The answer came back, strong and unexpected: “I told myself. The responsibility is mine.”
That was the sign for me. He had broken with his predecessors. He was on his own. He knew ... and so did we.
2
I have lingered over that first meeting for, in it, was finally all that there was to come. Later details were the work of others, the exotic periphery to a simple but powerful center. Not until late that night did I leave the house near the beach. When I left, Cave stayed on and I wondered again, idly, if perhaps he was living there with Iris, if perhaps her interest in him might not be more complex than I had suspected.
We parted casually and Iris walked me to the door while Cave remained inside, gazing in his intent way at nothing at all: daydreaming, doubtless, of what was to come.
“You’ll help?” Iris stood by the car’s open door, her features indistinct in the moonless night.
“I think so. I’m not sure, though, about the scale.”
“What do you mean?”
“Must everyone know? Can’t it just be kept to ourselves? for the few who do know him?”
“No. We must let them all hear him. Everyone.” And her voice assumed that zealous tone which I was to hear so often again and again upon her lips and on those of others.