Gore Vidal - Messiah

"The world must have changed indeed," I said at last. "It was a Moslem law that no foreign missionaries be allowed in the Arab League."

"Pressure!" Butler looked very pleased. "Nothing obvious of course; had to be done though."

"For economic reasons?"

"No, for Cavesword. That's what we're selling because that's the one thing we've got." And he blinked seriously at the remnant of scarlet sun; his voice had grown husky, like a man selling some commodity on television in the old days. Yet the note of sincerity, whether simulated or genuine, was unmistakably resolute.

"You may have a difficult time," I said, not wanting to go on with this conversation but unable to direct it short of walking away. "The Moslems are very stubborn in their faith."

Butler laughed confidently. "We'll change all that. It may not be easy at first because we've got to go slow, feel our way, but once we know the lay of the land, you might say, we'll be able to produce some big backing, some real backing."

His meaning was unmistakable. Already I could imagine those Squads of the Word in action throughout this last terrestrial refuge. Long ago they had begun as eager instruction teams; after the first victories, however, they had become adept at demoralization, at brain-washing and auto-hypnosis, using all the psychological weapons which our race in its ingenuity had fashioned in the mid-century, becoming so perfect with the passage of time that imprisonment or execution for unorthodoxy was no longer necessary: even the most recalcitrant, the most virtuous man, could be reduced to a sincere and useful orthodoxy, no different in quality from his former antagonists, his moment of rebellion forgotten, his reason anchored securely at last in the general truth. I was also quite confident that their methods had improved even since my enlightened time.

"I hope you'll be able to save these poor people," I said, detesting myself for this hypocrisy.

"Not a doubt in the world," he clapped his hands. "They don't know what happiness we'll bring them." Difficult as it was to accept such hyperbole, I believed in his sincerity: he is one of those zealots without whose offices no large work in the world can be successfully propagated. I did not feel more than a passing pity for the Moslems: they were doomed but their fate would not unduly distress them for my companion was perfectly right when he spoke of the happiness which would be theirs: a blithe mindlessness which would in no way affect their usefulness as citizens. We had long since determined that for the mass this was the only humane way of ridding them of superstition in the interest of Cavesword and the better life.

"It's strange, though, that they should let you in," I said, quite aware that he might be my assassin after all, permitted by the Egyptian government to destroy me and, with me, the last true memory of the mission. I had not completely got over my first impression that Butler was an accomplished actor, sounding me out before the final victory of the Cavites, the necessary death and total obliteration of the person and the memory of Eugene Luther, now grown old with a false name in a burning land.

If he was an actor, he was a master. He thumped on interminably about America, John Cave and the necessity of spreading his word throughout the world. I listened patiently as the sun went abruptly behind the hills and all the stars appeared in the moonless waste of sky. Fires appeared in the hovels on the far shore of the Nile, yellow points of light like fireflies hovering by that other river which I shall never see again.

"Must be nearly suppertime."

"Not quite," I said, relieved that Butler's face was now invisible. I was not used to great red faces after my years in Luxor among the lean, the delicate and the dark. Now only his voice was a dissonance in the evening.

"Hope the food's edible."

"It isn't bad, though it may take some getting used to."

"Well, I've a strong stomach. Guess that's why they chose me for this job."

This job? could it mean…? but I refused to let myself be panicked. I have lived too long with terror to be much moved now; especially since my life of its own generation has brought me to dissolution's edge. "Are there many of you?" I asked politely. The day was ending and I was growing weary, all senses blunted and some confused. "Many Communicators?"

"Quite a few," said Butler. "They've been training us for the last year in Canada for the big job of opening up Pan-Arabia. Of course we've known for years that it was just a matter of time before the government got us in here."

"Then you've been thoroughly grounded in the Arab culture? and disposition?"

"Oh, sure. May have to come to you every now and then, though, if you don't mind." He chuckled to show that his patronage would be genial.

"I should be honored to assist."

"We anticipate trouble at first. We have to go slow. Pretend we're just available for instruction while we get to know the local big shots. Then, when the time comes…" He left the ominous sentence unfinished. I could imagine the rest, however. Fortunately, nature by then, with or without Mr. Butler's assistance, would have removed me as a witness. Inside the hotel the noise of plates being moved provided a familiar reference. I was conscious of being hungry: as the body's mechanism jolts to a halt, it wants more fuel than it ever did at its optimum. I wanted to go in but before I could gracefully extricate myself Butler asked me a question. "You the only American in these parts?"

I said that I was.

"Funny nothing was said about there being any American up here. I guess they didn't know you were here."

"Perhaps they were counting me among the American colony at Cairo," I said smoothly. "I suppose, officially, I am a resident of that city. I was on the Advisory Board of the Museum." This was not remotely true but since, to my knowledge, there is no Advisory Board it would be difficult for anyone to establish my absence from it.

"That must be it." Butler seemed easily satisfied, perhaps too easily. "Certainly makes things a lot easier for us, having somebody like you up here, another Cavite, who knows the lingo."

"I'll help in any way I can; though I'm afraid I have passed the age of usefulness. Like the British king, I can only advise."

"Well, that's enough. I'm the active one anyway. My partner takes care of the other things."

"Partner? I thought you were alone."

"No. I'm to get my heels in first; then my colleague comes on in a few weeks. That's standard procedure. He's a psychologist and an authority on Cavesword. We all are, of course-authorities, that is-but he's gone into the early history and so on a little more thoroughly than us field men usually do."

So there was to be another one, a cleverer one. I found myself both dreading and looking forward to the arrival of this dangerous person: it would be interesting to communicate with a good mind again, or at least an instructed one: though Butler has not given me much confidence in the new Cavite Communicators. Nevertheless, I am intensely curious about the Western world since my flight from it. I have been effectively cut off from any real communion with the West for two decades. Rumors, stray bits of information sometimes penetrate as far as Luxor but I can make little sense of them, for the Cavites are, as I well know, not given to candor while the Egyptian newspapers exist in a fantasy world of Pan-Arabic dominion. There was so much I wished to know that I hesitated to ask Butler, not for fear of giving myself away but because I felt that any serious conversation with him would be pointless: I rather doubted if he knew what he was supposed to know, much less all the details which I wished to know and which even a moderately intelligent man, if not hopelessly zealous, might be able to supply me with. I had a sudden idea. "You don't happen to have a recent edition of the Testament, do you? Mine's quite old and out of date."