'Whose execution.^' and someone said, 'The loony who says he's the king of the Jews,' and Pontius Pilate said, 'Actually, he is—or would

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  be—^if we would allow it, which we can't, not after that awful week when he was running the bank. Aaually, I can't think why anyone would want the position of king here. It's bad enough being governor. You know, Selma, I had my heart set on being governor of Bithynia. The people are enchanting, the landscape is like Vail. . . .' "

  "What," I asked, "is Vail?"

  Selma giggled. "I guess I don't always remember what people say to me, you know? Their exact words, particularly when I don't know what they're talking about. Actually, I'm not awfully big when it comes to information. Except for Dr. Helen Schucman's book, I've never really read any other book, not that you need to read another one if you've read hers."