The Clowns of God by Morris West Read Free Book Online Page A

fake mysticism!”
    They were sitting in her cluttered apartment, with the documents spread before them on the table and a bottle of Assmanshausen to keep down the dust that lay everywhere.
    Mendelius had refused to let the documents out of his sight, while Anneliese had demanded, with equal vehemence, the right of the assessor to read every line of evidence. Mendelius protested her curt dismissal of the document.
    “Let’s stop right there! If we’re going to debate the issue let’s be scientific about it. First of all there’s a whole body of millenarian literature from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament to Jakob Boehme in the seventeenth century and Teilhard de Chardin in the twentieth. Some of it is nonsense yes! Some of it is high poetry like that of the Englishman, William Blake. Some of it represents a critical interpretation of one of the oldest traditions in the world. Second, any serious scientist will tell you that there may well be a term, by evolution or catastrophe, to human existence as we know it on the planet. What Jean Marie has written falls well within the saner confines of the codex. The scenario of catastrophe is already a matter of informed speculation by the scientists and military strategists.”
    “Agreed. But your man still makes amish-mash of it!
    Faith, hope and charity while the wolf-children are snarling at the gates! A loving God brooding over the chaos he himself has engineered. Balls, Professor!”
    “What would happen if the text were published?”
    “Half the world would laugh it out of court. The other half would catch the dancing madness and go waltzing out to meet the redeemer on his ‘cloud of glory’. Seriously, Carl, I think you ought to burn the damned thing and forget it!”
    “I can burn it; but I can’t forget it.”
    “Because you’re a victim of the same God-madness!”
    “What about this third document the list of names?”
    “I don’t see that it has any significance at all. It’s an aide memoire pulled out of the filing cabinet. Every politician in the world keeps records like that. What does he expect you to do with it? Trot round the world visiting all these people?
    What will you say to them?
    “My friend, Gregory XVII, the one they tossed out of the Vatican, believes the end of the world is coming. He’s had a vision about it. He thought you should have advance notice.” Come on, Carl! They’d have you in a strait-jacket halfway through the first interview!”
    Suddenly he saw the funny side of it and laughed, a great bellow of mirth that subsided finally into a helpless giggle.
    Anneliese Meissner splashed more wine into the glasses and lifted her own in salute.
    “That’s better! For a while I thought I’d lost a good colleague.”
    “Thank you, Frau Beisitzer.” Mendelius took a long swallow of wine and set down his glass.
    “Now let’s get back to business. I’m going to Rome in a couple of weeks.”
    “The hell you are!” She stared at him in disbelief.
    “And what good do you expect to do there?”
    “Have a holiday, give a couple of lectures at the German Academy, talk to Jean Marie Barette and people who were close to him. I’ll make tapes during or after each interview and send them back to you. Afterwards, I’ll decide whether to drop the affair or not. At least I’ll have discharged my duty as a friend and I’ll have kept my assessor honest, too!”
    “I hope you realise, my friend, that even when you’ve done all that, your evidence will still be incomplete.”
    “I don’t see why it need be.”
    “Think about it.” Anneliese Meissner speared another gherkin and waved it under his nose.
    “How are you going to talk to God? Will you put him on tape, too?”
    He was a tidy man by nature and he prepared for his visit to Rome with finical care. He made telephone calls to friends, wrote letters to acquaintances, armed himself with introductions to Vatican officials, made dates far in advance for lunches, dinners and