The Temple (19 page)

One evening Cato was at work as
usual. It wasn’t a particularly busy evening and he didn’t mind.
Less work meant he didn’t have to concentrate so much. When the
restaurant was busy he sometimes made mistakes with the orders as
he found it hard to keep his mind on the job. His thoughts kept
wandering and he was often brooding when he could. This was one of
the times when he had time for brooding. Suddenly he felt the
manager’s elbow in his side and heard the quiet reproach
“Customer”. A woman was sitting down at a table in a corner. He
walked over and placed the menu in front of her without saying a
word. The woman took a brief look at the menu and then glanced at
the waiter, ready to give her order.

“Cato!” she said surprised. “How
nice to see you again. How have you been?”

“Ah, hello Joan,” he said with
an inscrutable expression. “What can I say. I’m getting on somehow.
You can see what I’m doing here. There’s nothing really to
tell.”

Joan understood his despondent
tone and look.

“I see,” she said carefully. “I
really want to talk with you again. When do you finish here?”

“Midnight.”

“All right. I’ll be waiting for
you outside.”

He looked surprised. “Are you
sure? It’s very late.”

“I’m sure, Cato. See you
then.”

He took her order to the
kitchen, surprised anyone was interested in him. But it felt good.
It was a feeling he hadn’t known for months.

A few hours later Joan was
already standing outside the restaurant when Cato came out.

“Hello Joan,” he said mildly
surprised. “I thought you might not come.”

“Of course I’ve come,” she said
and took his arm. Come with me. I know the very place where we can
have a drink and a quiet chat together.”

He followed her without a word
but with a barely discernable smile on his face.

They had a few drinks in a small
pub and talked about themselves, the temple and all else that had
come to pass. After another drink or two Joan took him to her home
in a taxi where they made passionate love before falling into deep
exhausted sleep. They lay in each other’s arms in a happy embrace.
Outside their private little Eden the city lay quiet and dark.

After spending a blissful
fortnight with Cato, Joan decided to arrange a meeting with Mark
and Judas. Their private happiness was like a blossoming flower,
yet one always under the threatening shadow of a crow’s dark wings.
For while Cato was genuinely in love with Joan he found himself
unable to get his mind free from the Dryvellers and what they had
done. In the end it was Joan who determined that the only thing to
do was to team up with Mark and Judas again to discuss if there was
anything they could do.

They met in Joan’s home over
dinner and a few drinks and discussed everything that had
happened.

“So what I want to know,” Mark
said, “is how we’re supposed to do anything. I mean, look at the
FDL. All they did was to protest peacefully and they got thrown
into prison for years.”

Judas nodded. “Hey, I’m not
going to jail. And what for? That protest achieved nothing.”

Joan sighed. “Yes, I know, but
we can’t just do nothing. At least I can’t. Look at what those
swine did to Cato and many others. This won’t simply go away,
vanish into thin air as if nothing had happened. It’s torturing
Cato every day,” she said and put her hand on his arm. “No need to
say anything, dear. I know what’s on your mind.”

Cato looked to the floor and
nodded a little.

“So apart from what we can’t do,
have you got any smart ideas?” Mark asked. “Because one thing’s for
sure. Just sitting here and talking and moaning won’t get us
anywhere. And I sure as hell don’t want to get involved in anything
violent, I mean if you’re thinking of throwing fire bombs or stuff
like that, then count me out. I don’t even want to hear about
it.”

“Mark’s right,” Cato said. “We
mustn’t be violent or we’d be no different from them.”

Joan nodded. “So we can’t be
violent and we don’t want to be caught doing something useless. How
about if we organize a protest where no one is caught or seen?”

Judas laughed. “How do you want
to do that?”

“That’s easy,” Joan smiled.
We’ll wear masks and we’ll not stay long. We’ll appear suddenly in
one place, hand out some flyers and talk to a few people and then
we’ll vanish again before the cops have time to get there.”

“Shit that’s cool,” Judas
grinned. “We’ll be like the Immortals.”

