‘You do not understand,’ Petitjacques said patiently. ‘Our programme is not to have a programme. You can only advance if you do not know where you are going.’
‘Say that to a General.’
‘With Generals we hold no dialogue.’
‘Quatsch’ Halder said feelingly; and there the discussion ended. For once the call-girls were unanimous in their disapproval – and that, Claire thought, was perhaps the only point in Petitjacques’s favour. There was a despair in his clowning, the desperation of the frenzied squirrel, which she found more frightening than Nikolai’s lucid awareness of doom.
4
Solovief was just going to close the session, when Gustav noisily entered the conference room and announced: ‘Telegram for Herr Professor Kaletski.’ Having delivered it into
Bruno’s eager hands, he performed a semi-military about-turn and left. There was a certain theatrical quality about the scene, and all eyes involuntarily turned on Bruno, as if receiving a telegram were a special event. But Bruno, a monument of imperturbable sang-froid, continued the elaborate operation of stuffing his attaché case with the litter of documents he had been reading during Petitjacques’s talk (while politely cupping his ear with his free hand); and only when the operation was completed did he open the cable with a deft movement and a disparaging shrug. He seemed to take in the lengthy message at a single glance, and popped to his feet.
‘One moment, Mr Chairman, before we break up,’ he announced in a voice trembling with emotion. ‘I have just received a message which, I venture to say, may be of some interest to the participants of our conference. It has been addressed to me by a personality very close to the President of the United States of America – a personality whose identity I am not at liberty to disclose. The message reads as follows…’
Bruno’s glance swept briefly but emphatically round the faces at the table, then along the auditors at the back wall. Claire could not help suspecting that he had engineered beforehand Gustav’s dramatic entrance.
‘… It reads as follows,’ Bruno repeated. ‘“Professor Bruno Kaletski …” I will spare you the address, which incidentally the sender’s secretary seems to have got slightly wrong – Schneehof instead of Schneedorf – otherwise the message would have reached us at the opening session, for which it was obviously intended … It reads: “Am instructed to convey informally Mr President’s keen and agonized interest in outcome of your deliberations on quote approaches to survival unquote stop. In these critical days when future destiny of mankind at stake” – the text says “shake” but the intended meaning is evident – repeat: “when the destiny of mankind is at stake, the dedicated efforts of highpowered minds assembled at your conference may signify long overdue commencement of opening new avenues towards hopeful future stop please communicate soonest possible conclusions reached by your conference which will be given earnest consideration on highest level stop cordially. Signed …” ’ Abruptly Bruno sat down, as if to forestall an ovation.
And indeed, in the ensuing silence a faint clapping was heard. It was Miss Carey. One hand raised, she had cast a coy, questioning glance at Dr Valenti and, seeing his encouraging smile, had engaged in this solo performance. It was rather like a demonstration of the old Zen koan about the one hand clapping. Everybody left hurriedly for the room next door, where the soothing cocktails were served.
5
Nikolai did not feel like having more than one cocktail; he and Claire were among the first in the dining-room. They had unfolded their napkins when they saw Blood working his way down the spiral staircase and shuffling purposefully towards their table. He performed a surprisingly convincing imitation of a courtier’s bow to Claire:
‘Are humble poets admitted to the Captain’s table?’
‘Pray be seated, Sir Evelyn,’ said Claire, returning the bow.
‘My acute sense of observation has taught me,’ said Blood, lowering himself in slow motion into the chair next to hers, ‘that the prevailing etiquette of choosing one’s table at interdisciplinary symposia is inspired by Charles Darwin’s highly questionable theory which ascribes the progress of evolution to chance mutations. Those who adhere to this theory choose seats at random. They walk like somnambulists to the first empty chair in sight, regardless of whether their neighbours happen to be neuro-pharmacologists or classical scholars, in the eternal, naive hope of engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue. Needless to say, the dialogue consists in exchanging asinine remarks about weather, health-foods and slipped discs, whereafter they dry up and lapse into the strained silence of strangers on a train. It all goes to show that the uomo universale died with the Renaissance. What we have now is homo Babel – each of us babbling away in his own specialized lingo on that presumptuous tower which is due to collapse any minute now.’
‘Rot,’ said Harriet, who had just come in, putting her stick under the table and sinking into the remaining empty chair. ‘You are plagiarizing John Donne’s “’tis all in pieces, all coherence gone …” He was tearing his hair out just because Copernicus said the earth was not the centre of the world…’
Blood eyed her with undisguised loathing. ‘Begging your forgiveness, gracious lady, Donne was right. Copernicus and his cronies started taking the cosmic jig-saw to pieces, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put it together again.’
H.E. decided to ignore him, and turned to Nikolai:
‘What did you make of Bruno’s coup de théatre?’
Nikolai shrugged; he was using a delicious local bread-roll to model a creature that looked like a dinosaur. ‘It was difficult to take seriously, like everything else coming from Bruno. But that is just his personality. He does have real influence – after all, he is on the Advisory Board and so on. Up there, they do seem to take him seriously. God knows what their criteria of seriousness are.’
‘A bottle of Neuchâtel, Schätzchen? Blood said to Mitzie, who was serving the thick pea soup, with chunks of sausage in it.
‘Big bottle?’ Mitzie asked.
‘Indeed a full bottle, Schätzchen. You should know my little habits by now.’
Nikolai ordered a carafe of the local red. ‘Just who or what is to be taken seriously?’ he repeated belligerently.
‘I have the doubtful privilege of having supped with many a politician,’ said Blood. ‘It goes with being a call-girl laureate. I was never able to take any of them seriously – I mean as a human being – whatever that means. The power – yes. The person – no. They reminded me of performing seals in a circus, balancing balls on their snouts – balls filled with dynamite.’
‘You could use the same metaphor for scientists,’ said Nikolai. ‘When Einstein proclaimed the equivalence of energy and mass, nobody took it seriously, except as a feat of mental acrobatics – balancing abstract equations in the circus of science. Until he dropped the ball…’
Harriet, who had been engaged in a whispered conversation with Claire, but had not missed a word, struck her glass with her dripping soup spoon. ‘If I can make any sense out of what you two are saying, you are both puzzled and embarrassed because some big brass, for some unknown reason, are apparently taking this conference seriously. Not dear little Bruno – us. But you are frightened to admit it.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Claire.
‘But my dear lady,’ sighed Blood, ‘I have never, never been able to take even myself seriously, so why should I not be frightened? My only courage consists in facing up to my cowardice.’
Harriet again ignored him and turned on Nikolai.
‘Nikolai Borisovitch Solovief,’ she boomed, ‘little father, here is your chance. Is not that message the answer to your prayers? That letter to the President – now they seem to be begging for it.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Claire, putting her hand lightly on Nikolai’s shoulder, though she rarely indulged in demonstrative gestures of affection. ‘I agree with Harriet. Bruno may not be the hero of my dreams, but let us admit he is a godsend.’
r /> Nikolai shook his head. ‘I am looking for an explanation for this sudden interest in our moth-eaten assembly.’
‘I may offer a parable by way of explanation …’ drawled Blood. ‘One of the most disreputable episodes in my life was a stretch of three months in Hollywood. To my mind there has always been a close resemblance between Hollywood and Washington DC. Both have the same atmosphere of publicity-seeking, intrigue, hysteria, jockeying for position, fawning to the gossip-columnists, the same ambiance of recurrent crises. It was during such a crisis that I was called to the telephone in my London flat at the unearthly hour of 6 AM. I thought it was one of my gay young friends informing me that he had just taken an overdose of sleeping pills – they love doing that – but no, it was the president of one of those mammoth companies whose name is a household word in the film-world. I have never met him, but he took the liberty of addressing me by my first name, and practically sobbed on my shoulder across the transatlantic cable-line. “There is a CRISIS on,” he wailed, all Hollywood was shaken by the crisis, weeping and gnashing their teeth, and the box-offices all over the world might as well close down. He went on to confess to me, confidentially and off the record: “It’s all our fault, Evelyn, take my word for it or call me a liar, it’s our fault because we kept to the beaten track and went on making TRASH instead of making ART. We gave the public plenty of CUNT, but what the box-office is yelling for is ART. Now for making ART, Evelyn, we need TALENT. What Hollywood needs is not lousy scriptwriters chasing dollars, but TALENT – people like YOU. Not cheap hacks, but guys with a CREATIVE VISION…”
‘Then he came to the point. To start the new era of ART they had decided to make a film on the life of “that well-known English poet, Baron Byron. Sure you must have heard of him, Evelyn – George Gordon Noel Byron. Sixth Baron. He was a Lord too.” They’d had five script-writers on it, “so-called top class”, one after another. No good. They didn’t produce ART. “So that’s where you come in, Evelyn.”
‘I told him, politely, to go and commit sodomy with himself. Then he named a figure and I withdrew my remark, and my cigarette burnt a hole in my pyjamas…’
He acted the scene with a shaking hand, the other holding an imaginary telephone receiver. Even Harriet had to admit that, though loathsome, Blood could be quite funny. He finished abruptly:
‘End of parable. Washington, like Hollywood, is in a CRISIS. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The script writers of history have turned out to be lousy hacks. So they are looking for fresh TALENT to save them – guys with a CREATIVE VISION. That’s where you come in.’
He sipped his glass of Neuchâtel, delicately balancing its stem between fat fingers, satisfied with the effect of his story.
‘There may be something in it,’ said Nikolai slowly.
‘It was a lovely parable,’ said Claire. ‘How did it end?’
‘Somebody discovered that Byron had slept with his half-sister and had a queer streak to boot, so it was off. That was before the golden dawn of porn. Sounds incredible today. Anyway, they had to pay me. To compensate them for the loss, I wrote into the President’s Golden Book the only rhymed couplet I have ever composed:
‘“I don’t care a fart
‘“For your notions of ART.”’
‘That was in abominable taste,’ said Harriet. ‘You’ve spoilt your story.’
‘I always do that,’ said Blood. ‘It gives me a kind of masochistic pleasure.’
6
Random events weave their own patterns. Late in the evening, Professor Burch and Dr Horace Wyndham happened to be the only remaining guests in the cocktail room. Hansie and Mitzie had gone to bed, but there was a comforting array of bottles on the shelves, left at the free disposal of the call-girls. It was a tradition which enlivened some, though not all symposia, designed to facilitate interdisciplinary interrelationships.
Wyndham cautiously approached the bar – he seemed to walk on tiptoe – and helped himself to a sizeable Scotch with water. Burch, sitting at the bar, was apparently immersed in correcting his galley-proofs, with a half-finished high-ball at his elbow. Wyndham noticed that some of its contents had spilled onto the printed sheets, and that Burch’s eyes behind the rimless glasses stared even more fish-like than usual. ‘Best moment of the day,’ Wyndham said with a sociable giggle.
Burch seemed to become belatedly aware of the other man’s presence. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I mean,’ Wyndham beamed, taking a gulp of his Scotch, ‘what we euphemistically call a night-cap. I am afraid I am an incorrigible after-dinner drinker.’
Burch considered the matter. ‘I prefer for relaxation an occasional sip of Bourbon,’ he pronounced. ‘They don’t have it here.’ He picked up his glass and, after a moment’s reflection, emptied it as if it were water. A few more yellow drops appeared on the galleys.
Wyndham climbed onto the bar-stool and became appreciably taller; he had a well-built torso, only his legs were short. ‘I hope I am not interrupting your meditations,’ he said. Since he was nearer to the bottle, he filled up the glass which Burch absent-mindedly held out. Burch put some icecubes into it, but ignored the soda-bottle.
‘“Meditation” is not part of my vocabulary,’ he said.
‘Call it contemplation,’ proposed Wyndham.
Burch shook his head, using more than the necessary amount of energy. ‘Nix,’ he said. ‘Soft-nosed terminology. We call it internalized verbal behaviour, or subliminal vocalization, if you prefer it.’
‘I know,’ said Wyndham. ‘But we do not always think in articulate words.’
