We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep

by Andrew Kelly Stewart

  A whalebone-and-thatch stool stands at the bedside. I sit. Close to him, very close.

  His clouded eyes seek me out. They do not find me. His pale hand does. Fingers, long and pale and bony, like the legs of the white spiders that spin their webs in the corners of the balneary, folded together.

  “I fished you out of the sea,” he says, part of him in the past.

  “Yes,” I tell him. He has told me this before. I don’t remember it. Not really. Perhaps the taste of salt and blood on my cracked lips. The sun-scoured feeling of my skin. Angry, raw. But sun.

  Light.

  And an illustrated image. Of a palm tree set against blue sea, rooted in yellow sand. Some piece of wavering cloth, a banner.

  But the whiteness. The warmth. That is what has always lingered most.

  “My little Moses,” he says. A sound comes from him. Was it meant to be a laugh? A strangled one. “Plucked you from the ragged sea, from a sinking boat. From the wicked world. Couldn’t have been more than five or six. But smart. Even then, I knew you were special. That voice. That’s why . . . why I kept you. Despite it all. Why I have taught you.

  “God told me. To keep you. And I did. I knew it was meant to be when I heard your voice. An angel’s voice. We have kept quite some confidence, haven’t we? You and I?” he asks, trying to muster energy for sitting up. He wears something like a grin. A gap-toothed, red-lipped smile. A black void of a maw.

  How have we kept it secret so long?

  Such tight quarters. Shared bunks and ablutions.

  But we Choristers and brothers bathe in our linens. Thin, sopping cloth plastered to skin masks enough. And the darkness. In this darkness, one could hide almost anything.

  “They’ll soon find out about me,” I blurt out, unable to keep it inside any longer, voice trembling. I don’t want for him to see my fear. He, who knows me better than even Lazlo.

  “Ah, so the curse has come to you,” he says. His cold hand squeezes mine with a surprising strength. Quells the terror that has been twisting inside me since Matins.

  We spoke some time ago about this eventuality. About how to handle it, if it happened.

  “God will protect you, child. There was a time when I wondered,” Caplain says, “would He see fit to stop all these—female processes of yours—when He saw that you had found a home amongst us? Among the last of the righteous. But I’ve gone off that thinking—His will remains cryptic as ever. Even to us, the penitent. Though what remains clear, even to a man who has lost his sight, is that God allowed you to be saved for a purpose. To wit, I have summoned you today.” He winces, quite suddenly, a throe of pain or palsy. He, at last, breathes.

  Then he lets go my hand. Has left something behind in my palm. A cold, thin object. In the oil light, a silvery key. Long, toothed.

  “Caplain?” I ask, looking down at it.

  “For the Last Judgment. It cannot be launched without it.”

  “But what of yours,” I say, pointing. I see it lying there against pale skin, against a washboard rack of ribs.

  “It was the old captain’s habit to wear a false key—before the war. Before we heard God’s word and took this submarine in His name. A secret he shared with me, our old captain.”

  Captain.

  Such a strange variation on the word. A precursor to the holy position that all on board have come to know and revere.

  “Such a small object that wields so much power must be protected. Hidden from even the most loyal. This key that I give to you—it is the real one. I have kept it hidden.” Caplain pauses to swab his lips with a purple tongue.

  “But . . . but why? Why this deception?”

  The old man closes his eyes. “I’ve waited these long years—have built this order, have put our prayers and praises and psalms into the depths—where God may hear us. I have also been listening, yes. Waiting for His word that the years of tribulation have finally come to an end. I expected it after some seven years. Seven years after I answered that first call. Launched the missiles. We unleashed all the fury of heaven upon that wicked world above. Yet one did not launch. Divine intervention, I thought. Saved for later. For purpose. To usher in that final terrible judgment. I have been listening, but I have heard nothing”—and his foggy eyes are staring at nothing. “I listened, I listened,” he breathes. “I have long promised that our final dive would . . . would come soon, that our long years of service would finally be rewarded. But I see now that my role in the grand plan shall soon be done. And I realize now that I have put my trust in an unfit heir to this Brotherhood.”

