The Last Western (35 page)

“We wish to send you around all those places where sins have caused men to break up the country all over and every which fashion and bring charity and peace of Christ to souls who have forgotten about wisdom and holiness and purity.

“Wherefore we suspend you of many duties—that is, your duties” here Tricci looked at Willie, “as auxiliary bishop of Houston, in Texas, United States, and other offices held by self in country of same and appoint you to special mission of bringing peace to disharmonious nations and justice to men which are tumulting and revolving—revolving?” Tricci turned to George Doveland Goldenblade.

“Revolting.”

“To revolting men and lead to calm refuge all those who are suffering atheistic monistic lies and evils and insufferabilities.” Cardinal Tricci sneezed. “Signed at Rome, August 15, Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary, eighth year of our Pontificate. Felix VII.”

Willie looked at Tricci, then McCool, then Felder.

Felder was smiling.

“Perhaps,” said Cardinal Goldenblade, “we could paraphrase that a bit. His Holiness, as you must know, Bishop, is very concerned about the rise of monist violence all over the globe. He has seen and heard of your miraculous way of calming the troubles here in the United States. Now he is asking you to use these God-given gifts to help restore peace and tranquillity and the spirit of brotherhood in all those places of the world where killing and bloodshed have caused men to forget the message of the Prince of Peace.”

Through the window behind them, Willie could see the first of the bulldozers beginning to work on the burned tenements of Baltimore.

“My brother here, along with Bishop McCool, and with the help of many experts from Europe, and of course with the advice and assistance of Cardinal Tricci have been reviewing the appeals that have been coming into the Vatican this past year. To the new RevCon office.”

“What is that?” said Willie.

“The Pontifical Commission for Relief to Distressed Nations.” said Bishop McCool. “RevCon is just the slang for it.”

“What do they want?” said Willie.

“Peace in their lands,” said Cardinal Goldenblade. “An end to the violence perpetrated by Marxists, monists and counter-counterrevolutionaries.”

“You don’t imagine they enjoy murder, do you?” said George Doveland Goldenblade.

Willie said, “Is it just going to be like here?”

Bishop McCool: “Like where?”

“Like here in Baltimore,” said Willie.

“You don’t get the idea,” said George Goldenblade. He made a fat little airplane of his hands, flapping the wings. “The Pope is asking you to fly out of this country, out of Baltimore—that’s where we are right now—to strange countries that maybe you heard about in your fifth grade geography class. Angola for instance, Etherea, Iraq, Zambia. You
have
heard of those countries. Think.”

“Of course he has heard of those countries,” said his brother. “Sometimes, George, you tend to be a little sarcastic, as mom always said.”

“He’s talking like Baltimore and Zambia are the same thing,” said G. D. Goldenblade.

“There is a Zambia Boulevard in the city,” said Archbishop Looshagger. “I was falsely accused there once for bike theft. That was ten years ago, or ten months, or was it ten days? Ye shall bear many persecutions until the abomination of desolation passes away. My words, however—”

“You will accept the mission, Excellency?” said Tricci. “It were most difficult. The Holy Father have knowed this much to sufficiency.”

Willie had been trying to pray, but nothing was coming through. They were all looking at him.

“There is another matter,” said Tricci. “Pope make you elector.”

“Pardon me?” said Willie.

“You now become elector of pope. When pope go to God, you help elect new pope. Very much honor.”

Willie was still looking out the window.

“Politics,” said Tricci. He waved a thin finger back and forth. “No no no no. Papa say no. That were no.”

Goldenblade whispered something to his brother. Bishop McCool lighted his pipe. A full minute passed. No one said anything.

“I think,” Willie said finally, “it would be better to try to bring justice to those countries, as well as an end to the fighting.”

“Certainly!”

“Assuredly!”

“Without doubt!”

“Otherwise,” said Willie, “isn’t it all just a false peace?”

They all talked at once then. Cardinal Goldenblade said that as Willie helped put down the violence, the church and its missioners would be working diligently to create better social conditions. George Doveland Goldenblade spoke of the food that had been sent by the church into the first countries Willie would be visiting. Bishop McCool said that the latest encyclical letter of Pope Felix made it perfectly clear that unless and until the wealth of the world was distributed more equitably, then the violence would continue and the fault would be with the rich countries—”Like our own,” added Bishop McCool. George Doveland Goldenblade looked at Bishop McCool as if he had several noses.

