The Listener (23 page)

The mighty plane heaved and dropped, and the stewardesses hurried down the aisle to be sure that their charges had fastened their seat belts. “So soon?” murmured the doctor to the girl. She was such a pretty young thing, with a fresh face like a warm summer pear. “There’s a snowstorm over Chicago,” she said reassuringly. “Bad weather and a little bumpy, perhaps. We’ll be there in about thirty-five minutes.”

The lights in the plane went on as they were gulped into the darkness. A terrible thing, this speed, thought Dr. Kadimo. I left California in a full hot day, and in just this little while I am in darkness, and it is winter in Chicago. What frightful forces men can now control! But they cannot control the most frightful things of all: their own hearts. They can speed with the sun, but they cannot speed mercy, or justice, or peace, for these are not in them. They can ban the midnight, but not the malignancy of their minds. They can illuminate the heavens, but not their spirits. They can climb the loftiest stratosphere and eye the moon, but they cannot climb the dunghill of their sins and their crimes against each other. They can divide and fission and fuse the atom — how dreadful! — but they cannot part themselves from the terror that lives in them; they cannot fuse God to their souls. “Man is inclined to evil,” said the Church, “and to darkness rather than to light.” But the Western ethic of the Reformation and of Rousseau declared that man was naturally good and was distorted and debased only by the institutions about him. What folly! He, and he alone, created his institutions, was then imprisoned by them. Tortured and murdered by them. He had made a hell of the green garden of the world. He had filled it with devils like himself. And now —

But still, at the desperate outposts of this staring horror which man had made of his planet, the desperate outposts in the night, stood some men of goodness and charity, men who made wine and music, who worshiped secretly, who loved, who would even die to defend that which was sacred. When all the world had stood sheepishly silent before the massacre of Hungary and not a statesman had lifted his voice in a shout of rage and wrath, some very young Russian soldiers in their tanks had refused to fire upon men and women and little children in Budapest. Those young boys, who had been taught the litany of Lucifer all their lives, who had known nothing but fury and madness! Yet these few, these clumsy youths, had preferred to be shot than to do a monstrous thing. I salute you, said the doctor in his soul. For you, I will find a way. Even hell could not prevail against your sudden holy compassion, could not consume it in fire; knowing nothing of goodness, you re-created it in your hearts. I salute you, brave children. God be with you.

The stewardess brought Dr. Kadimo his coat. She was the conscientious girl. She worried because the coat was so light.

The storm in Chicago was tremendous, with a huge blizzard and freezing winds. She said to the doctor, “Why, the temperature is close to zero outside, Dr. Kadimo. And this coat — ”

“I’ve lived in California and in the desert a long time,” said the doctor, touched at this gentle solicitude, which had come spontaneously and without a hope of money. “A very long time. When I visited the East before, it was usually summer. Please don’t worry. I know what winter is. See, I have a sweater, which I have just put on.” He wanted to kiss her cheek, as he had kissed the cheek of his dead young daughter, Stella, who had died of poliomyelitis when she had been as young as this child. Stella had always been so concerned about him after they had been left alone following the death of her mother. He was no longer grieved over Stella. She had died in youth and innocence, before man had increased his madness a thousandfold. She had died the day before the atomic bombs had been dropped on the defenseless cities of Japan. God forgive me, thought Dr. Kadimo as the stewardess helped him pull on his coat. If You can, Lord, forgive me. If You cannot, then let me, out of my most awful guilt, undo what I have done or make it impossible again.

The snow and the wind tore at his clothing. He carried little baggage. He bent his head and rushed into the brilliant airport, where anxious throngs teemed at the airline desks, only to learn that almost all planes East and West had been canceled. He went to his own airline desk. “Dr. Kadimo?” said the harassed agent. “I’m sorry, but your plane to Washington has been canceled. But one plane is leaving for —in about half an hour. That will take you half your way; we can book you through from there to Washington, though the plane doesn’t leave from — until tomorrow morning. There is a good hotel right at the airport, though, where you could stay overnight.”

“And I can’t stay in Chicago overnight and then take my scheduled plane for Washington?”

“You’ll be taking a chance, sir. The weather reports are that this storm is just beginning. It’s expected to be worse tomorrow. This is a bad time of the year.”

Dr. Kadimo shivered with cold. His gray face was pinched with it. He was also very tired. Perhaps it would be best to stay in Chicago and wait, even two days if necessary. He could call Washington tomorrow. He wanted only to find a warm hotel room, to take off his clothing, eat a light supper with wine, and go to bed. His whole body ached with the desire for rest. “I think — ” he said, and stopped, startled.