‘Nix,’ said Burch. ‘What you call thinking are inaudible vibrations of the vocal chords.’ He swirled the Scotch round the ice-cubes, and drank it apparently without parting his lips. The liquid vanished between them as if by osmosis. Wyndham tried to visualize Burch in the act of love, and quickly took a gulp.
‘Children,’ Burch unexpectedly blurted out. ‘Kids. You a pediatrician?’
‘Sort of. Infants are more in my line. Tots.’
‘Tots become kids. Kids grow up … It’s only natural,’ Burch added reflectively, as if to reassure himself.
‘Do you have children?’
Burch nodded, again too energetically, and stared into his glass. Wyndham guessed what was coming.
‘Two,’ said Burch.
‘Well, did you try your educational engineering on them?’ Wyndham tittered. ‘To “predict and control” their behaviour?’
‘Sure.’ Burch nodded again and finished his glass. Wyndham officiated with the bottle for both of them. ‘Sure,’ Burch repeated. ‘You a pediatrician. Maybe you have an explanation. Boy, Hector junior, twenty-one. Did brilliantly at Harvard Law School. Year ago started on hashish. Six months ago on heroin. Twice hospitalized. Psychotic episodes. Two of his buddies committed suicide. One from a railway bridge. Girl, Jenny, seventeen. Did brilliantly at High School. Fell for a Pop guitarist. Followed the Group everywhere through the United States of America. Made plaster-casts first of guitarist’s penis, then of the others’ too. Became a sort of speciality with her. Mrs Burch discovered Jenny’s collection of casts during a search in her cupboard. Quite a collection … I guess it’s only natural. Sexual behaviour has many variables. Hindus have lingams in their temples. No value-judgments intended, but it seems slightly odd. You a pediatrician…’
‘Won’t you have a little soda in your glass?’ Wyndham said conversationally.
‘Only blows you up … I asked you questions. What’s the explanation?’
‘My line are babies in cradles. Not adolescents.’
‘Maybe it’s the influence of Mrs Burch. Mrs Burch is a Catholic convert. Believes in all the mumbo-jumbo. Attends mass. Attends spiritualist seances too. Apparently Great Chief Chingakook wised her up about Jenny’s collection, over the ouija board.’
‘Most families have their upsets. Perhaps they’ll settle down,’ Wyndham said soothingly. He, too, began to feel the l
iquor, and Burch’s revelations, combined with the effects of the Höhenluft, made him feel somewhat odd.
‘It must be the unscientific influence of Mrs Burch,’ Professor Burch mused. ‘Pavlov’s method of paradoxical conditioning turned his dogs into neurotics. When you condition a subject in two mutually contradictory ways, he is liable to go to pieces.’
‘They’ll settle down,’ Wyndham repeated, sliding down from his high stool. ‘I wouldn’t worry. In the meantime, thank you for an interesting conversation.’
‘Haven’t answered my questions,’ Burch protested, fingering his empty glass.
‘And so to bed,’ Wyndham said cheerfully. ‘Perhaps we ought to turn the lights out.’ He extended a helping hand as Burch scrambled to his feet. Walking out through the glass door on slightly unsteady legs, they gave the impression of Mr Punch helping the Sergeant Major off the parade ground.
Wednesday
On the third day of the Symposium, the keenly awaited duel between Otto von Halder and Harriet Epsom took its predictable course. It was not their first confrontation; in fact they had met and fought twice already in that same year – at an ecology congress at Mexico City and a futurology symposium at the Academy in Stockholm.
Halder spoke in the morning. It had to be admitted that his delivery was impressive, although the paper he read was essentially the same – except for a few paraphrases and impromptus – which he had given in Stockholm and in Mexico; nor did he seem in the least embarrassed by the fact that Harriet had been present on both occasions, since he expected, not without justification, that she too would come up with a slightly paraphrased repeat performance. After all, one could not expect scientists to produce some original discovery on each of these public occasions. Rather, they looked upon themselves as a travelling team of professional wrestlers, who are familiar with one another’s antics and go through their paces, each time pretending surprise and indignation at the base tricks of their opponents.