“What is actually happening, though?” Willie asked. “The poor are hungry, the babies and the old people are sick, a few have all the money. That is my understanding of life in those countries.”

Felder stage-coughed. Willie looked over at him. He was shaking his head.

Cardinal Tricci was looking at Willie intently, his forehead furrowed.

“You understood His Holiness asking you to do this. Also I give you to know not to implicate in political sector.”

“That’s understood, of course,” said Cardinal Goldenblade.

“What’s understood?” said Willie.

“That you’re not going to join either side of the war—unless you go in for atheistic murder,” said George Doveland Goldenblade.

Suddenly, as if he had come out of a cave in which he had been imprisoned for many years and had only a few minutes before he must return, Archbishop Looshagger said, “Did someone say this bishop is going to Angola?”

“Yes, brother,” said Willie kindly.

“Why Rafferty is there,” said the old man. “A priest named Rafferty. He went there long ago from this city. He loved the poor. I used to send him small things. He lost his hand in some war. Please give him my fraternal love in Christ Jesus.”

Willie went up to the old archbishop, who had started to cry remembering his friend Rafferty, and embraced him.

“I will tell him that his friend remembers him, my brother.”

Then Archbishop Looshagger went back into the cave. “The bicycle that was stolen was clearly marked with a Chi Rho. Heaven and earth shall pass…”

But nobody was paying attention to Archbishop Looshagger. They were all congratulating Willie and wishing him good luck on the mission. He had said yes, he guessed, or he had made it easy for them to understand that he had said yes.

“Mr. Felder has generously offered the use of his plane,” said Cardinal Goldenblade.

“And Mr. Goldenblade,” said Bishop McCool, “has opened up a $100,000 expense account for you and your assistants at the First Bank of Houston.”

“I can’t take that money,” Willie said sharply. “I don’t want it.”

“Nevertheless,” said Goldenblade to Tricci, “it will be applied to his expenses.”

“Most generous,” said Tricci.

Then they gave Willie the list of countries and went away.

When they were gone, Willie looked the countries up on a map Herman Felder gave him.

“The people there fight for food, and we are going to put the fighting down?”

Felder brought up a chair. “Will, what they think of this trip and what we think of it are two different things. This is the moment we’ve waited for so long—the sacramental moment, as Benjamin calls it.”

“Father Benjamin really did approve the trip?”

“Every detail. He and I proposed it to RevCon, using various intermediaries.”

Willie could hear the trip-hammers and bulldozers down in the streets.

“But who knows what to do, Brother Herman? Surely I have no answers for those countries.”

“We’ll find the answers,” Felder said firmly. “We’ll make the answers.”

Truman came into the room. He and Willie exchanged the sign of Christ’s peace.

“One thing—we have the best pilot in the world,” said Felder.

“I have no doubt of that,” Willie said. Then he went to the rooming house to pack his few possessions in the plastic suitcase they had given him in Delphi.

Before he returned to the Poe Motor Lodge he called to bid Mr. Grayson good-bye.

Mr. Grayson was overjoyed at the prospect of the trip.

“You are going to bring the Spirit down upon the whole earth, my son,” Mr. Grayson said. “How sin is going to catch it now!”

“If you see him again, Mr. Grayson, try to explain—that I am sorry?”

“O mi luri, o mi arithi lui!” said Mr. Grayson.

“My love with you always, Mr. Grayson.”

“Rui oko gulio mihi sinrama tu!”

“Good-bye, Mr. Grayson.”

“Okimiro.”

Then Willie went back to the Poe Motor Lodge, where Felder and Truman and Joto were waiting.

On the way to the airport he spoke often to his heart and listened most carefully, and he knew that this was the definite end and the definite beginning of something.

And so began the sojourn that would lead him to many strange and bloody territories, to many traps and snares, and finally to the largest cage of all.

Out
over the broad, blank face of the Atlantic, Felder’s jet sped them toward the first stop, Angola. On board: Willie, Felder, Joto and, at the semiautomatic controls, Truman.

