The Clowns of God

by Morris West

  Jean Marie considered the question for a moment and then shook his head.

  “Let’s not play dialectic games, Mr. Hennessy. An eagle can talk sense with a canary but a canary with a goldfish, never! They live by diverse modes in diverse elements. I have had an experience which has changed me completely—for better or worse is not the question. It is simply that I am different.”

  “How? In what particulars?” Hennessy, cold-eyed, pressed the question. “I need to know the man I’m serving.”

  “I can tell you only by simile,” said Jean Marie quietly. “Do you remember the gospel story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead?”

  “I remember it.”

  “Think about the details: the sisters in grief, in fear of what might be revealed when the tomb was opened. ‘Iam foetet,’ they said. ‘Already he stinks!’ Then the tomb opened. Jesus called. Lazarus stepped out, still wrapped in the cerecloths. Have you ever thought how he must have felt, as he stood blinking in the sunlight, looking anew on a world from which he had taken his last leave?… After what happened to me in the garden at Monte Cassino, I was like Lazarus. Nothing could ever be the same as it was before.”

  “I think I understand,” said Hennessy dubiously, “but even if you’ve changed, the world hasn’t. Never forget that!”

  “Why do you call Roberta Saracini a lion-hunter?”

  “Because I’m trying to be polite.” Hennessy was suddenly snappish. “In my country they use a dirtier word for women who chase male celebrities. Don’t mistake me! She’s a good client and you need her! But part of me is an old-fashioned Irishman and I hate to see a priest tied to a woman’s apron strings.”

  “You have bad manners and a dirty mouth!” Jean Marie was angry and harsh. “I presume you said all this to Madame Saracini before you began taking her money?”

  “I did.” Hennessy was unmoved. “Because it’s my job to point out the land mines before you both step on them. Since her father was put away, Roberta’s got religion. She works at it, as she works at everything else. It helps her and I’m glad. But before that—and I know!—cocktails with Roberta meant breakfast in bed as well.… So you, Monseigneur, can very easily get caught in the slipstream of her past. You’re under Grade A surveillance, because the government is looking for nails to put in your coffin. If you think I’ve got a dirty mouth, wait till you hear the government brand of pornography!… Simple example! You ordered flowers for Roberta. A gentleman’s gesture to his hostess; no harm in it at all! But how would you feel if someone planted a gossip item: ‘What high Catholic dignitary is sending flowers to what lady banker whose daddy once took the Vatican for a reputed fifteen million?’… That’s only one of the risks.”

  “I am grateful for your care,” said Jean Marie with mild irony. “But I suggest that there is no recourse against malice and evil report.”

  “Don’t patronize me!” Hennessy was suddenly furious. “It happens I do care! I believe what you say! I want it heard! But I don’t want my Church shamed in the city square.”

  “Forgive me!” Jean Marie made a rueful apology. “I warned you. I haven’t changed for the better.”

  “At least you’ve got fire in your belly,” said Hennessy with a sour grin. “Next time I’ll choose my words more carefully.”

  The makeup man arrived—a big, swart, bearded fellow who looked like an Old Testament prophet and was just as eloquent and peremptory. Disguise, he explained at length, was a matter of illusion. Complicated makeup was for the stage or the screen. Very few women knew how to use cosmetics properly, even though they applied them every day. Rolf Levandow would certainly not trust an elderly gentleman of sixty-five to do a successful maquillage.… So, let’s see! Head this way, head that! A pity to change the hair. It would be a kind of mutilation. Presumably Jean Marie was not entering himself for a concourse of elegance. On the other hand, he could not pass for a workman—not with those thin shoulders and flat belly and soft hands. Well then! A retired professor, a magazine critic, something in the arts!… Again the idea was to create a local identity; so that the man behind the bar and the girl at the newspaper kiosk and the waiter in the brasserie would swear that he was familiar and safe. Finally, Jean Marie found himself looking into a mirror at a slightly seedy scholar, who wore a Basque beret, gold pince-nez with a moiré ribbon and a pair of gum-pads that gave him a rabbit-faced look. As the makeup man explained, a literary magazine under the arm would help; an inexpensive cane was optional; and a certain air of parsimony was recommended, like counting out his coins from a little leather purse. Practice would suggest other embellishments. He should try to enjoy it as a game. If he wanted a change for any reason, then it could be arranged. Frequently one found the subject got bored with a single identity. He would leave his card…

  “Break it up, Rolf!” said Hennessy. “My friend and I have lots of work to do. I’ll walk you to the taxi rank.”

  When he came back Jean Marie was still studying himself in the mirror. Hennessy laughed.

  “It works, doesn’t it? I told you he was the best. And it would pay you to keep in touch with him—for more reasons than makeup.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s an Israeli agent, a member of Shin Beth. This job is a useful cover. He travels a lot with film people and does regular work for French television. He recognized you instantly. He says the Israelis are well disposed towards you. They understand prophets in exile! Who knows, you may find him helpful. I should be on my way.”

  “When will I hear from you?”

  “As soon as there’s anything to report. You keep working on the letters.”

  “I will. Could I ask a small service?”

