At that moment, the incident occurred which many people remembered after they had forgotten the words that the pope spoke. Many who saw it happen said that it had been accomplished by a trick of lighting, that it had been planned deliberately so that the pontiff’s speech would seem more dramatic. There were a million explanations and opinions of it, though many people said they saw nothing at all.
His face, when he said the words We shall burn it away in a night, became wreathed with a sort of fire, and his countenance looked more Oriental than black or Latin or any other race or nationality he possessed, and it resembled, some said, an icon that seemed to flame and that, some said, they had seen before in the churches of Russia.
In the studio, Benjamin, Joto, Truman and Herman Felder saw the transformation of the fire and accepted it and did not speak of it, though Benjamin wept as the vision held.
Liderant and Profacci saw it, too, but saw it differently.
“The eyes of a madman,” whispered Profacci.
Liderant said nothing, but stared. The vision troubled him but he could not say how or why.
It lasted only fleeting seconds, then was gone. And Willie went on with his speech.
“I am leaving this place. I cannot live in a palace or great apartment and I cannot pray in a great church building that is a museum and a monument—not when so many have no place to sleep and not when so many have only the sky for their cathedral.
“I need to leave for other reasons. I need to come into your midst. For I, too, have a brother I have wronged, one whom I have raised my fist against. I have broken the sacred connection and now must do what I can to repair it.
“I must find that man and make amends.”
Here he seemed to stumble a little, and if he had a speech, he let it go now and spoke directly to them in little disconnected wishes and requests.
“Good-night, brothers and sisters. Good-night, all you children of the world.
“Think well of yourselves, everybody.
“I will come to you again and speak of our day of love and reconciliation.
“Write me letters and tell me what you think of our plan. ‘Maybe we have left something important out.
“Call me and—we’ll talk.
“Have faith in this simple idea.
“We have all tried many difficult things in the past. Have they worked so well?
“We have to find a date for L-Day, as we are beginning to call it here. Think of a good date and send us your ideas.
“We shall all have to wait and listen for important messages that come to us from God and from our hearts.
“We can make plans to make up with that one person or maybe a couple of people we have hurt the most.
“I think we will have to fast to get it straight in our minds—I mean those of you who can afford to fast, and that of course means the pope, who can afford so much.
“As for you who have nothing to eat, forgive this scandal—that we can speak of giving up food.
“Sleep well, brothers and sisters.
“Even to think about love is holy.
“You are the sacred now, remember, and the more people-like you become, the more sacred you become.
“Peace to-you all, in the deepest place inside.”
And Willie signed the world with the sign of J., and the storm broke.
From the newspapers of the world the next day:
Pravda: “Sentimental tripe. The last gasp of bourgeois religion.”
New Delhi Times: “A new day for justice and humanity. A triumphant statement reflecting the best of the West.”
London Daily Blade: “Theatrics, and poor theatrics at that.”
Le Soir: “The pope is a conscious naif. He believes in the show-business approach to the problems of the international order. A most unfortunate point of view.”
The New York Times: “The pope is a singularly appealing figure, modest, warm, and humorous. He is also an exceedingly simple man. For all his personal qualities, however, we cannot help questioning the merit of a grand gesture at this moment of history. Does anyone imagine that the complex problems of international justice can be solved in a day of vague ‘love’? Even more troubling are the pope’s remarks about the end of the world. What can the theologians of the Christian church think of such a pronouncement? And does not the emphasis upon such a specifically Christian belief pose a discouraging roadblock to the achievement of the very unity within the human family that the pope is trying to bring about?”
Berlin Express: “The pope’s argument for unstructured programs of life and for the human family do not make much sense. From an economic point of view, they are positively harmful.”
Recife People’s Bulletin: “Reactionaries of the world will love the pope’s words, which will leave all consciences untroubled and riveted even more strongly on incidental works of piety and old-fashioned private charity. It is indeed unfortunate that the pope cannot continue along the lines of his predecessors and at least approach the social problems of man from a rational ground.”
Hollywood Mirror: “About time somebody came out and declared for old-fashioned neighborliness.”
The Laguna Herald (Charismatic Newspaper of the United Heavenly Church of the Holy Paraclete Descending in Fire All Over): “IT’S OVER, SPIRIT TELLS POPE! Now even the most staid Roman Catholic must believe the message we have been proclaiming for years—The Judgment of God is at hand! ALLELUIA!”
Television stations all over the world immediately set up panel discussions of the pope’s speech. Universities established seminars and institutes.
Political leaders in every country studied the text of the papal statement and made analyses of it. The analyses were beastlike or spiritlike, depending on the people who made them, and few of them dealt with the meaning of L-Day but dwelt rather on what were called its underlying motives and its long-range effects.
