by James Morrow
“Maybe he hired a deckie.”
“No, Dad did the work, I’m sure. He loved that woman. Over and over and over.”
“Froggy loves Tiffany,” said Pirate Jenny.
“Cassie loves Anthony,” said Cassie Fowler.
“Anthony loves Cassie,” said Anthony Van Horne.
September 22.
The autumnal equinox. On this day in 1789, my Mariner’s Pocket Companion informs me, 5 months after the mutiny on HMS Bounty, “Fletcher Christian and his crew sailed for the last time from Tahiti in search of a deserted island on which to settle.”
Mr. Christian could’ve done a lot worse than where he ended up, Pitcairn’s Island. He could’ve come here, for instance, to Kvitoya, surely the bleakest, coldest place south of Santa Claus’s outhouse.
At 0920 we drew within sight of the coordinates Raphael gave me in the Manhattan Cloisters—80°6'N, 34°3'E—and, indeed, there it was, the Great Tomb, a waterborne mountain measuring nearly 16 miles across at its base and towering over 28,000 feet (the approximate height of Everest, Dolores Haycox noted), pinned between the deserted island and the beginning of what the charts call “unnavigable polar ice.” As we bore down on the thing, weaving among the lesser bergs at 5 knots, the entire company gathered spontaneously on the weather deck. Most of the sailors dropped to their knees. About half crossed themselves. The shadow of the tomb spread across the water like an oil slick, darkening our path. Directly above, a shimmering gold ring ran around the sun, a phenomenon that prompted Ockham to get on the PA system and explain how we were seeing “light waves bending as they pass through airborne ice crystals.” The sundogs appeared next: greenish, glassy highlights on either side of the ring, where the crystals were “acting like millions of tiny mirrors.”
The sailors wanted no part of the padre’s rationality, and I didn’t either. This morning, Popeye, the sun wore a halo.
For an hour we cruised along the mountain’s western face, probing, poking, seeking entrance, and at 1105 we spotted a trapezoidal portal. We came left 15 degrees, slowed to 3 knots, and crossed the threshold. Those angels knew their math, Popeye; their calculations were on the mark. Our cargo cleared the portal with a margin of perhaps 6 yards along each floating hand and not much more above the chest.
The Maracaibo steamed forward, her searchlights panning back and forth as she spiraled toward the core. For 20 miles we followed the smooth, slick, ever-curving passageway. It was like navigating the interior of a gigantic conch. Then, at last: the central crypt, its silvery walls soaring to meet a vaulted dome whose apex lay well beyond the reach of our beams.
No armada awaited. Rome may find us yet, of course; her ships could be gathering outside even as I write these words, barricading the exit. But right now we’re free to conduct our business in peace.
Dead ahead, dark waves lapped against a mile-long ice shelf, its surface nearly level with our bulwarks, and the minute I saw the glistery, sculpted bollards I knew the angels had intended it as a pier.
At 1450 I sent a half-dozen ordinaries over in the launch. They had no trouble grabbing the mooring lines and making them fast, but docking the Maracaibo was still a damned dicey operation: deceptive shadows, crazy echoes, chunks of pack ice everywhere. By 1535 the bitch was tied up, both her engines cut for the first time since she left Palermo.
I ordered an immediate burial at sea. Cassie, Ockham, and I marched down the catwalk to the fo’c’sle deck, pried up the seabag with grappling hooks, and, after scavenging an anchor from the handiest lifeboat, carried poor old Dad to the starboard bulwark.
“I’m not sure how Dutch Presbyterians go about it,” said Ockham, slipping a King James Bible from his parka, “but I know they’re fond of this translation.”
Loosening the drawstring, I removed my father’s pale, crushed corpse. He was frozen solid. “A Pop-sicle,” I muttered, and Cassie shot me a glance compounded of both shock and amusement.
Opening to First Corinthians, Ockham recited words I’d heard in a thousand Hollywood burial scenes.
“Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible…”
Cassie and I wrapped the lifeboat anchor around Dad’s waist and hoisted his iron-hard body onto the rail. The anchor hung between his legs like a codpiece. We pushed. He fell, crashing into the black lake. Even with the extra weight, he stayed on the surface for over a minute, drifting slowly toward God’s brow.
