The Philosopher’s Apprentice

by James Morrow

  “I remember you from that first night, when those dyke bitches gathered everybody together outside the Grand Saloon.” Conant ran his tongue across his lips in search of stray drops. Medallions of soot and splotches of coal dust speckled his chest. “Tell me, Mr. Ethical Adviser, where’s the goddamn ethics in condemning us to this stinking place?”

  “Dr. Sabacthani wants you to start thinking about your life in new ways,” I replied.

  “Yeah? Well, I’ll tell you something. Most of the time, I’m exhausted, and hungry, too, and until you showed up, I was dying of thirst. Under conditions like that, how am I supposed to get any goddamn thinking done?”

  “I can see your point.”

  “I’m not a monster, Mr. Ambrose. I’ve sponsored orphans in India. I give to the United Way. You don’t know me, and neither does Dr. Sabacthani.”

  I assured Wilbur Conant that Dr. Sabacthani did not think him a monster, merely an avaricious miscreant who trafficked in the form of legal slavery called sweatshop labor. While this characterization obviously displeased him, he offered no rejoinder beyond ratcheting up his scowl and asserting that “sweatshop labor” was an exaggeration.

  My next thirsty plutocrat was Beyond Style’s dynamic manager, Barry Nelligan, whose face had on three occasions graced the cover of Fortune. A trim, athletic man who bore a startling resemblance to the young Robert Redford, he seemed to take a certain pride in artfully jabbing his lance through the stokehole. After thanking me for the water, Nelligan wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “I’ve got a message for Londa Sabacthani. Tell your client I forgive her, for she knows not what she does. You understand what I’m getting at?”

  “I believe I grasp your allusion.”

  “The crucifixion, right?”

  “I’m afraid Dr. Sabacthani wants nothing to do with me these days.”

  “Oh, really? Well, if you ever bury the hatchet, let her know she can torture me all she wants, and I’ll still forgive her.”

  For the next half-hour, Lieutenant Kristowski and I moistened dry mouths and cooled blistered brows, until at last we’d serviced all twenty-four amateur stokers. In most cases the Phyllistine’s understandable bitterness was leavened by a less predictable reaction: a show of stoicism, a declaration of innocence, an outburst of contrition, a recitation of philanthropic acts, and in a few instances—the sentiment I’d first encountered in Barry Nelligan—a short speech absolving Londa of her sins. For better or worse, it appeared that Operation PG was an experiment of greater psychological complexity than I’d allowed.

  Upon reaching the far end of the compartment, Lieutenant Kristowski approached a tall Valkyrie whose gray blouse matched the oiled metal of her rifle, making the weapon seem less a gun than a fashion accessory, and presented her with a thermos of ale. The guard swilled down half the contents, then opened the watertight door.

  We crossed over and began bringing our charity to boiler room 2. Halfway through my toils, the formidable figure of Felix Pielmeister emerged from the steam, naked to the waist, huffing and grunting as he filled his wheelbarrow with coal. Sensing my presence, he leaned his shovel against the barrow and fixed me with a brutish stare, as if auditioning for the part of Yank, the gorilla-faced stoker in Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape.

  “I knew we’d meet again one day,” I told him, “though I didn’t think the location would be hell itself.”

  “Your antics before the Harkness Commission were despicable,” Pielmeister rasped. Sweat sparkled on his chest. Burns and blisters peppered his skin: evidently he was slow to dodge the errant embers forever spewing from the furnaces. “How irresponsible of you to blame me and Reverend Anthem for that Sabacthani woman’s death.”

  “Irresponsible. Yes. Also reckless and rash. So tell me, what did you and Anthem say to the mackies when you gave them their marching orders? ‘Remember, my precious vigilantes, Themisopolis is the abortion capital of the world. The Sisters Sabacthani deserve to die.’”

  Pielmeister glowered, grabbed his shovel, and added another measure of coal to the barrow. His thirst, I figured, must be intolerable, and I was not surprised when he gestured toward my backpack and said, “Got any more water in there?”

