The Last Four Things

  ‘Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’

  ‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ He smiled an oddly fetching expression of self-awareness and mockery.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.’ Bosco had seemed to lose himself but then looked intensely at Cale.

  ‘You disagree?’

  Cale did not reply.

  ‘Leave your hatred of me to one side for a moment and consider your experience of the world. Do you disagree in your heart of hearts?’

  There was another long pause.

  ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘This is not the first time the Lord has wiped away mankind for its failures. It is not generally known that there was a kind of Man before Adam. God destroyed him in a great flood in which he drowned the whole world and started again.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything. Even to the last blade of grass.’

  ‘Sounds easy enough. Why not do the same again?’

  ‘Too many people, not enough water. Too much grass.’

  ‘Does the Pope believe any of this?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied Bosco, ‘but whatever he looses on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’

  ‘I don’t get … Oh, I see.’ Cale thought about what he thought he saw. ‘You’re going to kill the Pope and take his place.’

  ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say you were more devil than angel. Do you really think you can kill a Pope anointed by God and not immediately damn yourself ?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  They sat in silence, Bosco wanting Cale to ask for an explanation. Knowing this, despite his curiosity, Cale declined to give him the satisfaction.

  ‘The Pope is not himself,’ said Bosco.

  ‘Who is he?’ replied an astonished Cale. It was not an expression he’d heard before.

  ‘No, I mean he’s not well. He is an old man and he is suffering from a disease of the mind – a weakening, one that’s slowly getting worse. He forgets.’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘He forgets who he is.’

  ‘If he’s that bad he’ll die soon.’

  ‘He is that bad but people afflicted in this way often live for a long time – very long.’ He looked at Cale again enjoying the feeling of, once again, being master to his pupil.

  ‘What must I do?’ asked Bosco. It was not a question but a prompt that Cale should demonstrate his good judgement.

  ‘You must be there when he dies and become Pope.’

  Bosco laughed. ‘A little easier said than done.’

  ‘You can laugh,’ said Cale, ‘but am I wrong?’

  ‘No – let’s look simply at complex things. That is, indeed, the end but what’s the beginning? Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.’

  ‘How powerful are you?’ Cale asked after a long time.

  ‘Excellent,’ laughed Bosco. ‘When you murdered Redeemer Picarbo you were kind enough to promote me from, let’s say, tenth in line to the papacy to perhaps ninth.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have punished me?’

  ‘Hard to say. Your actions at the time were inconvenient. My plans for you – for all of this – were years in the future. Tenth in line to the papacy is not in line to the papacy at all. Your vanishing and my coming for you advanced everything in a most peculiar and unexpected way. Memphis is fallen. I have much of the credit and what is not mine is yours. I am now fourth in line to the papacy. Alas’ – he smiled – ‘fourth in line is, in reality, little better than tenth or twentieth.’

  ‘Who are first and second?’

  ‘To the point!’ mocked Bosco. ‘Gant and Parsi.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘Why would you? I was mistaken in thinking these things were premature when it comes to you.’

  ‘So now you’re going to tell me?’

  ‘Now I am going to ask you to work it out.’

  ‘Why not just tell me?’

  ‘Because you will see it more clearly if you do so. And also because it will give me greater pleasure.’

  Told by the devil who has tormented you all your life that he will let you guess his secrets, what intelligent boy, however deep his hatred, might not be curious?

  ‘There was a book in the library with its own lock – the census. I managed to open others but not that.’

  ‘You did manage to break it trying, though.’

  ‘How big is the Redeemer empire?’

  ‘It’s not an empire, it is a commonwealth. The commonwealth has achieved enosis with forty-three countries and, according to the last census, has the chance to redeem one hundred million people.’

  ‘How big is the world?’

  ‘I have no real idea. Concerning the Indies and China we know little enough. But concerning the four quarters, not including Memphis, we are, perhaps, four times the size and many times wealthier than is generally held to be the case.’

  ‘Why not including Memphis?’

  ‘Memphis drew its clout from its military power. We conquered Memphis and destroyed the Materazzi but we did not conquer its empire: that merely collapsed. Each country in that empire has declared itself free and started squabbling with its neighbours about the same things it squabbled about before the Materazzi arrived. Taking Memphis has turned out to be a mixed blessing, and given time it may turn out not to be a blessing at all.’

  ‘If the Redeemer empire is so much bigger an empire than everyone thinks …’

  ‘Commonwealth,’ interrupted Bosco.

  ‘… than everyone thinks, why are you stuck in the fight with the Antagonists?’

