by James Morrow
Gerard felt the angel wipe the tooth chisel on a velvet drape, lunge toward the hot tub, and pound the blade into Lucido’s right breast.
Again Lucido screamed, though amazingly his curiosity continued to eclipse his pain. “Wondrous wounds!” The analyst clasped the chisel with both hands, tearing it loose like a staked vampire attempting self-resurrection. Blood fountained forth. “Beautiful Agoridas!” Shivering, spasming, he jerked his weight from one leg to the other, the contrapposto of the doomed, then heaved himself out of the tub. “I am become art!”
Lucido pitched forward, spitting blood as he fell prone on the deck. No further work remained for the angel beyond a few flourishes and embellishments. He ripped the tooth chisel from Lucido’s hands, retrieved the bushing and frosting tools, and delivered the finishing taps.
Gerard analyzed the analyst He embroidered him with lesions. He sculpted him to death.
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita”—he gave one last blow, driving the bushing chisel through Lucido’s left eye and into the meat beyond—“mi ritrovai per una selva oscura.” Rising, he kicked the bulky corpse repeatedly, moving it inch by inch until it flopped over the edge of the hot tub and hit the churning pink waters. “Tant’è amara che poco è più morte.”
Until his arrival in Lucido’s wine cellar, Anthony hadn’t believed he would ever suffer an experience more harrowing than the wreck of the Carpco Valparaíso, but now such an ordeal was upon him: captivity by lunatics who excised live human hearts as casually as altar boys lit candles. Gasping, the captain lifted his manacled hands and wiped the sweat from his eyes—the enveloping tarpaulin had turned the cage into an oven—then stared skyward and addressed El Cráneo aloud. His vow was succinct. He would attack Lucido’s minions with fist and tooth the instant they laid hands on Stevie.
“Amen,” said Cassie.
Lucido, Richter, and Jackendorf had long since departed, leaving the chauffeur in charge. With the approach of midnight, Leopold Dansk, motivated by a combination of immediate boredom and habitual cruelty, subjected his prisoners to the worst verbal abuse his talents permitted, placing particular emphasis on Stevie’s impending death. “Let me offer a suggestion” he said, his voice muted by the canvas. “When your boy goes to the slab, pretend to be delighted he’s bound for the Olmec paradise. Lucido might spare your lives. It’s surprising how few plague families use that strategy. You probably think I’m insane, but I’m actually the most rational man on Lucido’s staff. Do you imagine I buy his metaphysics? Antidote X won’t take you to the Olmec paradise any more than the Coatzacoalcos shuttle bus will take you to Tahiti.”
“Then let us go free,” snarled Cassie.
“Rational men don’t antagonize psychopaths, especially psychopaths like Lucido. They don’t—”
Dansk’s speech abruptly transmuted into a shriek—shock, outrage, pain. Anthony heard a body hit the floor. Moans followed. A woman spoke, her tone lilting, her accent American.
“You all right in there?”
“We’re suffocating,” said Cassie.
The tarpaulin rustled, slid downward, fell away. Dansk lay on the floor, writhing and grunting as he tried to extract the sacrificial knife, which projected from his abdomen like a croquet stake planted in a suburban backyard. His pistol, a Smith & Wesson, lay at his feet. A slender, gorgeous, middle-aged woman stood beside the wounded man, gripping the tarpaulin in her bloody hands. She dropped to her knees, rooted through Dansk’s pockets, and, retrieving a set of keys, backed away from the chauffeur as if he were a leper.
“Thank you,” said Cassie.
“Thank you,” said Anthony.
“Fiona Korty,” said the woman, quavering as she systematically tried each key in the padlock. “Married to Gerard Korty.”
“The man who’s sculpting the dinosaurs’ asteroid?” said Anthony. Fiona Korty, perplexed, said, “Yes. He’s the one.”
“I was on the scene when God told Nora Burkhart the project could drive your husband mad.”
“No, Gerry’s stronger than that.” Fiona seemed calmer now. “Right now he’s killing Lucido with a chisel.”
The image of a steel chisel penetrating Lucido’s granite heart gave Anthony intense pleasure, but the feeling dissolved as his gaze drifted toward the second cage. His ears had not deceived him: both of the elderly abulic’s daughters lay slumped against the iron bars, black wounds dotting their foreheads like the perforations in a pepper shaker.
Fiona found the right key. She opened the cage door and began testing the remaining keys on Anthony’s handcuffs. In one minute, he was free. In two minutes, Cassie.
“If you hang around Coatzacoalcos, Richter and the others will hunt you down. How did you get to Mexico?”
“On my steamboat, from New Orleans,” said Anthony. “But it won’t survive another Gulf crossing.”
Fiona pressed the oily keys into Anthony’s palm. “Here, take Lucido’s car.”
“No, we’re staying,” said Cassie. “As long as the temples are still curing people—”
“The temples are worthless,” interrupted a compact, powerfully built man, striding into the cellar, his right hand gripping a valise. A chisel lay clasped against his breast, and his white cotton shirt displayed an archipelago of bloodstains. “Somatocism is a fraud.”
Rushing from the cage, Fiona lovingly embraced the intruder, then pressed her open palm against the chisel point “It’s done?”
“It’s done.” Gerard Korty gestured toward the convulsing chauffeur. “If our upbringing counts for anything, we’re both headed for—”
“Circle Seven?” said Fiona.
“Circle Seven,” said Gerard. “Ring One.”
“Is Somatocism really a fraud?” asked Anthony.
“The remissions last a few months at most,” said Gerard.
“No exceptions?”
“With Lucido dead, the matter is academic. His church is unlikely to survive him.”
Slowly, tenderly, Anthony lifted his ethereal son off the cage floor. He and Cassie stared at each other. Their eyes negotiated a silent pact. They would leave the Isthmus of Tehuantepec immediately, leave Mexico altogether, crossing into whatever nightmarish landscapes now constituted the United States of America.
“Perhaps we should get him some medical attention,” suggested Anthony, indicating Dansk.
“Perhaps we should let him bleed to death,” said Cassie as she followed Anthony out of the cage.
The chauffeur gurgled unintelligibly.
“This plague family knows of you,” said Fiona to her husband. “They’re friends of Nora’s.”
“Don’t worry about Hell,” said Cassie, giving Korty a hug. “Or Heaven either, for that matter. They’re both closed for repairs.”
Twenty minutes later, sitting behind the steering wheel, studying the embossed keys logo by logo, Anthony quickly identified the one belonging to the Lincoln Continental. The engine sprang to life on the first turn. He watched with satisfaction as the fuel needle arced toward FULL like the baton on a metronome.
Slumped in the back with Stevie in her arms, Cassie waved to their rescuers as Anthony guided the Continental across the nocturnal plaza. During their imprisonment the fog had become an opaque broth as hazardous as anything he’d ever encountered at sea, and it took them all night to drive down the mountain and through the jungle to La Sangre de la Serpiente. On five occasions they had to stop altogether and wait for the cloud to thin. Anthony took advantage of the second delay to inspect the Continental’s trunk, discovering to his delight that it contained thirty-six cans of gasoline.
The fog had lifted by the time the Natchez Queen swung into view, transformed by dawn’s faint light into the sort of phantom steamer the Flying Dutchman might have captained in his declining years: a decrepit ship, but functional. Anthony parked beside the cantina and, leaving Cassie to exercise Stevie’s limbs, marched across the dock and up the gangway. Crock sat in a director’s chair on the afterdeck, holding a f
ishing pole. A half-full bottle of Cerveza Moctezuma rested on the transom. Spotting Anthony, the engineer jumped up, flung out his arms, and knocked over the beer bottle; it hit the paddle wheel and ricocheted into the river. The men embraced.
“Tell me about Nora and Kevin,” said Anthony.
“Nora’s asleep,” said Crock. “The boy became an acolyte and got cured.”
“I’m afraid it’s temporary.”
Crock scowled. Rapidly but precisely, Anthony recounted their ordeal at Mount Tapílula—the death of Lucido, the near sacrifice of Stevie—then asked Crock to join their escape: if the car broke down, they would need his skills.
“Besides, do you really want to loll around on this boring river,” said Anthony, “when you could be dodging gunfire from Adrian Lucido’s henchmen?”
Crock reeled in his line. An energetic eel wriggled on the hook, twisting itself into a succession of commas, question marks, and tildes. He freed the creature, threw it back, and announced that he’d decided to go along. Yes, he would miss the good old Queen, but he would miss his captain more.
Anthony proceeded to Nora’s stateroom. She lay facedown on the mattress, glorying in the peaceful morning sleep of a mother who believes her child’s fetch is gone forever. Reluctantly he shook her. Seeing her old friend, she sprang awake and laughed exultantly.
“Anthony, thank God. Oh, please, please tell me they made Stevie an acolyte.”
“They didn’t.”
“Damn. I’m sorry.”
“I’m afraid I’ve lost faith in the temples.”
“You mustn’t The treatment works. Kevin’s doing fine.”
“A lot has happened since El Agujero. Lucido went insane, and your sculptor friend killed him.”
“Gerard killed Lucido? What? What?”
“Cassie and I are leaving. Crock too. There’s nothing for us here. We can’t risk another crossing in the Queen, but we’ve got a car now and plenty of gas. I think you should come. If you stay in Coatzacoalcos, there’s no telling what Richter—”
“Remember the entrails’ message, how Korty was sculpting the Chicxulub asteroid into a human brain? It turns out the thing is essential to humanity’s future.”
“Hanging around Korty is the stupidest thing you could possibly do.”
“It’s hard to explain.” Nora rose from the bed, smoothing her nightshirt against a body made muscular by many hours of lifting her son. “These last three nights I’ve had visions.”
“Visions?”
“I’ve been appointed to protect Korty’s sculpture.”
On the edge of Anthony’s awareness, a migraine aura flashed like an electric storm. He reached into his pocket, felt the comforting contours of his Maxalt bottle. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Let me give Stevie a farewell kiss.”
With a snort of frustration, Anthony exited the stateroom, Nora marching resolutely behind him. He headed toward the cantina. A green lizard scurried across the veranda and disappeared into the jungle. An unseen howler monkey roared. Carta Blanca beer in hand, Crock peered under the raised hood of the Continental. Cassie stood leaning against the driver’s door, swabbing her brow with a red neckerchief.
Somberly Anthony informed his wife of Nora’s peculiar relationship to Korty’s sculpture, a commitment that Nora herself attempted to clarify via a bizarre account of a futuristic city called Deus Absconditus. Although her friend’s decision to stay behind ultimately proved as incomprehensible to Cassie as it was to Anthony, she unequivocally declared that Nora’s sense of destiny deserved everyone’s respect.
Close to tears, Anthony, Cassie, and Crock hugged their former shipmate good-bye. Nora opened the back door and, bending low over Stevie, brushed her lips against his pocked forehead.
Later, as they sped away from the cantina, Crock asked, “Will we ever see her again?”
“Those crazy visions,” said Anthony, “not to mention her obsession with the sculpture. I’m afraid she’s about to get in trouble. Maybe she’s brave, maybe she’s nuts. I can’t decide.”
“She’s nuts,” said Crock.
“She’s brave,” said Cassie.
“Where’re we headed?” asked Crock.
“I don’t know,” said Anthony. “North. There must be treatments we haven’t tried yet. Let’s aim for California. In California they can cure anything.”
Three days after Nora saw her friends vanish in the ballooning dust of Calle Puesta del Sol, a naked Goneril entered her stateroom, climbed into the white silk Inanna gown, and invited the flower woman to step outside and study the Volcán de Catemaco.
“What’s happening now is just foreplay,” said the fetch as she guided Nora across the embarcadero. Sulfur fumes wafted through the yard behind La Sangre de la Serpiente. “The explosion comes in a week, a day, an hour—who knows?”
Even before Goneril offered her ominous analysis, Nora perceived that Catemaco was building toward an eruption. She could see the volcano’s billowing gray smoke, hear its bassy groans, smell its stink. Esperanza and her regulars had gathered outside the cantina in a tight, frightened knot The turkey cocks gobbled nervously. The tapir grunted. Some customers said that El Cráneo was the main influence on Catemaco, agitating the volcano the way the moon pulled at the river, and so everyone should simply resign himself to his divinely ordained fate, be it lava, boulders, or poison gas. Other customers believed that they would not only survive but prosper, for the coming cataclysm most surely heralded the end of the plague and the dawn of a golden age. Still others maintained that the mountain was going through one of its usual innocuous fits, and there was no fundamental reason to attend the rumblings.
“I’m hearing lots of crazy talk today,” said Esperanza to Nora. “Some people think we have nothing to worry about.”
“Remind them that the boy who cried wolf ultimately spoke the truth.” Nora swallowed a mouthful of air, coughing as the sulfur scraped her throat. “What will happen to the brain?” she asked Goneril.
“There’s still time to save it,” said the fetch. “Step one is to steam upriver to El Dorado.”
Esperanza clasped Nora’s shoulders, pivoting her so that their eyes met. “Don’t listen to your demonio. If Catemaco blows, the lava will pour into the gorge, and you’ll be roasted.”
“I have every intention of avoiding that fate,” said Nora.
“Take to the high ground, amiga.”
“I can’t.”
The cantina keeper closed her eyes. “Tell your fine young mago that his friend Esperanza is praying for him.”
An adolescent pagan, an unemployed English teacher, a doppelgänger from another dimension: did a steamboat ever have a more unlikely crew? Nora doubted it. Thanks to his apprenticeship with Crock, Kevin knew the Queen’s inner workings, her boilers and condensers, her shafts and cranks, and he readily assumed the role of engineer. After declaring herself “navigator and first mate,” Goneril appointed Nora “captain, quartermaster, and ship’s conscience.” The three of them functioned well together. In less than an hour they had cast off, achieved a head of steam, and cruised ten kilometers up the Uspanapa.
The instant they drew within view of the studio, Goneril became oddly obsessed with the Queen’s position. They must fix the boat in the exact center of the river, she insisted, prow facing Coatzacoalcos.
“I don’t get it,” said Nora.
“Trust me.”
They came about and dropped one anchor from the port-side paddle-wheel housing and the other off the starboard bow—effective moves, but not sufficient to prevent lateral drift Goneril fretted and cursed. She spat into the river. Eventually Kevin got the idea of outfitting the cargo deck with mooring lines—four in the stem, four aft—and running them from the boat to the jungle, securing each rope around a tree. The strategy worked, and by noon the Queen was locked in place, as immobile as if she’d run aground.
On Goneril’s orders, they boarded the skiff and poled their way to
ward shore, Kevin clutching his Idorasag idol, Nora hacking from the sulfur. They disembarked and, sitting on the beach below the bluff, surveyed their handiwork and collected their strength.
A thundering reached their ears, a sound suggesting the Bull of Heaven crashing through Uruk.
“Catemaco?” asked Nora.
“No,” said Goneril.
“Storm?”
“No.” Goneril, rising, shook her head and rubbed the sand from her silk gown. “Good news, Sister—the plague is passing. El Cráneo’s days are numbered. Even as I look you in the eye, my inner gaze travels to the beckoning abyss from which I first emerged. Do you want your gown back?”
“It was a gift, but the guy probably found somebody else by now.”
The fetch took off her sandals and stepped into the water. She kept on moving, humming softly as the river covered her calves…knees…thighs…abdomen.
“You’re deserting me?” asked Nora.
“My part’s played out.” The water reached Goneril’s chest “An admonition. For the next hour you must stay off the boat Understood?”
“Understood,” said Nora.
“Good.”
Kevin clamped his palms over his eyes. “It’s like watching you drown,” he explained to Nora. “It’s like watching my own mother drown.”
The thunder continued to boom.
“Fare thee well, Sister.” The river lapped at the fetch’s shoulders. “I enjoyed our relationship, strained though it often was.”
Nora observed Goneril’s descent with schizoid emotions. She welcomed this reprieve from the Footman, of course, but in recent days she’d also come to depend on her death. “Can I save the brain without your help?” she asked.
“I have great faith in you.”
The Uspanapa closed over the fetch. A mass of scummy foam rose to the surface, the bubbles popping into oblivion one by one, and then the waters grew perfectly still, home to a mystery.
Whenever Gerard needed a respite from his labors, he would join Fiona and his doppelgänger atop the reubenite brain and watch the luminous crimson carpet creep down the mountain and into the jungle. The lava’s glow tinted the droplets of sweat speckling Fiona’s face. She seemed to be perspiring rubies. Every hour the flow advanced at least twenty meters, turning the bougainvillea vines into burning fuses and forcing the cockatoos, budgerigars, monkeys, anteaters, and armadillos to evacuate. As far as Gerard could tell, the Stone Gospel would be spared the present outpouring, the lava confining itself to gullies and creek beds as it dribbled toward the Uspanapa. What he feared was a full-scale eruption—an event no mere reubenite sculpture could withstand. In his mind he saw the hot gases sear the Gallery of Decency, the burning winds melt the Garden of Scientific Knowledge, the boulders pulverize the Hall of Artistic Passion…and then, finally, an inexorable tide of molten earth reduced the brain to a smoldering lump of nothing.
