Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

"Okay. So what are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," said Brent Withers. "That's what I'm trying to tell you."

I massaged my forehead with one hand. "Let me start again. Why was Casey Diggs expelled, do you think?"

"Boy, that's a good question. It's kind of hard to explain, isn't it? Seeing those other people weren't expelled or fired. Why was he?"

I laughed. He didn't. Now I found myself doing what he did-not the blinking and insectile arm-waving stuff, but raising my eyes to the ceiling and carefully constructing a sentence before I spoke. "Okay," I said finally. "Explain to me how someone like Casey might possibly get expelled from a university like this one."

"Theoretically? Well," said Withers very slowly. "Theoretically, let's stipulate, for argument's sake, that there are a lot of powerful people at a university like this who believe things that aren't, strictly speaking, true."

"Leftists, you mean."

"Let's just call them people. Powerful people."

"All right."

"These powerful people believe things like: One culture is as good as another. Or, there's no such thing as good and evil. Therefore, if America is at odds or at war with someone, it must be America's fault. You only have to think about those statements for two minutes to see that they can't possibly be true. But these people think they should be true and they think they'll seem to be true if no one is allowed to say that they're not true. So they attack anyone who says that they're not true. They call him names. Racist, sexist, phobic, offensive, whatever. They demand apologies from him. They make his life a misery, so no one wants to speak up."

"So it's like the emperor's new clothes."

"Right. Except instead of clothes, it's all the emperor's lies. And in an Empire of Lies, only a crazy man would speak the truth."

"Okay."

"And crazy people do crazy things, right? They do stupid things and wrong things. We all do, but crazy people do especially."

"I think I see what you're saying."

"I'm not saying anything."

"Well, I see what you're not saying, then. I know what you mean. You mean they don't destroy someone for saying that their false ideas are false-"

"Right. They destroy him for doing something crazy. But you have to be crazy to tell them their ideas are false, because if you do, they'll find a way to destroy you."

"And you're saying that's what happened to Casey Diggs."

"No."

"You're not."

"No."

"But you mean Casey Diggs… Wait a minute. I'm really confused."

Withers sat on the edge of the unmade bed with his long arms still now, his big hands clasped between his legs. He blinked and swayed like a drunken man, but thinking, considering. Then he said, "What happened to Casey is that, purely by accident at first, he made it seem as if anti-American, relativisitic, multiculturalists like Arthur Rashid are not only wrong, but have also created a breeding ground on campus for hate-filled, violent, terrorist-sympathizing, anti-Semitic Islamic radicals. Casey was warned not to do that anymore, but he was crazy enough to keep doing it. And when finally he got so crazy he took his accusations too far, he was expelled."

"Ah, yes, but that's my question right there: Did he take his accusations too far? Were his accusations untrue?"

This time, the shrug, the blink-they seemed to last for half an hour. "The police obviously think so. I mean, the FBI says Casey is wrong. The FBI wouldn't cover up a terrorist plot, would they?"

"No, of course not."

"Right."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything."

The conversation was beginning to make my head hurt. "Kid. Listen. I can't read minds. Give me something here."

He thought about it. He blinked slowly. He waved one arm. "Why don't you go see for yourself? Arthur Rashid lectures twice a week. He lectures today. Eleven a.m. Godwin Hall."

Andrew Klavan

Empire of Lies

Auditing Rashid

Godwin Hall was an elegant old theater, a Roman temple of a place. Under yellowing plane trees and scarlet maples, its stone stairs rose majestically to four fluted columns before a solemn brick facade. The columns shouldered a pediment and the pediment sheltered a carved relief rising and falling in its triangular frieze: Art and Philosophy Bearing Fruit to the Spirit of Freedom. All right, I'm guessing, but it was some sort of allegory like that. I squinted up at it through the late-morning sunshine as I approached. Then I lowered my eyes to the scene below: masses and masses of shaggy-haired students in torn jeans and sweatshirts pressing up the stairs under the weight of their backpacks, shuffling out of the sunlight, into the shadows of the colonnade. Ignorance Bearing Credulity to Nonsense. All right, I'm guessing.

I jostled into the throng, and was soon being carried along in the sludgy tide, up the stairs and under the columns and through a pair of anachronistic glass doors. We moved on in a crush across a small foyer, through another set of doors. Then we were in the hall itself.

The size of it startled me. It was a semicircular vastness, rows on rows on rows of seats descending toward a stage far below. I'm not much good at estimating these things, but there must've been close to three hundred students already there when I arrived. Maybe a hundred and fifty more were still pouring in.

I grabbed a spot near the back and watched as the rest of the seats filled up quickly. A shuffling silence followed: the snap of binders, muted conversation, sudden bursts of laughter.

Then there he was.

In memory, I can make him out clearly, but at the time, he was so far away, his face was something of a blur. I think my mind may have supplied the details from the pictures I'd seen on television the night before: the pleasing combination of dark, Middle Eastern skin on the handsome, chiseled features of an English gentleman. In any case, even at that distance, he was a powerful presence.

He was an impressive performer, too. He had a dynamic stride that carried him swiftly to the lectern. He had a bright smile that flashed out and beamed to a startling distance like the beacon of a lighthouse. Also, he had a great suit. I remember thinking that: Great suit! It was formal, tailored, gray black, set off by a port red tie that projected power and confidence, yea, like his smile, even unto the back rows.

He brought no notes with him, no books. He stood at the lectern only long enough to fasten a microphone to his lapel. "Good morning," he murmured meanwhile in a personable tone, glancing down sweetly at the students in the front row right beneath him. Then he was off, strolling about the stage, down to one end, back to the other, ambling around the center, gesturing to us in a friendly, informal manner all the while. He spoke in the quiet, confidential tone of a gentleman sharing insights, wing chair to wing chair at his private club. His accent was like his face: elegant, English, and precise with only enough hint of the Levantine in it to lend it an exotic charm.

I sat back and listened to him-and what followed was one of the strangest experiences of my life.

It's difficult to describe what happened or why. Something about the man or the setting or the lecture itself must've set it off, but I'm not sure what. It was a charged atmosphere, certainly. The charismatic professor reeling off his ideas. The hundreds of rapt young faces either turned up to him with openmouthed wonder or pressed down close to their notebooks while they scribbled feverishly as if to transcribe every word. It was an atmosphere almost of reverence, almost of awe. And yet, I don't think that's what caused my bizarre reaction. I still can't entirely explain it.

The lecture was about the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare.