Part 7

“It no doubt reminds you of the period shortly after Mohammed married Khadija.” My own malice, however, could not pierce Clarissa’s mad equanimity.

“Vile man, sweet woman. But no, this is all going to be different although the intellectual climate (I think _intellectual_ is perhaps optimistic but you know what I mean) is quite similar. I can’t wait for the first public response.”

“There’s already been some,” said Hastings, crossing his legs which were encased in pale multicolor slacks with rawhide sandals on his feet. “There was a piece yesterday in the _News_ about the meetings they’ve been having up near Laguna or wherever it is he’s been speaking this time.”

“What did they say?” Clarissa scattered tiny saccharine tablets into her coffee like a grain goddess preparing harvest.

“Oh, just one of those short suburban notes about how a Mr Joseph Cave, they got the name wrong, was giving a series of lectures at a funeral parlor which have been surprisingly well attended.”

“They didn’t mention what the lectures were about?”

“No, just a comment: the first one so far in Los Angeles.”

“There’ll be others soon but I shouldn’t think it’s such a good idea to have too many items like that before things are really under way.”

“And the gentleman who is coming here will be responsible for getting them under way?” I asked.

“Pretty much, yes. It’s been decided that the practical details are to be left to him. Cave will continue to speak in and around Los Angeles until the way has been prepared. Then, when the publicity begins, he will be booked all over the country, all over the world!” Clarissa rocked silently for a moment in her chair, creating a disagreeable effect of noiseless laughter which disconcerted both Hastings and me.

“I don’t like your attitude,” said Hastings, looking at her gloomily. “You aren’t _serious_.”

“Oh I am, my darling, I am. You’ll never know how serious.” And on that high note of Clarissa’s, Paul Himmell stepped out onto the patio, blinking in the light of noon.

He was a slender man in his fortieth and most successful year, with hair only just begun to gray and a lined but firmly modeled face, bright with ambition. The initial impression was one of neatly contained energy, of a passionate temperament beautifully, usefully channeled. The twist to his bow tie was the work of a master craftsman.

The handshake was agreeable; the smile was quick and engaging; the effect on me was alarming: I had detested this sort of man all my life and here at last, wearing a repellently distinguished sports coat was the archetype of all such creatures, loading with a steady hand that cigarette holder without which he might at least have seemed to me still human. He was identified by Hastings who, with a few excited snorts and gasps, told me beneath the conversation that this was the most successful young publicist in Hollywood, which meant the world.

“I’m happy to meet you, Gene,” he said as soon as Hastings had introduced us. He was perfectly aware that he had been identified while the first greetings with Clarissa had been exchanged: he had the common gift of the busy worldling of being able to attend two conversations simultaneously, profiting from both. I hate of course being called by my first name by strangers but in his world there were of course no strangers: the freemasonry of self-interest made all men equal in their desperation. He treated me like a buddy. He knew (he was, after all, clever) that I detested him on sight and on principle and that presented him with a challenge to which he rose with confidence ... and continued to rise through the years, despite the enduring nature of my disaffection. But then to be liked was his business and I suspect that his attentions had less to do with me, with a sense of failure in himself for not having won me, than with a kind of automatic charm, a response to a situation which was produced quite inhumanly, mechanically: the smile, the warm voice, the delicate flattery ... or not so delicate, depending on the case.

“Iris and Cave both told me about you and I’m particularly glad to get a chance to meet you ... to see you too, Clarissa ... will you be long in the East?” Conscious perhaps that I would need more work than a perfunctory prelude, he shifted his attention to Clarissa, saving me for later.

“I never have plans, Paul, but I’ve got one or two chores I’ve got to do. Anyway I’ve decided that Eugene is just the one to give the enterprise its tone ... a quality concerning which you, dear Paul, so often have so much to say.”

“Why yes,” said the publicist genially, obviously not understanding. “Always use more tone. You’re quite right.”

Clarissa’s eyes met mine for a brief amused instant. She was on to everything ... doubtless on to me too in that way one can never be about oneself; I always felt at a disadvantage with her.

