The Listener (24 page)

His restlessness became intense. It was as if he were wasting time while an enormous task awaited him, as if a man of overpowering importance were standing outside his door. But he did not know what to do. Aimlessly he pulled open a drawer of his empty dresser. A Bible lay in it. He took it and opened it. Its pages had not even been disturbed by those who had slept in this room before. Then Atino remembered that it was a ‘superstition’ (was it?) that a man in distress, or a man with faith, could open the Bible at random and he would find something pertinent in it that was of immediate use to him. Smiling palely at himself, he held the Bible, then let it fall open in his hands.

The beginning of sorrows . . . For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will be. And unless those days had been shortened no living creature would be saved — for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be pestilences and famines and earthquakes in various places — the beginning of sorrows.

Atino Kadimo stared before him. The desolation prophesied by the prophet Daniel. It was standing at the world’s door, the desolation summoned by man’s crimes.

But still there were the men at the desperate outposts of the world.

Very gently the doctor replaced the Bible. He had been answered sternly. He had been told what he already knew. But he had not been given the answer as to what he should do. His long fingers trailed over the top of the dresser and encountered a small white pamphlet. Vaguely he lifted it. The Man who Listens.

Intrigued slightly, he opened the pamphlet after an approving examination of the photograph of the starkly beautiful white marble building on the cover.

If you are in trouble and do not know what to do about your great problem, you are invited to come here to talk about it to the Man who Listens. Thousands of people over the past years have come and have been fortified and given hope. The Man who Listens has never betrayed a confidence. He never has. He never will.

Scientists had to be discreet and top secret in the world of today. Atino found himself instinctively shrinking. Then he laughed a little. No one knew he was here —But, wait. Was he actually thinking of going to talk to the Man who Listens? Nonsense. He was a scientist with a terrible secret that only seven besides himself knew in all the world, and not a girl in trouble, a workman without employment, an anonymous widow, a clerk overcome by debts. He was a scientist on the way to the Pentagon in Washington.

You are only a man, said a voice in himself. The voice was so clear that he started violently and looked about the room.

The day was rapidly darkening; the heavy, sullen wind beat at the windows. The snow had increased. But it was silent, too silent in this room.

Who was the Man who Listens? The doctor, still forcing himself to smile, searched through the pamphlet. The pamphlet informed him that no one knew who the man was. Some thought him a psychiatrist, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher. Thousands had seen him. Others had preferred not to see him. No one had ever told who he was.

Automatically Atino put down the pamphlet. The sense of urgency, however, was stronger in him, like a powerful force. It was like magnetism, like the pull of gravitation. His heart was beating rapidly; he could hear the pounding of his pulses in his ears. An actual physical distress was on him. What was all this? He looked at the pamphlet and could not look away. He felt as though he were smothering.

Superstition. Too, who knew who the man was? It was even possible he was a Communist, lurking in secret, listening. What would the Pentagon say of such indiscretion? What would his associates, the Dynamic Research Associates, say of it? If any word — He could be denounced, held up to public infamy — a traitor. He could even be called a Communist — if a Communist in that building made use of what he might say.

But he could be discreet. Now why should I even consider going to this sentimental, out-of-the-way place, this melodramatic place? I thought I had become a one-hundred percent American, yet my heredity, my blood, is speaking in me. The wolf at the edge of the forest. The storm in Chicago, which had made him come here, only for fresh delay and a new storm. Marooned with himself, alone with himself, voiceless, drifting, hearing only his frightful thoughts. Worse, he had not solved his own problem, even in this silence.

He would prove it all nonsense. He called the airport. All flights canceled, of course, indefinitely. The storm was only really beginning. He called the railroad station. Sorry, all reservations were filled; there was a long waiting list for cancellations. He then called the bus station; even if a bus left at midnight he would be on it. All reservations were filled for two days. He was marooned with himself, and what more appalling thing could happen to a man in despair? In one last effort he called the two companies who rented automobiles. Sorry, they would have none for him until late tomorrow.

I could walk, of course, he said to himself with humor. Only two hundred miles!

The Man who Listens. Atino looked about his room. The restlessness was like a fever in him, and the urgency was even stronger. He found himself putting on his coat. He would, of course, not give his name. Danger! Danger! He could conceal his face with his handkerchief. Danger!