  ‘Good. Exactly so.’ Bosco was clearly pleased with this question. ‘The commonwealth of the Redeemers is not only large but bloated – full of contradictions. Some parts of the commonwealth are slack in their beliefs and so full of blasphemies they’re hardly better than Antagonists. Many extract from us more in subsidies than they pay in taxes. Others are fanatical in their beliefs but always arguing with each other after this or that doctrinal point. There are numerous schisms threatening to become full-grown heresies like Antagonism.’

  ‘If things are so bad why haven’t the Antagonists defeated you?’

  ‘Again, well done. They face the same problems. It is not lack of religion that’s destroying mankind, it is mankind that is destroying religion. Such a creature is incompetent to aspire to the likeness of God. God tried but failed. He will try again.’

  ‘I thought God was perfect,’ said Cale.

  ‘God is perfect.’

  ‘Then why has he made such a mess of mankind?’

  ‘Because he is perfectly generous. God is not some criminal who cheats in his own card game. He wishes to engage with us freely, out of choice. Not even God can make a circle square. God is lonely – he wants mankind to choose obedience, not be frightened into it. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, yes.’

  ‘Neither I nor the God we both serve need you to agree. You are not a man and you are not a god, you are anger and disappointment made flesh. What you do is what you are. What you think is irrelevant.’

  ‘And when it’s over?’

  ‘I have been told in my visions that you will be taken up and set aside in the Island of Avalon, a place flowing with milk and honey. You will stay there clothed in white samite until a time, if it comes, when God needs you again.’

  After this Cale did not say anything for some time.

  ‘Tell me about Chartres.’

  ‘The
Sanctuary is the military heart of the faith but that’s why it’s positioned here in the back of beyond – to curtail its shout. Although I have great power, any commander of the Sanctuary who approaches within forty miles of Chartres would be excommunicated by fiat of the Pope. I am permitted there only by his express permission – rarely forthcoming – and never with more than a dozen priests. Even then I haven’t met with him alone since Gant and Parsi sealed him off from the world like a pea in a pod.’

  ‘I don’t know what that is.’ A pause. ‘Why don’t they kill you?’

  ‘Straight there as usual. They count me as a rival but one effectively neutralized because all my power is in the army and not in Chartres. Your running away, Cale, advanced matters too quickly.’

  ‘Or you,’ said Cale, ‘have allowed them to drift.’

  ‘Not so. Almost since the day you arrived here I have been recruiting three hundred military officers who have accepted that mankind cannot be cured and that you are its solution. They will be here soon. You will train these already considerable men and they will train three hundred more and so on. Within two years you will have prepared four thousand officers and I will be ready to move against Gant and Parsi. If I am successful we will be invited into Chartres to save the Pope.’

  ‘And how will you do that?’

  ‘That’s not something you need to worry about.’

  ‘But I do worry.’

  ‘Then worry away.’

  ‘What’s samite?’

  ‘Silk. Heavy white silk.’

  It was not that Cale believed Bosco about Avalon, though Bosco was clearly sincere in his certainty of the existence of the place, but he was dubious at the picture of the pleasures that awaited him there.

  ‘The last time I saw anyone wearing heavy white silk it was some archbishop giving a high mass in praise of God. Four hours was bad enough. In case you hadn’t noticed I’m not the praising type.’

  ‘Why would you be? In Avalon you will be cared for by seventy-two creatures who are not exactly angels.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘They are feminine spirits. Lesser than the rebel angels they made common cause with because they were resentful, as always, about their place in heaven. But seventy-two of them realized before God’s final victory that they would lose even what they already had, and so, weeping tears, they persuaded God to show them mercy – against the advice of the Holy Mother, who saw them for the conniving slags they were. But a forgiving God sent them to Avalon in recognition of that repentance and as punishment for having wavered in their faith. They are waiting for you and to serve you in any way you desire.’

  ‘Like the nuns in the convent.’

  ‘That will be a matter for you – and so I assume not at all like the nuns in the convent.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’

  ‘It was revealed to me in the desert.’

  2

  According to the Janes the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone. Consider, then, the heart of Thomas Cale, sold for sixpence, fed on beatings, steeled to murder and then betrayed by the only living creature to show him love (a particularly hard one, that). Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul. Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation. Imagine what poison was poured into Cale’s breast that afternoon and night on Tiger Mountain. Consider the damage done and the power offered to make it right. It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.

  3

  When Vague Henri, IdrisPukke and Kleist had decided on their careful pursuit of Bosco and his prize they had expected him to head straight for the safety of the Sanctuary, so the long detour taken by Bosco made them wary and suspicious. IdrisPukke only realized where they were going a few hours before Tiger Mountain appeared on the horizon. He was surprised that the news seemed to amaze the two boys.

  ‘This is the Holiest site in the Good Book,’ said Vague Henri.

