by James Morrow
His stomach muscles spasmed. His digestive juices burbled. Drawing out his Ben-Gurion medal, he rubbed his thumb across the old man’s profile. There, that was better, yes, yes. Any day now, any hour now, the tree would grow warm—warmer—hot—begin smoking—catch fire.
And it would not be consumed.
Neil Weisinger opened his Bugs Bunny lunch box, removed a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and ate it very, very slowly.
Part
three
Eden
ON THE SECOND OF September, at 0945 hours, the Carpco Valparaíso steamed free of the fog. The vibrant, piercing clarity of the world—the sparkle of the North Atlantic, the azure glow of the sky, the brilliant white feathers of the passing petrels—made Thomas Ockham weep with joy. This was how the blind beggar must have felt when, told by Christ to visit the Pool of Siloam and wash the muddy spittle from his eyes, he suddenly found he could see.
At 1055 Lianne Bliss’s fax machine kicked in, spewing out what Thomas took to be the latest in a series of hysterical transmissions from Rome, this one distinguished primarily by its being the first to get through. Why had Ockham cut off communication? the Vatican wanted to know. Where was the ship? How was the Corpus Dei? Good questions, legitimate questions, but Thomas was reluctant to reply. While the sudden upwelling of a lost pagan civilization was hardly something he could have anticipated or prevented, he sensed that Rome would nevertheless find some way to blame him—for Van Horne Island, the intolerable delay, their cargo’s dissolution, everything.
At first neither Thomas nor anyone else on board realized how radically the corpse had soured. Their innocence remained intact as late as September 4, when the tanker crossed the 42nd parallel, the latitude of Naples. Then the wind shifted. It was a stench that went beyond mere olfaction. After burrowing into everyone’s nostrils and sinuses, the fumes next sought out the remaining senses, wringing tears from the sailors’ eyes, burning their tongues, scouring their skin. Some deckies even claimed to hear the terrible odor, wailing across the sea like the voices of the sirens enticing Ulysses’s crew to its doom. Whenever a party of stewards crossed over in the Juan Fernández to harvest edible fillets from amid the burgeoning rot, they had to take Dragen rigs along, breathing bottled air.
Ironically, the softening of the flesh meant that Van Horne was finally able to get his chicksans into a carotid artery: a pathetic gesture at this point, but Thomas understood the captain’s need to make it. On September 5, at 1415, Charlie Horrocks and his pump-room gang began the great transfusion. Although they’d never sucked cargo on the run before, in less than six hours Horrocks’s men had managed to shoot eighty-five thousand gallons of salt water out of the ballast tanks and into the sea while simultaneously channeling as much blood into the Valparaíso’s cargo bays.
And it worked. From the very first, the ship began running at a steady nine knots, a third faster than at any time since the start of the tow.
The officers kept their watches faithfully. The deckies chipped and painted conscientiously. The stewards collected fillets dutifully. But only when the sailors started responding to their obligations with their customary grumpiness, only when the Val’s companionways began ringing with profane complaints and hair-raising curses, did Thomas grow confident that normalcy had returned to the ship.
“It’s over,” he told Sister Miriam. “It’s finally over. Thank God for Immanuel Kant.”
“Thank God for God,” she replied tartly, biting into a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
As Labor Day dawned, cold and overcast, the priest saw that he could no longer deny, either to himself or to Rome, how woefully behind schedule Operation Jehovah had fallen. Indeed, their cargo was now so malodorous that he wondered, half seriously, if this sign of their misadventure could have spread eastward across the ocean, all the way to the gates of the Vatican. His fax was frank and detailed. They were two thousand miles from the Arctic Circle. The ship had gone aground on an uncharted Gibraltar Sea island (37 north, 16 west), trapping them on a mountain of rust for twenty-six days. During this interval, not only had the ethical relativism seeded by the Idea of the Corpse blossomed into total chaos, but putrefaction and neurological disorganization had doubtless befallen the body itself. Yes, the Kantian categorical imperative was now keeping everyone in line, and, yes, the captain’s transfusion scheme had boosted their speed significantly, but neither of these happy facts could begin to compensate for the hiatus on the island. Only when it came to the famine did Thomas censor himself, declining to specify the source of their salvation. Pope Innocent XIV, he felt, was not yet ready for Sam Follingsbee’s recipe for Dieu Bourguignon.