  “Sure!”

  “Let me walk with you as far as the quai. I have to get used to this new fellow with the pince-nez and the beret!”

  It was the simplest of pleasures to stroll along the river, watch the hopeful anglers and the lovers hand in hand and the tourists in the bateaux mouches and the sunset splendours drenching the grey pile of Notre Dame. There was a childlike fun, too, in the disguise game. He bought, for a few francs, a battered volume of Les Trophées and a cane with a dog’s-head handle. Thus protected, as if by a cloak of invisibility, he sauntered along, happy as any literary gentleman who, even if he were pinched by inflation, still got the best out of his autumn years.

  It was an agreeable fantasy and it carried him through to the last ceremony of the afternoon, when he settled himself under the awning of a sidewalk café, ordered coffee and a sweet pastry and divided his attention between the passersby and the lapidarian verse of José Maria de Hérédia. He found that the old Parnassian had worn well and that he himself could still be moved by that last poignant moment between Antony and Cleopatra on the eve of the battle of Actium.

  Et courbé sur elle, l’ardent imperator

  Voyait dans ses yeux clairs étoilés de points d’or,

  Toute une mer immense où fuyaient des galères.

  The grave and fateful beauty of the image matched his own mood of elegy. It seemed a blasphemy even to contemplate the ruin of Paris, this so human city, the extinction of all its serene beauties. And yet, come Rubicon Day, the sentence would be irrevocable—and any man who lived in Rome knew how fragile was the fabric of the greatest empire and how quiet the dead were in their urns and catacombs. Then he heard the voice. It was close and to his left, a hearty American baritone expounding the art of bouquinage:

  “… You don’t go at it as if you’re turning out Grandmother’s attic. You decide on one set of prints you’d really like to own. It doesn’t matter if they’re as rare as hens’ teeth. That’s just the starting point. It tells the man you’re serious, that you’ve got money to spend and it will pay him to take time and show you what he’s hiding under the counter. That’s the way I worked in Germany and…”

  As the monologue rolled on, Jean Marie fished for money in his wallet and turned his head slowly as if to signal a waiter. He remembered the dictum
of Rolf Levandow. Disguise was illusion. Even if someone thought he recognized you, he was still put off by the unfamiliar features. You had to capitalize on that, stare him down, snub him if he greeted you.

  Alvin Dolman was seated at the next table, deep in talk with a young woman dressed in bright summer cotton. As Jean Marie raised his hand to signal for the check, Dolman looked up. Their eyes met. Jean Marie remembered that he was wearing pince-nez and that, very probably, Dolman could not see his eyes. He turned away slowly; then, as if impatient to be gone, shoved a ten franc note under the saucer, gathered up his book and cane and edged his way past Dolman’s table towards the street. Mercifully Dolman had not paused in his monologue.

  “… Now you have to remember the kind of things that usually turn up on the bookstalls. I met a guy today—the one next to where you were standing—who specializes in ballet designs. That’s not my line, but…”

  … But the noonday devil was in Paris and Jean Marie Barette could make some disturbing guesses at his current employment. Ten paces away from the café he let his book fall to the pavement. As he bent to retrieve it, he looked back. Alvin Dolman was still deep in talk with the girl. He seemed to have made some progress. He was now holding her hand. Jean Marie Barette hoped she would be responsive enough to keep him interested—at least until he himself was safe in his own bolt-hole.

  There was a message waiting for him. Madame would be late home. He should order whatever he wanted for dinner. He settled for coffee and a chicken sandwich, to be served in his room. Then he bathed, put on pajamas and dressing gown and began work on another letter. Now he was dealing with that most contentious of subjects: the divisions on matters of faith between men and women of goodwill.

  Dear God,

  If You’re the beginning and the end of it all, why didn’t You give us all an equal chance? In a circus, You know, our lives depend on that. If the riggers make a mistake, the trapeze artists die. If the man with the thunderflash doesn’t do it right, I lose my eyes.

  But, You don’t seem to look at things that way. A circus travels, so we get to see how other people live—and I mean good people who love each other and love their children and really deserve a pat on the head from You.

  Now, here’s the thing I can’t understand. You know it all. You made it all. But everyone sees You differently. You’ve even let Your children kill each other; just because they each have a different description of Your face at the window!… Why do we all use different marks to tell us we’re Your children? I was sprinkled with water because my parents were Christians. Louis, the lion tamer, had a little piece cut off his penis because he’s a Jew. Leila, the black girl who handles the snakes, wears an ammonite around her neck, because this is the magical snakestone.… And yet, when the show is over and we all sit at the supper table, tired and hungry, do You see much difference between us? Do you care? Are you really very upset when Louis, who is getting old and scared, creeps into Leila’s bed for a little comfort, and Leila, who is really quite ugly, is glad to have him?

  I seem to remember that Your Son enjoyed eating and drinking and chatting with people like us. He liked children. He seemed to understand women. It’s a pity nobody bothered to record very much of his talk with them—a few words with his mother, the rest was mostly with girls who were on the town, one way and another.