  I draw in a hot breath.

  Have I heard it correctly? Never—never—has the caplain shared such notions. He’s lost his mind, I think. I should stand. Should go. Remember him as I have always known him. Not this rambling man.

  Caplain continues. “Ex-Oh Marston is a true disciple. A strict observer. Unfailing in his practice of devotion. A stern disciplinarian. But he will not hear the Word when the time comes. His own ego stands in the way of that. An artless soul. He will rely upon a flawed judgment as to when we should deliver the Last Judgment.”

  “And you think I will hear the word? I’m from Topside. From the wicked world—”

  “And given unto us by Grace,” Caplain interjects. “Purpose. As I said, you have purpose. We can’t know it yet.”

  “What about Brother Silas, or Brother Ernesto . . . they are wise, they are good—”

  “You, Cantor. It must be you.”

  “But . . .” I tread carefully here, key still in my hand, weighing cold. Heavy as an anchor. “If Ex-Oh does try to launch, he’ll quickly discover the key is false.”

  “You will remain silent; you will keep the key hidden if you have not heard the call from God.”

  “He is a . . . fierce man,” I say, cannot help but whisper. What if Ex-Oh is at the door, listening at this very moment? I lean in, wall of astringent liniment mingled with rot. “Won’t he have guessed that you’ve given the real key to someone?”

  “He will not expect it to be you,” Caplain says, words weary now. Weighted like ballast. “You, he will expect the least. And God will protect you.”

  I think he might be near sleeping now, by the weakened draw of breath, the closed, swollen lids.

  “But . . . what will that sound like?” I ask. “God’s voice?”

  “I heard . . .” he begins. Far away, again. Lost in memory. Eyes shut, as though the lids are too heavy to open. “The leviathans. Their song. Behind their song. A voice from the deep. You listen, Sister Remy. I know you do. I have seen you listening. For one to sing as you do, they must first know how to listen.”

  “And what if I listen and, as with you, I never hear His word?” I ask.

  Caplain opens his bloody, blackened mouth, as though about to speak. But shakes his head. An idea, apparently, too worrisome. A thought that knits his grey, wispy brows. A specter of doubt? I know that shadow. Have felt it cross me. This, I have told no one. Not even Lazlo.

  “You will know, Sister Remy,” a rattling whisper. “You will know.”

  Head bowed, I feel a tear crawl its way hotly down my cheek, reach my dry lips. Salty burn. He will be gone soon, this man. Death has already ensnared his body, pulling him down into the darkness. This man who saved me, though I was a girl and should have been tossed into the sea. Who has taught me. Kept me hidden.

  “As below, so above,” I say, waiting for his refrain.

  But it doesn’t come. He has drifted off into some troubled reverie.

  There is only the guttering of the oil flames. The incessant rattle-whir of a ventilation fan. Tinny smell. Sits on my tongue. The creaking of fathoms of water, pressing down upon us.

  Ast ego te posthac oculisque animoque tenebo, aequor ubi in lucem funera rapta feret.

  2

  AT THE RINGING OF LAUDS, a group of four brothers bears Caplain Amita’s remains into the chapel and rests his thin, clothbound, bonefish body upon the platform where we Choristers would no
rmally stand.

  “Lauds is the hour where we praise the coming morning and the resurrection of Christ,” Marston says, no longer wearing the pale blue robes of Ex-Oh but the holy white vestments of a Caplain. He stands upon the driftwood dais, before the head of the deceased Caplain Amita. “Our beloved Caplain’s resurrection will come at the end, for all of us, on the final day, when the Last Judgment is delivered, and when we take our last song to the depths. And, until then, we honor his name, he who first heard the word of God. He who gave us purpose. He who put our song into the deep.”

  Caplain Marston’s voice, often cold and colorless, is filled with heat. Power in his speech that would rival Caplain Amita in the days when he had his full strength. Movement in his tall, hunched body.

  “And today,” he says, glancing at me—sea glass eyes burning like cold flames, “we honor his legacy with our song.”