The synod took only one day to absorb, debate, and act upon the bad news. On September 8, at 1315, Di Luca’s reply poured forth.
Dear Professor Ockham:
What can we say? Van Horne has failed, you have failed, Operation Jehovah has failed. The Holy Father is devastated beyond words. According to the OMNIVAC-2000, not only is the divine mind now lost, the concomitant flesh has been corrupted too. By the time the freezing process begins, the degeneration will be so profound as to dishonor Him Whose remains we were elected to salvage. At this point, clearly, a different strategy is indicated.
We have decided to suffuse the Corpus Dei with a liquid preservative, a procedure the OMNIVAC believes will go smoothly, Van Horne having already siphoned off 18 percent of the blood.
Toward this end, Rome has chartered a second ULCC, the SS Carpco Maracaibo, filling her hold with formaldehyde in the port of Palermo and dispatching her west across the Mediterranean. The Maracaibo’s officers and crew have been advised they’re on a mission to commandeer a prop from a planned motion picture of unconscionably pornographic content, thereby forestalling production. We don’t need your friend Immanuel Kant to tell us such a ploy is morally ambiguous, but we feel the body’s true identity is already known to far too many individuals.
Upon receiving this message, you shall direct Van Horne to come about and revisit the island on which he bestowed his surname, there to rendezvous with the Maracaibo. I shall be on board, ready to supervise the formaldehyde injections and subsequent conveyance of the body to its final resting place.
Sincerely,
Tullio Di Luca,
Msgr. Secretary of Extraordinary
Ecclesiastical Affairs
Beyond the rude and uninformed finger pointing of the first paragraph, this letter actually pleased Thomas. Wonder of wonders: it looked as if he’d be getting a second chance to argue Neil Weisinger out of his suicidal penance, a matter that had been weighing on him ever since they’d left Van Horne Island. No less appealing was the thought of dumping the whole sordid, smelly business of Operation Jehovah into Di Luca’s lap. At the moment Thomas wanted nothing more than to go home, settle into his musty Fordham office (how he missed the place, its miniature Foucault pendulum, framed fractal photographs, bust of Aquinas), and start teaching a new semester of Chaos 101.
“He’s gotta be kidding,” said Van Horne after reading Di Luca’s communiqué.
“I think not,” said Thomas.
“Do you realize what this man’s asking?” Lifting Raphael’s feather from his desk, Van Horne weaved it back and forth through the God-choked air. “He’s asking me to give up my command.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Looks like you’re getting the boot too.”
“No regrets, in my case. I never wanted this job.”
Van Horne settled behind his desk and, opening a drawer, removed a corkscrew, two Styrofoam cups, and a bottle of burgundy. “Too bad you told Di Luca we blew the ballast. He’ll factor that into his calculations when he starts chasing us.” The captain twisted the corkscrew home with the same authority he’d brought to the problem of hoving chicksans into their cargo’s neck. “Luckily, we’ve got a good head start.” Yanking out the cork, Van Horne sloshed a generous amount of Château de Dieu into each cup. “Here, Thomas—it drives away the stink.”
“Am I to understand you intend to disobey Di Luca’s orders?”
“Our angels never said anything about an embalming.”
“Nor did they say anything about strange attractors, inverse Eucharists, or ballasting the Val with blood. This voyage has been full of surprises, Captain, and now we’re obliged to turn the ship around.”
“And never learn why He died? Gabriel said you’d have to go the whole nine yards, remember?”
“I’m no longer interested in why He died.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I just want to go home.”
“The bottom line is this: I don’t trust your friends in Rome”—Van Horne neatly ripped Di Luca’s fax in half—“and, what’s more, I suspect you don’t trust them either. Drink your wine.”
