Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (11 page)

PROFESSOR FOSTER:
“Here is our statement. In spite of all our efforts, we cannot ascertain the source of the signal.”

THE PRESIDENT:
“Is that all?”

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL:
“Well, damn it to hell, sir, you must know where the signal comes from. Does it come from outer space? From the earth? From Russia?”

PROFESSOR FOSTER:
“I stand by my statement.”

THE PRESIDENT:
“Well, here we are, faced with a show cause order. Billy, I don't expect anything from the Russians or the Chinese. Can we show cause?”

BILLY:
“I have been thinking about that.”

THE PRESIDENT:
“Yes or no?”

[Silence]

JERUSALEM

THE PRIME MINISTER:
“At the suggestion of Professor Goldberg, I have invited Rabbi Cohen to this meeting.”

THE FOREIGN MINISTER:
“Why? To complicate this hoax?”

THE PRIME MINISTER:
“Suppose we hear from Professor Goldberg.”

PROFESSOR GOLDBERG:
“Not only have we been working on it day and night, but we have been in touch with the Americans. As in our case, they can find no source for the signal. I think we ought to hear from Rabbi Cohen.”

THE PRIME MINISTER:
“What the Gentiles will do, Rabbi, is their problem. Ours is more personal, since when you come right down to it, our people have been faced with this problem before. We are presented with a show cause order. Can we show cause?”

RABBI COHEN:
(sadly)
“I am afraid not.”

WHITEHALL

CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE:
“I've put four of our best men on it. We're running them north of the Afghan border.”

THE CHIEF MINISTER:
“What do you hear from them?”

CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE:
“We've lost touch with them.”

THE PRIME MINISTER:
“I think you ought to get in touch with the Archbishop.”

CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE:
“I'll put one of my best men on it.”
(Thoughtful silence)

THE VATICAN

FIRST CARDINAL:
“I can't believe it. After two thousand years of effort.”

SECOND CARDINAL:
“Backbreaking effort.”

FIRST CARDINAL:
“No word of appreciation. Just show cause.”

SECOND CARDINAL:
“Have you spoken to the legal department?”

FIRST CARDINAL:
“Oh, yes—yes indeed. He's within His rights, you know.”

The above excerpts are just a sampling of what went on in the upper circles of every government on earth. Both the Vatican and Israel, due to the singular nature of their antecedents, attempted to probe for a time limit, and at least four times they were given the use of the broadcasting facilities of the Voice of America, both medium wave and short wave; but their frantic pleas of “How much time do we have?” were simply ignored. Day after day the resonant and majestic voice, same hour, same minute, called upon the people of the earth to show cause.

By the third week, Russia and China and their client countries joined in a public statement, denouncing the voice as a tasteless bourgeois prank, directed at the moral integrity of the peace-loving nations; and while they admitted that the source of the signal was not yet apparent, they stated that it was only a matter of time before they pinned it down. But Moscow's efforts to jam the voice continued to result in failure, and China accused Moscow of being a part of the Western conspiracy to foist their primitive and anthropomorphic concept of a Biblical God upon the civilized world.

Meanwhile, the various sectors of the human race reacted in the entire spectrum of reaction, from hooting disdain to indifference to anger and to riot and panic; and the President of the United States had a long and earnest talk in his study with his friend, Billy. Knowing only the results of this talk, one has to deduce its content, but one can safely presume that it went somewhat in this fashion:

“I've read your bill of particulars, Billy. It's not very convincing,” the President said.

“No? Well, I didn't think too highly of it myself.”

“I think you could have done better.”

“Oh? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I never liked show cause orders—I was never wholly convinced that they are constitutional.”

“They're constitutional,” the President assured him. “I had a long talk with the Chief Justice about this. He says it's quite constitutional.”

“I meant in a general sense. We must not become too parochial about this.”

“One falls into the habit,” the President confessed. “You must admit that we've always been on God's side.”

“The question is—is He on our side?”

“You're not losing faith, Billy?”

“It's just the problem of making a case for us.”

“He must be on our side,” the President insisted. “Take the very fact of show cause. Our country has pioneered the legal field in the use of show cause orders. We were putting an end to subversive strikes with show cause orders before the rest of the world even thought of the device. And as far as a case for us—where else in the world has a nation provided as free and abundant a life as the American way?”

“I'm not sure that's to the point.”

“Billy, I've never seen you like this before. I would have said you're the most confident man on earth. Do you want me to take this out of your hands and give it to the Attorney General? He has a damn good legal staff, and if they put their heads together, they'll come up with something that will hold up in court.”

“That's not it. He asks a question point-blank. It's a moment of truth.”

“We've had our moments of truth before, and we've lived through them.”

“This one's different.”

“Why?”

Billy looked at the President, and the President looked at Billy, and after a long, long moment of silence, the President nodded.

“Hopeless?”

“I thought of something,” Billy said.

“What? I'll put every resource of the country at your disposal.”

“When you come right down to it,” Billy said, “it's the showing cause that breaks our back. It's one thing to preach in the big stadium at Houston; but when you say your piece at the United Nations, for example, it doesn't hold water.”

“The hell it doesn't.”

“Well, with England and Guatemala, but where's the plain majority we had ten years ago?”

“We're no worse than any other country and a damn sight better than the Reds.”

“That's the crux of it,” Billy said.

“You said you thought of something.”

“I did. Let's take that big computer you have down at Houston. Suppose we start programming it. We'll throw everything into it, the good and the bad—get the best men in the field to program it, and keep throwing facts into it—say for a week or ten days.”