  “Lots of water. Too proud to ask me for a drink?”

  “Hardly. Pride is a sin. So is withholding water from a thirsty man.”

  “What’s your preference?” I set my backpack on the floor, unzipping it to reveal my seven remaining pints of Poland Spring. “Today’s choices are perfect for a man of your persuasion. This one holds the joyful tears Mary shed after the Annunciation. This one comes from the basin in which Pilate washed his hands. And here we have the wine that Satan turned back into water following the wedding at Cana.”

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you, Ambrose?” Pielmeister laid his shovel athwart the barrow. “You’re having the time of your life.”

  “Please satisfy my curiosity,” I said, tearing a bottle from its plastic tether. “Am I the first person you ever screwed out of a degree?”

  “Are you going to give me that water or aren’t you?”

  “I like to think I was the first. That would be quite a distinction.”

  “You’ve cast your lot with a lunatic—I hope you realize that. Your protégée is out of her mind, and one way or another she’s going to wreck this ship and destroy us all.”

  I tossed the bottle to Pielmeister, who caught it in one hand. He wrenched off the cap and began guzzling. I did not stay to watch him finish but returned to my Kantian duty, irrigating the arid throat of Senator Rupert Marbury, soothing the desiccated tongue of Macro-Mart wizard Gary Pons, salving the parched tonsils of Aries Athletic Wear CEO Corbin Thorndike, while all around me the furnaces seethed and bellowed, spewing sparks like those burning braziers in which the priestesses of Isis—not the least of the deities to whom Sinuhe had bent his body while withholding his devotion—would glimpse the future.

  How good a prophet was Pielmeister? What was the caliber of his brazier? I hated to admit it, but I feared he’d seen our collective fate. Sooner or later, Londa would bring the Titanic Redux to the edge of the world, and then with both eyes open and both hands on the helm she would contact the engine room, order them to crank up the turbines, and sail us into the void, all ahead full.

  Chapter 15

  ON THE FIRST SUNDAY IN AUGUST, while the equatorial sea raged with Charybdian fury and the Titanic Redux entered her fourth week of functioning as Londa’s empire and toy, the most disturbing installment yet of The Last Shall Be First resounded through the ship. I was sitting in my cabin, sipping room-service coffee, oblivious to the screaming storm, when the broadcast started spilling down from the ceiling like acid rain sterilizing a lake. Once again I resolved to muffle the program with my pillow, but then I became transfixed by Londa’s message of the day, a mordant account of what the Phyllistines could expect from the next phase of their treatment.

  “Yes, masters of the universe, we finally see the light. We now accept the arguments by which certain clear thinkers among you convinced the U.S. Congress to gut and geld so many pieces of environmental legislation. I’m speaking of you, Clarence Garmond, enterprising chairperson of the White House Council on Air and Water Quality, and you, Robert Arnold, tireless lobbyist on behalf of the Greater Pacific Electric Company, and you, Senator Chad Wintergreen, assiduous pimp for the petroleum industry.”

  A tawdry wailing trumpet melody underscored the word “pimp,” though the Phyllistines were probably too hungry and tired to appreciate the audio engineer’s wit.

  “And so we’ve decided to banish environmental extremism from the Redux,” Londa continued as the trumpet faded, “systematically rescinding those regulations that until now have forbidden us to collect the fumes from our smokestacks and vent them onto G deck.”

  A wave of nausea rolled through me. I leaned back in my reading chair, grasping the armrests for support.

  “We’re confident that Messrs. Garmond, Arnold, an
d Wintergreen will not balk at the introduction of lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide into their living spaces,” Londa continued. “After all, in their various campaigns against ecofetishism, they managed to assemble mounds of solid right-wing scientific evidence proving that heavy metals and hydrocarbons pose no long-lasting threats to human health. Of course, those of you already suffering from lung ailments may find your symptoms aggravated, but I’m sure you’re prepared to endure such discomforts in the name of a profitable voyage.”

