Messiah

by Gore Vidal

1

It began indeed, like the first recorded shot of a war. The day after the explosion, we left the island and Cave was flown to another retreat, this time in the center of New York City where, unique in all the world, there can exist true privacy, even invisibility.

The Cavite history of the next two years is publicly known and the private aspects of it do not particularly reveal. It was a time of expansion and of battle.

The opposition closed its ranks. Several attempts were made on all our lives and, six months after our return from Florida, we were all, except the indomitable Clarissa, forced to move into the brand-new Cavite Center, a quickly built but handsome building of yellow glass on Park Avenue. Here on the top floor, in the penthouse which was itself a mansion surrounded by Babylonian gardens and a wall of glass through which the encompassing city rose like stalagmites, Cave and Paul, Stokharin and Iris and I all lived with our bodyguards, never venturing out of the building which resembled, during that time, a military headquarters with guards and adjutants and a maze of officials through whom both strangers and familiars were forced to pass before they could meet even myself, much less Cave.

In spite of the unnaturalness of the life, it was, I think, the happiest time of my life. Except for brief excursions to the Hudson, I spent the entire two years in that one building, knowing at last the sort of security and serenity which monks must have known in their monasteries, in their retreats. I think the others were also content, except for Cave who eventually grew so morose and bored by his confinement that Paul not only had to promise him a world tour but, for his vicarious pleasure, played, night after night in the Center’s auditorium, travel films which Cave devoured with eager eyes, asking for certain films to be halted at various interesting parts so that he might examine some landscape or building (never a human being, no matter how quaint); favorite movies were played over and over again, long after the rest of us had gone off to bed, leaving Cave and the projectionist alone with the bright shadows of distant places ... alone save for the ubiquitous guards.

There were a number of attacks upon the building itself but since all incoming mail and visitors were checked by machinery for hidden weapons there was never a repetition of that island disaster which had had such a chilling effect on all of us. Pickets of course marched daily for two years in front of the Center’s door and, on four separate occasions, mobs attempted to storm the building: they were repulsed easily by our guards (the police, for the most Catholic, did not unduly exert themselves in our defense; fortunately, the building had been constructed with the idea of defense in mind).

The life in the Center was busy. In the penthouse each of us had an office and Cave had a large suite where he spent his days watching television and pondering journeys. He did not follow with much interest the doings of the organization though he had begun to enjoy reading the attacks which regularly appeared against him and us in the newspapers. Bishop Winston was the leader of the non-Catholic opposition and his apologias and anathemas inspired us with admiration. He was, I think, conscious of being the last great spokesman of the Protestant churches and he fulfilled his historic function with wit and dignity and we admired him tremendously. By this time, of course, our victory was in sight and we could show magnanimity to those who remained loyal to ancient systems.

I was the one most concerned with answering the attacks since I was now an editor with an entire floor devoted to the Cavite Journal (we were not able to think up a better name). At first it was published weekly and given away free but after the first year it became a daily newspaper, fat with advertising, and sold on newsstands.

Besides my duties as editor, I was also the official apologist and I was kept busy composing dialogues on various ethical matters, ranging from the virtues of cremation to fair business practices. Needless to say, I had a good deal of help and some of my most resounding effects were contrived by others, by anonymous specialists. Each installment, however, of Cavite doctrine (or rationalization as I preferred to think of my work) was received as eagerly by the expanding ranks of the faithful as it was denounced by the Catholic Church and the new league of Protestant Churches under Bishop Winston’s guidance.

We received our first serious setback when, in the autumn of our first year in the new building, we were banned from the television networks through a series of technicalities created by Congress for our benefit and invoked without warning. It took Paul’s lawyers a year to get the case through the courts which finally reversed the government’s ruling. Meanwhile, we counterattacked by creating hundreds of new Centers where films of Cave were shown regularly. Once a week he was televised for the Centers where huge crowds gathered to see and hear him and it was always Paul’s claim that the government’s spiteful action had, paradoxically, been responsible for the sudden victory of Cavesword: not being able to listen to their idol in their own homes the Cavites, and even the merely curious, were forced to visit the Centers where, in the general mood of camaraderie and delight in the same word, they were organized quite ruthlessly. Stokharin’s clinics handled their personal problems. Other departments assumed the guidance and even the support, if necessary, of their children while free medical and educational facilities were made available to all who applied.

At the end of the second year, there were more enrolled Cavites than any other single religious denomination including the Roman Catholic. I published this fact and the accompanying statistics with a certain guilt which, needless to say, my fellow directors did not share. The result of this revelation was a special Congressional hearing.

In spite of the usual confusion attendant upon any of the vigorous old Congress’s hearteningly incompetent investigations, this event was well-staged, preparing the way politically, to draw the obvious parallel, for a new Constantine.

It took place in March and it was the only official journey any of us, excepting Paul, had made from our yellow citadel for two years. The entire proceedings were televised, a bit of unwisdom on the part of the hostile Congressmen who, in their understandable eagerness for publicity, overlooked their intended victim’s complete mastery of that medium. I did not go to Washington but I saw Cave and Paul and Iris off from the roof of the Center. Because of the crowds which had formed in the streets, hoping for a glimpse of Cave, the original plan to fly to Washington aboard a chartered airplane was discarded at the last minute and two helicopters were ordered instead to pick up Cave and his party on the terrace in front of the penthouse, a mode of travel not then popular.