“We don't know how much time we have.”

“We have to presume that He knows what we're doing. And so long as He knows that we're working on the show cause order, He'll wait.”

“Isn't that a calculated risk, Billy?”

“I'd say it's more of an educated guess. Good heavens, He's got all the time in the world. He invented it.”

“Then why don't we bring IBM into it? They can throw together a set of computers that will make the thing down in Texas—that's where the big one is—look like a kiddy toy.”

“If the government will foot the bill. I'm not sure that the IBM folk will see it just our way.”

More or less in that fashion the IBM project came into being. Since they had a free hand to call on their own computer centers as well as what they had set up for the Department of Defense, it was no more than two weeks before they began the programming. Day and night, facts were fed into the giant complex of computers, day after day, not by a single person but by over three hundred computer experts; and precisely thirty-three days after they began, the job was done. The computer complex was the repository of all the facts available concerning the current role of the human species on the planet Earth.

It was three o'clock in the morning when the last fact was fed into the humming machine. At Central Control, a sleepless President and his Cabinet and some two dozen local luminaries and representatives of foreign countries waited. Billy waited with them. And the world waited.

“Well, Billy?” the President asked.

“We've given it the problem and the facts. Now we want the answer.” He turned to the Chief Engineer of IBM. “It's your move now.”

The Chief Engineer nodded and touched a button. The gigantic complex of computers came alive and hummed and throbbed and blinked and flashed, took a full sixty seconds to digest the information that had been fed to it, and then took ten seconds more to imprint the information on a piece of tape.

No one moved.

The President looked at Billy.

“It's up to you, sir,” Billy said.

The President moved slowly toward the machine, tore off the six inches of tape that protruded from it, read it, then turned to Billy and handed it to him silently.

On the tape was printed: “Harvey Titterson.”

“Harvey Titterson,” Billy said.

The Attorney General came over and took the tape from Billy. “Harvey Titterson,” he repeated.

“Harvey Titterson,” the President said. “A billion dollars into the biggest computer project the world ever saw, and what do we have?”

“Harvey Titterson,” said the Secretary of State.

“Who is Harvey Titterson?” asked the British Ambassador.

Who indeed? Two hours later the President of the United States and his friend, Billy, sat in the White House, facing the bulldog visage of the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Harvey Titterson,” said the President. “We want you to find him.”

“Who is he?” asked the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“If we knew who he was, you would not have to find him,” the President explained slowly and respectfully, for he was always respectful when he exchanged ideas with the aging director of the Federal ‘Bureau of Investigation.

“Is he dangerous? Do we take him alive or dead?”

“You don't take him, sir,” Billy explained respectfully, for like everyone else, he was always respectful when he spoke to the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We simply want to know where he is. If possible, we don't want him to be alarmed or disturbed in any way; as a matter of fact, we would prefer that he should be unaware of any special supervision. We only desire to know who he is and where he is.”

“Have you looked in the telephone book?”

“We've been in touch with the telephone company,” the President replied. “You must understand, we had no intention of bypassing you. But knowing the heavy load of work your department carries, we thought the telephone company might be able to simplify our task. Harvey Titterson does not have a telephone.”

“It might be an unlisted number.”

“No. The telephone company was very cooperative. It's not even an unlisted number.”

“You'll have results, Mr. President,” said the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “I'll put two hundred of my best agents on it.”

“Time is of the essence.”

“Yes, sir. Time is of the essence.”

It is a tribute to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the acumen of its aging director that in three days a report was placed upon the President's desk. The folder was marked “Confidential, top secret, restricted and special to the President of the United States.”

The President called Billy into his office before he even opened the folder. “Billy,” he said grimly, “this is your dish of tea. I've dealt with Russia and Red China, but this is a piece of diplomacy you have to make your own. We'll read it together.”

Then he opened the folder, and they read:

“Special secret report on Harvey Titterson, age twenty-two, son of Frank Titterson and Mary (Bently) Titterson. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey. Educated at Plainfield High School and at the University of California at Berkeley. Majored in Philosophy. Arrested twice for possession of marijuana. Sentence suspended in the first instance. Thirty days in jail in the second instance. Presently living at 921 East Eighth Street in New York City. Present occupation unknown.”

So that's Harvey Titterson,” the President said. “He works in strange ways.”

“I wouldn't blame Him,” said Billy. “Harvey Titterson came out of the IBM machine.”

“I want you to take this, Billy,” the President said. “I want you to carry on from here. I have given you top clearance.
Airforce 1
is at your disposal if you need it. Also my personal helicopter. It's your mission, and I don't have to say what rides on its success or failure.”

“I'll do my best,” Billy promised.

Two hours' later a chauffeur-driven black government limousine drew up in front of 921 East Eighth Street, an old-law cold-water tenement, and Billy got out of the car, climbed four flights of stairs, and tapped at the door.

“Enter, brother,” said a voice.

Billy opened the door and, entered a room whose contents consisted of a table, a chair, a single bed, a rug, and on the rug a young man in ancient blue jeans and a T-shirt, sitting cross-legged. He had a russet beard and moustache, russet hair that fell to his shoulders, and a pair of bright blue eyes; and Billy couldn't help noticing his resemblance to his own mentor.

Billy stared at the young man, who stared back and said pleasantly, “You're sure as hell not fuzz and you're not the landlord, so you got to have the wrong place.”