Flicker (82 page)

“What do you mean?”

Angelotti took a deep breath, then fell silent, his eyes closed. He seemed to have sunk into a small meditation. His eyes were still shut when he spoke. “You are a student of film, Jon. Very well, imagine the last five centuries running by as if they were a movie compressed into an hour's time. Doesn't the story tell itself? What do we see? A love affair with power, more and more power. Our infamous but ever so exhilarating Faustian bargain. And all the power becomes weapons, every great discovery, all the great theories. Guns, bombs, rockets, poison gas, tanks, planes, missiles. The nations grow bigger, the wars grow bigger … until at last the wars become bigger than the world itself.

“The next war will be the last war. We all know this. We are only left to wonder if anything—the termites, the roaches, the bacteria—will survive. Put the bomb together with the germs, perhaps finally nothing will outlive the catastrophe. There will be the hellfire of the bomb, the scourge of the plague, a final worldwide winter blotting out the light for a thousand years, and then nothing, a sterile rock in place of the fruitful earth.

“We agree, don't we, this is no fantasy? This is the news of the day. The movie we are watching is one mad rush toward annihilation. Yet think of the genius that has gone into this production! The machines, the medicines, the instruments that explore the great world and the small. Think how much has been perverted, twisted, poisoned. How are we to account for this, for the amazing coherence of this terrifying scenario? Can it be purely fortuitous? Or is there not obviously a design here before us, the design of a story? If a person
knew nothing whatever of the orphans, might he not in a moment of frightening insight say to himself, ‘It is
as if
someone has planned it? But you and I know better, don't we? We can say, It is
because
someone has planned it.'”

He left me dazzled and depressed while he exited to the kitchen to brew the coffee and lay out dessert. Listening to his fine, strong baritone voice—he was crooning what sounded like a Gregorian chant—I realized what it meant to be a man of faith connected with a tradition that taught one to think across centuries. Angelotti had clearly learned how to keep his morale flying high while he pursued his small, secret, probably futile war against the orphans. I envied him his resiliency. Myself, I was feeling just flattened. When he returned with two steaming cups and a plate of biscotti—more food he'd have to finish for me—I let him know how hopeless the prospect seemed to me.

“But if all you say is true, Eduardo, I don't see what you expect me to achieve by continuing my study of the orphans. What can I do between now and 2014 that others haven't been able to do?”

“I cannot say exactly. Possibly if you could get hold of this device you describe in your article … the sallyrand, as you call it. Think what that would prove about the orphans' film technique.”

“They'd never let me have one.”

“Are you certain? Perhaps you might, shall we say, ‘liberate' one?”

“Steal it, you mean?”

Angelotti smiled slyly. “If I were a Jesuit, I might be able to offer an acceptable justification. Dominican casuistry is rather primitive. Shall we say ‘all's fair in war'?”

A bit shamefacedly I admitted, “I've tried to do it already.”

“Oh?”

“With Simon. I asked him to loan me one, but he wouldn't. If he had, I would've swiped it.”

“But possibly if you could return to Zurich, to their film laboratory … who knows? The opportunity might present itself. As it is, your description of this device sounds not at all convincing.”

“Frankly, Eduardo, I don't think I have much talent as a thief, if that's what it comes down to.”

“I'm sure we can think of other things,” he hastened to assure me. “We must talk more. Now I only ask that you consider what I suggest. Of this much I am certain—that in the whole history of the grand conspiracy, you are uniquely placed. I know of no one who has been
given such privileged access. And at a time when the orphans are more exposed to risk than ever before.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they must reveal more and more of their work to more and more people. Dunkle's films will go out to hundreds of millions around the world. Dunkle himself will become a celebrity. There would seem to be no way to avoid this. Perhaps—one hesitates to raise the hope—perhaps this is a mistake, the one mistake our friends have made. I assure you, Jon, I do not overestimate our chances. But my faith teaches that we are not permitted to despair.”

As I walked Angelotti to the elevator, I asked a last question, something I'd stowed away earlier that evening. “That tune you were humming during dinner … do you know what it is?”

“I'm sorry. Was I humming?”