“Farewell, sailor,” I said, thinking how good it would feel to get back inside and savor a mug of Follingsbee’s jamoke.
“‘Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory,’” Ockham intoned as Dad dropped from view, legs first, then torso, head, and hair. “‘O death, where is thy sting?’” said the priest, and I found myself wondering whether the Maracaibo’s main pantry held any doughnuts. “‘O grave, where is thy victory?’”
And, in fact, it did.
Jelly, glazed, and sugar.
Cupping his gloves around the railing, Neil Weisinger joined the solemn little march down the gangway. Gingerly he crossed the slippery pier, one cautious step at a time. By 1715 the whole company stood on the ice, officers and crew alike, shuffling about in the harsh light, puffs of breath streaming from their mouths like dialogue balloons.
When Neil saw how the angels had prepared the crypt, a chill of recognition shot through him; he thought immediately of the Labor Day barbecue he’d attended two years earlier at the home of his neighbor, Dwight Gorka, a joyless celebration that reached its nadir when Dwight’s cat, Pumpkin, was run over by a Federal Express truck. Responding instantly to his preschool daughter’s grief, Dwight had nailed together a plywood coffin, dug a hole in the stiff Teaneck earth, and laid the poor cat to rest. Before her father shoveled back the dirt, little Emily packed the grave with all the things Pumpkin would need during his journey to cat heaven—his water dish (filled), a can of Friskies Fancy Feast (opened), and, most importantly, his favorite toy, a plastic bottle cap he’d spent many mindless feline hours batting around the house.
The north wall of the crypt featured six immense niches, each sheltering a product God had evidently held in high regard. The forward searchlight struck the colossal carcass of a blue whale, a form at once ponderous and sleek. The amidships beacon swept across the soaring hulk of a sequoia tree, limned the wrinkled remains of an African bull elephant, glinted off a stuffed marlin, ignited a family of embalmed grizzly bears, and, finally, came to rest on a frozen hippopotamus (quite possibly descended, Neil mused, from the hippos his grandfather had helped transport from Africa to France). Directly ahead, a cabinet constructed entirely of ice rose nearly twenty feet. He extended his sleeve, wiping frost and condensation from the transparent doors. He peered inside. Every shelf was jammed with items from the divine portfolio, bottle after bottle. Monarch butterfly…chunk of jade…divot blooming with Kentucky bluegrass…orchid…praying mantis…Maine lobster…human brain…king cobra…cricket…sparrow…nugget of igneous rock.
Spontaneously, the Mourner’s Kaddish formed on Neil’s lips. “Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei raba bealma divera chireutei…” Let the glory of God be extolled, let His great name be hallowed, in the world whose creation He willed…
Drawing up beside Neil, Cassie Fowler jerked a thumb toward the trophy cabinet. “God’s greatest hits.”
“You’re not very religious, are you?”
“He may have been our Creator,” she said, “but He was also something of a malicious lunatic.”
“He may have been something of a malicious lunatic,” he said, “but He was also our Creator.”
The instant Neil spotted the altar—a long, low table of ice spread out beneath the blue whale—he was overwhelmed by a desire to use it. He was not alone in this wish. Somberly the officers and crew filed back up the gangway, returning tw
enty minutes later, tributes in hand. One by one, the deckies approached the altar, and soon it was piled high with oblations: a National steel guitar, a trainman’s watch on a gold chain, a Sony Walkman, a Texas Instruments calculator, a packet of top-of-the-line condoms (the pricey Shostak Supremes), a silver whiskey flask, a five-string banjo, a shaving mug imprinted with a Currier and Ives skating scene, three bottles of Moosehead beer, a belt buckle bearing the sculpted likeness of a clipper ship.
A disturbing truth fell upon Neil as he observed James Echohawk offer up his 35mm Nikon. Years from now, enacting his love for the God of the four A.M. watch, Neil might actually start feeling good about himself. In buying Big Joe Spicer’s sister a dress for her senior prom or funding a hip operation for Leo Zook’s father, he might very well find inner peace. And the instant this happened, the minute he experienced satisfaction, he’d know he wasn’t doing enough.