Thomas, wincing, lifted the cup to his lips. He sipped. A chill spiraled through him, head to toe. He felt as if he were experiencing the fate that Poe had contrived for the protagonist of “The Pit and the Pendulum,” except in this case the bisection was occurring along the prisoner’s axis. Only after his third sip did the half of Thomas beholden to Holy Mother Church overcome the half that shared the captain’s suspicions.
“Did you know Seaman Weisinger stayed behind?” Thomas asked.
“Rafferty told me.”
“The kid thinks he’s going to have a major religious experience.”
“A major starvation experience.”
“Exactly.”
“We aren’t turning around,” said Van Horne.
“When the cardinals hear you’ve gone renegade, they’ll become irrational—you realize that, don’t you? They’ll—Lord only knows. They’ll send the Italian Air Force after you with cruise missiles.”
Van Horne gulped his burgundy. “What makes you think the cardinals will hear I’ve gone renegade?”
“You have your responsibilities, I have mine.”
“Jesus, Thomas—do I have to ban you from the radio shack?”
“That isn’t your prerogative.”
“Let’s make it official. Okay? From this moment on, the shack’s off limits to you. Make that the whole damn bridge. If I catch you sending Di Luca so much as a fucking chess move, I’ll lock you in the brig and throw the key over the side.”
An icy knot congealed in Thomas’s stomach. “Anthony, I must say something here. I must say that I’ve never had an enemy in my whole life, but today, I fear, you have become my enemy.” He grimaced. “As a Christian, of course, I must attempt to love you just the same.”
Van Horne poked his index finger through the bottom of his Styrofoam cup. “Now let me say something.” He flashed the priest a cryptic grin. “When the cardinals obtained your services, Thomas Ockham, they got a much better man than they deserved.”
September 9.
Latitude: 60°15'N. Longitude: 8°5'E. Course: 021. Speed: 9 knots. Sea temperature: 28° Fahrenheit. Air temperature: 26° and falling.
Thank God for the Westerlies, wafting out of Greenland like Grant took Richmond and driving away the stench. I can breathe again, Popeye. I can see clearly, hear distinctly, think straight.
Even though my decision to muzzle Ockham and hijack the body was made in the thick of the stink, I’m sure I did the right thing. Assuming we can maintain our 9 knots, we’ll have dropped our load and started for Manhattan before Di Luca’s even crossed the circle. If the man wants to play taxidermist after that, fine.
Yesterday Sam Follingsbee put it to me: either we get some vitamins into the crew, or we start converting the officers’ wardroom into a sick bay. So I changed course—reluctantly, as you might imagine—and by 1315 the Val was within 2 miles of Galway Harbor and its world-famous grocery shops.
“Would you like to be dropped off here?” I asked Cassie, fervently hoping she’d pass up the offer. “You could probably get a plane out of Shannon Airport before sundown.”
“No,” she replied without hesitation.
“Won’t your bosses be pissed?”
“This voyage is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said, taking my hand and giving it an unchaste squeeze (or so it felt), “and I need to see it through.”
The chief steward himself led the expedition. At 1345 he and his pastry chef, Willie Pindar, set out in the Juan Fernández, their pockets stuffed with shopping lists and American Express travelers’ checks.
A few minutes after Sam left, a fiberglass cutter with a gold harp on her side appeared, poking around our tow chains like an Irish wolfhound sniffing its littermate’s balls. The skipper got on his bullhorn and demanded a meeting, and I couldn’t see any choice about it. With the Vatican out hunting us in the Maracaibo, I wasn’t about to irritate the rest of militant Christendom as well.
Commander Donal Gallogherm of the Irish Republican Coast Guard turned out to be one of those big, blowsy sons-of-the-old-sod that Pat O’Brien used to play in the movies. He came up to the bridge with his exec, sprightly Ted Mulcanny, and between the two of them they made me homesick—not for the actual New York City, but for the New York City of Hollywood legend, the New York of warmhearted Irish cops whacking their nightsticks across the rumps of Dead End Kids. And at base that’s what these clowns were: a couple of Irish cops patrolling their watery beat from Slyne Head to Shannon Bay.
