“What?”
“Cannibals, Hud, cannibals! Do they think it’s morally right to fricassee Martin and Osa Johnson?”
“Who is to say?” answered Kane.
“But it could be they do? Isn’t that right?”
“Right.”
“But Foot—what about him? Does he think fricasseed hunter is grand?”
“No.”
“So how come he hasn’t gotten out the word to all those cannibals, Hud? And to those pygmies shrinking heads out there in the jungles of the Amazon? What is it with him? What is it? Is he indifferent to right and wrong? Is he indifferent to what we do?”
“He sends missionaries there,” said Kane.
“He should send meat sauce and chutney, Hud; that the cannibals would use! Look, if Foot has some plan; if there’s some way he wants us to act, why, man, all he’d have to do is tell us! If we were convinced that he existed—really convinced—we’d all be good. So why the games and hocus-pocus? Why doesn’t Foot just make an appearance on top of the Empire State Building? What’s the problem, Hud? What is it? Is he short on tablets of stone? My Uncle Eddie owns a quarry, I can get them for him wholesale! All he has to do is ask! A burning bush is something else. This is not my regular work.”
“I gather you’re asking for signs and wonders,” said Kane.
“I’m asking for a modicum of honesty! For Foot to quit playing peek-a-boo! To shit or get off the pot! Diarrhetic strange gods have been waiting in line!”
Kane sighed. “Do you know the New Testament?”
“Do you know you’re a fatuous pedant?”
“The parables of Christ are neither simple,” said Kane, “nor direct. Christ always has to explain them. But you’ll notice he only explains them to the few who hang around; to the few who are interested; to those of goodwill. And there’s a reason for that, Cutshaw.”
Cutshaw leaned forward in exaggerated interest, his brow thick with furrows of intense concentration.
Kane continued: “To those who are not of goodwill, well—the truth can be harmful. As long as there is doubt, there is a lessening of guilt. But to give the truth to those who will believe it—but ignore it—is to seal their final damnation. I believe that’s why God hides. What do you think?”
Cutshaw blinked. “I think you are late for your tea party, you demented March Hare! Who do you claim to be today? Father Divine or Cassius Clay? Look, forget it, Hud, forget it! Stay Gregory Peck! At least you can vote!” Cutshaw flung a corner of towel over his shoulder and strode to the door. He pulled it open and turned to Kane. “One more thing,” he said, “I love you. You’re so dumb you’re adorable.” He falconed out the door then, crouching out of sight.
Kane felt a sense of failure; that he had somehow failed Cutshaw; somehow failed himself. This constant harping on theology seemed related to his problem. How lucid he was when he spoke of it! And halving the skewer of shish kebab. Testing, thought Kane, he was testing. Testing my intellect, apparently. Why? To what purpose? Would he feel better if Albert Einstein believed in Christ and the Resurrection?
Fell interrupted his thoughts, looking in to see how he felt.
“Fine,” said Kane. “Fine.”
“Still believe in your theory?”
“Yes. I do.” Was there a choice? Kane wondered. Fell left him, looking skeptical. And Kane once more felt discouraged; felt harried by the pressure of time; nagged by the threat of discovery by the Air Force, which was inevitable, he knew. If he could only cure them first. He heard the distant yapping of dogs and felt vaguely reassured. He hoped for new demands from Cutshaw; hoped they would be outrageous. The crazier, the healthier … faster … faster.
* * *
One hour later, Cutshaw returned, demanding that Kane take him with him to Mass. “Tomorrow morning, Hud, at sunrise, when there are spirits walking abroad!”
“You’re not permitted off the grounds,” said Kane.
“Hah! The truth slips out! So you are Antichrist, you filth! Or at the least, possessed of a devil!”
With a chilling start, Kane remembered his dream. Or was it a dream? But of course! Was he mad? It was a—“Cutshaw, you believe in possession?”
“Yes. You, for example, are clearly possessed by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm! For heaven’s sake, call an exorcist! I can’t stand it another minute!”
“I’m serious. Do you believe?”