“What we’re going to need for the big New York opening is a firm historical and intellectual base. Cave hasn’t got it and of course doesn’t need it. We are going to need commentary and explanation and though you happen to be a genius in publicity you must admit that that group which has been characterized as intellectual, the literate few who, in their weakness, often exert enormous influence, are not apt to be much moved by your publicity: in fact, they will be put off by it.”

“Well, now I’m not so sure my methods are _that_ crude. Of course I never....”

“They are superbly, triumphantly, providentially crude and you know it. Eugene must lend dignity to the enterprise. He has a solemn and highly respectable misunderstanding of philosophy which will appeal to his fellow intellectuals. He and they are quite alike: liberal, ineffectual, scrupulous, unsuperstitious, irresolute and lonely. When he addresses them they will get immediately his range, you might say, pick up his frequency, realizing he is one of them, a man to be trusted. Once they are reached the game is over, or begun.” Clarissa paused and looked at me expectantly, the exuberant malice veiled by excitement.

I didn’t answer immediately. Hastings, as a former writer, felt that he too had been addressed and he worried the subject of “tone” while Paul gravely added a comment or two. Clarissa watched me, however, conscious perhaps of the wound she had dealt.

Was it all really so simple? was _I_ so simple? so typical? Vanity said not, but self-doubt, the shadow which darkens even those triumphs held at noon, prevailed for a sick moment or two: I was no different from the others, from the little pedagogues and analysts, the self-obsessed and spiritless company who endured shame and a sense of alienation without even that conviction of virtue which can dispel guilt and apathy for the simple, for all those who have accepted without question one of the systems of absolutes which it has amused both mystics and tyrants to construct for man’s guidance.

I had less baggage to rid myself of than the others: I was confident of that. Neither Christianity nor Marxism nor the ugly certainties of the mental therapists had ever engaged my loyalty or suspended my judgment. I had looked at them all, deploring their admirers and servants, interested though by their separate views of society and of the potentialities of a heaven on earth (the medieval conception of a world beyond life was always interesting to contemplate even if the evidence in its favor was whimsical at best ... conceived either as a system of rewards and punishments to control living man or else as lovely visions of what might be were man indeed consubstantial with a creation which so often resembled the personal aspirations of gifted divines rather more closely than that universe the rest of us can only observe with mortal eyes). No, I had had to dispose of relatively little baggage and, I like to think, less than my more thoughtful contemporaries who were forever analyzing themselves, offering their psyches to doctors for analysis or, worse, giving their immortal souls into the hands of priests who would then assume much of their _weltschmerz_, providing them with a set of grown-up games every bit as appealing as the ones of childhood which had involved make-believe or, finally, worst of all, the soft acceptance of the idea of man the mass, of man the citizen, of society the organic whole for whose greater good all individuality must be surrendered.

My sense then of all that I had _not_ been, negative as it was, saved my self-esteem: I was, in this, unlike my contemporaries. I had, in youth, lost all respect for the authority of men and since there is no other discernible (the “laws” of nature are only relative and one cannot say for certain that there is a beautiful logic to everything in the universe as long as first principles remain unrevealed ... except of course to the religious who know everything, having faith), I was unencumbered by belief, by reverence for any man or groups of men, living or dead, though their wit and genius often made my days bearable since my capacity for admiration, for aesthetic response was, I think, highly developed even though with Terence I did not know, did not _need_ to know through what wild centuries roves the rose.

Yet Clarissa’s including me among the little Hamlets was irritating, and when I joined in the discussion again I was careful to give her no satisfaction; it would have been a partial victory for her if I had denied my generic similarity to my own contemporaries.

Paul spoke of practical matters, explaining to us the way he intended to operate in the coming months; and I was given a glimpse of the organization which had spontaneously come into being only a few weeks before.