“Impressive vessel you got here,” said Gallogherm, striding around the wheelhouse like he owned the place. “Took over our whole radar screen.”
“We’re a bit off course,” said Dolores Haycox, the mate on duty. “Damn Marisat—always crashing.”
“That’s an awfully strange flag-o’-convenience you be flyin’,” said Gallogherm.
“You’ve seen it before,” I told him.
“That so? Well, you know what Mr. Mulcanny and I are thinkin’? We’re thinkin’ there’s a major irregularity about this tramp tanker of yours, and so we’ll be needin’ to see your Crude Petroleum Right o’ Passage.”
“Crude Petroleum what?” I said, wishing I’d run their cutter down when I’d had the chance. “Phooey.”
“You don’t have one? It’s a strict requirement for bringin’ a loaded supertanker through Irish territorial waters.”
“We’re in ballast,” Dolores Haycox protested.
“Like hell you are. You’re at the top of your Plimsoll line, sailor girl, and if you don’t produce a Crude Petroleum Right o’ Passage posthaste, we’ll be obliged to detain you in Galway.”
“Say, Commander,” I asked, catching on, “might you happen to have one of those ‘Crude Petroleum Rights of Passage’ on your cutter?”
“Not sure. What about it, Teddy?”
“Only this mornin’ I noticed just such a document flutterin’ about on my desk.”
“Is it…available?” I asked.
Gallogherm flashed me a majority of his teeth. “Well, now that you be mentionin’ it…”
“Dolores, I believe we have a stack of—what do you call them?—American Express travelers’ checks in our safe,” I said.
“The price bein’ eight hundred American dollars,” said Gallogherm.
“The price being six hundred American dollars,” I corrected him as the mate went off to fetch the checks.
“You mean seven hundred?”
“No, I mean six hundred.”
“You mean six hundred and fifty?”
“I mean six hundred.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Gallogherm. “Then, of course”—he pinched his nostrils—“there’s the large and fragrant matter of that sewage you got in tow.”
“Smells like an Englishman,” said Mulcanny.
I knew exactly how to bamboozle them. “Actually, Commander, it’s the dead and rotting carcass of God Almighty.”
“The what?” said Mulcanny.
“You’ve a scandalous sense of humor,” said Gallogherm, more amused than offended.
“The Catholic God or the Protestant?” asked Mulcanny.
“Teddy, lad, can’t you recognize a joke
when you hear one?” Gallogherm gave me a conspiratorial wink. “So, what we’ve got here is an ambitious sea captain who’s gone and converted his supertanker to a free-lance garbage scow, am I right? And just where might this ambitious captain be intendin’ to make his dump?”
“’Way up north. Svalbard.”
Haycox returned in time to hear Gallogherm say, “In any event, it’s your Solid Waste Right o’ Passage we’ll be needin’ to see.”
“Don’t overplay your hand, Commander.”
“Solid Waste Rights o’ Passage normally run six hundred American dollars, but this week they be goin’ for a mere five.”
“No, this week they’re going for a mere four. What’s more, if you two pirates don’t stop jerking us around, I guarantee it won’t be long before this scam of yours ends up on page one of the Irish Times.”
“Don’t you presume to be judgin’ me, Captain. You’ve no notion of what I’ve seen in this life. Ireland’s a nation at war. You’ve no notion of what I’ve seen.”
Grimly I signed and recorded $1,000 worth of travelers’ checks. “Here’s your lousy toll,” I said, greasing Gallogherm’s palm.
“A pleasure it’s been to do business with you.”
“Now get the fuck off my ship.”
At 1600, Follingsbee and Pindar appeared with the groceries. If you factor in Gallogherm’s shakedown money, each orange cost us about $1.25, and the rest was equally outrageous. At least it’s quality stuff, Popeye—juicy yams, crisp cabbages, robust Irish potatoes. You’d envy us our spinach.
