Anthony Burgess: The Clockwork Testament (Or: Enderby 's End)

"No, no, you have the wrong show there, professor." The title now seemed pretentious, also absurd, as when someone in a film is addressed as professor. "What you mean is the Cannon Dickson Show. That's mostly show-business personalities. The Sperr Lansing Show is, well, different."

"I didn't really mean to insist, ha ha," Enderby said, "on the title of professor. Fancy dress, you know. A lot of nonsense really. And I really must apologise for-" He was going to say for being naked: it was all this damned visual stuff. "For my innocence. I mean my ignorance."

"I guess I ought to introduce myself, as we've already been talking for such a long time. I'm Midge Tauchnitz."

"Enderby," Enderby said. "Sorry, that was-So, eh? 'The strong spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame.' I suppose that's where he got it from."

"Pardon me?"

"Anyway, thank you for calling."

"No, it doesn't go out live. Nothing these days goes out live."

"I promise to watch it at the earliest opportunity. Thank you very much for suggesting-"

"No, no, we want you to appear on it. We record at seven, so you'd have to be here about six."

"Why?" Enderby said in honest surprise. "For God's sake why?"

"Oh, make-up and so on. It's on West 46th Street, between Fifth and-"

"No, no, no. Why me?"

"Pardon me?"

"Me."

"Oh." The voice became teasing and girlish. "Oh, come now, professor, that's playing it too cool. It's the movie. The Deutschland ."

"Ah. But I only wrote the-I mean, it was only my idea. That's what it says, anyway. Why don't you ask one of the others, the ones who really made it?"

"Well," she said candidly. "We tried to get hold of Bob Ponte, the script writer, but he's in Honolulu writing a script, and Mr. Schaumwein is in Rome, and Millennium suggested we get on to you. So I phoned the university and they gave us your-"

"Hopkins," Enderby said, in gloomy play. "Did you try Hopkins?"

"No luck there either. Nobody knows where he is."

"In the eschatological sense, I should think it's pretty certain that-"

"Pardon me?"

"But in the other it's no wonder. 1844 to 89," he twinkled.

"Oh, I'll write that down. But it doesn't sound like a New York number-"

"No no no no no. A little joke. He's dead, you see."

"Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't know. But you're okay? I mean, you'll be there?"

"If you really want me. But I still don't see-"

"You don't? You don't read the newspapers?"

"Never. And again never. A load of frivolity and lies. They've been attacking it, have they?"

"No. Some boys have been attacking some nuns. In Manhattanville. I'm shocked you didn't know. I assumed-"

"Nuns are always being attacked. Their purity is an affront to the dirty world."

"Remember that. Remember to say that. But the point is that they said they wouldn't have done it if they hadn't seen the movie. That's why we're-"

"I see. I see. Always blame art, eh? Not original sin but art. I'll have my say, never fear."

"You have the address?"

"Ybu ignore art as so much unnecessary garbage or you blame it for your own crimes. That's the way of it. I'll get the bastards, all of them. I'm not having this sort of nonsense, do you hear?" There was silence at the other end. "You never take art for what it is-beauty, ultimate meaning, form for its own sake, self-subsisting, oh no. It's always got to be either sneered at or attacked as evil. I'll have my bloody say. What's the name of the show again?" But she had rung off, silly bitch.

Enderby went snorting back to his poem. The stupid bastards.

But wherever he went in Rome, it was always the same-

Sin sin sin, no sanctity, the whole unholy

Grammar of sin, syntax, accidence, sin's

Entire lexicon set before him, sin.

Peacocks in the streets, gold dribbled over

In dark rooms, vomiting after

Banquets of ostrich bowels stuffed with saffron,

Minced pikeflesh and pounded larkbrain,

Served with a sauce headily fetid, and pocula

Of wine mixed with adder's blood to promote

Lust lust and again.

Pederasty, podorasty, sodomy, bestiality,

Degrees of family ripped apart like

Bodices in the unholy dance. And he said,

And Morgan said, whom the scholarly called Pelagius:

Why do ye this, my brothers and sisters?

Are ye not saved by Christ, are ye not

Sanctified by his sacrifice, oh why why why?

(Being British and innocent) and

What was the name of that show again? Art blamed as always. Art was neutral, neither teaching nor provoking, a static shimmer, he would tell the bastards. What was it again? And then he thought about this present poem (a draft of course, very much a draft) and wondered: is it perhaps not didactic? But how about TheWreck of the Deutschland? Hopkins was always having a go at the English, and the Welsh too, for not rushing to be converted back (the marvellous milk was Walsingham Way, once) to Catholicism. But somehow Hopkins was of the devil's party without knowing it (better remember not to say that on this Live Lancing Show, that was the name, something like it anyway, people were stupid, picked you up literally on that sort of thing): it was a kind of paganism with him-lush-kept plush-capped sloe, indeed-with God tacked on. The our-King-back-oh-upon-English-souls stuff was merely structural, something to bring the poem to an end. But how about this?

No, he decided. He was not preaching. Who the hell was he to preach? Out of the Church at sixteen, never been to mass in forty years. This was merely an imaginative inquiry into free will and predestination. Somewhat comforted, he read on, scratching, the White Owl, self-doused, relighted, hooting out foul smoke.

They said to him cheerfully, looking up

From picking a peahen bone or kissing the

Nipple or nates of son, daughter, sister,

Brother, aunt, ewe, teg: Why, stranger,

Hast not heard the good news? That Christ

Took away the burden of our sins on his

Back broad to bear, and as we are saved

Through him it matters little what we do?

Since we are saved once for all, our being

Saved will not be impaired or cancelled by

Our present pleasures (which we propose to

Renew tomorrow after a suitable and well-needed

Rest). Alleluia alleluia to the Lord for he has

Led us to two paradises, one to come and the other

Here and now. Alleluia. And they fell to again,

To nipple or nates or fish baked with datemince,

Alleluia. And Morgan cried to the sky:

How long O Lord wilt thou permit these

Transgressions against thy holiness?

Strike them strike them as thou once didst

The salty cities of the plain, as through

Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron

Thou didst strike down the traitor Zimri

And his foul whore of the Moabite temples Cozbi.

Strike strike. But the Lord did nothing.

Here came the difficulties. This whole business of free will and predestination and original sin had to be done very dramatically. And yet there had to be a bit of sermonising. How the hell? Enderby, who was not at present wearing his spectacles (ridiculous when one was otherwise naked, anyway he only needed them for distance really), gazing vaguely about the bedroom for an answer found none forthcoming. The bookshelves of his landlady sternly turned the backs, spines rather, of their contents towards him: not our business, we are concerned with the real issues of life, meaning women downtrodden by men, the economic oppression of the blacks, counter-culture, coming revolt, Reich, Fanon, third world. Then Enderby, squinting, could hardly believe what he saw. At the bedroom door a woman, girl, female anyway. Covering his genitals with his poem he said: