Part 37 (1/2)
”I think, Jeremy,” he said, ”that you deserve to know the truth.”
39.
”It must have hurt,” Bernini said, ”when you didn't make the cut. I'm sorry about that. Your friends had the physical presence of presidents. Prime ministers. Very valuable. You . . . You do not. Not quite.”
I thought of the mirrored ballroom. How they watched us.
”And their minds, Jeremy. Supple. Capable of abstraction. John less than the others, but that was mostly laziness. Riding on his looks. He had the capacity to hold one of us. He would have survived the transfer.” Bernini shook a finger at me. ”You would have gone insane.”
I felt a mix of rage and shame.
”But we're past that, now,” Bernini said. ”There is a way out of this, for both of us. But you must open your mind. Can you do that? Can you indulge your old law professor one last hypothetical? I mean to say, before you put that crowbar through my heart?”
There was a flash of the old Bernini--the hint of a smile.
”I'm done with your games.”
Bernini shook his head.
”This time, I promise you, it's no game.”
He rose slowly. His eyes twinkled. Suddenly, he was the professor again.
”Suppose, Jeremy, that we weren't down here in this unfortunate place.” His eyes danced around the cathedral. ”Suppose instead you are the night watchman about a thousand yards that way, in the largest library in the world.” He gave that wry grin. ”Imagine it. Four thousand years of knowledge. Original Shakespeare folios. Handwritten notes on nuclear theory by Rittenberg and Kingsley. Priceless. Just last year, Professor D'Martino found a lost book on rainforest herbs and deduced a new treatment for Parkinson's. Somewhere in there is a cure for cancer. A framework for peace.
”You might guess security is tight for such a building. There's a fire system, of course, but who would spray water on a priceless collection? So, instead, they spray a chemical that will douse flames without harming paper. Ingenious, really.”
He raised a long finger.
”You might also know that there is a n.o.ble tradition in the College of completing four tasks before graduation. Forgive me here, I'm only the messenger. First, of course, is affixing a pat of b.u.t.ter to the ceiling of the freshman dining hall. It's said that a young Richard Lymann constructed a catapult for the task. Second is running nude through the freshman yard. Third, regrettably, is urinating on the statue of our beloved founder. And fourth, of course, is to have . . .” (here he blushed a little, although he never lost the glimmer in his eyes) ”er . . . relations . . . in the stacks of the library.
”Now, say that one evening, a couple has slipped past you and remained in the stacks after closing, determined to cross number four off their list. Yet a fire has broken out and is spreading quickly through the building. You have only to push a b.u.t.ton to release the chemical spray and end the destruction. The problem, however, is that the chemicals are quite toxic and will surely kill the amorous couple.”
He cleared his throat and folded his hands over his knee.
”What do you do, Jeremy? And this time, I'm afraid, none of the above is not an option.”
He thought I couldn't commit? He was wrong.
”I would not push the b.u.t.ton,” I said.
Bernini raised his eyebrows, as if to say: What did I expect? He looked at me and shook his head.
”You already pushed the b.u.t.ton, Jeremy.”
”What are you talking about?”
But I knew. In my mind, I couldn't block the image of the crowbar sending out sparks. The screams from the crowd.
”I would not push the b.u.t.ton,” I repeated. ”They're just books.”
”I see. And what if they weren't . . . just books? Tell me, Jeremy, how long would it take you to read all those books? One lifetime? Two? Ten?” His voice grew louder. ”And not just to read them, but to understand them? To practice what you've learned? To test your cures? To perfect your peace talks?”
Suddenly, he was filled with an anger I didn't know he was capable of.
”You have no idea what's at stake,” he snapped at me. ”You think this is about cheating death? I long for death. I wish I had the luxury. I've seen every manner of human cruelty. Witch burnings. Lynchings. Pogroms. Gulags. Child armies. Genocides. My eyes are tired.”
Bernini spat on the ground.
”The universe is biased toward evil. Simple thermodynamics. It is always easier to destroy than to build. The Romans built a republic. How fragile! They slipped, and the world plunged into one thousand years of darkness. One thousand years! Can you imagine that? A thousand years of oppression--kings and religious tyrants and castes and slavery. One thousand years of pestilence, poverty, superst.i.tion . . .
”Ah! But then came the Renaissance. Enlightenment! Freedom and equality escaped from the shadows and swept the world. But some of us didn't forget . . . We didn't forget how fragile it all is . . .
”You think good can survive without cost? The people who ended slavery are in this room. The people who defeated n.a.z.ism and Communism. In this room. Drawing on our wisdom. Our fortune. Our carefully cultivated power. Imagine this mind in that body.” He pointed at John. ”We have spent centuries perfecting the means to fight evil. For the first time in history, good has an advantage.”
Bernini let his magnetic eyes travel around the room, then they came to rest on me.
”But it's happening again, Jeremy, isn't it? You can feel it, can't you? The armies of cruelty are ma.s.sing. Reason is giving way to superst.i.tion, thoughtfulness to ideology, humanism to tribalism, honor to greed. Citizens become fools and savages. Crowds become mobs. Ripe for the Leviathan! Read your Hobbes! Read your Aristotle!
”No, our work is more important now than ever. Appearance is the new G.o.d. Could Lincoln become president today with his strange face? Could Roosevelt in his wheelchair? Today, the perfect mind needs the perfect body. That doesn't occur by chance.”
”But we're getting better,” I shouted at him. ”Every generation, there's less hate, less prejudice. More democracy, more freedom. Look at the world!--we have more law, more const.i.tutions.”
Bernini's eyes suddenly narrowed.
His voice turned cold.
”You dare lecture me on law? I've dedicated my life to law. What can the law do against barbarians? Against suicide bombers and nuclear terrorists? Can you reason with madness? A const.i.tution is not a suicide pact. We must fight evil.”
”How? By killing people, taking their bodies? By putting yourself above the law? You're fighting slavery with slavery. Murder with murder.”
”Don't we send armies to fight the enemies of humanity? How many die then? Thousands? Millions? We only take three a year. That's our oath. Three a year to stop the wars before they start.
”I am offering you the chance to join us. You and Sarah both. You can have everything. A perfect body. Infinite time. You can build on what you have and over time you will know what we know. You will be one of us. You will save millions of lives with what you'll learn to do.”
”Look at her,” I said, my eyes on Sarah. ”Look at her. You were ready to kill her. Is that what you are now?”
He waved me away.
”That was necessary.”
I thought of the books I used to read. The ideas I used to believe in.