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Problem: Did the nuns collectively hallucinate the nimbus that supposedly protected Vornan’s modesty? Did the nuns deliberately invent the existence of the nimbus to protect their own modesty? Or did Vornan arrange things so that most of the witnesses saw him entire, while those who might suffer emotional distress from the sight had a different view of him?
I don’t know. The cult of the Apocalypse has given us ample evidence that collective hallucinations are possible, so I don’t discount the first suggestion. Nor the second, for organized religion has provided us with two thousand years of precedent for the cold statement that its functionaries don’t always tell the truth. As for the idea that Vornan would go out of his way to spare the nuns from looking upon his nakedness, I’m skeptical. It was never his style to protect anyone from any kind of jolt, nor did he really seem aware that human beings needed to be shielded from anything so astonishing as the body of a fellow human. Besides, if he hadn’t even heard of Christ, how would he have known anything about nuns and their vows? But I refuse to underestimate his deviousness. Nor do I think it would have been technically impossible for Vornan to appear one way to ninety-six onlookers and another way to the other three.
We do know that the nuns fled into the church within moments after his arrival. Some of the others assumed that Vornan was some kind of Apocalyptist maniac and ceased to pay attention to him. But a good many watched in fascination as the nude stranger, having made his dramatic appearance, wandered about the Piazza di Spagna, inspecting first the fountain, then the shop windows on the far side, and then the row of parked automobiles at the curb. The wintry chill had no apparent effect on him. When he had seen all he wished to see at that side of the piazza, he sauntered across and began to mount the stairs. He was on the fifth step and moving without hurry when a frenzied-looking policeman rushed up and shouted at him to come down and get into the wagon.
Vornan-19 replied, “I will not do as you say.”
Those were his first words to us — the opening lines of his Epistle to the Barbarians. He spoke in English. Many of the witnesses heard and understood what he had said. The policeman did not, and continued to harangue him in Italian.
Vornan-19 said, “I am a traveler from a distant era. I am here to inspect your world.”
Still in English. The policeman sputtered. He believed that Vornan was an Apocalyptist, and an American Apocalyptist at that, the worst kind. The policeman’s duty was to defend the decency of Rome and the sanctity of Christmas Day against this madman’s exhibitionist vulgarities. He shouted at the visitor to come down the steps. Ignoring him, Vornan-19 turned and serenely continued upward. The sight of those pale, slender retreating buttocks maddened the officer of the law. He removed his own cloak and rushed up the steps, determined to wrap it around the stranger.
Witnesses declare that Vornan-19 did not look at the policeman or touch him in any way. The officer, holding the cloak in his left hand, reached out with his right to seize Vornan’s shoulder. There was a faint gleaming yellowish-blue discharge, and a slight popping sound, and the policeman tumbled backward as though he had been struck by an electric bolt. Crumpling as he fell, he rolled to the bottom of the stairs and lay in a heap, twitching faintly. The onlookers drew back. Vornan-19 proceeded up the steps to the top, halting there to tell one of the witnesses a bit about himself.
The witness was a German Apocalyptist named Horst Klein, nineteen years old, who had taken part in the revelry at the Forum between midnight and dawn and now, too keyed up to go to sleep, was wandering the city in a mood of post coitum depression. Young Klein, fluent in English, became a familiar television personality in the days that followed, repeating his story for the benefit of global networks. Then he slipped into oblivion, but his place in history is assured. I don’t doubt that somewhere in Mecklenburg or Schleswig today he’s repeating the conversation yet.
As Vornan-19 approached him, Klein said, “You shouldn’t kill carabinieri. They won’t forgive you.”
“He isn’t dead. Merely stu
“You don’t talk like an American,” said Klein.
“I’m not. I come from the Centrality. That’s a thousand years from now, you understand.”
Klein laughed. “The world ends in three hundred seventy-two days.”
“Do you believe, that? What year is this, anyway?”
“1998. December twenty-fifth.”
“The world has at least a thousand more years. Of that I’m certain. I am Vornan-19, and I am here as a visitor. I am in need of hospitality. I would like to sample your food and your wine. I wish to wear clothing of the period. I am interested in ancient sexual practices. Where may I find a house of intercourse?”
“That gray building there,” said Klein, pointing toward the church of Trinitа dei Monti. “They’ll take care of all your needs inside. Just tell them you come from a thousand years from now. 2998, is it?”
“2999 by your system.”
“Good. They’ll love you for that. Just prove to them that the world isn’t going to end a year from New Year’s Day, and they’ll give you whatever you want.”
“The world will not end quite so soon,” said Vornan-19 gravely. “I thank you, my friend.”
He began to move toward the church.
Breathless carabinieri rushed at him from several directions at once. They did not dare come within five yards of him, but they formed a phalanx barring him from access to the church. They were armed with neural whips. One of them flung his cloak at Vornan’s feet.
“Put that on.”
“I do not speak your language.”
Horst Klein said, “They want you to cover your body. The sight of it offends them.”
“My body is undeformed,” said Vornan-19. “Why should I cover it?”
“They want you to, and they have neural whips. They can hurt you with them. See? Those gray rods in their hands.”
“May I examine your weapon?” the visitor said affably to the nearest officer. He reached for it. The man shrank back. Vornan moved with implausible swiftness and wrenched the whip from the policeman’s hand. He took it business end first, and should have received a stu
Horst Klein broke through the crumbling phalanx and flung himself at Vornan’s feet. “You really are from the future, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“How do you do it — touch the whip?”
“These mild forces can be absorbed and transformed,” said Vornan. “Don’t you have the energy rituals yet?”
The German boy, trembling, shook his head. He scooped up the policeman’s cloak and offered it to the naked man. “Put this over yourself,” he whispered. “Please. Make things easier for us. You can’t walk around naked.”
Surprisingly, Vornan consented. After some fumbling he managed to don the cloak.
Klein said, “The world doesn’t end in a year?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“I’ve been a fool!”
“Perhaps.”
Tears ran down the broad, unlined Teutonic cheeks. The frayed laughter of exhaustion ripped through Horst Klein’s lips. He groveled on the cold stone slab, slapping his palms against the ground in an improvised salaam before Vornan-19. Shivering, sobbing, gasping, Horst Klein recanted his faith in the Apocalyptist movement.
The man from the future had gained his first disciple.