  What I’m trying to say is that You’re shutting down the world without really giving us a chance to overcome the handicaps You’ve given us.… I have to say that. I wouldn’t be honest if I let the matter pass. Somewhere up near the North Pole there’s an old woman sitting on an ice floe. She’s not suffering. She’s fading slowly away. Her family have put her there. She’s content, because this is the way death has always been arranged for the old. You know she’s there. I’m sure You’re making it easy—more easy perhaps than for some other poor old dear in a very expensive clinic. But You’ve never told us very clearly which situation You prefer. I like to believe it’s one with the more loving in it!

  On the other hand—I have to tell You this—I sat today in a café. Next to me was a man I know to be truly inhabited by a spirit of evil. He’s treacherous. He’s destructive. He’s a murderer. How will You judge him? How will You make the judgment known to all the rest of us? We do have a right to know. I don’t have children, but if I ever had any they wouldn’t be just playthings, would they? Life itself would confer rights on them—at least according to our small standards. I’d hate to believe that Yours were any lower.

  So please—I know I’m pushing hard tonight, but I’m tired and I’m scared of that evil man with the happy voice and the sweet smile—please tell me how and when You’re going to hear the case of Creator versus creature—or should it be the other way round? Or perhaps You could call the whole thing off and turn it into a love feast?

  That’s strange! I’ve never thought to ask before. Can You, God, change Your mind? If not, why not? And if You can, why didn’t You do it before we all got into such a terrible mess? I’m sorry if I sound rude. I don’t mean to be…

  … Once again, without warning, he was on the high peak, among the black mountains of the dead planet. Once again he was empty, alone, prey to an unendurable sadness, a shame, as if he alone were the author of all the desolation about him. There was no respite, no appeal, no forgiveness. There would be no rapture, no fiery whirlwind, no exquisite agony of union with the Other. He himself was the dead center of a dead cosmos. He could not weep. He could not rage. He could only know that this was all there was to know: himself anchored to a barren rock in the desert of eternity.

  Suddenly he felt a touch on his flesh, a tug at his dangling fingers. He looked down. It was the little girl from the Institute, the little clown of God, with her vacant, trusting smile. His heart melted to her. He snatched her up and held her close. She was his life-spark. He, her last protection against the vacancy of a cold planet.

  They could not stay here on the peak. There must be caves to shelter them. He began to walk, stumbling down the dark stony slope. He felt the child’s cheek against his own, her warm breath, like a tiny wind, ruffling his hair. As he walked, the well-spring of emotion began to flow again. He was aware of pity and terror and tenderness and a fierce rage against the Other who had dared to desert this tiny helpless creature in a place which was no-place.

  Finally he came to the mouth of a cave, within which, most strangely, he could see a tiny light, like a star reflected in the black water of a tarn. He held the child closer and closer, as if to cover her with the armour of his own skin, and strode towards the light. It grew larger and brighter until it dazzled him and he was forced to close his eyes and stand quiet still like a blind man in a new place. Then he heard the voice, strong and calm and gentle.

  “Open your eyes.”

  He did so and saw, seated on an outcrop of rock, beside a small fire, a young man of the most extraordinary comeliness. He was naked except for a breechcloth and sandals. His hair, golden and abundant, was caught back with a linen band. Beside him on the rock was a platter of bread and a cup of water. He held out his arms and said:

  “I’ll take the child.”

  “No!” Jean Marie felt a sudden lurch of fear and stepped back against the farther wall. He eased himself down into a sitting position and cradled the child in his arms. The young man stood up and offered the bread and the cup. When Jean Marie refused he began feeding the child morsels of the loaf and tiny sips of liquid. From time to time he stroked her cheek and smoothed the hair away from her eyes. He asked again:

  “Please, let me hold her. She will come to no harm.”

  He took the child and made a little dance with her, until she laughed and fondled his face and kissed him. Then suddenly she was not a mongol anymore, but perfect and beautiful like a princess doll.

  The young man held her up to be admired. He smiled at Jean Marie and told him:

  “You see! I make all things new!”

  “Where are all the rest? The flowers, the anima
ls, the people?”

  “Here!”

  He held the child up above his head. She stretched out her hands. The walls of the cave dissolved into a prospect of meadows and orchards and streams, silver in the sun. The young man said chidingly:

  “You have to understand. The beginning and the end are one. The living and the dying are a single act because life is renewed by death.”

  “Then why must the dying be so terrible?”

  “Man makes his own terrors, not I.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am who I am.”

  “I’ve never understood that.”

  “You should not try. Does the flower contend with the sun, or the fish with the sea? That’s why you’re a clown and you break things and I have to put them together again.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I make a mess. I’ll go now.”

  “Don’t you want to kiss your daughter?”

  “Please! May I?”

  … But when he reached out his arms to take the beautiful child, she was not there. The man and the girl and the cave and the magical meadows were all gone. He was back in his own room. Roberta Saracini was standing by the desk with a tray in her hand.

  “I saw the light under your door. I thought you’d like some hot chocolate before you went to bed. When I came in you were asleep at your desk.”

  “I had a big day—one way and another. What time is it?”

  “Just after ten.”

  “Thank you for the chocolate. How was your evening?”