A Creed for the Third Millennium Page 25

  Tibor Reece blotted his lips with his napkin, placed it to one side of his empty dessert plate, leaned back in his chair and thought a while before he replied.

  'Well, it's pretty revolutionary God-talk, and he's sure no trained theologian, but I agree with Dr Carriol. If this man can offer the people a hope of divine purpose without railroading them into a formal religious persuasion they apparently don't want, I can't see the harm in it. I'm actually a God-fearing man myself. I was born an Episcopalian, and I'm happy to admit that I still draw great comfort from my church and my beliefs. God has saved my sanity on too many occasions for me to take God lightly, that much I can tell you! Yes, I think Dr Christian and God in Cursing are going to be a good thing for the country.'

  'I wish I could be so sure, sir. I mean, think of the antagonism he's going to rouse among the organized churches!'

  'True. But how powerful are they today, Harold? Hell, they can't even get together a decent Washington lobby!'

  Harold Magnus grinned. 'There speaks the politician.' He huffed a little to help the strawberry shortcake down. 'There's one comfort, at any rate. The man's a patriot'

  'On that score there's no worry at all, I agree.' The dark, habitually saturnine face lit up in a glorious smile. 'Oh, Harold, doesn't that give you your answer? It should! God is definitely an American!'

  'Tonight with Bob Smith' had been running for perhaps six minutes that night when Dr Millie Hemingway's telephone rang, and kept on ringing until she came grumbling out of the bathroom still hitching up her clothing.

  'Millie,' said the voice of Dr Samuel Abraham, 'turn your TV onto NBC. You've got to see Bob Smith.' And he hung up immediately.

  She did as she was told, and in the moment of coming to life her television screen filled up with the face of Dr Joshua Christian, animated, intense.

  'My God!' she said, and sat down limply in a chair. 'I don't believe this!' she said a minute later, when a white notice ran through the bottom of the picture announcing that tonight's 'Tonight' would be run without commercial breaks or station identification.

  The wraps kept on Dr Joshua Christian had been very thorough, especially for shielding premature news of him from people like the Environment think tank chiefs, too concerned with their own projects and affairs to be devout newspaper readers or television watchers anyway.

  Yet there he was, the man Operation Search had dragged up from the primordial ooze of total obscurity. But it was only an exercise, a drill!

  Dr Millie Hemingway watched on to the end, enthralled and appalled. Her phone rang again just as she turned the television set off.

  'Millie?'

  'Yes, Sam, it's me.'

  'What's going on ?'

  She shrugged, though her questioner could not see it. 'I don't know, Sam.'

  'It was an exercise!'

  'Yes.'

  'But it can't have been!'

  'Now, Sam, don't jump to conclusions. Just because one of the final candidates crops up now doesn't mean it wasn't an exercise. I think it's just as valid to assume that we did a better job on Operation Search than even we dreamed of. We were after the people who could influence a nation. And Moshe found this guy. We all laughed because he didn't seem a likely bet. But obviously Moshe was right, and we were wrong. That simple.'

  'I don't know, Millie… I tried to phone Moshe, no reply. No reply all night.'

  'Oh, Sam! Go to bed, and stop speculating.' Dr Millie Hemingway hung up.

  Chance. Coincidence. Further evidence of Moshe Chasen's undeniable brilliance, if they had needed further evidence. That was all it was. My God, Dr Christian was powerful! He came out of that screen three-dimensional. Moshe was right. Charisma. And what he said made a lot of sense. Patterns. He couldn't know of course that he himself was a perfect example of his own contentions.

  Dr Moshe Chasen watched 'Tonight' in his office, with the phone switched off. All he said was, 'That's my boy!'

  9

  On the night of Friday, October 29, 2032, Dr Joshua Christian became famous. God in Cursing: A New Approach to Millennial Neurosis sold out its enormous first printing within a month, and continued to sell at the rate of 100,000 copies per day. Everyone everywhere clutched the white volume with the red lettering and the silver bolt of lightning across its front, and everyone everywhere was actually reading it.

