Messiah

windows.'

'Open the windows!' The driver snorted. 'It's damn near forty in the street.'

4

Iris occupied several rooms on the second floor of a brownstone in a street with, pleasantest of New York anachronisms, trees. When I entered, she was doing yogi exercises on the floor, sitting cross-legged on a mat, her slender legs in leotards and her face flushed with strain. 'It just doesn't work for me!' she said and stood up without embarrassment for, since I'd found the main door unlocked, I'd opened this one too, without knocking.

'I'm sorry, Iris, the downstairs door was…'

'Don't be silly.' She rolled up the mat efficiently. 'I was expecting you but I lost track of time… which means it must be working a little. I'll be right back.' She went into the bedroom and I sat down, amused by this unexpected side to Iris: I wondered if perhaps she was a devotee of wheat germ and mint tea as well. She claimed not. 'It's the only real exercise I get,' she said, changed now to a heavy robe which completely swathed her figure as she sat curled up in a great armchair, drinking Scotch, as did I, the winter outside hid by drawn curtains, by warmth and light.

'Have you done it long?'

'Oh, off and on for years. I never get anywhere but it's very restful and I've felt so jittery lately that anything which relaxes me…' her voice trailed off idly. She seemed relaxed now.

'I've been to see Paul,' I began importantly.

'Ah.' But I could not, suddenly, generate sufficient anger to speak out with eloquence. I went around my anger stealthily, a murderer stalking his victim. 'We disagreed.'

'In what?'

'In everything, I should say.'

'That's so easy with Paul.' Iris stretched lazily; ice chattered in her glass; a car's horn melodious and foreign sounded in the street below. 'We need him. If it wasn't Paul, it might be someone a great deal worse. At least he's intelligent and devoted. That makes up for a lot.'

'I don't think so; Iris, he's establishing a sort of supermarket, short-order church for the masses.'

She laughed delightedly. 'I like that… and, in a way, you're right: that's what he would do left to himself.'

'He seems in complete control.'

'Only of the office. John makes all the decisions.'

'I wish I could be sure of that.'

'You'll see on Friday. You'll be at the meeting, won't you?'

I nodded. 'I have a feeling that between Paul and Stokharin this thing is going to turn into a world-wide clinic for mental health.'

'I expect worse things could happen, but Paul must still contend with me and you and of course the final word is with John.'

'How is Cave, by the way? I haven't seen him since the night of the first telecast.'

'Quite relaxed, unlike the rest of us. You should come out with me one day to Long Island and see him. I go nearly every day for a few hours. He's kept completely removed from everyone except the servants and Paul and me.'

'Does he like that?'

'He doesn't seem to mind. He walks a good deal… it's a big place and he's used to the cold. He reads a little, mostly detective stories… and then of course there's the mail that Paul sends on. He works at that off and on all day. I help him and when we're stuck (you should see the questions!) we consult Stokharin who's very good on some things, on problems…'

'And a bore the rest of the time.'

'That's right,' Iris giggled. 'I couldn't have been more furious the other night, but, since then, I've seen a good deal of him and he's not half bad. We've got him over the idea that John should become a lay analyst: the response to the telecast finally convinced Stokharin that here was a racial 'folk-father-figure'… his very own words. Now he's out to educate the father so that he will fulfill his children's needs on the best post-Jungian lines.'

'Does Cave take him seriously?'

'He's bored to death with him. Stokharin's the only man who's ever had the bad sense to lecture John… who absolutely hates it; but he does feel that Stokharin's answers to some of the problems we're confronted with are ingenious. All that… hints to the lovelorn is too much for John, so we need the Stokharins to take care of details.'

'I hope he's careful not to get too involved.'

'John's incorruptible. Not because he is so noble or constant but because he can only think a certain way and other opinions, other evidence, can't touch him.'

I paused, wondering if this was true; then: 'I'm going to make a scene on Friday. I'm going to suggest that Paul is moving in a dangerous direction, toward organization and dogma and that if something is not done soon we'll all be ruined by that which we most detest: a militant absolutist doctrine.'

Iris looked at me curiously. 'Tell me, Gene, what do you want? Why are you still with Cave, with all of us when you so apparently suspect the general direction? You've always been perfectly clear about what you did not want (I can recall, I think, every word you said at the farm that night) but, to be specific, what would you like all this to become? How would you direct things if you could?'

I'd been preparing myself for such a question for several months yet I still had no single answer to make which would sharply express my own doubts and wishes. But I made an attempt. 'I would not organize, for one thing. I'd have Cave speak regularly, all he likes, but there would be no Cavite, Inc., no Paul planting articles and propagandizing. I'd keep just Cave, nothing more. Let him do his work. Then, gradually, there will be effects, a gradual end to superstition…'

Iris looked at me intently. 'If it were possible, I would say we should do what you suggest, even though it would be ruinous not only for us but for everyone…'

'Why ruinous? A freedom to come to a decision on one's own without…'

'That's it. No one can be allowed that freedom. One doesn't need much scholarship or even experience to see that. Everywhere people are held in check by stifling but familiar powers. People are used to tyranny: they expect governments to demand their souls, and they have given up decisions on many levels for love of security. What you suggest is impossible with this race at this time.'

'You're talking nonsense. After all, obeisance to established religions is the order of the day, yet look at the response to Cave who is undermining the whole Christian structure.'

'And wait until you see the fight they're going to put up!' said Iris grimly. 'Fortunately, Cave's word is the mortal blow though Cave himself would be their certain victim if he was unprotected, if there was no organization to guard him, and the Word.'

'So Paul and his-his team, his proselytes are to become merely an equivalent power, combating the old superstitions with their own weapons.'

'More or less, yes. That's what it has come to.'

'Even though his talking to the people would be enough? Let them use him, not he them.'

'A good slogan,' Iris smiled. 'But I think I'm right. No one would have a chance to see or hear him if it weren't for Paul; you should read the threatening letters we've been getting.'

'I thought all the mail was most admiring?'

'All that came from people who've actually heard him but there's a lot coming in now from religious fanatics. They are very extreme. And of course the churches, one by one, are starting to take notice.'

'I saw Bishop Winston in Paul's office today.'

'He's been trying to see John all week. He finally settled for Paul, I gather. In any case, after the next telecast there will really be a storm.'