A few of the Marxist countries, departing from the line advanced by Pravda, said that the idea of a day of universal reconciliation had much to recommend it—especially in the capitalist countries which encouraged competition, aggressiveness and swinish acquisitiveness.
In his weekly press conference, the President of the United States, Clyde Shryker, said, “We applaud the pope’s good will. Certainly we all need to rededicate ourselves to brotherhood—particularly those in the revolutionary nations, and in the monist and hard-line Marxist countries. They can learn much from the Christian leaders of the world even though they are atheistic in outlook and have refused to commit themselves, as we have so often committed ourselves, to the principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition. For our part, regardless of the brutality, tyranny, corruption and treachery of the monist and Marxist leaders, we shall receive them with forgiveness, ever mindful of the words, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’”
“LOVE FACTOR UNCERTAIN INFLUENCE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH,” said a headline in The Wall Street Journal. “Pope’s Plan May Harm Defense Industries.” After the pope’s announcement, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average dropped sixty-five points.
Everywhere, in every city of the world, L-Day was news. Nightclub entertainers made up jokes about it. Students debated the merit of the plan in their high school speech classes. It became the number one topic on radio call-in programs. In Lincoln, Nebraska a young composer named Stork R. Wether set to work on a ballad called , which in two weeks’ time would become the most popular song in the English-speaking world.
Religious leaders of the world all made statements regarding the papal announcement. The majority of the leaders favored the idea of L-Day, but the more intellectual of the religious journals called the L-idea simplistic, melodramatic, naive, individualistic, divisive and apocalyptic.
In Sauna, Georgia a woman named Margot de Menthe said that during the pope’s telecast she had a vision, and in the vision she saw Christ playing with the world like a boy playing with a balloon. Then, in the vision, Moses came along—he was dressed like a Georgia sta
te trooper—and he said to Jesus, What you got there, boy? Jesus said, The world. Then, according to Margo de Menthe, Moses took a branch from the limb of a nearby tree and struck repeatedly at the world, like a man killing a snake, until it exploded. Jesus, she said, sat down in some high grass and cried like a baby.
“It was very sad. I could see everything. It looked like Jed Mim’s place up 101 where it happened. I could see beer cans along the road. All I can say is, Jed Mim better get his ass in order. Someone who would make Jesus cry is not a right person, I don’t care if God did give him the Ten Commandments. That goes for his companions too. As for the pope, I have nothing against niggers whatsoever because after all whose fault is it?”
In his hotel suite in Santiago, Chile Clio left the meeting of the Peruvian Liberation Council to watch a rebroadcast of Willie’s speech.
He was very tired now. Brazil had been won, Peru lay ahead of them, and after Peru there was Mexico and after Mexico there was the new front—he had forgotten what it was.
The voice coming from the television set made him sad for a moment. He made himself remember what they had told him of Angola and he felt the anger again. But when he looked at the face of the pope, he found himself unable to keep it up. He hated many things now but the hatred was an effort and sometimes he did not have the energy required.
He listened to the voice out of the past and he thought of Martha and of the night they had met and he thought of many earlier things when he and Willie had been boys together.
“You listen to that fool?” his aide asked.
“Yes.”
“His silly plan will cause us trouble, you are aware? Peru is Catholic. The peasants—”
“I know.”
“A reactionary idiot.”
“Yes.”
“I realize he is a countryman.”
“It is all right.”
“Look at him,” the aide said. “The man is insane.”
At that moment the strange thing happened to Willie’s face and Clio saw the shining and the glowing of his face and he remembered how his face had looked when he found he had the pitch.
He looked at the face and was moved by it because the past was something that still was precious in a way that he did not like to admit and because his hate was spent just then and because it had been a long time since he had seen a man’s face transfigured by a dream.
Once, he thought, he too had a dream, he and his fellow revolutionists, and the dream was still there but it never did anything to their faces anymore if it had ever done anything to their faces. He did not know. The dream he once possessed had changed and he did not think so constantly of the long pull of the future, though he told himself he did, and he and his comrades talked frantically, sometimes through the night, trying to capture the sure old faith that they had once shared, but it was getting harder and there were so many things to get rid of.
Yesterday someone had told him that 228,000 people had been killed in the liberation of Brazil.
That did not seem possible to Clio, but he knew it was the truth whether he wanted to believe it or not.
The country was liberated, and now the trials were going on for those who did not share the dream that Clio and his comrades had had of the future, but the 228,000 would not have to worry about the trials and would not have to pay anything for the lack of a dream or for the many sins they had committed; they had paid all that could be paid.
No, the faces in the other room would not light up again. Once they had in common the splendid vision of a future and now the future had come and it was time to create still one more future. But the faces were gray and that would be the color from now on because their eyes had seen some of the 228,000 who had met death and the scent of death was in their nostrils and they carried the scent with them in their clothes and in their hair and it would not wash off their skins.
Willie’s face had gone back to normal and he had reached that point in the speech where he said “Have faith in this simple idea,” and Clio saw that the exultation was gone and thought that he, too, must fight to keep dreams living and that perhaps he too struggled with the necessities of death.
“You can imagine what we shall face in a city like Lima, where the superstition is high and people feed on such things, having no food.”
“Yes,” said Clio and rejoined his fellow generals in the plotting of the liberation of Peru.
* * *
When they came to him that first time, two days after the speech, those trappers and custodians and museumkeepers and cage attendants, Willie was prepared in the best way he could ever be prepared—with nothing but his innocence to defend him, with nothing but his ignorance to speak, with that openness that could not be shouted down or argued away—and he was ready in the sense that he was always unready and he saw them only as people, and he greeted them warmly even as they set themselves against him.
Profacci acted as their spokesman—there were twelve of them in all—and Nervi was there, enveloped in blue, and Tisch and the canonist, Cardinal Liderant, and Orsini, the swarthy moralist.
“You intend to leave the city then?” said Profacci.
“Yes.”
“You are the bishop of Rome. You cannot vacate your see.”
“I am the vicar of Christ. You yourself called me that on the first day. And Christ had no home.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Think of the scandal to souls! The agitation and the doubting and the harm!”
“My dear cardinal, perhaps there has been scandal all along.”
“You pass judgment on your predecessors?”
“I ask only that you not pass judgment on me.”
“But the problems of the Vatican… .”
“You can handle those as well as I, even better.”
“We are not the pope.”
“Cardinal, you do not need a pope to solve these paper problems that are sent to me.”
“Many, many things only you can decide.”
“I can decide them anyplace in the world.”
“Do you not love the Vatican?”
“Love? What is there to love? Buildings? Art pieces? Treasures? How can I love these things?”
“You would just turn away from them?”
“I would give them away.”
At this, Profacci turned to the other officials and said, “You heard this? He wishes to destroy it all.” Then to Willie: “You don’t have the right to give it away.”
Willie laughed. “Even if I did, who would want it?”
The officials murmured. They did not like the laughter.
“You will take good care of the Vatican,” said Willie. “You can keep it for my successor.”
“You are aware of the ancient tradition that the pope is the bishop of Rome?”
“A pope can travel about.”
“You speak of leaving the see of Rome.”
“I would have to leave in order to travel.”
“But to leave for good—”
“It is good that is the reason for my leaving,” said Willie.
Then Cardinal Profacci and the other officials went away, and from that day on, they began to plot against him, to find some way to depose him on grounds of insanity because he had scoffed at sacred treasures, laughed at the treasure of Rome.
* * *
The general convention of the Silent Servants of the Used, Abused and Utterly Screwed Up had ended and the members had returned to their far-flung homes, or nonhomes, to make ready for L-Day. Only Joto and Truman and Benjamin and Felder and Thatcher Grayson remained. They talked and planned together and prayed with Willie, and together they thought of the things that needed to be done to make the L-Day a success. One night they came together to discuss the date of L-Day.
“Christmas has its advantages,” said Father Benjamin. “To burn the present Christmas away and to create a Christmas of the other coming.”
“Easter,” said Fel
der. “Much more appropriate.”
“Pentecost,” said Thatcher Grayson. “After all, that is the day of the Spirit.” Mr. Grayson still saw spirits from time to time and he tried not to look at them and he tried to keep concentrating on people, but often he did not succeed.
“Maybe it’s better to find a new day entirely,” said Willie. “All these days have so many memories.”
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” said Felder.
Truman, watching the conversation, made rapid hand signs that were hard to follow.
“Again,” said Felder.
This time they saw what Truman said.
The day should fall on a date when men behaved most wretchedly—a day when hate prevailed.
They listened for a half hour about Truman’s recommendation, days of horror swarming in their minds. But in Willie’s listening, the days of horror were obliterated by a coming day, and he saw the ice fields stretching before him and the shadows of men weaving across a strange terrain and he felt the confusion coming upon him again and he tried not to look at Felder and tried not to think about certain pictures that came to him persistently in the times he was alone.
Earlier that day, he had felt an impulse to speak of the matter to Father Benjamin, but something told him to wait, and he prayed then, as he did now, for a message that would help him handle what he had seen, but there was no message and there was no method of handling what he had seen. Yet there was a thing, a fact, a truth, a faith building slowly in his heart, like a pillar of ice on the floor of a cave, and it was an assertion and a gloat and a cry of despair, and if it could be put into words, the words would be The man with the slide rule is coming and you cannot change it and you will be in when he comes.
His eyes met Herman Felder’s now. He saw with a little shock that Felder was looking at him. He was smiling that strange smile once more and seemed to be asking a question. Willie thought he said What difference does it make?
But what Felder actually said was, “The date of the American bombing of Hiroshima. That was in the summer of 1945.”
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