  By overwhelming popular demand, the Bob Smith show on which Dr Christian originally appeared was rebroadcast a week later after a huge advertising campaign, and the whole nation watched. This time the show's usual sponsors were accommodated in three long commercial breaks, one at the very beginning of the show, one between Dr Christian's solo speech and the question-and-answer period, and the last at the end of the show. Though 'Tonight' had not lost revenue on its first broadcast; Environment picked up the tab.

  And soon that gaunt sunken face with the piercing dark eyes could be seen on the cover of every magazine and periodical; it was stamped onto T-shirts, and its first edition as a poster, with the single word believe printed beneath it, sold out in a day.

  Dr Moshe Chasen had managed to evade his colleagues on the night Dr Christian appeared with Bob Smith, but he knew he had only postponed the inevitable confrontation. So when he came in to work the following Monday and found two notes on his secretary's desk, he sighed, scratched his head, and invited Dr Abraham and Dr Hemingway down for morning coffee.

  'Did you watch "Tonight" last Friday, Moshe?' demanded Dr Abraham before his bottom was into a chair.

  'As a matter of fact, I did,' said Dr Chasen. 'Judith sent me a message that I'd find it interesting.'

  'Oho!' cried Dr Hemingway. 'Judith knew, did she?'

  It gave Dr Chasen enormous pleasure to lean back in his chair and imitate Dr Carriol at her most supercilious; he tried to drive his brows into his hairline and drawled, 'My dear Millie, when have you ever caught our esteemed chief napping?'

  That stymied both of them, since it was unanswerable.

  'Actually,' Dr Chasen went on, his tone indicating that he thought he should take pity on them, 'she's a great friend of the publisher at Atticus, and they've got Dr Christian under contract. I believe Atticus used Judith as one of the first readers of Dr Christian's book while it was still in manuscript.'

  'So last Friday's "Tonight" show was no surprise to you, huh?' asked Dr Abraham, still sceptical.

  'None at all.'

  'Then why didn't you warn us?' asked Dr Hemingway.

  Dr Chasen grinned wickedly. 'I couldn't resist not warning you. What surprises me most is that you didn't see him when he was here in Environment earlier this year.'

  They both sat up. 'Here?' bleated Dr Abraham.

  'That's right. After Judith read his book, she invited him down to talk with me about relocation.'

  That took the wind completely out of their sails; they stared at Dr Chasen with the expressions of two children discovering far too late that they had missed out on a treat.

  'I never realized you were so close-mouthed,' said Dr Abraham feebly.

  Well, Sam, I am, thought Dr Chasen to himself; and I wouldn't have told you now about his visit to Environment, except that it's not impossible that someone noticed him here, and it might get back to you. This way, you've been offered an explanation you must accept whether you want to or not.

  'It was an exercise, wasn't it?' asked Dr Hemingway.

  'Yes, Millie, it was,' said Dr Chasen gently.

  Dr Abraham shook his head, unconvinced. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Something sounds fishy to me.'

  Dr Joshua Christian spent a week in Atlanta, mostly shuttling back and forth between the buildings with the pink and blue and grey and gold and black mirrored walls that formed the semicircle of Media Plaza. He spoke with Dan Connors and Marlene Feldman and Bob Smith again and Dominic d'Este and Benjamin Steinfeld, with Wolf Man Jack VI and Reginald Parker and Mischa Bronski on radio; he gave long interviews to all the important newspapers and magazines, he did several signing sessions in several bi
g Atlanta bookstores. Times had changed; Atlanta was now the most influential book town in America, and rapidly eclipsing New York City as the nation's cultural capital. Part of this was due to the fact that it had already passed the five million population mark, and was besides the hub of a large constellation of Band A and Band B relocation settlements.