  Antiphon: “Quoniam omnes dii gentium daemonia at vero Dominus caelos fecit.”

  Chant: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum.”

  Antiphon.

  I lead, and though my voice does not break, it wavers under the weight of something. Something that threatens to close my throat. I fight back tears, looking at Caplain Amita’s slender remains.

  “Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel; quia visitavit et fecit redemptionem plebis suae.”

  Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.

  To close, a hymn. A special hymn just added to the psalter, penned by Caplain Marston.

  Like a dirge, it seems to my ears. Slow and heavy.

  “By fire, may they be pur-i-fied

  “By poison, may they see His light.”

  Finally, prayer.

  “Laudate Dominum de caelis laudate eum in excelsis.”

  Praise ye Him, in the high places.

  A prayer that comes from this, the lowest places.

  Does that not make the praise even more special? More powerful?

  If so, then I pray that Caplain Amita might know peace. That he, himself, be praised for being an instrument of God’s will.

  I am told I should take comfort in the face of death, and that I will see Caplain Amita again, in heaven, after the dead have been called from the ocean’s depths. But, for today, he is simply dead.

  The one person who knew the truth about me, who knew who I really was, has passed. And he has left me with a task that I am not sure I am capable of.

  The key.

  I feel its cold metal still burning my skin, tucked tight against my chest.

  Caplain Amita said Marston would never suspect me, but I don’t believe that to be true. His eyes narrow upon me at times. As though he’s trying to see through me. Like he knows I have a secret.

  And what will he do to me if he finds out? I’m not sure which secret I’m most frightened of him knowing.

  * * *

  After the hour is done, Caplain Amita’s body is carried up to the Topside deck, where the elders and the anointed brothers will give him the final rights and, upon diving, commit his body to the sea.

  I cannot be there for this rite. Me, nor the other Choristers. We cannot go Topside.

  However, this marks the first time in days in which we are left to our own devices.

  I slip away from Lazlo before he has a chance to notice I am gone, crawl down into the battery well, one of the very lowest compartments of the ship, where the air is close—a mingled smell of something acrid and metallic. Of fish rot and urine and other recesses. Few other than Caleb and I could fit down here into some of these spaces, for the room is filled by a massive bank of the heavy, block-shaped cells. At one time, the boat held a bank of thirty of these cells, and more in store to replace damaged ones, but now only twenty remain, several of which are seeping acid and are soon to fail.

  Brother Ernesto doesn’t trust Caleb enough yet to clean these essential elements. I must be careful to touch only the wood plank barrier as I climb down, avoiding the terminals. They are live. The shock would kill a person in an instant if they landed wrong.

  So, it is I tasked with cleaning the corroded terminals. I keep the contacts and wiring dry. Pump away the standing, oily, brackish water into the bilge. My feet burn if I stand too long in that acidic brine. It’s already eating away at the piping below, the very pressure hull. I remember once when we had taken on water from a burst ballast tank valve. The well flooded up to my waist. I had to pump for countless hours to keep the seawater from reaching the batteries.

  If the water ever reaches the terminals, the electrical system will short. The boat will go dark. The Leviathan could be lost. Lost before its purpose is fulfilled.

  I remove my robe, glancing through the hatchway above, making sure I’m not seen. I pull off my tunic, remove the key from its place, tucked against my chest inside my bindings.

  I slip it into a crevice between a support strut overhead and the deck. I dare not keep it on my person, nor in my bunk or locker. Not with Caplain Amita dead and Marston in charge. Our bunks and personal lockers have already been searched for contraband.

  Worse, Caplain Marston’s God is somehow more wrathful and expecting than the God Caplain Amita bade us serve. The new Ex-Oh Goines, with his steely expression and tumorous neck, has become his enforcer. Always was a man even more exacting and severe than Marston, when he was just the Watch. Ten lashes given to Brother Micah for speaking when he should not. Twelve lashes to Brother Gregory for wasting food during his galley duty.

  It’s his new mission to remind the brothers and Choristers of our sacred, solemn duty.