“The Immortals?” Mark said.

“Yea, I saw that on TV. In
Persia there were these soldiers, and like, well, they wore masks
and they never died, or something like that. So we’ll be wearing
masks and we’ll never die because the coppers won’t get near
us.”

Cato peered at Judas with his
clear blue eyes. “You’ve hit the nail on the head, old chap. I like
it. The Immortals definitely has a ring to it. It’ll help us
attract more attention and if the media report about the Immortals
then the effect of our protest will be magnified hugely.”

Mark nodded his agreement.

“All right, then,” Joan said.
Then let’s talk about what we want to write and what masks we can
use.”

“Won’t the protest be a bit
small if it’s just the four of us?” Mark asked.

“What do you have in mind?” Joan
asked.

“How about if we get in touch
with some FDL people. It’s just their leaders in jail. I’m sure the
others are really pissed off with what happened and at least some
of them will join us.”

“That’s a darn good idea,” Joan
said. “And I know just where to start.”

5.30pm. Rush hour. The blazing
red sun has already vanished behind the city’s tall buildings and
soon the late afternoon will give way to a gloomy dusk that heralds
nightfall. Huge crowds are milling through the town on their way
home. They are pushing their way through a public square. Suddenly
a person dressed in dark clothes appears. The head is covered by a
dark hood with a white mask in front. Moments later there are
dozens of figures all dressed alike. They hand out flyers demanding
freedom of speech, the release of all FDL prisoners and a police
investigation of the Master Jeremiah and the Dryvellist Temple. At
the same time they start a rhythmical chant:

“Stop Dryvellism! Free John
Drew!”

Many people are attracted by the
unusual sight and take a flyer or even film the protestors with
their mobile phones. After three minutes the protestors simply melt
away. They vanish into different directions, be it into a side
street, a bus or into one of the many entrances of the city’s
underground transport system. By the time the police arrive all
that is to see is an agitated crowd, many of whom strongly
disagreed with the harsh stance the government took on the FDL. So
instead of finding honest citizens willing to help in their
investigation the police are booed. The handful of officers who
came, discover that any questions they ask are met with heated
replies and in the end they are ordered to leave the scene so as
not to inflame the situation any further. And all this is also
recorded and quickly sent by messaging devices to colleagues,
friends and family members.

A mere two hours later film
footage of the protest is headline news on TV followed by footage
showing the police being booed and driven away by an angry crowd of
commuters. There are even some brief scenes of the first FDL march
and the terror attack on the bus.

The Immortals are by this time
safely back in their homes and eagerly watch the evening news.

“That’s fantastic!” Joan said to
Cato. “Just look at all the attention we got on our first protest.
I bet that’ll have the president and his Dryveller pals hot under
their collars.”

Cato smiled. “Yes, I suppose it
will. All we’ve got to do now is to keep it up till things reach a
boiling point. We’ve got to keep the attention focused on
them.”

Over the next week the Immortals
staged a flash protest every evening in different places in town
with the same results. The police invariably arrived too late to
even catch a glimpse of them and authorities were getting
increasingly frustrated by both their inability to stop the
protests and by the apparent popularity of the protests. Despite
repeated appeals and even the offer of a reward no one was willing
turn them in or to try to restrain any of the protesters.

Meanwhile Jeremiah was watching
events unfold seated in the posh armchair that graced his spacious
living room in the opulent mansion he had bought himself from the
temple’s ill-gotten gains. Despite all the luxury surrounding him
he was in an increasingly foul mood. Not only did the protesters
keep raking up the sins of the past, they were also successful at
keeping the temple’s wrongdoings on everyone’s mind thus making it
very difficult for Jeremiah to carry on his usual business of
cheating people out of their money.

“Something’s got to be done,” he
cursed one day. “If the police weren’t so bloody useless the whole
matter would be long forgotten, ancient history, but what can we do
to distract people from these stupid protests?”

He stared at the precious
Persian carpet on his floor turning things over in his mind.

