Ape and Essence, Page 9

  "Roosevelt?" suggests Dr. Poole.

  "That's it -- Roosevelt. Well, do you recall that phrase he kept repeating through the whole of the Second World War? 'Unconditional surrender, unconditional surrender.' Plenary inspiration -- that's what that was. Direct and plenary inspiration!"

  "You say so," demurs Dr. Poole. "But what's your proof?"

  "The proof?" repeats the Arch-Vicar. "The whole of subsequent history is the proof. Look at what hap­pened when the phrase became a policy and was actually put into practice. Unconditional surrender -- how many millions of new cases of tuberculosis? How many millions of children forced to be thieves or prostituting themselves for bars of chocolate? Belial was particularly pleased about the children. And again, unconditional surrender -- the ruin of Europe, the chaos in Asia, the starvation everywhere, the revolutions, the tyrannies. Unconditional surrender -- and more in­nocents had to undergo worse suffering than at any other period in history. And, as you know very well, there's nothing that Belial likes better than the suffering of innocents. And finally, of course, there was the Thing. Unconditional surrender and bang! -- just as He'd always intended. And it all happened without any miracle or special intervention, merely by natural means. The more one thinks about the workings of His Providence, the more unfathomably marvellous it seems." Devoutly, the Arch-Vicar makes the sign of the horns. There is a little pause. "Listen," he says, holding up his hand.

  For a few seconds they sit without speaking. The dim, blurred monotone of the chant swells into audi­bility. "Blood, blood, blood, the blood. . ." There is a faint cry as yet another little monster is spitted on the Patriarch's knife, then the thudding of bulls' pizzles on flesh and, through the excited roaring of the con­gregation, a succession of loud, scarcely human screams.

  "You'd hardly think he could have produced us without a miracle," the Arch-Vicar thoughtfully con­tinues. "But He did, He did. By purely natural means, using human beings and their science as His instru­ments, He created an entirely new race of men, with deformity in their blood, with squalor all around them and ahead, in the future, no prospects but of more squalor, worse deformity and, finally, complete extinc­tion. Yes, it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living Evil."

  "Then why," asks Dr. Poole, "do you go on wor­shiping Him?"

  "Why do you throw food to a growling tiger? To buy yourself a breathing space. To put off the horror of the inevitable, if only for a few minutes. In earth as it is in Hell -- but at least one's still on earth."

  "It hardly seems worth while," says Dr. Poole in the philosophical tone of one who has just dined.

  Another unusually piercing scream makes him turn his head toward the door. He watches for a while in silence. This time, his expression is one in which horror has been considerably mitigated by scientific curiosity.

  "Getting used to it, eh?" says the Arch-Vicar genially.

  NARRATOR

  Conscience, custom -- the first makes cowards,

  Makes saints of us sometimes, makes human beings.

  The other makes Patriots, Papists, Protestants,

  Makes Babbitts, Sadists, Swedes or Slovaks,

  Makes killers of Kulaks, chlorinators of Jews,

  Makes all who mangle, for lofty motives,

  Quivering flesh, without qualm or question

  To mar their certainty of Supreme Service.

  Yes, my friends, remember how indignant you once felt when the Turks massacred more than the ordinary quota of Armenians, how you thanked God that you lived in a Protestant, progressive country, where such things simply couldn't happen -- couldn't happen be­cause men wore bowler hats and travelled daily to town by the eight twenty-three. And then reflect for a moment on a few of the horrors you now take for granted; the outrages against the most rudimentary human decencies that have been perpetrated on your behalf (or perhaps by your own hands); the atrocities you take your little girl to see, twice a week, on the news reel --and she finds them commonplace and bor­ing. Twenty years hence, at this rate, your grand­children will be turning on their television sets for a look at the gladiatorial games; and, when those begin to pall, there will be the Army's mass crucifixion of Conscientious Objectors or the skinning alive, in full colour, of the seventy thousand persons suspected, at Tegucigalpa, of un-Honduranean activities.