The plane was a custom jet that Felder had designed in the old days, with a cockpit to accommodate Truman’s huge frame, and with special racks for photographic gear. Recently the craft had been remodeled for ordinary travel and might be mistaken for a businessman’s jet, except that its passengers would not pass muster as businessmen anywhere in the world.

Above the lounge chair, where Felder sat, the great camera swung to and fro with the motion of the flight, its lens flashing now blue, now green, now red—like a magical prism or a beacon in a dream.

At first Felder had talked sensibly about conditions in Angola, Etherea and the other stops on the tour. But one hour into the flight, he had uncorked a flask of the blue liquid. Now as he talked, he was aging visibly before them, and his account wandered to other things, starting nowhere, ending nowhere.

Willie sat beside him, trying earnestly to follow, watching the minute-by-minute withering of mind, emotion, even sensation.

Just at the moment Willie expected collapse, Felder caught him and slapped his arm jovially.

“But what the hell?” he said. “It was only a movie.”

Willie nodded, hoping Joto would supply a reference point.

Felder stood up, stretched, then looked down at Willie.

“One time had the idea of doing the whole thing through a single character. Cowboy named Charley Main. Starts rounding up strays in France before there was a France.”

Willie, biting his lip, strained to follow.

“Charley Main is a great pal of Marco Polo. Also cowhand, but different range. Goes east when Charley goes west. With Columbus. But I was starting at the wrong place. Realized too late.”

“Too late?” Willie managed.

“Far too late,” Felder said, grabbing the overhead rack. “Charley Main is—well let’s see, Charley Main would be eight, nine o’clock, wouldn’t he? Wanted to get back to 4:00 a.m. Even earlier. So kept going back. Beyond Corinth. Beyond Jerusalem. Even beyond Ur.”

He lit a cigarette and turned to Joto. “Joto tell you all about it, right?”

Joto said, “Maybe eat dinner now.”

“I’m going forward,” Felder said. “Want to sit with Truman awhile. Want to see the light go out down there—maybe see the Santa Maria coming the other way.”

With only a slight stagger Felder went to the cabin.

Willie started to go after him but Joto took his arm.

“Must run its course,” he said. “Already cross over now.”

“We can’t let him get like last night.”

“Have medicine for later. Know all about taking care. Much practice.”

“Those things he said—that’s all a movie?”

Joto nodded.

“A movie he made?”

Sitting down beside Willie, Joto lighted a pipe. A sigh. He looked at Willie as if trying to decide what to say.

“Maybe you would rather not speak,” Willie said, thinking of Recommendation 48 of the Guidebook, which discouraged the personal recounting of one’s past life except in community listening.

“All right, Joto speak,” the ex-artist said. “Maybe help you understand Brother Herman. But know this, Brother Willie: what Joto say itself untrustworthy. Joto himself struggle with truth.”

Willie said kindly, “We all struggle with truth, Brother Joto. But please don’t say anything just for me.”

Another sigh. Joto drew on his pipe, looking down at his hands.

“You worked with him, Joto, I know that much,” Willie said, trying to help. “I remember from the Guidebook, something about a film you made. You don’t have to talk about it though.”

“Ego-shine days,” Joto said. “Secondhand real.”

“The movie you made—the movie mentioned in the Guidebook?”

Joto laughed softly. “That not too bad. Cartoon about America. First work with Herman then. Cartoon about America beginning.” Joto took the pipe from his mouth and really laughed this time. “Government not appreciate. Condemn movie. Very much funny.”

Willie tried to share the memory but there was nothing to remember—and suddenly Joto’s mouth reset itself in the same sad line.

He looked at his hands once more.

“Once Joto great painter. Great explainer of life in picture. Believe in certain beauty—one step away from life. That is reason Joto bad explainer.”

“Brother Joto,” said Willie. “Don’t go on, please, unless it will help you and help Brother Herman. Really.”

Joto, shaking his head, said, “Joto not judge Brother Herman. Joto love Herman. What Joto tell you now only maybe lie—but maybe also help you, Brother Willie, help Brother Herman. Up to now, we all fail to help.”

Then and there, 35,000 feet above the Atlantic, Joto told the story of how he and Herman Felder had met and how they had worked together and how Felder had become what he had become. He spoke in both sign and speech, and the story took more than an hour.