The clerk looked at him expectantly. “Yes, sir?”

The strangest urgency had come to the doctor. He regarded it with surprise. The urgency demanded that he take the soon-leaving plane for — , a city he did not know. He would be in a plane again for at least an hour. He shook his head.

“Sir?” said the clerk.

The urgency was like a strong voice in him. He said quickly, “I think I’ll go to —. I’ve never been there.” The clerk nodded approvingly and made out the new ticket. The doctor said to himself, I’m a fool. Why did I do that? If I could have gone to a hotel here, I could have rested and thought and tried to see what I must do. Now I’ll be completely exhausted. He wanted to lift his hand and stop the busy clerk, but his hand felt numb and weak.

And then he remembered an extraordinary thing. When he was twelve, just before his family had brought him to America, he had gone walking with his dog. The snows were deep and heavy, but he had snowshoes, and the dog loved the snow. They had gone into the shining marble silence together, he whistling, the dog barking. The house stood on the edge of the small town, and so there were fields and woods about. Atino slogged toward the forest. All at once the dog stopped and whined. “Come on, old fellow,” said the boy. But the dog whined. The boy shrugged and started for the forest without the animal. Then the dog, as if possessed, ran after him, seized his coat, and held on. His eyes gleamed up at his young master desperately. His back arched in his struggles to stop Atino. He growled madly in his throat.

“Very well,” said Atino impatiently. “We’ll go back. You are cold, eh?”

The dog was a small one but resolute. He raced before Atino, as if pleading for him to hurry, and so Atino, to humor him, hurried. They had just reached the path to the house when Atino looked back at the forest. A great gray shape, haggard with starvation, stood like death at the very border of the woods, fangs glittering visibly even at that distance. A wolf.

“A wolf. Yes,” said the doctor.

“What, sir?” asked the clerk, startled.

“Nothing. I was just remembering something. What is my gate to the plane to — ?”

I’m superstitious, thought the doctor, hurrying to the gate. What has this delay, this new plane to — , got to do with that wolf of my childhood? Surely I have not been delayed and rerouted for any significant reason! I am a scientist and I deal with facts, not gauzy mysticism. There are a dozen men, my companions on the plane, going to —with me, on their way to Washington. What delayed, rerouted them? Nothing.

But his ancient blood was placated. He took the plane and did not ask himself anything again. He dozed restlessly on the journey. He had to be awakened to disembark. The hotel was comfortable, the food good, the wine excellent. He fell into bed, tried to think. But a warm cloud came over his mind and he slept suddenly.

He awakened, rested. But his fearful problem was still with him, unresolved. And the storm had leaped to this city. The sky was dark and close; the snow blew past the windows in long white curtains torn by the savage wind. He called the airport. All planes had been canceled. They would keep in touch with him, however. And so he missed his plane again to Washington.

Now he called the officer he knew in the Pentagon. “You should have stayed in Chicago,” said the officer, his irritation sounding through his deep respect. “The storm stopped there about dawn. We were expecting you at two this afternoon. Now you are stuck, you say.”

“Yes. It’s very bad here. I’m sorry to inconvenience all of you.” He was disgusted with himself. “Perhaps I can get a train tonight for Washington. I’ve already made inquiries, and they tell me there is not even a seat. Very busy in Washington, eh? But there may be a train cancellation. I’ll call you if there is.”

“All these important people waiting for you,” said the officer reproachfully.

“I know. I know. I will do my best. It was foolish for me to come here. But it was advised. Sorry.”

Yes, he should have stayed in Chicago. He’d have been on the way to Washington by now. He thought of the clerk without favor. Yet he had no answer to his problem. If he had arrived at the Pentagon he would have arrived in confusion and darkness of mind. At least he could think here in this warm and quiet room.

The room did not answer his question. He prayed, but there was some obstacle in his mind. It came to him as a surprise that he hadn’t prayed for a long time and he had not gone to church for years. When had he made his last confession? Before the death of Stella. Before the bombs had been dropped on Japan. Why had he not gone to confession? Because he was guilty of death and terror and ruin. He knew it in his heart. He also knew now that he had been dreadfully betrayed, himself. He had talked with a certain general later. But though he could have felt less guilty then, he did not. He had been violated. Nevertheless, he was guilty. For a week or two he almost lost his mind in his despair and rage. It was no use for his associates to assure him that even without him this thing would have happened. He had had a part in it, though he had been betrayed.

“If you’d withdrawn, they’d have called you a traitor,” said an associate.

“Better to be called a traitor than to know you are a murderer,” said the doctor.

“But the Japs were our enemies.”

