“Not on your life.” Paul threw himself into a chair of flimsy chrome and plastic. “Winston’s been trying to arrange a debate for over two years. He issues challenges every Sunday on his program (got a big audience, too ... though not close to ours; I keep checking it).”
“Does Cave want to give it a try?”
“He’s oblivious to such things. I suppose he would if he thought about it. Anyway it’s to our advantage to keep him out of sight. Let them see only a television image, hear only his recorded voice. It’s wonderful copy! Big time.” He was out of the chair and playing with the knob of the television set: the screen was suddenly filled with a romantic scene, a pulsating green grotto with water falling in a thin white line ... so perfected had the machine become that it was actually
like looking through a window, the illusion of depth quite perfect and the colors true. A warm deep voice off-screen suggested the virtues of a well-known carbonated drink. Paul turned the switch off. I was relieved since I, alone in America, was unable to think or work or even relax while the screen was bright with some other place.
“He won’t like it. He expects next year, at the latest, to start his world tour.”
“Perhaps then,” said Paul thinly. “Anyway, the longer we put it off the better. Did you know we turn away a thousand people a day who come here just to get a glimpse of him?”
“They see him at the Center meetings.”
“Only our own people ... the ones in training to be Residents. I keep those sessions carefully screened. Every now and then some outsider gets in but it’s rare.”
I glanced at the tear-sheet of my next day’s editorial; it contained, among other useful statistics, the quite incredible figures of Cavite membership in the world. Dubiously, I read off the figure which Paul had given me at a directors’ meeting.
“It’s about right,” he said complacently, coming to a full stop at the files. “We don’t actually know the figures of places without proper Centers like the Latin countries where we are undergoing a bit of persecution. But the statistics for this country are exact.”
“It’s hard to believe.” I looked at the figure which represented so many human beings, so much diversity, all touched by one man. “Less than three years....”