"At first we hardly knew what to do." Iris's voice rose serenely over the East European rumblings of the doctor. "He'd always made such a point of the audience. He needed actual people to excite him. Paul wanted to fill the studio with a friendly audience but John said no. He'd try it without. When the talk began there were only a half dozen of us there: Paul, myself, and the technicians. No one else."
"How did he manage?"
"It was the camera. He said when he walked out there he had no idea if anything would happen or not, if he could speak. Paul was nearly out of his mind with terror; we all were. Then John saw the lens of the camera. He said looking into it gave him a sudden shock, like a current of electricity passing through him, for there, in front of him, was the eye of the world and the microphone above his head was the ear into which at last he could speak. When he finished, he was transfigured. I've never seen him so excited. He couldn't recall what he had said but the elation remained until…"
"Until he got here."
"Well, nearly." Iris smiled. "He's been under a terrible strain these last two weeks."
"It'll be nothing like the traumatizing shocks in store for him during the next few days," said Stokharin, rubbing the bole of a rich dark pipe against his nose to bring out its luster (the pipe's luster, for the nose, straight, thick, proud, already shone like a gross baroque pearl). "Mark my words, everyone will be eager to see this phenomenon. When Paul first told me about him, I said, ah, my friend, you have found that father image for which you've searched since your own father was run over by a bus in your ninth (the crucial) year. Poor Paul, I said, you will be doomed to disappointment. The wish for the father is the sign of your immaturity. For a time you find him here, there… in analysis you transfer to me. Now you meet a spellbinder and you turn to him, but it will not last. Exactly like that I talked to him. Believe me, I hold back nothing. Then I met this Cave. I watched him. Ah, what an analyst he would have made! What a manner, what power of communication: a natural healer. If only we could train him. Miss Mortimer, to you I appeal. Get him to study. The best people, the post-Jungians are all here in New York. They will train him. He would become only a lay analyst but, even so, what miracles he could perform, what therapy! We must not waste this native genius."
"I'm afraid, Doctor, that he's going to be too busy wasting himself to study your… procedures," Iris smiled, engagingly, dislike apparent in her radiant eyes. Stokharin, however, was not sensitive to hostility… no doubt attributing such emotions to some sad deficiency in the other's adjustment. Iris turned to me. "Will you be in the city the whole time?"
"The whole time Cave's here? Yes. I wouldn't miss it for anything."
"I'm glad. I've so much I want to talk to you about. So many things are beginning to happen. Call me tomorrow. I'll be staying at my old place. It's in the book."
"Cave?"
"Is staying with Paul, out on Long Island at someone's house. We want to keep him away from pests as much as possible."
"Manic depression, I should say," said Stokharin thoughtfully, his pipe now clenched between his teeth and his attention on Cave's still figure. "With latent schizoid tendencies which… Miss Mortimer, you must have an affair with him. You must marry him if necessary. Have children. Let him see what it is to give life to others, to live in a balanced…"
"Doctor, you are quite mad," said Iris and she crossed the room, cool in her anger. I too got away from the doctor as quickly as I could: "False modesty, inhibited behavior, too early bowel training," and similar phrases ringing in my ears.
Paul caught me at the door. I'd intended to slip away without saying good night, confident that Clarissa would understand, that the others would not notice. "Not going so soon, are you?" He was a little drunk, his face scarlet with excitement. "But you ought to stay and celebrate." I murmured something about having an early appointment the next day.
"Well, see me tomorrow. We've taken temporary offices in the Empire State Building. The money has begun to roll in. If this thing tonight turns out the way I think it has, I'm going to be able to quit my other racket for good and devote all my time to Cave." Already the name Cave had begun to sound more like that of an institution than of a man.
"By the way, I want to tell you what I think of the Introduction: superior piece of work. Tried it out on several highbrow friends of mine and they liked it."
"I'm afraid…"
"That, together with the talks on television, should put this thing over with the biggest bang in years. We'll probably need some more stuff from you, historical background, rules and regulations, that kind of thing, but Cave will tell you what he wants. We've hired a dozen people already to take care of the mail and inquiries. There's also a lecture tour being prepared, all the main cities, while…"
"Paul, you're not trying to make a religion of this, are you?"
I could hold it back no longer even though both time and occasion were all wrong for such an outburst.
"Religion? Hell, no… but we've got to organize. We've got to get this to as many people as we can. People have started looking to us (to him, that is) for guidance. We can't let them down."
Clarissa's maid ushered in a Western Union messenger, laden with telegrams. "Over three hundred," said the boy.
"The station said to send them here." Paul paid him jubilantly and, in the excitement, I slipped away.
3
The results of the broadcast were formidable. My small book which until then had enjoyed the obscurity of being briefly noted among the recent books was taken up by excited editors who used it as a basis for hurried but exuberant accounts of the new marvel.
One night a week for the rest of that winter Cave appeared before the shining glass eye of the world and on each occasion new millions in all parts of the country listened and saw and pondered this unexpected phenomenon, the creation of their own secret anxieties and doubts, a central man.
The reactions were too numerous for me to recollect in any order or with any precise detail; but I do recall the first few months vividly: after that of course the work moved swiftly of its own and one lost track of events which tended to blur, the way casualties late in a large war do, not wringing the wearied heart as the death of one or a particular few might earlier have done.
A few days after the first broadcast, I went to see Paul at the offices which he had taken in the Empire State Building… as high up as possible, I noted with amusement: always the maximum, the optimum.
Halfway down a corridor, between lawyers and exporters, Cavite, Inc. was discreetly identified in black upon a frosted-glass door. I went inside.
It appeared to me the way I'd always thought a newspaper office during a crisis might look. Four rooms opening in a row off one another, all with doors open, all crowded with harassed secretaries and clean-looking young men in blue serge suits carrying papers, talking in loud voices which together made the room sound like a hive at swarming time.
Though none of them knew me, no one made any attempt to ask my business or to stop me as I moved from room to room in search of Paul. Everywhere there were placards with Cave's picture on them, calm and gloomy-looking, dressed in what was to be his official costume: a dark suit, an unfigured tie, a white shirt. I tried to overhear conversations as I passed the busy desks and groups of excited debaters, but their noise was too loud. Only one word was identifiable, sounding regularly, richly emphatic like a cello note: Cave, Cave, Cave.