“Hope we can have lunch tomorrow, Gene. I’ll give you a better picture then, the overall picture: and your part in it. Briefly, for now, the organization has been set up as a company under California law with Cave as president and myself, Iris and Clarissa as directors. I’m also secretary-treasurer but only for now. We’re going to need a first-rate financial man to head our campaign fund and I’m working on several possibilities right now.”

“What’s the ... company called?” I asked.

“Cavites, Inc. We didn’t want to call it anything but that’s the law here and since we intended to raise money we had to have a legal setup.”

“Got a nice sound, ah, Cavite,” said Hastings, nodding.

“What on earth should we have done if he’d had _your_ name, Paul?” exclaimed Clarissa, to the indignation of both Hastings and Paul. They shut her up quickly.

Paul went on in his smooth deep voice, “I’ve had a lot of experience, of course, but this is something completely new for me, a real challenge and one which I’m glad to meet head-on.”

“How did you get into it?” I asked.

Paul pointed dramatically to Hastings. “Him! He took me to a meeting in Laguna last year. I was sold the first time. _I got the message._”

There was a hush as we were allowed to contemplate this awesome information. Then, smiling in a fashion which he doubtless would have called “wry,” the publicist continued: “I knew this was it. I contacted Cave immediately and found we talked the same language. He was all for the idea and so we incorporated. He said he wasn’t interested in the organizational end and left that to us with Iris sort of representing him, though of course we all do since we’re all Cavites. This thing is big and we’re part of it.” He almost smacked his lips. I listened, fascinated. “Anyway he’s going to do the preaching part and we’re going to handle the sales end, if you get what I mean. We’re selling something which nobody else ever sold before and you know what that is?” He paused dramatically and we stared at him, a little stupidly. “Truth!” His voice was triumphant. “We’re selling the truth about life and that’s something that nobody, but nobody, has got.”

Clarissa broke the silence which had absorbed his last words. “You’re simply out of this world, Paul! If I hadn’t heard you, I’d never have believed it. But you don’t have to sell _us_, dear; we’re in on it too. Besides, I have to catch a plane.” She looked at her watch. She stood up and we did too. She thanked Hastings for lunch and then, before she left the patio on his arm, she said: “Now you boys get on together and remember what I’ve told you. Gene must be used, and right away. Get him to write something dignified, for a magazine.” We murmured assent. Clarissa said good-by and left the patio with Hastings. Her voice, shrill and hard, could be heard even after she left. “The truth about life! Oh, it’s going to be priceless!”

I looked quickly at Paul to see if he had heard but, if he had, he didn’t betray the fact. He was looking at me intently, speculatively. “I think we’re going to get along fine, Gene, just fine.” Leaving me only a fumbled word or two of polite corroboration with which to express my sincere antipathy; then we went our separate ways.

3

I met Paul the next day at his office for a drink and not for lunch since, at the last minute, his secretary called me to say he was tied up and could I possibly come at five. I said that I could. I did.

His offices occupied an entire floor of a small sky-scraper on the edge of Beverly Hills. I was shown through a series of rooms done in natural wood and beige with indirect lighting and the soft sound of Strauss waltzes piped in from all directions: the employees responded best to three-four time according to the current efficiency reports.

Beneath an expensive but standard mobile, Paul stood, waiting for me in his office. His desk, a tiny affair of white marble on slender iron legs had been rolled off to one side and the office gave, as had been intended, the impression of being a small drawing room rather than a place of intense business. I was greeted warmly. My hand was shaken firmly. My eyes were met squarely for the regulation-length of time. Then we sat down on a couch which was like the open furry mouth of some great soft beast and his secretary rolled a portable bar toward us.

“Name your poison,” said the publicist genially. We agreed on a cocktail which he mixed with the usual comments one expects from a regular fellow.

Lulled by the alcohol, by the room, disarmed by the familiar patter in which one made all the correct responses, our conversation as ritualistic as that of a French dinner party, I was not prepared for the abrupt: “You don’t like me, do you, Gene?”

Only once or twice before had anyone ever said this to me and each time that it happened I had vowed grimly that the _next_ time, no matter where or with whom, I should answer with perfect candor, with merciless accuracy: “No, I don’t.” But since I am neither quick nor courageous, I murmured a pale denial.

“It’s all right, Gene. I know how you probably feel.” And the monster was magnanimous; he treated me with pity. “We’ve got two different points of view. That’s all. I have to make my way in this rat-race and you don’t. You don’t have to do anything, so you can afford to patronize us poor hustlers.”

“Patronize isn’t quite the word.” I was beginning to recover from the first shock. A crushing phrase or two occurred to me but the publicist knew his business and he changed course before I could begin my work of demolition.

“Well, I just wanted you to know that there are no hard feelings. In my business you get used to this sort of thing: occupational hazard, you might say. I’ve had to fight my way every inch and I know that a lot of people are going to be jostled in the process, which is just too bad for them.” He smiled suddenly, drawing the sting. “But I have a hunch we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other so we ought to start on a perfectly plain basis of understanding. You’re on to me and I’m on to you.” The man was diabolic in the way he could enrage yet not allow his adversary sufficient grounds for even a perfunctory defense. He moved rapidly, with a show of spurious reason which quite dazzled me. His was what, presently, he called “the common-sense view.”

I told him I had no objection to working with him; that everything I had heard about him impressed me; that he was wrong to suspect me of disdaining methods whose efficacy was so well-known. I perjured myself for several impassioned minutes and, on a rising note of coziness, we passed on to the problem in hand, congenial enemies for all time: the first round clearly his.

“Clarissa got you into this?” He looked at me over his glass.

“More or less. Clarissa to Iris to Cave was the precise play.”

“She got me to Cave last summer, or rather to Hastings first. I was sold right off. I think I told you that yesterday. This guy’s got everything. Even aside from the message, he’s the most remarkable salesman I’ve ever seen and believe me when I tell you there isn’t _anything_ I don’t know about salesmen.”

I agreed that he was doubtless expert in these matters.

“I went to about a dozen of those early meetings and I could see he was having the same effect on everyone, even on Catholics, people like that. Of course I don’t know what happens when they get home but while they’re there they’re sold and that’s all that matters because, in the next year, we’re going to have him _there_, everywhere, and all the time.”

I told him I didn’t exactly follow this metaphysic flight.

“I mean we’re going to have him on television, on movie screens, in the papers, so that everybody can feel the effect of his personality, just like he was there in person. This prayer-meeting stuff he’s been doing is just a warming up. That’s all. That kind of thing is outmoded: can’t reach enough people even if you spoke at Madison Square every night for a year, but it’s good practice, and it’s got him started. Now the next move is a TV half-hour show once a week and when that gets started we’re in.”

“Who’s going to pay for all this?”

“We’ve got more money than you can shake a stick at.” He smiled briefly and refilled our glasses with a flourish. “I haven’t been resting on my laurels and neither has Clarissa. We’ve got three of the richest men in L.A. drooling at the mouth for an opportunity to come in with us. They’re sold; they’ve talked to him; they’ve heard him. That’s been enough.”

“Will you sell soap on television at the same time?”

“Come off it, Gene. _Cave_ is the product.”

“Then in what way will you, or his sponsors, profit from selling him?”

“In the first place what he says is the truth and it’s meant a lot to me and also to them, to the tycoons: they’re willing to do anything to put him across.”

“I should think that the possession of the truth and its attendant sense of virtue is in itself enough, easily spoiled by popularization,” I said with chilling pomp.

“Now that’s a mighty selfish attitude to take. Sure it makes me happy to know at last nothing matters a hell of a lot since I’m apt to die any time and that’s the end of yours truly; a nice quiet nothing, like sleeping pills after a busy day: all that’s swell but it means a lot more to me to see the truth belong to everybody and also, let’s face it, I’m ambitious. I like my work. I want to see this thing get big, and with me part of it. Life doesn’t mean a thing and death is the only reality, like he says, but while we’re living we’ve got to keep busy and get ahead and the best thing for me, I figured about six months ago, was to put Cave over on the public, which is just what I’m going to do. Anything wrong with that?”

Since right and wrong had not yet been reformulated and codified, I gave him the comfort he hardly needed. “I see what you mean. I suppose you’re right. Perhaps the motive is the same in every case, mine as well as yours: yet we’ve all experienced Cave and that should be enough.”

“No, we should all get behind it and push, bring it to the world.”

“That, of course, is where we’re different: not that I don’t intend to 'propagate the truth,’ rather I shall do it for something to do, knowing that nothing matters, not even _this_ knowledge matters.” In my unction, I had stumbled upon the first of a series of paradoxes which were to amuse and obsess our philosophers for a generation. Paul gave me no opportunity to elaborate, however; his was the practical way and I followed. We spoke of means and ends.

“Cave likes the idea of the half-hour show and as soon as we get all the wrinkles ironed out, buying good time, not just dead air, we’ll make the first big announcement, along around January, I think. Until then we’re trying to keep this out of the papers. Slow but sure; then fast and hard.”

“What sort of man is Cave?” I wanted very much to hear Paul’s reaction to him: this was the practical man, the unobsessed.

He was candid; he did not know. “How can you figure a guy like that out? At times he seems a little feeble-minded, this is between us by the way, and other times when he’s talking to people, giving with the message, there’s nothing like him.”

“What about his early life?”

“Nobody knows very much. I’ve had a detective agency prepare a dossier on him. Does that surprise you? Well, I’m going far out on a limb for him and so are our rich friends. We had to be sure we weren’t buying an ax-murderer or a bigamist or something.”

“Would that have made any difference to the message?”

“No, _I_ don’t think so but it sure would have made it impossible for us to sell him on a big scale.”

“And what did they find?”

“Not much. I’ll let you read it. Take it home with you. Confidential of course and, as an officer of the company, I must ask you not to use any of it without clearing first with me.”

I agreed and his secretary was sent for. The dossier was a thin bound manuscript.

“It’s a carbon but I want it back. You won’t find anything very striking but you ought to read it for the background. Never been married, no girl friends that anybody remembers ... no boy friends either (what a headache _that_ problem is in Hollywood, for a firm like ours). No police record. No tickets for double parking, even. A beautiful, beautiful record on which to build.”

“Perhaps a little negative.”

“That’s what we like. As for the guy’s character, his I.Q., your guess is as good as mine, probably better. When I’m with him alone, we talk about the campaign and he’s very relaxed, very sensible, businesslike: doesn’t preach or carry on. He seems to understand all the problems of our end. He’s cooperative.”

“Can you look him straight in the eye?”

Paul laughed. “Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it? No, I guess I don’t look at him very much. I’m glad you mentioned that because I’ve a hunch he’s a hypnotist of some kind though there’s no record of his ever having studied it. I think I’ll get a psychologist to take a look at him.”

“Do you think he’ll like that?”

“Oh, he’ll never know unless he’s a mind reader. Somebody to sort of observe him at work. I’ve already had him checked out physically.”

“You’re very thorough.”

“Have to be. He’s got a duodenal ulcer and there’s a danger of high blood pressure when he’s older; otherwise he’s in fine shape.”

“What do you want me to do first?”

He became serious. “A pamphlet. You might make a highbrow magazine article out of it for the _Readers’ Digest_ or something first. We’ll want a clear, simple statement of the Cavite philosophy.”

“Why don’t you get him to write it?”

“I’ve tried. He says he can’t write anything. In fact he even hates to have his sermons taken down by a recorder. God knows why. But, in a way, it’s all to the good because it means we can get all the talent we like to do the writing for us and that way, sooner or later, we can appeal to just about everybody.”

“Whom am I supposed to appeal to in this first pamphlet?”

“The ordinary person, but make it as foolproof as you can; leave plenty of doors open so you can get out fast in case we switch the party line along the way.”

I laughed. “You’re extraordinarily cynical.”