“You must be mistaken because, according to all the texts, he was six feet one.”
“I saw him at a distance of course. I was only guessing.” I was amused that they should have seen fit to change even Cave’s stature.
“You can tell he was a tall man from the telecasts.”
“Do they still show them?”
“Still show them! They’re the main part of our weekly Get-togethers. Each Residency has a complete library of Cave’s telecasts, one hundred eight including the last. Each week, a different one is shown by the Resident’s staff and the Resident himself, or someone assigned by him, discusses the message.”
“And they still hold up after fifty years?”
“Hold up? We learn more from them each year. You should see all the books and lectures on Cavesword ... several hundred important ones which we have to read as part of our communication duties, though they’re not for the laymen. We discourage nonprofessionals from going into such problems, much too complicated for the untrained mind.”
“I should think so. Tell me, is there any more trouble with the idolators?”
Butler shook his head. “Just about none. They were licked when the parochial schools were shut down. That took care of Catholicism. Of course there were some bad times. I guess you know all about them.”
I nodded. Even in Egypt I had heard of massacres and persecutions. I could still recall the morning when I opened the Cairo paper and saw a large photograph of St Peter’s Cathedral smoldering in its ruins, a fitting tomb for the last Pope and martyr who had perished there when a mob of Cavites had fired the Vatican. The Cairo paper took an obvious delight in these barbarities and I had not the heart to read of the wanton destruction of Michelangelo’s and Bernini’s works, the looting of the art galleries, the bonfire which was made in the Papal gardens of the entire Vatican library. Later, word came of a certain assistant-Resident of Topeka who, with a group of demolition experts and Cavite enthusiasts, ranged across France and Italy destroying the cathedrals with the approval of the local governments, and to the cheers of Cavite crowds who gathered in great numbers to watch, delightedly, the crumbling of these last monuments to superstition. Fortunately, the tourist bureaus were able to save a few of the lesser churches.