A Creed for the Third Millennium (22 page)

She flicked the remote-control panel in
her hand, and the screen of a very large video monitor set into the wall
opposite the President's desk came to life.

'This is Dr Joshua Christian, a
psychologist practising privately in the town of Holloman,
Connecticut.'

There he was on the screen, a tall,
gracefully ungainly man pacing back and forth between a jungle of plants in a
very beautiful, peaceful room. The volume from the high fidelity, stereophonic
speakers grew from a murmur until the sound of Dr Christian's voice, deep and
clear and compelling, filled the Oval Office.

'Mama, you are so lucky. Today I found a
truly valid reason for my book A man came to me for help. But I wasn't really
able to help him — at least as a psychologist — because what he was suffering
from has no answer. His child died last week. Yes.
His only child!
Of
course they could have got permission from the First Child Bureau to replace
this boy, but his wife is hysterectomized, and that's a strike they
can't overcome no matter how, no matter what.
He was still capable of seeking help, his wife is not.'

Dr Christian stopped, turned to face
towards a different direction, was obviously subjected to some amateurish
editing on the videotape, then reappeared in the lens of another camera. 'Aren't
you lucky, Mama? You've got four children. Yes, I understand the loss of a child
is something no parent ever really recovers from, but the only thing in life
which can cushion such a loss is the presence of other children. That man was in
the midst of the classic nightmare situation of the one-child family. The death
of the child. He stood there with the tears running down his face begging me for
help — not help for himself so much as help for his wife. As if he had been told
I
could
help. I couldn't help! No one can help. But how could I turn him
away? I told him he must find God. Not to help, only to understand. He said he
didn't believe in God. That no God could exist and let a child die. Especially,
he said, not his child. Because that's what it boils down to, Mama. God is
personal, God relates to self.'

There was a brief cut to the lovely face
and tear-bright eyes of a young-middle-aged woman (His mother,' sotto voce from
Dr Carriol), then the picture returned to Dr Christian.

'I
asked him if he had any
religious persuasion at any time, and he said no, that his family had abandoned
religion when nuclear weapons began to stockpile three generations ago. But he
had done some reading. He could tell me the names of the innumerable ways that
have been fought in God's name with His bishops in the vanguard — he even told
me Allah's wars and Jehovah's wars! He threw the Chosen People myths in my face,
he reeled off the various religions still extant which teach that only
their
adherents can be saved. Saved from what? he asked. He despised God, he said
— an interesting contradiction, isn't it? Then he told me I was not his first port
of call on this desperate voyage for help. He had gone first to his wife's
minister of religion, from whom he had never bothered to conceal his contempt
for God. And the minister took great pleasure in telling him his child had been
taken from him as a punishment! I ask you, how could a fellow man appealed to by
one in such pain have repaid the compliment by such an answer? The old vengeful
God, alive and still dwelling in our midst. How far have we come? I ask myself.
That is the answer a man might have been given three thousand years ago, when
there was a great deal more excuse for human ignorance! You would think that by
this day and age Man must surely have come closer to understanding God than the behaviour of that so-called Christian minister would indicate, wouldn't you? To
attribute such mean, petty, spiteful vengefulness to a Being as far from where
we stand now as we are from our arboreal ancestors — I tell you, I despair! Not
of God, but of Man!'

The anguished twisted face was abruptly
removed by a split second of darkness, then replaced by a face fair and
beautiful as the mother's, but male ('His brother Andrew,' sotto voce from Dr
Carriol). 'Forget that, Josh,' said Andrew. 'What did you do to
help?'

The picture returned to Dr Christian. 'I
sat down with the poor wretch, and I talked. I talked and I talked and I talked.
Trying to help him find the truth in understanding, and a God he could
accept.'

Another picture change, another and
different male face, like Andrew but less striking ('His brother James,' sotto
voce from Dr Carriol). 'Did you get anywhere?' James asked.