“Yes!” Cutshaw leaned forward intently. “Foot gives no signs and wonders, Hud, but Satan is no such miser! No! Old men stabbed in a subway for laughs! A teen-age kid kills his parents with a shotgun! A father heaves his baby against a wall, crushes his head, because the kid wet his bed! Three kids from wealthy families kill a fisherman for his rowboat! Shall I go on? Shall I talk about war? Isn’t that some kind of possession? And what of the million ways and tools devised to torture a man ’til he screams! Sometimes for kicks, Hud, just for kicks! Man, I believe! I believe in possession! I believe because devils keep doing commercials! Hell, maybe Foot hasn’t heard of TV! Take me to Mass!” ended Cutshaw irrelevantly.
Kane said, “Why do you want to go?”
“I have a deep and trenchant interest in the study of primitive cults. Also, I love to worship statues, so long as I don’t have to look at their feet. They’re always bare. Have you noticed? Listen, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to! I’ll be marvey good, I swear it! Hud, I’ll just sit and think pious thoughts!”
Kane was silent, considering.
“Okay, fronds! Can I think of fronds? What about fronds? What’s the harm?”
Kane agreed to take him. He wasn’t quite sure why.
* * *
That night, Kane went to confession at an A-frame wooden church in the canyon, not far from the beach. He was the last one in the church. When Kane stepped out of the confessional, kneeling to say his penance, his confessor, who was the pastor, stepped out of the box and eyed Kane strangely. Then he proceeded to read his Office, pacing slowly at the back of the church. As Kane was leaving, his hand in the holy water, the old priest paused and smiled. He asked Kane where he was stationed, and if he would like a cup of coffee. Kane went with him to the rectory and spoke to the old man for hours.
He told him something about himself; about Cutshaw and his problem: God on the Empire State Building. The priest had no answer. “A mystery,” he murmured, “a mystery.” Kane asked if he had any books that dealt with diabolical possession. The priest said “Yes,” and took from his shelf a book called Satan. He told Kane to take it with him.
“Do you believe in possession, Father?”
“Fifty thousand Black Masses are said in Paris every year,” the priest replied. “A man steals a Host that he thinks is God and horribly desecrates it. Either the man is mad or he is possessed. Who knows? Maybe possession is madness. If he thinks the Host isn’t God, why take the trouble to steal it? Any old crust should do well enough.”
“Have you ever seen an exorcism?”
“Yes,” said the priest. “Yes. Once in Ohio. Akron, Ohio. The possessed was levitating. I saw it. Uneducated boy, only an eighth-grade education, but he conversed in Latin and Greek.”
“He might have picked it out of the brain of the exorcist,” said Kane.
“Yes, the Church is well aware of that. Telepathy is accepted. If the possessed merely speaks in a language that is known by someone else present, that is no longer regarded as positive sign of a diabolical presence. Same with levitation. Here, the book. Let me have it a moment.”
Kane handed him the book. The priest flipped pages, stopped and read: “‘Before the priest undertakes an exorcism, he ought diligently to enquire into the life of the possessed, into his condition, reputation, health and other circumstances: and should talk them over with wise, prudent and instructed people, since the too credulous are often deceived, and melancholics, lunatics, and persons bewitched often declare themselves to be possessed and tormented by the devil: and these people nevertheless are more in need of a doctor than of a
n exorcist.’” The priest looked at Kane. “That was a warning to exorcists once published by the Church. Can you guess when it was put out?”
“Rather recently, I should think.”
The priest said, “Fifteen hundred and eighty-three.” He handed pack the book. “Here, read it. Better than horror films on The Late Show.”
Kane thanked him and left with the book. That night, the priest said a prayer for him.
The following morning just before seven, Kane sat waiting in his staff car, having sent Krebs to go and fetch Cutshaw. When the astronaut finally appeared he was wearing a clean khaki uniform, stiff with starch. His hair was thick with vaseline and his face was cleanly shaven. But he still wore his sneakers and his tattered college blazer, and affected a high Buster Brown collar tied with a bright red bow. Kane at first insisted that he remove the collar and sneakers, but relented when Cutshaw argued, “What does Foot care about clothes!” They drove to the church and were two minutes late.
As they stepped out of the staff car, Cutshaw looked suddenly terrified and tightly gripped Kane’s hand. He would not let go until after they’d entered.
Kane’s usual pattern was to sit in a pew far back, but as he genuflected and blessed himself, he saw, with quiet horror, that the astronaut was moving like a rocket toward the front, affecting a rapid, pigeon-toed gait, listing his shoulders from side to side. At the very front pew he paused and called to Kane in a loud stage whisper: “Hud, up here! Let’s see the statues!”