The scientist in him, he told himself, wanted to investigate this absurdity.

“The desolation.” The wolf at the edge of the forest. He could see the wolf clearly gigantic, astride the world, with ravenous fangs, with madness in his furious eyes. Atino ran from the room, taking his small suitcase with him, which he must never leave for a moment. He was stopped in the lobby. He said impatiently, “Dr. Atino Kadimo. My suitcase? It has some papers —If you wish, I’ll pay you now, but I’m returning. Here are my credentials. Thank you very much. No, no apologies, please. I understand.”

The manager himself, craven with regrets, went out into the storm and called a taxi for the doctor. Atino found himself in warm moving darkness, his bag at his knee.

“Out to old John Godfrey’s place, eh?” said the driver.

“Why, yes. Is it interesting?”

“Well, sir,” said the driver, “I think it is. You know something? I went out there two years ago. I have a wife and a couple kids. I was always a big drinker, and then it got out of control, see? I was always on a binge, and I was in court a couple of times for non-support. Then I went to see the Man who Listens. I told him all about myself. And after that I didn’t drink no more. No sir.”

“Oh? He gave you excellent advice?”

The driver was silent for a little. “Well, now, come to think of it, I don’t remember if he ever spoke to me or not. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. They have a button there, see? You could open the curtains if you wanted to. But I didn’t. I was kind of ashamed to, after what I’d spilled about — everything. All I know is that since I went there I ain’t had a single drink. No sir. Not one. And I don’t want any. Everything’s fine now.”

The doctor waited for the inevitable, inquisitive question:

“You in trouble too?” But the driver did not ask it. Instead he said, “I drive lots of people there. Mostly from out of town. I took five people from that there hotel of yours today, alone.”

“There is trouble everywhere,” said the doctor with cautious conventionality.

“Mister, you can say that again!” said the driver fervently. “With all them atom and hydrogen bombs waiting to blow the world up. Not that it don’t deserve it, at that. I sometimes wonder about the guys who think them up — the scientists, you know? When I was a kid I used to see movies about the ‘mad scientist’. Make your hair curl. Why, those guys in the movies was Sunday-school teachers when you think of the scientists now! I’d like to hit them with a wrench where it’d do the most good. Yes sir. Ever know a scientist?”

“I think I met one or two at some time,” said Atino. He felt sick. “At school. My teachers.”

“Glad I didn’t go to high school. I might’ve got a few ideas myself about blowing people up. I sometimes look at my kids. Nice kids. Not them juvenile delinquents. Mass at least three times a week. Regina says she wants to be a Sister. Well, we’ll see. And there’s Jimmie. He wants to teach school. Well, sir, I look at them kids, and well — ”

Here was one of those who manned the desperate outposts of the world. Not a maker of wines, a poet, a philosopher, a musician, an artist — only a father with children. The outpost he manned was the most desperate of all.

“Well, here you are,” said the driver. “You got to walk up that path. See the building up there?” He added admiringly, “It don’t matter if three inches of snow fall all at once. The paths’re always cleared right away. Ready for people.”

It was only three o’clock, but the sky was very dark. The driver said as he made change, “It’s funny. This’s the worst storm we’ve had for twenty-five years. That’s what the radio says. The worst storm. Never saw anything like this myself.”

Atino paused. “No storm like this before?”

“Not that I remember,” said the driver cheerfully. “It’s one big storm, ain’t it? First time I remember that planes were ever grounded here, either.”

Superstition. Atino, grasping his suitcase firmly, went up the path. He looked at the glowering dim sky and felt the sting of the blizzard in his face. It reminded him of home. He saw Father Rozniak again. “A stench... of violence and terror.” How had Father Rozniak died in the fury of the first World War? Hunger? A bayonet? Exposure? He had known it was all coming and he had not been afraid for himself. He had been afraid only for his people. He too had manned a desperate outpost. Manning it, he had faced the wolf. He had not run away. Men of God never ran away anywhere. Cardinal Mindszenty. He had not run away. The ministers, the rabbis, had remained to comfort their people, though their people, risking everything, would have helped them escape. They had remained. A shepherd does not leave his flock — to the wolf.

But the scientists evoked the wolf.
Mea maxima culpa
.