I whistled a bit of what I remembered. “Ah yes,” he said, picking up on the fragment of melody and adding several notes more. “A French folk song. Still quite popular. Truffaut uses it in
Les Mistons. I
was working with the film today.” He held the door of the elevator long enough to hum a few bars more. “Catchy, is it not?”

Back in the apartment, I turned off the lights and lay back on the couch, waiting for Clare to come home. It was now almost beside the point what she might have to say about the article I'd written. Angelotti had succeeded in making the piece seem hopelessly inadequate. Not because it tried to say too much, but because I now had some idea of how much more needed to be said, things which led into fields where my ignorance was total. It might indeed be the work of years to study up, dig through, muster the facts, make the case. The prospect exhausted me. All the more so when I realized how uncertain was my loyalty to Angelotti's cause. There was no question but that he had painted a monstrous picture of the orphans for me that evening. If I believed all he said, no doubt I would share his fanatical dedication. But I simply couldn't take seriously the apocalyptic intention he had described. Not yet, not without more thought, more evidence. And short of that, I was bound to be an unreliable ally.

How it would have surprised Angelotti to know that my doubts arose from the little tune I'd asked about. I couldn't have explained my curiosity about it, so I hadn't tried. But I was certain the melody I overheard him humming as he prepared our dinner was the same that Natalie Feather had sung that Saturday afternoon in Hermosa
Beach when she experienced her passion. Since that extraordinary occasion, I'd frequently caught myself humming it. So it was nothing more after all than a folk song that Mrs. Feather had unconsciously picked up along the way. Whatever its true source, Guillemette's song (as I'd come to call it) still had a special significance for me. It brought with it the memory of an ancient atrocity that had taken the lives of thousands. Were the orphans victims or villains? Was it my role to be their enemy, their advocate—or simply a neutral observer on hand to chronicle a long-lost chapter in the history of human intolerance? Without a clear decision on that point, I would never find the will to do what Angelotti was proposing.

“These days I go to more parties than movies. The parties are better than the movies. That is, until some asshole starts talking about movies, which some asshole always does. That's when you know it's time to leave—or get drunk. Tonight I left. No drinking. I didn't want to flake out on you again, sweetheart.”

Clare staying sober just for me. I was flattered.

It was just short of ten o'clock when she came bustling in, eager to talk. But it took another hour for the talk to begin. First there was taking phone messages, and showering, and slipping-into-something-comfortable. It was worth the wait. To my barely concealed delight, Clare decided to make this a special audience held in her bedroom. On her bed. Only then, when the two of us were nested across from one another on her lush comforter, was she prepared to trust herself with a drink, something bitter and bubbly for the two of us. She was in a simple but elegant black robe, settled back against a small mountain of pillows, surrounded by an odor of spiced bath splash. She looked and smelled and sounded simply great—though not at all like the Clare with whom I'd once shared a bed for more than conversation. Still, it brought back sweet memories.

“Do you remember the last time we were on a bed together?” I asked.

Clare pointed the finger of doom in my face. “Absolutely no reminiscing. I'm too vulnerable at this age. And no seducing.”

“Me
seduce
you?”

“Well, it won't happen any other way.”

“What won't happen?”

“What's not going to happen. Down to business.” She took her copy of my article from the bedstand and dropped it in front of me.
“If you publish this—and believe me, nobody's going to publish it—I'll disown you.”

She wasn't kidding. “Why?” I asked.

“It makes you sound like a crackpot. You aren't a crackpot, are you?”

“I believe it's all true.”

“Exactly what a crackpot would say. Anyway, I don't care if it's true. The point is, there's no wit to it, no polish, no style. It's so damned, relentlessly journalistic.”

“Does that make any difference?”

“All the difference, love. Especially when you're serving up such dismally serious stuff. It's just too breathless, and earnest, and … unrelieved. Christ, you come on like Stanley discovering Livingstone. Extra, extra, scoop of the century! At least people could believe in Livingstone. Nobody except other crackpots would believe this. The trick would be to write it as if you weren't sure you believed it yourself. Hook them with a good story, make them wonder. Probably you should do the whole thing as fiction. As it is …”

My insides began to go watery. Because I knew she was right. I just didn't have the touch for this assignment. Gloomily, I told her, “That's what Eduardo said too. Nobody's going to believe me.”

