“Well, you ought to play it up a little more anyway. I meant to talk about it at the last directors’ meeting but there wasn’t time.”
“Does Cave know about this? About the extent....”
“Sure does.” Paul headed for the door. “He thinks it’s fine. Proves what he says and it gives other people nerve. This thing is working.”
There was no doubt about that of course. It is hard, precisely, to give the sense of those two years when the main work got done in a series of toppling waves which swept into history the remaining edifices of other faiths and institutions. I had no real firsthand impressions of the country for I seldom stirred from our headquarters.
I’d sold the house on the river. I had cut off all contacts with old friends and my life, simply, was Cave. I edited the Journal, or rather presided over the editors. I discussed points of doctrine with the various Residents who came to see me in the yellow tower. They were devoted men and their enthusiasm was heartening, if not always communicable to me. Each week was published further commentaries on Cavesword and I found my time grew short if I tried to read them all. I contented myself, finally, with synopses prepared for me by the Journal’s staff and I felt like a television emperor keeping abreast of contemporary letters, but there was not enough time, as it was, in which to contemplate the great things.
Once a week we all dined with Cave. Except for that informal occasion we seldom saw him; though he complained continually about his captivity (and it was exactly that; we were all captives to some degree), he was cheerful enough. Paul saw to it that he was kept busy all day addressing Residents and Communicators, answering their questions, firing them by the mere fact of his presence. It was quite common for strangers to faint upon seeing him for the first time, as a man and not as a figure on a bit of film. He was good-natured, though occasionally embarrassed by the chosen groups which were admitted to him. He seldom talked privately to any of them, however, and he showed not the faintest interest in their problems, not even bothering to learn their names. He was only interested in where they were from and Paul, aware of this, as an added inducement to keep Cave amenable, took to including each group at least one Cavite from some far place like Malaya or Ceylon.
Iris was busiest of all. She had become, without design or preparation, the head of all the Cavite schools throughout the country where the various Communicators of Cavesword were trained, thousands of them each year, in a course which included not only Cavesword but history and psychology as well. There were also special classes in television-producing and acting. Television, finally, was the key. It was the primary instrument of communication. Later, with a subservient government and the aid of mental therapists and new drugs, television became less necessary but, in the beginning, it was everything.
Clarissa’s role was, as always, enigmatic. She appeared when she pleased and she disappeared when she pleased. I discovered that her position among the directors was due to her possession of the largest single block of stock, dating back to the first days. During the crucial two or three years, however, she was often with us merely for protection since all our lives had been proscribed by the last remnants of the old churches who, as their dominion shrank, fought more and more recklessly to destroy us.
Stokharin spent his days much like Iris, instructing the Communicators and Center-therapists in psychology. His power over Paul had fortunately waned and he was far more likeable: Paul was “freed,” Stokharin would say with some satisfaction, due to therapy ... and a new father-image.
Less than two years after the Congressional hearings, Paul, in his devious way, entered politics and in the following Congressional elections, without much overt campaigning on our part, the majority of those elected to both Houses of the Congress were either Cavite or sympathetic.