“Do you think that they alone were to blame? No, we all were.”

The associate, a close friend, had not repeated this. He too was feeling guilty and sick and terrified.

The room was quiet and hushed about him. The storm roared on outside. He tried to read a book he had brought, but could not. He began to wander aimlessly up and down the room.

He had always thought with precision. A scientist had no other choice, by nature, by profession. He began to think of himself and his fellows. At one time in the world’s history, and in the lifetime of many old men even now, scientists were above governments. They worked in their own version of ivory towers — the laboratory, the observatory. They had a very simple, even naive, code; they searched for truth, for the nature of the universe, for the nature of man. Politics was of no concern to them. Faced with the infinite, they knew little of and cared less for the finite. But at some time in their recent career their genius had been seized by governments, not in the search for truth, for God, for the nature of man, but for destruction. Why had they, the scientists, everywhere in the world, succumbed so easily? Armed with truth and insight, why had they become harlots? Patriotism? Why, any of those young Russian boys, the schoolboys pulled from their classrooms to man tanks, was nobler than all the modern scientists in the world. They had faced truth and had suddenly refused to surrender to oppression, to madness. This could not be said of the scientists, who had used their talents not to save man, to advance truth, to search through the visible universe for the invisible Law which controlled all things. Had they delivered themselves over to prostitution out of mere mortal fear? No. They had suddenly developed the modern disease, the fatal disease, of the desire for flattery, of worldly importance, though God knew that it was not money they were after and not wealth after which they lusted. Flattery. Importance. Immediate attention. The desires of the wanton.

Some, in search of these foul trinkets, these gauds, these little paste jewels, had become Communists, not out of conviction, truly, but out of egotism. If the posturing actor, the demagogue, could attain tremendous amounts of newspaper space and publicity by mere babblings, by striking a dramatic pose, by lies and sonorous stupidities, then why should the scientist huddle in the shadows? The scientist had fallen into the most ancient of traps, and the most evil: the lust for power. He did not actually want to wield power; he simply wished to know that he had it. He too (and it was quite pathetic when you thought of it) wanted the vulgar applause of the mobs, the mobs who had murdered their prophets and their kings, who had stoned truth in the reeking market places, who eternally set up gibbets and guillotines for their own savage hates, who at the very worst had murdered their Saviour. For that offered power, for that shameful applause, some scientists everywhere had become Communists. If ever a man like these needed pity rather than anger, the scientist needed it. He should be pitied for becoming only a foolish man and not remaining a priest at the altar of truth.

Dr. Kadimo, himself, had said to one of these piteous and confused men on the eve of the latter’s appearance before a Congressional committee: “Why? Why, in God’s name?” And the scientist had looked at him with dazed eyes and had repeated: “Why? Why, frankly, I don’t know. They — they seemed interesting people, and there are so few interesting people in the world, aren’t there? Fewer than ever before in the world’s history? I really knew nothing of their ideology. They — they merely appreciated me.” And he had flushed and looked down.

“Why should you care if they or anyone else appreciates us or not?”

The poor man’s face had appeared to fall apart disastrously. “I shouldn’t have cared, should I? We never cared before. But a man does like some honor, doesn’t he? After all, we are human, aren’t we?”

“That’s the trouble,” Dr. Kadimo had answered gloomily.

How had he, himself, escaped being afflicted by the disease? First of all, he had had a childhood and youth of strict spiritual discipline. Second, he was of an old race and a cynical one, which never believed what men said. Third, his nation had been consistently violated by Russia over the centuries. Communism! The disorder and madness of the West! Strange that the oriental Russians should have contracted it. Had they been more susceptible, never having been afflicted with it before as all Europe periodically had been so afflicted, and thus acquired immunity? Why, even America, at certain periods in her history, had practiced communism. The disease of the West. The crime of the West. For Russia’s misery now, thought Dr. Kadimo, we of the West should plead guilty and ask for absolution. Before we die.

If Russia, fevered by her alien malady, should loose universal death on the world, the Western world deserved it. To be even a little more specific, who had hurled the first atomic bombs on mankind? Who, in fact, was the only nation ever to do so?
Mea maxima culpa
, thought Dr. Kadimo. There is no virtue in us, no faith, no real strength, no fortitude, no justice, no integrity, no honor. There is only the fear of the rabbit — the weak, quivering fear — that we shall suffer as we have made others suffer.

Now a fragment of a poem he had learned in his first American classroom returned to him. (Kipling?)

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

A humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget — lest we forget!

The winter wind thundered at the hotel window, and Dr. Kadimo, hearing it, heard also the singing of his father’s violin. “Lest we forget — lest we forget!”