The sitting room was warm and serene. There was no one there but Atino. He put down his suitcase for a moment and looked about him with pleasure. Then he remembered the warnings he had been frequently given. Meticulously he examined the furniture, the underside of tables. He lifted the rug in various places. He scrutinized the walls. He tapped everything. But why should anyone ‘bug’ this place, where only the obscure and desperate came? Habit was sometimes hard to overcome. He felt a little foolish.

A chime sounded. He started and looked at the solid oak door. He grasped his suitcase and went into the serene marble room with its shut curtains and marble chair.

He looked at the curtains suspiciously. Then he went to them and tried to pull them aside. They would not stir. He looked at the button and read the inscription above it. He pressed the button. The curtains did not move. Very, very mysterious and melodramatic. He sat down in the chair. He took out his handkerchief and covered his face, then remembered that if anyone had wished to see him before this he had already been seen. He removed the handkerchief.

He faced the curtains. A phrase he had read in the pamphlet returned to him: ‘All the time there is’. All the time. He said to himself: But there is very little time now.

He sat and waited. He could hear no storm here, no traffic, no voice, no opening or closing of doors. If the man behind the curtains had ‘all the time there is’, so did he. He would wait the time out and see who would become impatient first. He laughed inwardly at himself for coming here. The clergyman behind those curtains would discover a man of infinite patience. But was anyone there, really?

Atino bent forward, his head held sideways. He listened for a long time. There was no sound, but he knew powerfully that someone was there, and listening. The Man who Listens.

Then Atino heard himself say aloud suddenly: “I am from an old country.”

He waited, angry at himself for having spoken. He waited. Then he sat upright. Had he really heard an answer — “And so am I”?

Atino jumped to his feet and examined the marble walls. Where did that light come from? Very interesting. He talked rapidly to himself, for his heart was thundering, and it must be controlled. He passed his hands over the walls. Solid. Nothing could be hidden. Nevertheless, he was frightened.

“Oh you of little faith! Why are you afraid?”

Atino swung around and confronted the curtains. “I heard you!” he exclaimed. “Who are you?” He sat down.

The room was silent. I am going mad, thought Atino. I did not hear a voice at all! I only heard something in myself. Or did I?

“There is a terrible storm outside,” he said aimlessly in his distraction.

“Yes. A most terrible storm. It is just beginning.”

“Just beginning,” Atino assented. Then he sat up, stiff and yet trembling. Had he heard a voice again, or had he imagined it? He tried to recall the voice. It had been strong and full of echoes and sad. No. He had not heard the voice. It was only his own thoughts. Still. . .

Then he remembered another poem. (Strange that he should remember poems today!) Francis Thompson? The Hound of Heaven.

. . . must Thy harvest fields

Be dunged with rotten death?

Not Yours, O Lord, said Atino in himself. Only ours. Only ours. We have destroyed Your harvest fields. We have dunged them with rotten death. We will dung them again.

“That is why I came,” he said to the curtains. “I must have an answer. Tell me what to do.”

The silence waited. “I never hated anyone,” said Atino.

“I — we — discovered something. How to — ” How to split, fuse, the atom, he continued in his thoughts. It was a marvelous discovery. We had discovered one of the secrets of God. Or had He given that secret to us? Why? For our knowledge, for our love, for our use, for our revelation?

“Yes,” said the deep and echoing voice.

“What?” cried Atino. “Did you speak? Or am I going insane?”

He looked about the room desperately. He heard the echo only of his own spoken words. He was sweating. “I am a man in despair,” he said without volition.

The room waited, and the light grew brighter, as if with encouragement.

“I was brought up in a very religious atmosphere,” said Atino. “I was brought up in the fear of God. But that was in the old country. Few, if any, fear God now.”

Silence.

“I love life,” said Atino. “I love all life. Because God created it. I am a vegetarian. They laugh at me. But I never wished to destroy life. One knows that God gave the animals of the world to man, to eat and to hunt. But still, I could not bring myself to destroy life.” He stopped, and then he said, “But I have destroyed life. I did not mean to do it. They took what we had to offer, to make life more glorious, and they used it for death. Useless, malicious death. It was not necessary. A general told me it was not necessary. We were betrayed. Have you ever been betrayed?”