Anthony Van Horne came forward and, with a shudder of reluctance, laid down a Bowditch sextant replica that must have been worth five hundred dollars. Sam Follingsbee surrendered a varnished walnut case filled with stainless-steel Ginsu knives. Father Thomas arrived next, sacrificing a jeweled chalice and a silver ciborium, followed by Sister Miriam, who lifted a golden-beaded rosary from her parka and rested it on the stack. Marbles Rafferty added a pair of high-powered Minolta binoculars, Crock O’Connor a matched set of Sears Craftsman socket wrenches, Lianne Bliss her crystal pendant.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Cassie Fowler.
Reaching into his wool leggings, Neil drew out his gift. “Veimeru: amein,” he muttered. And let us say: Amen. “Yeah, Miss Fowler?”
“You’re right—whatever else, we still owe Him. I wish I had an offering. I came aboard with nothing but an Elvis cup and a Betty Boop towel.”
Neil placed his grandfather’s Ben-Gurion medal on the altar and said, “Why not give Him your gratitude?”
In God’s private tomb, Cassie Fowler soon learned, time did not exist. No tides foretold the dusk; no stars announced the night; no birds declared the break of day. Only by glancing at the bridge clock did she know it was noon, eighteen hours after she’d watched Neil Weisinger offer up his bronze medal.
Stepping out of the wheelhouse, melding with the small, sad party on the starboard wing, Cassie was chagrined to realize that everyone else wore more respectful clothing than she. Anthony looked magnificent in his dress whites. Father Thomas had put on a red silk vestment fitted over a black claw-hammer coat. Cardinal Di Luca sported a luxurious fur stole wrapped around a brilliant purple alb. In her shabby orange parka (courtesy of Lianne), ratty green mittens (donated by An-mei Jong), and scruffy leather riding boots (from James Echohawk), Cassie felt downright irreverent. She didn’t mind snubbing their cargo—this was, after all, the God of Western Patriarchy—but she did mind feeding the cliché that rationalists have no sense of the sacred.
Raising the PA microphone to his fissured lips, Father Thomas addressed the company below, half of them assembled on the weather deck, the rest milling around on the pier. “Welcome, friends, and peace be with you.” The cavernous crypt replayed his words, be with you, with you, with you. “Now that our Creator has departed, let it be known that we commend Him to Himself and commit His body to its final resting place—ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Anthony took up the deckhouse walkie-talkie, pressed SEND, and solemnly contacted the pump room. “Mr. Horrocks, the hoses…”
With the same spectacular efficiency it had displayed during the Battle of Midway, the Maracaibo’s firefighting system swung into action. A dozen hoses rose along the afterdeck and spewed out gallon upon gallon of thick white foam. Every bubble, Cassie knew, was holy, Father Thomas and Monsignor Di Luca having spent the morning in a frenzy of consecration. The purified lather arced through the air and splashed against His left shoulder, freezing solid at the instant of anointment.
“God Almighty, we pray that You may sleep here in peace until You awaken Yourself to glory,” said Father Thomas. Cassie admired the skill with which the priest had adapted the classic rite, the subtle balance he’d struck between traditional Christian optimism and the brute facticity of the corpse. “Then You will see Yourself face to face and know Your might and majesty…”
Hearing her cue, she came forward, Father Thomas’s Jerusalem Bible tucked under her arm.
“Our castaway, Cassie Fowler, has asked permission to address you,” the priest told the sailors. “I don’t know exactly what she intends to say”—an admonitory glance—“but I’m sure it will be thoughtful.”
