And then, on the evening of Palm Sunday, the fifth of April, a surprising message was received from Domiron in the presence of all members:
Heark ye to the message from the tomb! Light comes upon the eighth! Let no evil heart block its passage! Domiron bids you!
All were stunned. Mrs. Norton, as though in disbelief, looked up from what her hand had written at Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Collins turned pale. Mrs. Wilson began to tremble. “Oh, Clara!” she wept. “That’s just three days!” said Carl Dean Palmers. “Friends,” said Mrs. Collins, standing tall now in her white tunic: “Prepare!”
4
Idly, contentedly, Marcella stitches his white tunic. Dust, like a microscopic Imitation of the universe, floats and revolves in the shafts of sunlight that penetrate the room through the south windows. Hanging up the phone this morning, she felt the gray unnamable anxiety that has shadowed her these last weeks let go its grip, lift, fade like a bad dream. A paradox has apparently resolved itself, and now, with her discovery of its resolution, comes a great calm. The discovery encloses a decision, yet it is so easy a decision to make — in fact, it is already made.
Miller knew he had it in his hands to heave old Water Closet around and set her on a crisis course, and on April 8th, Wednesday of Holy Week, partly because he had no choice, he did it. Eight-page special on the Brunists, with photos, a 1,500-word release to the wireservices, and longer articles, previously accepted in précis, wired to three newspapers in large cities. The wireservices couldn’t get enough, offered special rates for another 1,500 words the next day, plus continued coverage. He airmailed wirecopy to the weekly news and photo magazines, suggesting unique angles for each and offering complete picture coverage; similarly to the television companies, tendering his services as “consultant.” Later, they’d get airmail copies of tonight’s edition.
He’d been considering all along popping it on Good Friday, had thought it might be a more destructive moment. But Eleanor Norton, obviously convinced he was an infiltrator sent by the powers of darkness — and indeed, she was right, he was — had been out to get him for some time now, and he’d suddenly realized she’d set him up for the ax tonight. It was the only way to account for Domiron’s sudden capitulation to the Collins faction last Sunday night: after announcing the “coming of the light”, on the eighth he had warned them to “let no evil heart block its passage.” And, of course, when it didn’t come, the heretic-hunt would have begun. Anyway, today wasn’t bad: not only was it Clara Collins’ celebrated “eighth of the month” and right in the middle of Easter Week, but it was also the Buddha’s birthday, a day to “beat the drum of the Immortal in the darkness of the world.”
The scene was ripe. The Brunists sat in hiding, intent only upon reaching the 19th without further harassment; Baxter and the loyal Nazarenes, furious as ever, had been effectively suppressed since the Collins fire by the Common Sense Committee and Whimple’s police; and Cavanaugh’s bund of Common Sensers itself had been using this time of silence to proselyte amongst belligerents and potential converts. As a result, Baxter’s forces had been reduced and the Brunists were down to the hardcore members, having got no new ones since Ben Wosznik: the Bruno family, the Nortons, the two boys, Himebaugh, Clara Collins and her daughter, the Halls, Wosznik, and the widows Wilson, Cravens, and Harlowe, with eight small children among them. Not that the cult was disheartened: this paucity of believers only made them more convinced than ever of their uniqueness, their special status as God’s select, and their group zeal and devotion couldn’t be greater. All they needed, Miller felt, was to be thrown upon the world scene, and they’d have no choice but to “prove” themselves right by finding more people to agree with them. Baxter, too, was probably waiting for that moment, for what he needed most right now was a visible enemy. And, surely, the Common Sensers realized that, for they’d been to see Miller several times already to urge him to continue suppressing this story, and most of them had even begun to get the idea he was on their side.
His main worry was Marcella. He’d thought to have her safely out of it by now. Originally, discovering Eleanor’s hostility toward him and her maternal sway over Marcella, he had thought it best to affect conviction and then tunnel out from within, share a carefully structured doubt, and then: conversion. Didn’t work. Marcella’s mind was complex and delicate, contained sweeping world-views that made cosmic events out of a casual gesture or a cloud’s idle passage, and, in such a mind, the commonplaces he liked to use were not common at all and refuted nothing. He had even hinted at marriage and she had laughed, supposing he must be joking. Now, he was bringing it to a head. He had called, asked her to meet him here at the plant this evening, and she had agreed. He’d insisted on the urgency of it: yes, regardless of what anybody might say to the contrary, she’d be there … she understood, she said. And maybe, at last, she did. He hoped so. He would show her the night’s edition, ask her to leave with him. He had no ring to offer, but he did have the brass collar still. He recognized that it might not be easy, but he believed, once the choice was clear to her, that her commitment to him would outweigh any other — Miller had that much faith in the gonads’ clutch upon what folks called reason.
Eleanor calls with the news. Marcella tells her she is sorry. Eleanor believes it is really a blessing, a further sign. Marcella agrees. She says nothing of her discovery, of her resolution. It was Eleanor, after all, who first confused her with all her divisions of love. But now the confusion has passed, the fear has passed, for perfect love, it is true, casts out fear. Love, she instructs her needle, never ends. Prophecy? it will pass away. Tongues? they will cease. Knowledge? it will pass away. But he who loves … abides in the light.