“What we need,” he said at long
last, “is a spectacle. A huge show for people to see what we
Dryvellers are really like. Indeed,” he said loudly feeling
encouraged by his own idea, “a grandiose spectacle that’ll be the
talk of the town, no what am I saying, the talk of the nation.
Something so grand and marvellous that it has never even been
attempted before! The only question is, what kind of show that
would be.”

In spite of repeated scandals
involving the temple Jeremiah had managed to amass a small fortune
from various ventures and events. He decided to hire a number of
famous pop stars, actors, circus performers and magicians and
combine all of them in an unheard of way into the fabulous
extravaganza he had envisioned. In addition to this he organized a
national lottery just for this event where huge prizes were
offered. He calculated that the lure of an incredible show and the
possibility of huge winnings would be enough to draw in even the
most hardened critics of Dryvellism. And he was right. Tickets for
the show were sold out within hours of box offices opening and the
rights to televise the event were successfully auctioned to the
highest bidder. It was beginning to look like a winning formula for
fantastic publicity for the temple combined with a substantial
income. Jeremiah calculated that this one event might even net the
temple more than they had ever taken in before. Not even the daily
protests by the Immortals could do anything to dampen the excited
spirit with which people were looking forward to the show. If
anything, there were people who were beginning to look at the
protesters askance. Forgotten were the terror attack, the scandal
about the hospital and a score of other ill-deeds. The only thing
left on people’s minds was the show.

“What a bunch of gormless sheep
people are,” Jeremiah laughed. “Give them some great entertainment
and they’ll forget you burned their house down last week.”

But if Jeremiah was in a
jubilant mood, the opposite was true for the Immortals.

“I don’t know why we’re still
bothering,” Judas said one day to Joan, Cato and Mark. “I mean it’s
not like we’re achieving anything. It was all right at first, but
now no one cares. All they want is that darn show.”

“Oh please don’t say that,” Joan
said. “You mustn’t give up.”

“And why not?” he interrupted
her. “Why can’t I give up? Why do I have to waste time on this and
risk going to jail? For what? I mean, yea like, it was fun for a
while and we had them really pissed off, but it’s over now. Money
wins. You see what that bloody Jeremiah can do because he’s filthy
rich.”

Mark didn’t know what to reply
and gloomily stared at the floor, but Cato slowly nodded.

“He’s right,” he said to the
others. “Why should we risk anything if we’re achieving
nothing?”

“You’re not serious,” Joan said
in shock. “After all you’ve gone through, how could you give up?
Just think of your dad and your home.”

“I know,” Cato sighed. “But
going on with a pointless protest isn’t going to change the past,
is it? And people don’t even want to hear us anymore. That show has
completely blocked out reality from their minds.”

“And that’s exactly why we have
to carry on. We’re the only ones who can still remind people of who
the Dryvellers really are,” Joan pleaded.

“I’m sorry Joan, but it’s over,”
Cato said. “If Jeremiah and Co. go back to doing nasty things we’ve
got a chance to start again, but as long as the show is a go we
haven’t got a chance.

The four friends sat in silence
for a few minutes.

“And what,” Mark said haltingly,
“what if there is no show?”

“Yea, like God is going to come
along and cancel the show,” Judas said with a sardonic grin.

“No, I mean we could cancel the
show,” Mark said. “Just imagine if after all the hype the show was
called off. That would leave folks with a very bad taste in the
mouth to say the least and they’d be sure to remember everything
else about the Dryvellers again.”

“And just how do you propose to
stop a huge show from going ahead?” Cato asked. “That’s a mega
event. There must be tons of security and police around. They’ve
got the country’s largest indoor stadium and even if we managed to
get in, what could we do? Another protest there wouldn’t do much
good. We’d only get booed and arrested.”

“Yes, Mark,” Joan said. “Do
enlighten us.”

Mark smiled. “Actually, I know
exactly how we can do it.”

The day of the show drew nearer
and nearer, but Mark stayed tight-lipped about what he was going to
do. He merely instructed the Immortals to be in place outside the
stadium at a certain time and to trust him.