As she took up the mike, Cassie worried that she might be about to make a fool of herself. It was one thing to lecture on food chains and ecological niches before a class of Tarrytown sophomores and quite another to critique the cosmos before a mob of hardened and depressed merchant sailors. “In all of Scripture,” she began, “it is perhaps the ordeal of Job that best allows me to articulate how rationalists such as myself feel about our cargo.” Swallowing a frigid mouthful of air, she glanced down at the wharf. Lianne Bliss, standing beneath the blue whale, gave her an encouraging smile. Dolores Haycox, slumped against the sequoia, offered a reassuring wink. “Job, you may recall, demanded to know the reason for his terrible losses—possessions, family, health—whereupon the Whirlwind appeared and explained that justice for one mere individual was not the point.” She leaned the Bible’s spine against the rail and opened it near the middle. “‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?’ God asks, rhetorically. ‘What supports its pillars at their bases? Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous out of the womb?’” She extended her right mitten, indicating the frozen hippopotamus. “‘Now think of Behemoth,’” she said, still quoting God. “‘What strength he has in his loins, what power in his stomach muscles. His tail is as stiff as a cedar, the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. His vertebrae are bronze tubing, his bones as hard as hammered iron…’” Pivoting ninety degrees, Cassie spoke to the Corpus Dei. “What can I say, Sir? I’m a rationalist. I don’t believe the splendor of hippos is any sort of answer to the suffering of humans. Where do I even begin? The Lisbon earthquake? The London plague? Malignant melanoma?” She sighed with a mixture of resignation and exasperation. “And yet, throughout it all, You still remained You, didn’t You? You, Creator: a function You performed astonishingly well, laying those foundations and anchoring those supporting pillars. You were not a very good man, God, but You were a very good wizard, and for that I, even I, give You my gratitude.”
Accepting both the mike and the Jerusalem Bible from Cassie, Father Thomas ran through the rest of the modified liturgy. “Before we go our separate ways, let us take leave of our Creator. May our farewell express our love for Him. May it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope. Now please join me in reciting the words Christ taught us on that celebrated Mount in Judea: ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come…’”
While the Maracaibo’s company prayed, Cassie scanned their smiling cargo, pondering its myriad misfortunes. The voyage had not been kind to God. Nearly a sixth of the right breast had been plundered for fillets. Demolition-bomb craters scarred the belly. Torpedo holes pocked the neck. The chin appeared to have been shaved with a blowtorch. Head to toe, the bites of predators and the ravages of ice alternated with vast swampy tracts of decay. A Martian happening upon the scene would never guess that the thing these mourners were entombing had once been their principal deity.
“…and the power and the glory. Amen.”
As Lou Chickering broke from the crowd and strode across the pier, tears sparkling in his eyes, Cassie recalled the many times she’d heard his mellifluous baritone drifting upward from the engine flat, reciting a soliloquy or belting out an aria. Reaching the shore of the encapsulated bay, the gorgeous sailor threw back his head and sang.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin’ for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet cha
riot,
Comin’ for to carry me home.
Now the entire company joined in, over a hundred voices melding into a thunderous dirge that reverberated off the great frozen dome.
I looked over Jordan, an’ what did I see,
Comin’ for to carry me home?
A band of angels comin’ after me,
Comin’ for to carry me home.
“All right, Professor Ockham, you win,” said Di Luca, stroking his stole. “This was all meant to be, wasn’t it?”
“I believe so.”
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin’ for to carry me home…
“Tonight I’ll compose a letter.” The cardinal steadied himself on the bridge rail. “I’ll tell Rome the corpse was incinerated as per the consistory’s wishes—and then, with Van Horne’s permission, I’ll send it.”
“Don’t bother,” said Father Thomas. “Three hours ago you faxed the Holy Father just such a message.”
“What?”
“I don’t like situational ethics any more than you do, Tullio, but these are troubled times. Your signature’s not hard to forge. It’s fastidious and crisp. The nuns taught you well.”
If you get there before I do,
Comin’ for to carry me home,
Jes’ tell my friends that I’m a-comin’ too,
Comin’ for to carry me home.
Cassie wasn’t sure which aspect of this exchange disturbed her more: Father Thomas’s descent into expedience, or her realization that Rome was not about to finish the job Oliver had so badly botched.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin’ for to carry me home…
The cardinal glowered but said nothing. Thomas kissed his Bible. Cassie closed her eyes, allowing the spiritual to coil through her unquiet soul, and by the time the last echo of the last syllable had died away, she knew that no being, supreme or otherwise, had ever received a more sonorous send-off to the dark, icy gates of oblivion.