  I jerked free of my chair and stood staring at the speaker, as flabbergasted as Joan of Arc hearing from her celestial sponsors.

  “Of one thing we may be certain. As news of the venting initiative spreads around the globe, scores of self-righteous physicians will raise their voices in alarm, glibly predicting that the third horseman, Pestilence, is about to go galloping through the Redux.”

  Thanks to the dexterity of her audio engineer, the sound of thundering hooves counterpointed Londa’s image of equestrian contagion.

  “But even if those smug doctors are right, you needn’t fret, as you can still avail yourselves of our free medical services. True, we have started reviewing the position papers that G-deck citizens Endicott and Marbury once wrote by way of persuading their fellow senators to torpedo universal health insurance. But if I were you, I wouldn’t worry. God will provide.”

  The engineer eased in the Rocky theme.

  “Will an epidemic of lung ailments be visited upon the Ship of Dreams? Will the Redux administration continue to coddle its third-class passengers with socialized medicine? To learn the answers, or at least to hear a repetition of the questions, tune in tomorrow!”

  Blood boiling, dudgeon rising, I bolted from my cabin and charged through the maze of D-deck corridors like a maiden in flight from the Minotaur. I scrambled up the companionways and, arriving on the boat deck, dashed across the wheelhouse, much to the sputtering dismay of the officer on duty. A Valkyrie with the proportions and demeanor of a New Jersey nightclub bouncer interposed her body between myself and the communications shack, its door shut tightly against potential intrusions by livid Phyllistines and outraged superegos.

  “Dr. Sabacthani thought you might show up,” she said, waving her Uzi in my face.

  “Listen to me, Londa!” I yelled toward the shack. “Cease and desist! No toxic fumes on G deck!”

  The Jersey bouncer wrapped her thick, intractable fingers around my upper arm.

  “No fumes, Londa!” I persisted. “The whole world will turn against you!”

  Chuckling at the low comedy of the situation—a gangly neo-Darwinist philosopher struggling to break a musclebound Valkyrie’s iron grip—the bouncer rudely escorted me back to my cabin. She forced me into the reading chair, fixed me with the burning gaze of the believing Sabacthanite, and wafted out one of those reverential banalities so characteristic of Londa’s security force.

  “What you have to understand,” she said, “is that there’s a good reason for everything Dame Quixote does.”

  The bouncer stalked out of the room, leaving me to spend an ethically indefensible afternoon getting drunk on Guinness while consuming plate after plate of broiled lobster tails.

  No less chilling than its predecessor was the next installment of Londa’s radio show, a roll call of those G-deck residents who’d experienced asthma attacks during the first day of the venting initiative. Once again I sprinted to the communications shack and screamed my outrage in Londa’s direction until the bouncer whisked me away. Twenty-four hours later, I endured another broadcast, Dame Quixote’s report on how the emphysema rate was climbing under the deregulation regime, and so for the third time that week I ascended to the wheelhouse and shouted my impotent objections.

  Shortly after the bouncer deposited me in my quarters yet again, I realized that a day might dawn when I would be called upon to testify against Londa in a court of law. Would I leap at this opportunity? Greet it with fear and trembling? Whatever the case, my Kantian duty was clear. I must obtain an oxygen rig and inspect the venting initiative firsthand.

  As usual, Lieutenant Kristowski proved willing to help—I didn’t tell her the real reason I wanted to visit the hostages’ quarters, claiming instead a morbid interest in their latest ordeal—and the following morning she appeared at my door bearing a face mask, regulator, and scuba tank. I thanked my aide-de-camp, strapped on the gear, and descended to G deck. Entering the plutocrats’ domain, I immediately found myself negotiating a web of heating ducts, PVC pipes, vacuum-cleaner tubes, and fire hoses, all carefully configured to foul the corridors with the ship’s effluvium. A half-dozen Valkyries, likewise equipped with oxygen rigs, presided over this jerry-built torture device. The air was visibly gritty, sallow as an October moon, a jaundiced miasma suggesting the collective exhaust from a thousand tractor-trailers barreling down Interstate 80. There was no need to take notes—for how could I ever forget the misery of the Phyllistines now wandering the corridors, their eyes streaming tears, bronchial tubes wheezing, diaphragms racked by coughing fits?