  Meanwhile, in the Unholy of Unholies, Dr. Poole is still looking out through the crack between the sliding doors. The Arch-Vicar is picking his teeth. There is a comfortable, postprandial silence. Sud­denly Dr. Poole turns to his companion.

  "Something's happening," he cries excitedly. "They're leaving their seats."

  "I'd been expecting that for quite a long time now," replies the Arch-Vicar, without ceasing to pick his teeth. "It's the blood that does it. That and, of course, the whipping."

  "They're jumping down into the arena," Dr. Poole continues. "They're running after one another. What on earth . . . ? Oh, my God! I beg your pardon," he hastily adds. "But really, really. . ."

  Much agitated, he walks away from the door.

  "There are limits," he says.

  "That's where you're wrong," replies the Arch-Vicar. "There are no limits. Everybody's capable of anything -- but anything."

  Dr. Poole does not answer. Drawn irresistibly by a force that is stronger than his will, he has returned to his old place and is staring out, avidly and in horror, at what is going on in the arena.

  "It's monstrous!" he cries indignantly. "It's utterly revolting."

  The Arch-Vicar rises heavily from his couch and, opening a little cupboard in the wall, takes out a pair of binoculars, which he hands to Dr. Poole.

  "Try these," he says. "Night glasses. Standard Navy equipment from before the Thing. You'll see every­thing."

  "But you don't imagine. . ."

  "Not merely do I imagine," says the Arch-Vicar, with an ironically benignant smile; "I see with my own eyes. Go ahead, man. Look. You've never seen anything like this in New Zealand."

  "I certainly have not," says Dr. Poole in the kind of tone his mother might have used.

  All the same he finally raises the binoculars to his eyes.

  Long shot from his viewpoint. It is a scene of Satyrs and Nymphs, of pursuits and captures, provoc­ative resistances followed by the enthusiastic sur­render of lips to bearded lips, of panting bosoms to the impatience of rough hands, the whole accompanied by a babel of shouting, squealing and shrill laughter.

  Cut back to the Arch-Vicar, whose face is puckered into a grimace of contemptuous distaste.

  "Like cats," he says at last. "Only cats have the decency not to be gregarious in their courting. And you still have doubts about Belial -- even after this?"

  There is a pause.

  "Was this something that happened after. . . after the Thing?" Dr. Poole enquires.

  "In two generations."

  "Two generations!" Dr. Poole whistles. "Nothing re­cessive about that mutation. And don't they. . . well, I mean, don't they feel like doing this sort of thing at any other season?"

  "Just for these five weeks, that's all. And we only permit two weeks of actual mating."

  "Why?"

  The Arch-Vicar makes the sign of the horns.

  "On general principles. They have to be punished for having been punished. It's the Law of Belial. And, I may say, we really let them have it if they break the rules."

  "Quite, quite," says Dr. Poole, remembering with discomfort the episode with Loola among the dunes.

  "It's pretty hard for the ones who throw back to the old-style mating pattern."

  "Are there many of those?"

  "Between five and ten per cent of the population. We call them 'Hots.' "

  "And you don't permit. . . ?"

  "We beat the hell out of them when we catch them."

  "But that's monstrous!"

  "Of course it is," the Arch-Vicar agrees. "But re­member your history. If you want solidarity, you've got to hav
e either an external enemy or an oppressed minority. We have no external enemies, so we have to make the most of our Hots. They're what the Jews were under Hitler, what the bourgeois were under Lenin and Stalin, what the heretics used to be in Catholic countries and the Papists under the Protest­ants. If anything goes wrong, it's always the fault of the Hots. I don't know what we'd do without them."

  "But don't you ever stop to think what they must feel?"

  "Why should I? First of all, it's the law. Condign punishment for having been punished. Second, if they're discreet, they won't get punished. All they've got to do is to avoid having babies at the wrong season and to disguise the fact that they fall in love and make permanent connections with persons of the opposite sex. And, if they don't want to be discreet, they can always run away."