Paul saw to it that the departure was filmed. A dozen of us who were not going stood about among the trees and bushes while the helicopters hovered a few feet above the roof, their ladders dangling. Then Cave appeared with Paul and Iris while a camera crew recorded their farewell and departure. Cave looked as serene as ever, quite pale in his dark blue suit and white shirt ... a small austere figure with downcast eyes. Iris was bright-faced from the excitement and cold; there was a sharp wind on the roof which tangled her hair.

“I’m terrified,” she whispered fiercely in my ear as we shook hands formally for the camera.

“Paul seems in full command,” I said, comfortingly. And Paul, not Cave, was making a short speech to the camera while Cave stood alone and still; then, in a gust of wind, they were gone and I went to my office to watch the hearings.

The official reason for the investigation was based upon certain charges made by the various churches that the Cavites were subverting Christian morality by championing free love and publicly descrying the eternal institution of marriage. This was the burden of that complaint against Cave which the Committee most wished to contemplate since it was the strongest of the numerous allegations and, in their eyes, the most dangerous to the state, the one most likely to get the largest amount of publicity. For some years the realm of public morals had been a favorite excursion grounds for the Congress and their tournaments at public expense were attended delightedly by everyone. This particular one, affecting as it did the head of the largest single religious establishment in the country would, the Congressmen were quite sure, prove an irresistible spectacle. It was.

At first there was a good deal of confusion. Newspaper men stumbled over one another; flash bulbs were dropped; Congressmen could not get through the crowd to take their seats. To fill in, while these preliminaries were got over, the camera was trained upon the crowd which was beginning to gather in front of the Capitol; a crowd which grew, as one watched, to Inaugural size. Though it was orderly, a troop of soldiers in trucks soon arrived, as though by previous design, and they got out, forming a cordon of fixed bayonets before the various entrances to the Capitol.

Here and there, against the gusty blue sky, banners with the single word “Cave,” gold on blue, snapped: In hoc signo indeed!

Then the commentators who had been exclaiming at some length on the size of the crowd, excitedly announced the arrival of Cave. A roar of sound filled the plaza. The banners were waved back and forth against the sky and I saw everywhere the theatrical hand of Paul Himmell.

The scene shifted to the House of Representatives entrance to the Capitol. Cave wearing an overcoat but bareheaded, stepped out of the limousine. He was alone. Neither Paul nor Iris was in sight. It was most effective that he should come like this, without equerries or counselors. He stood for a moment in the pillared entrance, aware of the crowd outside; even through the commentator’s narrative one could hear, like the surf falling: Cave! Cave! Cave! For a moment it seemed that he might turn and go, not into the Capitol, but out onto the steps to the crowd; but then the chief of the Capitol guard, sensing perhaps that this might happen, gently steered him up the stairs.

The next shot was of the Committee Room where the hearings had at last begun. A somewhat phlegmatic Jesuit was testifying. His words were difficult to hear because of the noise in the committee room, and the impotent shouts of the chairman. The commentator gave a brief analysis of the Jesuit’s attack on Cave and then, in the midst of a particularly loud exchange between the chairman and the crowd, the clerk of the court proclaimed: John Cave.

There was silence. The crowd parted to make way for him. Even the members of the committee craned to get a good look at him as he moved quietly, almost demurely, to the witness chair. The only movement in the room was that of the Papal Nuncio who, in his robes, sat in the front rank of the audience. He crossed himself as Cave passed and shut his eyes.

Cave was respectful, almost inaudible. Several times he was asked to repeat his answers even though the room was remarkably still. At first Cave would answer only in monosyllables, not looking up, not meeting the gaze of his interrogators who took heart at this, professionals themselves: their voices which had almost matched his for inaudibility, began to boom with confidence.

I waited for the lightning. The first intimation came when Cave looked up. For nearly five minutes he had not raised his eyes once during the questioning. Suddenly he looked up and I saw that he was trying to locate the camera; he did, and it was like a revelation: a sudden shock went through me and as well as I knew him, as few illusions as I had about him, I was arrested by his gaze ... it was as though only he and I existed, as though he were I; all of those who watched responded in the same fashion to that unique gaze.

The Committee, however, was not aware of what had happened, that their intended victim had with one glance appropriated the eye of the world. The subsequent catechism is too well known to record here; we used it as the main exposition of Cavesword, the one testament which contained the entire thing. It was almost as if the Congressmen had been given the necessary questions to ask, like those supporting actors whose minor roles are designed to illuminate the genius of the star. Two of the seven members of the Committee were Cavites. This was soon apparent. The other five were violently in opposition. One as a Catholic, another as a Protestant, and two as materialistic lovers of the old order. Only one of the attackers, a quiet scholarly-looking Jew, made any real point. He argued the perniciousness of an organization which, if allowed to prosper, would replace the state and force all dissenters to conform; it was his contention that the state prospered most when no one system was sufficiently strong to dominate. I wanted to hear more of him but his Catholic colleague, a bull-voiced Irishman, drowned him out, winning the day for the Cavites.

Cave, to my astonishment, had memorized most of the dialogues I’d written and he said my words with the same power that he said his own. I was startled by this. There had been no hint that such a thing might happen and I couldn’t, for some time, determine the motive until I recalled Cave’s reluctance to being quoted in print; he had apparently realized that now there would be a complete record of his testimony and so, for the sake of both literacy and consistency, he had committed to memory those words of mine which were thought to be his. At the great moment, however, the peroration (by which time there were no more questions and Cave’s voice alone was heard) he became himself, and spoke Cavesword.

Then, without the Committee’s leave, in the dazzled silence which followed upon his last words, he got up abruptly and left the room. I switched off the television set. That week established Cavesword in the country and, except for various priests and ministers of the deserted gods, the United States was Cavite.