“Did he? Well, well. Shows that even a Jesuit can be right sometimes.”

“He's a Dominican.”

“Whichever.”

“What about the stuff on Dunkle?”

“Oh, that's first-rate. My advice is to fillet this thing. Throw away the bone and gristle and messy innards, leave the meat, and you've got something. A good, sound critical thrashing for this depraved adolescent. Go for it.”

“But the critique of Simon connects with Castle. And that connects with subliminal techniques. And that connects with the orphans, their religious teachings, their history… . Where do I apply the knife?”

“Simple. Save all the stuff on Castle for your definitive study, which I gather you're still planning to finish before you go on Social Security, am I right?”

“Well, it's gotten a little bogged down lately… .”

She sighed wearily. “Typical. Scholarly constipation. I expected better of you, Jonny.” I started to explain, but she waved me to silence. “Save it for your promotion-and-tenure committee. Otherwise,
I suggest you go through this and wherever the word ‘orphan' appears,
cut.
Keep cutting. Make it a piece of film criticism, not conspiratorial reportage.”

“Also what Eduardo advised.”

Clare was surprised. “He shows better judgment than I expected.” With honest bewilderment, she added, “He's an odd bird. I can't really figure him.”

“You met him at a conference … in Milan?”

“I was at the conference, not him. We met at a party after some marathon panel discussion. I can't recall what we said. I was pretty well smashed. Then we met again through mutual friends.”

“Did he tell you he was part of Oculus Dei right away?”

“If he had, I'd have run for cover. Usually fruitcakes like that come at you wild-eyed and raving. But Eddy was smart enough to keep his affiliation sub rosa until we were three or four meetings along. By that time I was semicaptivated. You may have noticed the resemblance to Marcello Mastroianni. A sort of starved-down version. How can a poor girl resist? Of course, I didn't know he was a priest—and a seriously celibate one—until later. But he makes up for that with conversation. Very sharp, very engaging. And he knows a lot of people in Italian film. He kept arranging introductions for me, which I appreciated. Then, at one meeting, he got into a heavy exchange with somebody about movie projectors. I flashed on his train of thought immediately. I was the one to bring up Oculus Dei. ‘Are you one of
them?'
I asked. He admitted he was. Next thing, we were having long conversations about the Albigensian origins of Mickey Mouse. And I was listening closely, much to my amazement.”

“Eduardo wants me to hold off on writing about the orphans for now… .”

“Good idea.”

“… and to work with him on a bigger, more definitive piece of scholarship.”

“Oh, oh, bad idea. Give it up, Jonny. Eduardo is a fanatic. A cultivated fanatic, I grant you, but a fanatic nonetheless.”

“Then why did you introduce us?”

“Not to get you involved with him. It'll be the end of your career if you do. You'll spend the rest of your life scratching around for crumbs of arcane lore, sniffing out rumors, chasing shadows. You're too good to be wasted on that. Besides, Eddy is a sponger. Amiable, engaging, but totally penniless. Collaborate with him and I assure
you, he'll have you paying all the expenses. If he hangs around much longer, I'm putting a lock on my liquor cabinet.”

“So how do you want me to handle the man?”

“Be warned, that's all. I wanted Eddy to give you some idea of what you might be up against so that you'd steer clear.”

“Steer clear? How can I do that? Hasn't he told you what's at stake? Everything's at stake.”

“That's fanatical talk. Everything is
never
at stake.”

“How can you say that? Is it because you don't believe him?” Clare didn't answer. Instead, she returned a smoldering, fixed stare, her eyes loaded with anger. Had I said the wrong thing? But this was the inevitable question. I couldn't let her sidestep. “Clare, you asked me to come here. You said it was important. You put me in touch with Angelotti. You vouched for him.
Why,
if you don't believe him?” She kept staring, but now I could see a rim of tears collecting under her eyes. One tear welled over and started down her cheek. “Clare, you must've known I'd ask you. Why else would I have come? Is it true about the orphans, the medieval movies, all that? Do you
think
it's true?”