  "Run away? Where to?"

  "There's a little community up North, near Fresno. Eighty-five per cent Hot. It's a dangerous journey, of course. Very little water on the way. And if we catch them, we bury them alive. But if they choose to take the risk, they're perfectly free to do so. And then finally there's the priesthood." He makes the sign of the horns. "Any bright boy, who shows early signs of being a Hot, has his future assured: we make a priest of him."

  Several seconds pass before Dr. Poole ventures to ask his next question.

  "You mean, you. . . ?"

  "Precisely," says the Arch-Vicar. "For the Kingdom of Hell's sake. Not to mention the strictly practical reasons. After all, the business of the community has got to be carried on somehow, and obviously the laity are in no condition to do it."

  The noise from the arena swells to a momentary climax.

  "Nauseous!" squeaks the Arch-Vicar with a sudden intensification of abhorrence. "And this is nothing to what it will be later on. How thankful I am that I've been preserved from such ignominy! Not they, but the Enemy of Mankind incarnate in their disgusting bodies. Kindly look over there." He draws Dr. Poole toward him; he points a thick forefinger. 'To the left of the High Altar -- with that little red-headed vessel. That's the Chief. The Chief!" he repeats with derisive emphasis. "What sort of a ruler is he going to be during the next two weeks?"

  Resisting the temptation to make personal remarks about a man who, though temporarily in retirement, is destined to return to power, Dr. Poole utters a nerv­ous little laugh.

  "Yes, he certainly seems to be relaxing from the cares of State."

  NARRATOR

  But why, why does he have to relax with Loola? Vile brute and faithless strumpet! But there is at least one consolation -- and to a shy man, plagued with desires he dares not act upon, a very great consolation: Loola's conduct is the proof of an accessibility which, in New Zealand, in academic circles, in the neighbourhood of his Mother, could only be furtively dreamed about as something altogether too good to be true. And it is not only Loola who proves herself accessible. The same thing is being demonstrated, no less actively, no less vocally, by those mulatto girls, by Flossie, the plump and honey-coloured Teuton, by that enormous Armen­ian matron, by the little tow-headed adolescent with the big blue eyes. . . .

  "Yes, that's our Chief," says the Arch-Vicar bitterly. "Until he and the other pigs stop being possessed, the Church just takes over."

  Incorrigibly cultured, in spite of his overwhelming desire to be out there with Loola -- or almost anyone else, if it comes to that -- Dr. Poole makes an apt remark about the Spiritual Authority and the Temporal Power.

  The Arch-Vicar ignores it.

  "Well," he says briskly, "it's time I got down to business."

  He calls a Postulant, who hands him a tallow dip, then crosses over to the altar at the east end of the shrine. Upon it stands a single candle of yellow beeswax, three or four feet high and disproportionately thick. The Arch-Vicar genuflects, lights the candle, makes the sign of the horns, then comes back to where Dr. Poole is staring out, wide-eyed with fascinated horror and shocked concupiscence, at the spectacle in the arena.

  "Stand aside, please."

  Dr. Poole obeys.

  A Postulant slides back first one door, then the other. The Arch-Vicar steps forward and stands in the centre of the opening, touching the gilded horns of his tiara. From the musicians on the steps of the High Altar comes a shrill screeching of thighbone recorders. The noises of the crowd die away into a silence that is only occasionally punctuated by the bestial utterance of some joy or anguish too savagely violent to be repressed. Antiphonally, the priests begin to chant.

  SEMICHORUS I

  This is the time,

  SEMICHORUS II

  For Belial is merciless,

  SEMICHORUS I

  Time for Time's ending.

  SEMICHORUS II

  In the chaos of lust.

  SEMICHORUS I

  This is the time,

  SEMICHORUS II

  For Belial is in your blood,

  SEMICHORUS I

  Time for the birth in you

  SEMICHORUS II

  Of the Others, the Aliens,

  SEMICHORUS I

  Of Itch, of Tetter,

  SEMICHORUS II

  Of tumid Worm.