Kane felt ice forming on his kneecap. He wanted to vanish, become invisible, even turn into a pillar of salt. But the habit of fourteen years asserted itself, and he made an instant decision: he followed Cutshaw to the front and knelt beside him in the pew.
Cutshaw knelt stiffly, looking piously up at the priest, the latter’s hands upraised, his back to the parishioners, murmuring in Latin. For a moment Kane felt better. Then, “Is that Oral Roberts?” he heard Cutshaw rumble huskily. The priest—it was not the pastor—jerked his head around and scruted Kane severely. Then he resumed the saying of Mass. Kane debated leaving, but feared it might cause even greater disturbance, especially if Cutshaw refused to go. Thus he made truce with his sense of sacrilege.
Cutshaw was quiet until the sermon, which concerned the Good Shepherd who was willing to “lay down his life for his sheep.” And then, when the priest made some trenchant point, Cutshaw applauded or murmured “Bravo!” The priest, a former missionary who’d lived most of his life in China, decided Cutshaw was inebriated and certainly no more of a nuisance than squalling infants or belching warlords. When Cutshaw applauded he raised his voice a notch and offered it up to God.
When it came time for the collection, Cutshaw loudly demanded a nickel. Kane gave him a dollar. But when the collection basket was thrust at him, Cutshaw quietly gripped it, poked his nose into it, sniffing, then abruptly waved it by. He stuck the dollar into his pocket.
Kane ruefully shook his head and regretted ever bringing him. Why? he asked himself; why? For some new insight into Cutshaw? Fear of reprisal? Was that it? Or some concern for Cutshaw’s soul? He looked over at the astronaut as they knelt for the consecration. Cutshaw’s hands were clasped before him as he stared up at the altar, his pixie head awash in sunlight shafting narrowly through stained glass. Where did it come from, that look of innocence? From the Buster Brown collar? He looked to Kane like a tasteful Christmas card sketch of a choir boy, done in pastels.
Cutshaw behaved with decorum through the remaining parts of the Mass, except once, during the reading of the last Gospel, when he endeavored to catch a fly.
As they walked back up the aisle, Cutshaw once more took hold of Kane’s hand. Outside, on the steps, he turned to Kane and said, very simply, “I dug it.” He said no more until the car pulled up to the door of the Slovik mansion. He looked at Kane and said in a child’s voice, “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.”
“Why did you keep the dollar?” asked Kane.
“For suckers,” said the world-famous Moon pilot. Then leaped out of the car and Grouchoed into the mansion.
Kane, as he watched him go, felt a sudden wrench of pity. Then pity sank, like a pebble, to the bottom of some fathomless lake. He hoped the therapy was working.
Chapter 13
Days of unbridled chaos swarmed through the mansion like giant ants, twitching antennae of unlikelihood. Corfu painted, Zook flew and Lieutenant Spoor’s dogs prowled the mansion like mangy lions. One of them, a boxer, left his calling card steaming on Captain Groper’s bed. One of the inmates found it first, and carefully labeled it: “Brand ‘X.’”
For Kane, these were days of dreams, lurid nightmares strung together. He was unable to remember any of them and complained to Fell of headaches. The medic, whose unexplained absences were growing increasingly frequent, administered aspirin in massive doses. The headaches did not abate. Nor did Spoor’s persistent reports, at which the men invariably hissed, of seeing a “Lady in Black.”
Kane was depressed when the men became bored. He had hoped for some massive outrage that would hasten the men’s catharsis. Cutshaw continued to beard him, mostly on questions of philosophy, but he sensed some loss of momentum. Then Cutshaw made fresh demands. Elated, Kane phoned Syntax (who had been calling every day) and requested fresh logistics.
Syntax stared into the phone. “They—they want to play ‘Great Escape’!” he yipped. “Look, now, why do they?… Oh. It’s (pause) therapy and … Yes, I understand … No, no, no! I agree! You cannot dig tunnels without (pause) tunneling equipment. But why—why the motorcycle?… Oh. I see. He wants to play Steve … McQueen! Just like the movie, same as the movie … No, no, no, Kane, I’m with it! I know that’s (pause) psychology. But, uh, I, uh, I was a flier, you know and—well, tell me again: why the Nazi uniforms?…”
* * *
Within a week, Captain Groper was echoing the General. He stood in the main hall, wearing an SS uniform, a snarling German shepherd dog pulling taut the leash in his hand. More in wonder than in outrage, he asked, “Why the Nazi uniforms?”
