The old man looked up. A beautiful smile of delight. And Cain, authorised assassin, product of every religion and none, fell in front of him, bawling, grasped his hand and pressed it to his cheek.
The pope stretched forward, touched his shoulder. ‘I knew you’d come.’
Cain remained on the floor before him.
The pope blessed him. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I didn’t know if I’d see you again.’
‘But we’re here.’ A twinkling smile.
Cain grimaced, ‘Oh God,’ mopped his face with his handkerchief. ‘So how the hell are you?’
John smiled again in his disarming, timid way. ‘Not terribly ex cathedra today. I have a cold. The legs are bad.’ He had phlebitis. ‘And the Hound of Heaven kept me awake all night.’
He laughed. The old man knew when to keep it light.
‘And — I’ve been waiting for you.’
That started him bawling again.
The pope patted his shoulder. ‘What you must have gone through.’
Cain pulled himself together. ‘Your English has improved.’ The priest’s painful English — learned from a Linguaphone course — was much better.
‘But my French has gone and my German and Spanish are rusty. My Latin still remains. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’
He wiped his eyes again. ‘What’s the book?’
‘Something that speaks to me very much — To Live Within. Have you read it?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve ordered several copies for the others. Such depth. So clear.’ He licked his finger, turned the pages for a moment. ‘Ah yes. Here. “Awareness is freedom to see without entering into anything… this awareness is called in the Upanishads ‘knowing without content’.”’
Cain nodded slowly.
‘There are marvellous things here. I’ve marked many of them. Like this: “I am that I am!” It comes to that formula for which the Christ was crucified, the Sufi murdered. Only Buddha escaped that destiny, though he had many antagonists in his lifetime and still has.’ He passed the book across. ‘I want you to read this. To ponder it, absorb it. So,’ he smiled, ‘let me look at you. How have you been?’
He took the book with care. ‘The “being” is the hard bit.’
John nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Because it needs energy. But life bleeds us. Every thought, emotion, tension is a wound.’
‘And I’ve had to kill more people.’
‘Like Arjuna — without rancour?’
‘At times there was anger — at what they’d done. As for Krishna and Arjuna…’ He remembered the extraordinary passage at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita. ‘Isn’t it a metaphor for overcoming reactions?’
‘Each reaction claiming to be “I”. Yes. I’m glad you came to that. Of course, there will be several meanings. No scripture should be taken literally.’
‘Can I quote you?’
‘No. Or some fool will turn it into scripture.’
Cain laughed.
‘But to stay with the field of Kurukshetra.’ The pope, for all his meekness, was a persistent and methodical man. ‘Everything we do has consequences. But we make the mistake of believing our acts are consequential. I don’t know if you see the distinction?’
A Department D cadet had approached them and was now standing a short distance away, waiting to be addressed — too in awe to venture further forward.
Cain turned to him. ‘Yes?’
‘The CO’s back on base, sir, requires you on G4, sir. She said only when you’re through, sir.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
The youth backed away, as if from royalty.
Cain smiled, remembering how he’d venerated the great ones as a trainee. No wonder the lad was gobsmacked. He’d remember this all his life. The great Grade Four, cheeks wet, kneeling at the feet of the pope.
He turned back to his friend. ‘Pat tells me you have morning sessions here.’
‘Yes. The people are simple but genuine. Would you care to join us?’
‘Very much. What do you try with them?’
‘Basically the inner look. I want them to come to a sensation of themselves — as a beginning. Then of course, the relaxing from thought.’
‘The breath?’
‘Not yet. Well, not directly. One can’t hurry.’
‘So — energy…’
‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘The energy eventually. And how it finds you. That book you have says much about it. But of course, there’s really no approach. Each technique distorts. There are no methods.’
‘One forgets.’ He shook his head. ‘Every moment.’
‘So you need to begin every moment. Dogen-zenji’s lecture on Being-Time. Remember?’
‘Yes. Fantastic.’
‘All true traditions are one.’
‘You mean there’s only one Void?’
The pope shook his head slowly, shut his eyes and a tear rolled from beneath one lid. He whispered. ‘There is — only — Void.’
Cain’s every pore was alive now, trying to absorb what was being given. It was amazing this, as if they’d never been apart, as if their relationship had simply paused.
The beautiful smile. ‘I’m talking shorthand. I’m too much by myself.’
Except at EXIT Beta, Cain thought, you were never by yourself. All of this was being recorded as they knew. Just as they knew that no one at the consoles would comprehend.
The pope leaned forward, still intent on following the line. ‘When I abandon myself utterly — there’s an intensity, isn’t there?’
‘An energy.’
‘You have it now?’
‘A little.’ He felt naked inside, and then the sweet deluge began — he was flowing with warmth, liquid gold. How had this come? From the pope’s atmosphere that charged the room? ‘But what… knows… this?’
‘What can be said? The Substance knows the Substance. That’s all.’
‘There’s no logic to that.’
‘Truth can only be expressed as paradox.’
He nodded, intensely grateful for what had been said and what he was experiencing now — able from that to catch the insight. It wasn’t the words. Only experience conveyed these things.
‘You feel it?’
He nodded again, not wanting to disturb it with speech.
‘Good. To quote the opposition, remember St Seraphim of Sarov? “God is a fire that warms the heart and the vitals.” The motionless mind sunk in breath — flowing warmth right to the belly.’
‘Are you sure he said all that?’
‘I’m sure he meant to,’ John chuckled.
That broke the spell. It was intentional. The old man knew there was just so much at any one time you could absorb.
Cain propped back on his arms. ‘Phew.’
John laughed. ‘Glad to be back?’
He shook his head as if getting water out of his ears. ‘Hope I can stand the pace.’
The pope smiled. ‘You better go and see her. We’ll have plenty of time to try again.’
He grasped the aged hands, tearful once more. ‘Thank you.’
John nodded, tired now. The effort had cost him as well.
Rhonda’s den was worse than he remembered it. Despite modern furniture and communications systems it looked like the dispatch department of a correspondence school. All flat surfaces including the floor were covered with files, maps, manuals, lost coffee cups and scraps of food. She advanced to greet him through it all like a hippo learning hopscotch.
‘Anima mia.’ A perfunctory hug. She looked worn out.