  He went from strength to strength. Even Dr Judith Carriol was amazed at the smallness of the opposition to his ideas; logic said it was because he did not deny God, therefore could not be dismissed as evil or corrupt save perhaps by those who felt their particular brand of belief in God was the only one that mattered to God. But privately she considered the main reason for his instantaneous, positive effect on people to be the extraordinary power within the man. It came across undiluted on television or radio, it reached out, it embraced, it infiltrated a long way farther down than skin. He made people believe in what he said, working through their emotions and their instincts, their pain and their sense of isolation. The concept of the universal truth had always intrigued but simultaneously baffled her; he projected it, yet still she could not fathom its nature.

  However, Atlanta was only the beginning of Dr Christian's publicity tour. Both the Environment think tank in the person of Dr Judith Carriol, and the Atticus Press in the person of Elliott MacKenzie, felt that Dr Christian should be seen by as many people as possible. So where most author tours concentrated upon mass exposure via the mass media, Dr Christian's tour deliberately included a large number of public appearances in the bigger relocation towns, in the established cities, and in any areas felt to be either sensitive or influential. After two slightly unpleasant experiences in Atlanta when he was scheduled to sign copies of his book in stores, signing sessions were abandoned; he had drawn so many people into the stores that chaos reigned, and he had to be removed in a hurry. Instead, he was slotted into formal appearances that were advertised as lectures and to which admission could only be gained by ticket. These tickets were free of charge, but had to be applied for.

  No one, least of all Dr Carriol, could know ahead of time how well Dr Christian would take the grind of a full publicity tour; how quickly the novelty would wear off and the enervation set in. However, she had prepared herself as well as possible by doing some research first; she had made it her business to talk to several major writers, a brace of movie stars, and to the three biggest public relations firms in the people-pushing business. And from every person she saw she learned much the same thing; that a publicity tour rapidly became a grind to its star, that in the end the star would become almost maddened by so much brief contact with so many people all asking the same questions, and that sometimes the star would even pack up and go home without notice or apology.

  However, Dr Joshua Christian displayed no sign of ennui, exhaustion or disillusion. He kept right on talking to any soul who would talk to him, he actually welcomed people when they recognized and accosted him, he signed his book cheerfully whenever it was thrust under his nose, he handled the occasional nut or antagonist with professional tact and smoothness, and with journalists of all sorts he was brilliant.

  The worst of it was that the publicity tour kept getting longer. As the book was read by more and more people and his name reached the proportions of a genuine household word, town after town flooded Atticus with requests for a visit from Dr Christian. Understanding the exigencies of remorseless public exposure, Elliott MacKenzie turned all these requests down, until a discreet message came from Washington that Dr Christian should where possible visit all these clamouring places. At least twice a week Dr Carriol would receive word from Atticus that two or three more towns had been added to their agenda.

  One week had become two, two became three, and three became four; a month on the road, and still Dr Christian went from strength to strength, apparently capable, thought Dr Carriol with tired horror, of going on forever. Once they had quit Atlanta the 'on the road' nature of a publicity tour made itself felt, for every night (and sometimes during the day as well, when they were scheduled to visit several smaller communities in one day) the helicopter picked them up and whizzed them to a new town, they slept all too briefly in their strange beds, then by eight in the morning at the latest they would commence the new day's round of engagements, continuing from one engagement to another without let until helicopter time arrived again.

  Outside of the major cities most of Dr Christian's engagements fell into the lecture category, and these functions he relished enormously. He would give a fifteen-minute set speech, never the same, and follow it up by at least an hour of question-and-answer time. His appetite for people awed Dr Carriol, who had never seen this side of him, any more than perhaps anyone else ever had. Not content with the personal exposure he invited through his question-and-answer periods, he refused to hold himself aloof from the crowds who flocked to hear him, even on one memorable occasion sharply rebuking a concerned local official who attempted to give him a brief respite by ordering the crowds away. Unafraid for his person, undaunted by his reception, he would arrive at a lecture venue and at once dive into the mass of waiting people, talking away, questioning, having a ball Only how could the man be having a ball? Absolutely fed up with being civil to hosts of strangers and dredging up the appropriate small talk, longing for peace and quiet and time on her own, Dr Carriol could not understand how her charge managed to sustain his mood of what looked very much like real euphoria. Anybody's people-palate ought to be cloyed! But apparently Dr Joshua Christian was a bottomless pit when it came to people.

  Of course not all of his public appearances went well, or even smoothly; Dr Christian refused to prepare his speeches, insisting that if they were not spontaneously extemporaneous, he would lose his effect on audiences. But that led to a certain amount of unevenness, compounded by the fact that he was not consistently logical, nor always able to resist the wild emotions which had a tendency to come roaring up out of his buried deeps. Luckily television and radio sobered him a little; he did at least stick to the subject and answer the questions properly. Be grateful, said Dr Carriol to herself, for small mercies. And only let me continue to find the strength to trail around this huge country in his wake!

  While Dr Christian continued his ever-extending and ever more triumphant tour of the United States, his publisher was trying to decide when (or if) Dr Christian might be free to tour South America and the Eurocommune. In both continents God in Cursing was selling enormously well, despite the loss inevitable in translation, and the ideological differences. The Russians rumbled a little at first, then wisely piped down while they debated how much editing God in Cursing was going to need before it could be circulated through the many Soviet states; glaciation was worst in this biggest, most landlocked and northerly of the world's major powers, and a concept of God which could be allowed to exist side by side with Marxist philosophy was not to be sneezed at.

  The Christian family of course had been following their Joshua's progress with minute attention to its national import, and huge attention to Joshua himself. His brothers did at first manfully strive to keep some degree of detachment, but after a week succumbed to the mood of joy and pride which the Christian women exuded from every pore.

  'He's wonderful!' cried the Mouse after watching 'Tonight with Bob Smith'.

  'Of course he is,' said Mama complacently.

  'He's wonderful!' cried the Mouse after watching Benjamin Steinfeld's 'Sunday Forum'.

  'I always knew he was,' said Mama complacently.

  Only Mary kept her own counsel. The pain in her was not easily classified enough to be called simple jealousy; to herself, she thought she suffered because somehow it was always Joshua who made it impossible for her to be happy. But when as the secretary she opened the Atticus cylinder containing Joshua's poster, down which was stuffed the T-shirt — ah, that was the last straw! She hid emotions, poster and T-shirt until after dinner that night, when she threw them onto the coffee table without a word and sat back to watch, trembling.

&nb
sp; To do the family justice, no one was quite pleased, even Mama. Andrew's distaste showed clearly, as did James's bewilderment.

  'I suppose it was inevitable,' Andrew said after a long moment. He shrugged. 'I wonder what Joshua thinks?'

  'Knowing Joshua,' said Miriam, 'he hasn't even noticed. Everyone around him could be wearing one of those T-shirts, and he still wouldn't notice. He never does notice much to do with himself — he wears highly selective blinkers, you know, and they blot out anything to do with himself.'

  'You're quite right,' said James. 'Poor Joshua!'

  'It is a compliment,' said Mama feebly.

  But it was Martha's face tipped Mary's precarious balance; the poor Mouse sat burning to take the poster for her own, yet didn't have the courage to do so.

  'It's disgusting!' Mary hissed, leaping to her feet. 'Oh, you fools, you idiots! They're using him! They don't care about him, all they care about is what they can milk out of him, and you're right, Mirry, he's blind! He's a donkey that will pull their cart as long as they dangle the carrot! Can't you see how they're using him? All of us? And when they're finished—' she pushed impatiently at her tears '—they'll just kick him to one side. It's disgusting!' She turned to Martha, shrinking away in terror. 'Grow up, damn you! Grow up! Does he love you? Does he love any of us except Mama? No, he doesn't! Why don't you love someone who loves you back? Oh, why don't you?'

  She made a grab at the poster to tear it up, but Martha was too quick for her. The poster was removed from the table, rolled up, and passed reverently to Mama.

  'Go to bed, Mary,' said Andrew tiredly.

  She stood a moment longer looking down at all of them, then she turned and left, not running; she would not give them that satisfaction,

  'Oh, why is she such a difficult girl?' asked Mama, distressed but helpless, for she didn't honestly know what was the matter with Mary, nor therefore what to do about it.