  I deposited the oxygen rig in my cabin, then found my way to the C-deck infirmary and marched uninvited through a door marked HOWARD FLETCHER, M.D. A gangly man with skin as pallid as goat cheese, Dr. Fletcher stood before a vertically mounted light table to which was secured a chest X-ray, its subject’s lungs and ribs rendered in electromagnetic chiaroscuro. I introduced myself as “a former member of Dr. Sabacthani’s inner circle, now a defector.”

  “I believe you about the inner circle part,” Dr. Fletcher said, then explained that he recognized me from the television coverage of the Harkness hearings. “As I recall, you once tutored her in moral philosophy.”

  “That was ages ago. Believe me, when they put her on trial, I’ll gladly denounce her from the witness stand.”

  “Christ, Ambrose, you should be denouncing her right now. You should be denouncing her right now to her fucking face.”

  I told him that Londa had exiled me from her sphere—not exactly a momentous event, I hastened to add, as these days she took the advice of no one but herself, and there were doubtless times when she ignored that counsel as well. Muttering under his breath, Dr. Fletcher went back to studying the chest X-ray, but an instant later he looked me in the eye and said he would grant me a five-minute interview.

  In the ensuing conversation, the doctor revealed that, owing to the venting initiative, his staff was now obligated to obtain daily blood samples from the hostages. If any third-class aristocrats exhibited signs of lead contamination or mercury poisoning, he was prepared to offer them chelation therapy, but so far they all seemed free of heavy metals.

  “Which is not to say I’m remotely happy about what’s happening down on G deck,” Dr. Fletcher said. “Almost everybody who came aboard with a preexisting lung condition is doing badly. Yesterday I treated five asthma patients. This morning it was four emphysema cases, plus something that looks suspiciously like pneumonoconiosis.”

  I thanked the man for his time. He said he hoped my testimony would “land that bitch in prison for the rest of her life,” then added, lest I imagine that he thought me heroic, “So tell me, who were your other morality students? Richard Nixon? Osama bin Laden?”

  I clenched my jaw, hard enough to induce tinnitus, then returned to D deck, where the day’s second great humiliation awaited. Major Powers stood in the corridor, her waist girded by a utility belt suggesting the holstered arsenal of a Dodge City marshal, and I soon apprehended that she’d just finished converting my cabin to a jail cell. Steel rods and two-by-four studs reinforced the door, and instead of a knob there was now an outside latch equipped with a padlock.

  “Fuck this,” I said.

  The major opened the door and, gesturing with her screwdriver, directed me across the threshold. “Perhaps you’d prefer one of those smoggy hovels on G deck?”

  “Tell Londa she’s making a big mistake.”

  “What a coincidence—that�
��s her message to you. ‘Tell Mason he’s making a big mistake, condemning the deregulation regime before it’s had a chance to prove itself.’” The major followed me into the cabin, then pointed to the six-inch slot she’d jigsawed into the bottom of the door. “That’s right, Mr. Ambrose, you’ll still get your beer and lobster, and your cat, if you have one, can come and go at his leisure.”

  “I was just talking with Dr. Fletcher. He thinks you’re all a bunch of thugs.”

  Major Powers made no reply but instead reached into her jacket pocket and produced a cardboard sleeve holding a compact disc. “Londa had me troll the Internet and download a bunch of low-end Frankenstein movies for your amusement and edification,” she explained, setting the disc atop my DVD player. “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, that sort of thing.”

  “It’s nice to know she still loves me.”

  “She said you’d find them, quote, ‘relevant to solving the riddle of Edwina Sabacthani.’”

  The major made a snappy about-face and returned to the corridor.

  “One final message from headquarters,” she said before locking me in. “‘Tell Mason that at some point in their relationship an undine and an Epicurean will set out to change one another, and the results are always disastrous.’”