Messiah

'To hell with that stuff. You just root around and show how the old writers were really Cavites at heart and then you come to him and put down what he says. Why we'll be half-there even before he's on TV!' Paul lapsed for a moment into a reverie of promotion. I had another drink and felt quite good myself although I had serious doubts about my competence to compose philosophy in the popular key. But Paul's faith was infectious and I felt that, all in all, with a bit of judicious hedging and recourse to various explicit summaries and definitions, I might put together a respectable ancestry for Cave whose message, essentially, ignored all philosophy, empiric and Orphic, moving with hypnotic effectiveness to the main proposition: death and man's acceptance of it. The problems of life were always quite secondary to Cave, if not to the rest of us.

'When will you want this piece done?'

'The sooner the better. Here,' he scribbled an address on a pad of paper. 'This is Cave's address. He's on a farm outside Spokane. It belongs to one of his undertaker friends.'

'Iris is with him?'

'Yes. Now you…'

'I wonder if that's wise, Iris seeing so much of him. You know he's going to have a good many enemies before very long and they'll dig around for any scandal they can find.'

'Oh, it's perfectly innocent, I'm sure. Even if it isn't, I can't see how it can do much harm.'

'For a public relations man you don't seem to grasp the possibilities for bad publicity in this situation.'

'All pub…'

'Is good. But Cave, it appears is a genuine ascetic.' And the word 'genuine' as I spoke it was like a knife-blade in my heart. 'And, since he is, you have a tremendous advantage in building him up. There's no use in allowing him, quite innocently, to appear to philander.'

Paul looked at me curiously. 'You wouldn't by chance be interested in Iris yourself?'

And of course that was it. I had become attached to Iris in precisely the same sort of way a complete man might have been but of course for me there was no hope, nothing. The enormity of that nothing shook me, despite the alcohol we had drunk. I was sufficiently collected, though, not to make the mistake of vehemence. 'I like her very much but I'm more attached to the idea of Cave than I am to her. I don't want to see the business get out of hand. That's all. I'm surprised you, of all people involved, aren't more concerned.'

'You may have a point. I suppose I've got to adjust my views to this thing… it's different from my usual work building up crooners and movie stars. In that line the romance angle is swell, just as long as there're no bigamies or abortions involved. I see your point, though. With Cave we have to think in sort of Legion of Decency terms. No rough stuff. No nightclub pictures or posing with blondes. You're absolutely right. Put that in your piece: doesn't drink, doesn't go out with dames…'

I laughed at this seriousness. 'Maybe we won't have to go that far. The negative virtues usually shine through all on their own. The minute you draw attention to them you create suspicion: people are generally pleased to suspect the opposite of every avowal.'

'You talk just like my analyst.' And I felt that I had won, briefly, Paul's admiration. 'Anyway, you go to Spokane; talk to Iris; tell her to lay off… in a tactful way of course. I wouldn't mention it to him: you never can tell how he'll react. She'll be reasonable even though I suspect she's stuck on the man. Try and get your piece done by the first of December. I'd like to have it in print for the first of the New Year, Cave's year.'

'I'll try.'

'By the way, we're getting an office… same building as this. The directors okayed it and we'll take over as soon as there's some furniture in it.'

'Cavites, Inc.?'

'We could hardly call it the Church of the Golden Rule,' said Paul with one of the few shows of irritability I was ever to observe in his equable disposition. 'Now, on behalf of the directors, I'm authorized to advance you whatever money you might feel you need for this project; that is, within…'

'I won't need anything except, perhaps, a directorship in the company.' My own boldness startled me.

Paul laughed. 'That's a good boy. Eye on the main chance. Well, we'll see what we can do about that. There aren't any more shares available right now but that doesn't mean… I'll let you know when you get back from Spokane.'

Our meeting was ended by the appearance of his secretary who called him away to other business. As we parted in the outer office, he said, quite seriously, 'I don't think Iris likes him the way you think but if she does be careful. We can't upset Cave now. This is a tricky time for everyone. Don't show that you suspect anything when you're with him. Later, when we're under way, and there's less pressure, I'll handle it. Agreed?'

I agreed, secretly pleased at being thought in love… 'in love,' to this moment the phrase has a strangely foreign sound to me, like a classical allusion not entirely understood in some decorous, scholarly text. 'In love,' I whispered to myself in the elevator as I left Paul that evening: in love with Iris.

3

We met at the Spokane railroad station and Iris drove me through the wide, clear, characterless streets to a country road which wound east into the hills, in the direction of a town with the lovely name of Coeur d'Alene.

She was relaxed. Her ordinarily pale face was faintly burned from the sun while her hair, which I recalled as darkly waving, was now streaked with light and worn loosely bound at the nape of her neck. She wore no cosmetics and her dress was simple cotton beneath the sweater she wore against the autumn's chill. She looked young, younger than either of us actually was.

At first we talked of Spokane. She identified mountains and indicated hidden villages with an emphasis on place which sharply recalled Cave. Not until we had turned off the main highway into a country road, dark with fir and spruce, did she ask me about Paul.

'He's very busy getting the New Year's debut ready. He's also got a set of offices for the company in Los Angeles and he's engaged me to write an introduction to Cave… but I suppose you knew that when he wired you I was coming.'

'It was my idea.'

'My coming? or the introduction?'

'Both. I talked to him about it just before we came up here.'

'And I thought he picked it out of the air while listening to me majestically place Cave among the philosophers.'

Iris smiled. 'Paul's not obvious. He enjoys laying traps and, as long as they're for one's own good, he's very useful.'

'Implying he could be destructive?'

'Immensely. So be on your guard even though I don't think he'll harm any of us.'

'How is Cave?'

'I'm worried, Gene. He hasn't got over that accident. He talks about it continually.'

'But the man didn't die.'

'It would be better if he did… as it is there's a chance of a lawsuit against Cave for damages.'

'But he has no money.'

'That doesn't prevent them from suing. Worst of all, though, would be the publicity. The whole thing has depressed John terribly. It was all I could do to keep him from announcing to the press that he had almost done the old man a favor.'

'You mean by killing him?'

Iris nodded, quite seriously. 'That's actually what he believes and the reason why he drove on.'

'I'm glad he said nothing like that to the papers.'

'But it's true; his point of view is exactly right.'

'Except that the old man might regard the situation in a different light and, in any case, he was badly hurt and did not receive Cave's gift of death.'

'Now you're making fun of John.' She frowned and drove fast on the empty road.

'I'm doing no such thing. I'm absolutely serious. There's a moral problem involved which is extremely important