  ‘I didn’t think you believed in all that any more,’ replied IdrisPukke.

  ‘Who said we do?’ For the last few days Kleist had been even touchier than usual.

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Vague Henri, ‘but we’ve heard about this place all our lives. God spoke to Prester John on that mountain. Jephthah sacrificed his only daughter to the Lord there.’

  ‘What?’

  The two patiently explained the story, so often repeated to them it no longer seemed a real event with real people – a none-too-sharp knife and a twelve-year-old girl willingly bent over a curved rock.

  ‘Good grief,’ said IdrisPukke when they’d finished.

  ‘And it was where Satan tempted the Hanged Redeemer with power over the whole world. I got a hefty thrashing for pointing out that Satan must’ve been a bit of a dunce.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘What’s the point of tempting someone with something they don’t want?’

  The unexpectedness of Bosco’s diversion meant that they had little water and no food for two days. But Kleist had shot a fox and they were waiting with sore stomachs for it to cook.

  ‘Do you think it’s ready?’

  ‘Better wait,’ said Kleist. ‘You don’t want to be eating undercooked fox.’

  IdrisPukke didn’t want to be eating fox, undercooked or otherwise. When it was ready Kleist cut it (carving a fox into three equal parts was no mean feat), complete equality of shares being ensured by the law of the acolytes that whoever divided what they were about to eat had to take the smallest portion, an insight into human nature that had it been extended to a great many grander matters would have transformed the history of the world. IdrisPukke was still looking down at the fair third of the crisply done animal on his plate while the other two were on the point of finishing, though a good half-hour of bone and marrow sucking would follow.

  ‘What’s it like?’ said IdrisPukke.

  ‘Good,’ said Vague Henri.

  ‘I mean what’s it taste like?’

  Vague Henri looked up, thoughtfully, trying to be exact in his comparison. ‘A bit like dog.’

  Eating it, it was food after all, IdrisPukke was reminded of pork cooked in axle-grease, if axle-grease tasted anything like it smelt. When, with a full and queasy stomach, he fell asleep, he dreamt all night, as it seemed to him, of teapots pulsating in the night sky. When he woke up with the sky beginning to barely lighten, it was to the sound of Vague Henri cursing in a foul temper.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Vague Henri picked up a rock and hurled it at the ground in a great fury.

  ‘It’s that shit-bag Kleist. He’s run away, the treacherous bastard.’

  ‘You’re sure he hasn’t just gone to relieve himself or to be on his own?’

  ‘Do I look like an idiot?’ replied Vague Henri. ‘He’s taken all his stuff.’ He continued pouring execrations on Kleist’s head for a good five minutes until picking up the same rock and throwing it down with a last burst of temper, he sat down and boiled in silence.

  After leaving him in silence for a few minutes, IdrisPukke asked him why he was so angry. Vague Henri looked back at him, indignant as well as bewildered.

  ‘He left us in the lurch.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It’s …’ He was unable to put an exact finger on why. ‘… obvious.’

  ‘Well, perhaps. But why shouldn’t he leave us in the lurch?’

  ‘Because he was supposed to be my friend – and friends don’t leave their friends in the lurch.’

  ‘But Cale isn’t his friend. I heard him say so any number of times. I don’t remember Cale having a good word for him either.’

  ‘Cale saved his life.’

  ‘He sa
ved Cale’s life at Silbury Hill – and more than once.’

  Vague Henri gasped in irritation.

  ‘What about me? He was supposed to be my friend.’

  ‘Did you ask him if he wanted to come with us?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything when we started.’

  ‘Well, he’s said something now.’

  ‘Why couldn’t he say it to my face?’

  ‘I suppose he was ashamed.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘There you are nothing. Granted that judged by the highest standards of saintliness he should have explained his reasoning to you personally and in full. You claim to be his friend – has Kleist ever implied any aspirations to saintliness?’

  Vague Henri looked away as if he might find someone ready to support his case. He said nothing for some time and then laughed – a sound partly humorous, partly disappointed.

  ‘No.’

  Unable to resist moralizing, IdrisPukke continued complacently. ‘It’s pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests. Whose interests would they look to? Yours? Kleist knows what’s waiting for him if he’s caught again. Why should he risk such a hideous death for someone he doesn’t even like?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Why should he risk such a hideous death for someone he does like? You must think awfully well of yourself.’

  This time Vague Henri laughed without the disappointment. ‘So why have you come then? The Redeemers won’t be any kinder to you than to me.’

  ‘Simple,’ said IdrisPukke. ‘I have allowed affection to get the better of my good judgement.’ He could not resist the opportunity to expand on another one of his pet notions. ‘That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.’