Back to Dr Christian. 'A little. But I
had nothing to send home with him except the memory of my words, and memory is
treacherous. I'm going to see his wife in their home tomorrow, but again I can't
stay with her twenty-four hours a day, and anyway, neither of them is really in need of my professional
services. They just want a strong and understanding heart beside them constantly
through the first and darkest days. And in such situations, my book would be of
more help than I in person, because my book won't leave them. It will be there
in the middle of the night, when the pain is worst and the loneliness most
appalling. I'm not trying to say my book has all the answers, but at least it is
written for people who must live through
these
days. It's utterly
relevant, and I know it can help because I know how many people I've managed to
help by being there in the flesh.' He laughed, a broken, almost sobbing sound.
'You know, a book is a little like the loaves and fishes — it can feed the
multitude.'

Dr Carriol stopped the videotape player
and gave a manuscript copy of Dr Christian's book to the President, then got up
to give a second copy to Harold Magnus.

'The Atticus Press is publishing this in
the autumn, with a full publicity tour by the author — radio, television,
newspapers, magazines, personal lectures and appearances. It's too early yet to
have any readers' reports on the manuscript, this is a rough draft and maybe not
very fair to the author, but it's well worth reading nonetheless.'

Harold Magnus was leaning forward
incredulously, furious to discover that he was going to have opposition where he
had most trusted for support — hadn't he made his message strong enough to her
as they drove over? 'Dr Carriol, are you trying to say that this man — this Dr
Joshua Christian — is your choice for the job?'

'Oh, yes,' she said calmly,
smiling.

'But it's ridiculous! The man's an
unknown!'

'So,' she said deliberately, 'were Jesus
Christ and Mohammed. So it took a few centuries to get the Christian and the
Muslim balls rolling. But in this day and age we have more facilities to make
an unknown man known than ever in the history of the world. If the winner of
Operation Search is not already famous, we can make him famous literally
overnight, and you know it.'

The President had gone very still, and
hooded his large dark eyes. 'Dr Carriol, five years ago I gave you and your
people the job of finding me one person — man or woman did not matter so long as
he or she was the right person —
one person
capable of teaching a sick
nation how to heal itself. A person with his finger on the pulse of the common
people, capable of firing their imaginations as no religious figure seems
capable of doing any more. Now you yourself are talking religion!'

'Yes, Mr President'

'What the hell is going on?' roared
Harold Magnus. 'No one said anything about religion!'

Dr Carriol rounded on him. 'Oh, come on,
sir! Surely you must have realized by now that the only way to cure this
country's ills is to give the people not a moral boost, but a spiritual one! The
man we're looking for has to be possessed of a truly unique ability to influence
the mood of the people, and when you talk that kind of influence, you're talking
about spirituality, religious thought, God, whatever! We need an
American
approach to it, a
contemporary
approach to it, a code for living in
this time devised for the people of the United States of America by a man they
can call their own! A man who understands and appeals to
them,
not the
Irish or the Germans or the Jews or any other group who came here, however long
ago! If our asses weren't dragging on the ground, we wouldn't be here now
looking at the results of one of the biggest and most expensive investigations
ever mounted! But our asses
are
dragging on the ground!'

Tibor Reece watched, his thoughts not
deflected from the main business of the day, yet fascinated even so to discover what kind of people Judith
Carriol and Harold Magnus really were. A man might have considerable congress
with another man, and think he knew him well enough thereby, but nothing could
beat a gloves-off altercation for showing up true colours. The little lady was a
terrier; Harold Magnus was mostly bark

'Look at this,' commanded Dr Carriol,
abandoning the fray just when it was getting interesting. She pressed a button
on her hand-held console, and the dull grey face of the video monitor blossomed
into an image of Dr Christian, sitting at a desk this time. His face was drawn
and tight, and the eyes suffered.

'I don't know why I feel like this, Lucy,
and I know I shouldn't even be saying it, but somehow I have always had a
feeling that I have something more to do than sit here and see my poor patients.
I fight it, mind you! It's too inside my own person, too self-oriented to be of
good intent. Or so I keep trying to tell myself. But I
know
I have a
mission! Something to do, Lucy! Something to do out there among the millions who
don't even know I exist. I want to take them into my arms and love them! Show
them
someone
cares! Someone — anyone — even me.'

Dr Carriol flicked the Off button, and
the video monitor died completely.

'That man,' said Harold Magnus, jabbing
his finger towards the expired monitor, 'is either a revolutionary or a
maniac!'