  SEMICHORUS I

  This is the time,

  SEMICHORUS II

  For Belial hates you,

  SEMICHORUS I

  Time for the Soul's death,

  SEMICHORUS II

  For the Person to perish,

  SEMICHORUS I

  Sentenced by craving,

  SEMICHORUS II

  And pleasure is the hangman;

  SEMICHORUS I

  Time for the Enemy's

  SEMICHORUS II

  Total triumph,

  SEMICHORUS I

  For the Baboon to be master,

  SEMICHORUS II

  That monsters may be begotten.

  SEMICHORUS I

  Not your will, but His,

  SEMICHORUS II

  That you may all be lost forever.

  From the crowd rises a loud unanimous "Amen."

  "His curse be on you," the Arch-Vicar intones in his high-pitched voice, then moves back to the end of the shrine and mounts the throne that stands next to the altar. From outside we hear a confused shouting that grows louder and louder, and suddenly the shrine is invaded by a throng of corybantic worshipers. They rush to the altar, they tear off one another's aprons and fling them in a mounting pile at the foot of the Arch-Vicar's throne. no, no, no -- and for each no there is a triumphant shout of "Yes," followed by an un­equivocal gesture toward the nearest person of the opposite sex. In the distance the priests are mono­tonously chanting, "Not your will, but His, that you may all be lost forever" -- again and again.

  Close shot of Dr. Poole, as he watches the proceed­ings from a corner of the oratory.

  Cut back to the crowd, face after mindless, ecstatic face enters the field of view and passes out again. And there, suddenly, is Loola's face -- the eyes shin­ing, the lips parted, the dimples wildly alive. She turns her head, she catches sight of Dr. Poole.

  "Alfie!" she cries.

  Her tone and expression evoke an equally rapturous response.

  "Loola!"

  They rush together in a passionate embrace. Seconds pass. Vaselinelike, the strains of the Good Friday music from Parsifal make themselves heard on the sound track.

  Then the faces come unstuck, the Camera pulls back.

  "Quick, quick!"

  Loola seizes his arm and drags him toward the altar.

  "The apron," she says.

  Dr. Poole looks down at the apron, then, blushing as red as the no embroidered upon it, averts his eyes.

  "It seems so. . . so indecorous," he says.

  He stretches out his hand, withdraws it, then changes his mind yet again. Taking a corner of the apron between his thumb and forefinger, he gives it a couple of feebly ineffective tweaks.

  "Harder," she cries, "Much harder!"

  With an almost frantic violence -- for it is not only the apr
on that he is tearing away, it is also his mother's influence and all his inhibitions, all the conventions in which he has been brought up -- Dr. Poole does as he is told. The stitching yields more easily than he had anticipated and he almost falls over backward. Recovering his balance, he stands there, looking in sheepish embarrassment from the little nappy that represents the Seventh Commandment into Loola's laughing face and then down again at the crimson prohibition. Cut back and forth: no, dimples, no, dimples, no. . . .

  "Yes!" shouts Loola triumphantly. "Yes!"

  Snatching the apron out of his hand, she throws it down at the foot of the throne. Then with a "Yes" and another "Yes," she rips the patches from her chest and, turning to the altar, makes her reverence to the Candle.

  Medium close shot from the back of Look genu­flecting. All at once an elderly man with a grey beard rushes excitedly into the shot, tears the twin no's off the seat of her homespun pants and starts to drag her toward the door of the shrine.

  Giving him a slap in the face and a vigorous push, Loola breaks away and for the second time throws herself into Dr. Poole's arms.

  "Yes?" she whispers.

  And emphatically he answers, "Yes!"

  They kiss, smile rapturously at each other, then move in the direction of the darkness beyond the sliding doors. As they pass the throne, the Arch-Vicar leans down and, smiling ironically, taps Dr. Poole on the shoulder.

  "What about my field glasses?" he says.