  To toil and to pray.

  We Choristers have always been spared some of the harsher penance, but that cannot be guaranteed any longer.

  I cannot step a toe out of line.

  If they lash me, then they will see my bindings.

  I must keep my bleeding hidden, when it returns. Surely it will. My curse.

  A dry lump grows in my throat, thinking about Caplain Amita.

  What a lonely feeling it is.

  A hollowness in my tummy. Like a gutted rockfish.

  I could tell Lazlo—I have thought of it before. I trust him more than anyone. He would keep my secret.

  There might be a time when it’s necessary for someone else to know. When I’ll need help.

  But not now.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I retighten the strip of linen about my chest, pulling the wrappings tight as I can. So tight I have trouble breathing. Round and round. That’s how tight it needs to be in order to conceal my shape.

  If I am to last long enough to fulfill the task Caplain Amita set upon me, the task God has chosen me for, then I cannot be found out.

  * * *

  Today is a fishing day, a task that requires most brothers to be on hand.

  “Must mean we’re in a good, clean stretch of water,” Brother Aegis says, pulling off his robes and tunic. The long scar that runs from his jaw to his temple gives him sort of a maniacal countenance when he smiles. A pink ripple. “No Topsiders.”

  It is no simple operation, fishing beneath the waves.

  Brothers Aegis and Callum climb into the access port of the empty number eight missile tube, massive length of net folded and stored beneath them. And then the tube is flooded and the missile tube hatch opened on the top deck. Then they swim out, spreading the net. After, they must swim to the forward trunk, a task that requires holding their breath for up to five minutes.

  The Leviathan drags the net along at low speed through shallow waters for a time, and then the nets are drawn back into the missile tube by winch, guided along by two other brothers. Sometimes Jacob, sometimes Martino.

  All of it, dangerous business.

  You can easily get snared in the nets, become trapped in the tube, or not make it back to the trunk before breath runs out.

  Three have drowned since I’ve been aboard.

  None for some time, though.

  When the haul has been reeled in by
winch and the missile hatch sealed, then the tube is pressurized again, the catch unloaded onto the deck of the chapel.

  It normally takes no less than ten of us to pull out the haul; however, today, like the last several months, our catch is meager.

  Skinny skipjack, smelt, a small reef shark, one baby bluefin, a handful of mackerel.

  Brother Aegis, dripping, shivering, lips blue, crosses his arms around his skinny waist, frowning at the fruits of his labor. Sucks air through his few teeth. A whistle.

  Ex-Oh Goines, who has been overseeing the operation, shakes his dour head. “The poison has finally reached our last fishing grounds. The day is drawing near, I fear.”

  No one dare respond to him, lest they wish to feel the bite of his leather lash.

  He lumbers off, not helping us to collect the catch, or to roll and repack the nets.

  “These aren’t poisoned, nah,” Brother Silas mutters under his breath as soon as we have carried the haul to the balneary, what was once known as the torpedo room, for cleaning, and it is just the three of us. Rare for him to speak outside of the mess, and especially a word of derision.

  Lazlo shares a knowing look with me, eyeing the large, round-faced Brother Silas with great interest. A man whose eyes always seemed to be smiling, even on a day like today.

  “How do you mean?” I whisper, untangling the flopping, rough-skinned skipjack.

  The broad-shouldered brother takes the wriggling fish from my hand and holds its head to show me its eyes. Unmoving but alive, clear.

  “See, not milky,” he says, then he turns the fish and opens its gills so that Lazlo and I might see. The layered rows of the shark-teeth organ pulse and flex. “Its color is good, see? In’t sick.”

  “Then why have the fish been so scarce?” Lazlo asks.

  “Because,” Brother Silas says, pausing for a long moment. So long a moment, I wonder if he will continue speaking at all. When he does, he leans in, serious: “Topsiders are pushing us out of the best fishing grounds.”

  “Seems like there are more of them than there used to be,” I say.

  Again, a moment of quiet reflection. Words unsaid. Something eats at him.