'No, Mr Secretary,' contradicted Dr
Carriol. 'He is not by any stretching of the definition a revolutionary. At
heart he himself is a very law-abiding man indeed, and his ethos is constructive
rather than destructive. He doesn't hate. He loves! He doesn't burn. He bleeds!
Nor is he a maniac. His thought processes manifest logic and method, and he is
in firm touch with reality. I agree he may be a potential depressive, but if
he's given the kind of work he obviously feels
driven to do, he'll thrive.'

'He comes across very powerfully on
screen,' said the President thoughtfully.

'His is the genuine brand of charisma, Mr
President. It's actually because of the charisma that Dr Chasen and his team
preferred him over Senator Hillier, and after my own personal contacts with Dr
Christian, I am just as convinced that he's the only runner in the field. I
could go on showing you clips of him talking all day, but I'm not going to. The
two clips I have already shown you are relevant to Operation Search and its
whole reason for being. The best backup I can offer is his book. You must read
it.'

'I take it you yourself have absolutely
no doubts about Dr Christian's suitability?' asked the President, studying her
closely.

'None, sir. He is the
only
man
with the characteristics necessary to see the job done the way it must be
done.'

'Hillier, Hillier!' growled Harold
Magnus.

'What about the Senator?' asked Tibor
Reece, not of his Secretary for the Environment, but of Dr Judith
Carriol.

Dr Carriol put the remote-control panel
down on the table to one side of where she was sitting, and leaned forward, her
hands clasped on her knees. In this pose, but with her head lifted so she could
stare straight at Tibor Reece, she spoke. 'Mr President, Mr Secretary, I am
going to be absolutely honest with you. I can't offer you positive proof to back
up my contentions, because my contentions are deduced from certain largely
semiotic behaviour patterns only someone with my training and experience could
properly assess. It is my firm opinion that Senator Hillier
cannot
be
considered for this job for one reason above and beyond any charisma he may or
may not have. Recently I spent an afternoon with him, very pleasantly, very easily. And I came away
utterly convinced that the good Senator is in love with power for the sake of
power. We dare not give this job to a power freak! That simple.'

'Interesting,' said the President, whose
face betrayed nothing of what he thought.

'Also, the Senator doesn't have that
slight streak of compulsive I-am-chosen about him, where Dr Christian does. You
heard Dr Christian for yourselves. I think the I-am-chosen is essential. We
agreed that we couldn't put a religious in this role because of two factors. The
first, that a brand of religion prejudices all those who don't share that
particular brand against the religious. The second, that we are in the midst of
a terminal failure of existing religions to grasp and hold the feelings and the
minds of the people. Yet the right man for this job
must
have a religious
aura about him! In the old days, before cars, planes, computers, education for
the masses, freedom from real pestilence, inside bathrooms and all the other
trappings of our age, only a religious could have done this job. It is neither
my place nor my inclination to comment upon our times in respect of religion,
gentlemen. I know you're both churchgoing men, and I know there are still a few
churchgoing people out there. But every single year they fall away in millions!
The mild rise in church attendance that occurred during the last quarter of the
last century was due apparently to the hawkish nuclear weapon policies of the
men in office at the time, because with the removal of that threat, down went
church attendance again. And down. And down. The latest statistics show that
only one in every thousand persons will admit to a religious persuasion of any
kind, and only one in every fifty thousand regularly goes to church. I'm not
saying that whoever does this job has to bring the people back to God, but I do
think there has to be a strong element of that in him. Dr Joshua Christian
possesses the godly element, the slight streak of I-am-chosen, the
charisma, and a great deal of down-to-earth common sense as well. He's not all
up in the heavenly clouds, as you'll find out soon enough when you read his
book. It's stuffed with the practicalities of life as well as the metaphysics:
how to make a boarded-up house beautiful, how to live with the cold, how to make
the most of relocation, how to deal with boards, bureaux, committees, councils
and the like, how to fill the vacuum of huge chunks of leisure, how to treasure
yet not spoil a single child — great stuff! In the book you'll also discover how
much love there is in Dr Christian for all the people of the world, but
particularly for the people of his own country. He is first, last and always an
American.'