The entire staff was wearing them. And that included Kane, who answered Groper academically: “It’s a standard tool of therapy, Captain. The patients act out some basic fear or bugaboo, and this provides catharsis and social relearning. Very elementary. It’s known as ‘Psychodrama.’” Kane started to spell it for him, but Groper interrupted.
“I know how to spell it, sir. But why the Nazi uniforms?”
“Realism, Captain, realism. There’s no therapy at all unless the drama seems real. The inmates are playing a part—they’re playing the part of Allied prisoners who are tunneling to freedom from a camp in Nazi Germany. We are playing a part—we are pretending to be their captors.”
Paint splattered down on them. Corfu had refused to play, preferring, instead, to continue painting. Kane and Groper looked up; then quickly down again on hearing the roar of an engine. Lieutenant Fairbanks, riding a motorcycle, burst through the mansion front doors. Kane and Groper leaped backward as Fairbanks zoomed directly between them, making a handsome but abortive effort to run the cycle up the staircase.
“We are their captors,” murmured Groper, as he stared at Fairbanks, mesmerized. Then Spoor irrupted before him, throwing his arms around the dog and shouting, “Marc Antony, I’ve found you!”
The blasting sound of jackhammers reached them from the dorm. Kane walked slowly to the dormitory door, pulled it open and looked inside. The men were sedulously ripping up the dormitory floor. Dirt, rocks and wood flew up from the hole that they were digging. Among the men was Cutshaw, holding a blueprint spread out before him. He was instructing Bemish and Zook, who were both leaning on shovels. Cutshaw shouted over the drilling: “Now this will be Tunnel One, dug by Team One, intersecting with Tunnel Two, dug by Team Two, intersecting with Tunnel Three dug by Team Three. One and Two are decoys. Three is the big one—maximum security!”
“May we ask where they go?” said Zook.
“Yes,” an
swered Cutshaw proudly. “Absolutely nowhere!” Then he caught Kane’s eye and grinned. “Heavenly Caribou, you are ours!” he shouted. “Ours and no one else’s!” Kane closed the door. And prayed that his theory was right.
Two weeks passed. The tunneling continued feverishly. Supports were rigged for shoring, and miniature tracks were laid, with wheeled flatboards used to ride them, shuttling men back and forth as they worked at clearing the dirt.
Around the perimeter of the courtyard, platforms were erected, massive searchlights mounted upon them. They were patroled by Krebs and Christian, rifles over their shoulders and guard dogs in leash. Once, as they approached each other from opposite ends of the platform, they paused and looked expressionlessly into one another’s eyes.
“Our country, right or wrong,” said Krebs. Then both the airmen moved on, and were never observed to converse again. Although once, when it was raining, Sergeant Christian could not refrain from blurting, “I’ll bet my savage dog can lick your savage dog.” Krebs, resisting this heady wine, refused to be lured into answering. He merely went on walking, brooding on madness and its causes. He gave considerable thought to its symptoms.
Groper, during this period, quietly took to drink as well as to lengthy conversations with Sergeant Bemish on the nature of matter. He developed a habit of saying “Fascinating!”, which eventually grated on Bemish, who began sedulously to avoid him; though sometimes Groper, in his cups, would pursue him into the tunnels, muttering cosmological inanities, such as, “Where does space end?” Once, in one of the tunnels, Bemish said, “Groper, get off my back!” and when Groper answered serenely with “E = MC2,” Bemish threw dirt into his face. Then Groper muttered “Fascinating!”, and Bemish frankly screamed.
Fell, for the most part, was missing, his room invariably locked and equally impervious to knocking. Once in a while he was seen in the clinic, and on one of these occasions Captain Groper complained of a hangover, whereupon Fell lectured him severely on the evils of “demon rum.” He also refused him aspirin, bawling, “Let this be a lesson, lush!” Groper felt rejected, but mumbled, “Fell, I bear you no malice.” Fell crammed dental floss down his throat.