Messiah

'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.

'Hope we can have lunch tomorrow, Gene. I'll give you a better picture then, the overall picture: and your part in it. Briefly, for now, the organization has been set up as a company under California law with Cave as president and myself, Iris and Clarissa as directors. I'm also secretary-treasurer but only for now. We're going to need a first- rate financial man to head our campaign fund and I'm working on several possibilities right now.'

'What's the… company called?' I asked.

'Cavites, Inc. We didn't want to call it anything but that's the law here and since we intended to raise money we had to have a legal setup.'

'Got a nice sound, ah, Cavite,' said Hastings, nodding.

'What on earth should we have done if he'd had your name, Paul?' exclaimed Clarissa, to the indignation of both Hastings and Paul. They shut her up quickly.

Paul went on in his smooth deep voice, 'I've had a lot of experience, of course, but this is something completely new for me, a real challenge and one which I'm glad to meet head-on.'

'How did you get into it?' I asked.

Paul pointed dramatically to Hastings. 'Him! He took me to a meeting in Laguna last year. I was sold the first time. I got the message.'

There was a hush as we were allowed to contemplate this awesome information. Then, smiling in a fashion which he doubtless would have called 'wry,' the publicist continued: 'I knew this was it. I contacted Cave immediately and found we talked the same language. He was all for the idea and so we incorporated. He said he wasn't interested in the organizational end and left that to us with Iris sort of representing him, though of course we all do since we're all Cavites. This thing is big and we're part of it.' He almost smacked his lips.

I listened, fascinated. 'Anyway he's going to do the preaching part and we're going to handle the sales end, if you get what I mean. We're selling something which nobody else ever sold before and you know what that is?' He paused dramatically and we stared at him, a little stupidly. 'Truth!' His voice was triumphant. 'We're selling the truth about life and that's something that nobody, but nobody, has got.'

Clarissa broke the silence which had absorbed his last words. 'You're simply out of this world, Paul! If I hadn't heard you, I'd never have believed it. But you don't have to sell us, dear; we're in on it too. Besides, I have to catch a plane.' She looked at her watch. She stood up and we did too. She thanked Hastings for lunch and then, before she left the patio on his arm, she said: 'Now you boys get on together and remember what I've told you. Gene must be used, and right away. Get him to write something dignified, for a magazine.' We murmured assent. Clarissa said good-by and left the patio with Hastings. Her voice, shrill and hard, could be heard even after she left. 'The truth about life! Oh, it's going to be priceless!'

I looked quickly at Paul to see if he had heard but, if he had, he didn't betray the fact. He was looking at me intently, speculatively. 'I think we're going to get along fine, Gene, just fine.' Leaving me only a fumbled word or two of polite corroboration with which to express my sincere antipathy; then we went our separate ways.

3

I met Paul the next day at his office for a drink and not for lunch since, at the last minute, his secretary called me to say he was tied up and could I possibly come at five. I said that I could. I did.

His offices occupied an entire floor of a small sky-scraper on the edge of Beverly Hills. I was shown through a series of rooms done in natural wood and beige with indirect lighting and the soft sound of Strauss waltzes piped in from all directions: the employees responded best to three-four time according to the current efficiency reports.

Beneath an expensive but standard mobile, Paul stood, waiting for me in his office. His desk, a tiny affair of white marble on slender iron legs had been rolled off to one side and the office gave, as had been intended, the