Towing Jehovah (39 page)

"The world needs both."

As Oliver Shostak eased himself over the side of the stainless steel rewarming tub and settled into the 110-degree water, he inevitably thought of an earlier avatar of secular enlightenment, Jean-Paul Marat, sitting in his bath day after day, enduring his diseased skin and dreaming the death of aristocracy. Oliver's shoulder throbbed, his ribs ached, but the sharpest pain was in his soul. Like Marat's revolution, Oliver's crusade had come to a wretched and humiliating end. At that moment, he harbored but one major ambition, a wish eclipsing both his desire to stop shivering and his urge to see Cassie, and that ambition was to be dead.

"Your prognosis is excellent," said Dr. Carminati, crouching beside Oliver. "But stay put, okay? If you move too much, the blood will flow to your extremities, cool off, and lower your temperature, and
that
could trigger lethal cardiac arrhythmia."

"Lethal cardiac arrhythmia," Oliver echoed dully, his teeth chattering like castanets. A most appealing idea.

"Your kilocalorie deficit is probably near a thousand right now, but I predict we'll normalize your core temperature in under an hour. After that, an Iceland Air-Sea Rescue helicopter will take you to Reykjavik General for observation."

"Was that really
God's
body the
Valparaíso
was towing?"

"I believe it was."

"God's?"

"Yes."

"It's hard to accept."

"Three months ago, the angel Gabriel died in my arms," said the young physician, starting away. "Since that moment, I've been open to all sorts of possibilities."

Steam rose on every side of the tub, obscuring the hypothermia victims lined up to Oliver's left and right. So efficient was healthcare delivery aboard the
Maracaibo
that, once borne to the sick bay, they'd all been treated without delay: shoulders relocated, ribs taped, bones set, burns greased, gashes disinfected, lungs filled with warm, moist air from a heated Dragen tank. No amount of efficiency, however, could revive the faceless body that had passed through on a gurney shortly after their arrival. Oliver knew that he and the dead man had spoken several times in the Midnight Sun Canteen, but he could recall nothing specific from any of their exchanges. To Oliver he was merely another overpaid and anonymous war reenactor, currently engaged in his final performance, playing the corpse of Ensign George Gay. Within twenty minutes, he felt warmer, but his mood remained bleak as ever. A woman's form appeared, swathed in steam. Charlotte Corday, he mused, come to stab Marat—he'd always adored Jacques-Louis David's painting—but instead of a dagger she wielded only a digital thermometer.

"Hello, Oliver. Good to see you."

"Cassandra?"

"They want me to take your temperature," she said, piercing the veil of mist.

"Listen, honey, I tried my darnedest. I really, really
tried."
Bending beside the tub, she placed a quick, noncommittal kiss on his cheek. "I know you did," she said in a gratuitously condescending tone. Her face was gaunt, her demeanor cowed and diffident, and no doubt he appeared equally defeated to her. And yet, as she stood over him, pressing the tiny green button on the thermometer, he thought she'd never looked more beautiful.

"I tried my darnedest," he said again. "You gotta understand—I had no idea Spruance was planning to torpedo your tanker."

"I'll be blunt," said Cassie, easing the device between his lips. "I never really believed you'd hired the right people." The remark wounded Oliver—so severely that he almost bit off the thermometer bulb. (Jesus Christ, what did she expect on such short notice, the U.S. Seventh Fleet?) A faint ringing reached his ears, like the sound of a mouse's alarm clock. Cassie removed the thermometer and squinted at the little numerals. "Ninety-eight point two. Close enough. We'll let you walk around now."

"I tried my darnedest. Really."

"You don't need to keep saying that."

"Where's God?"

"Adrift," she replied, handing Oliver a white terry-cloth bathrobe and a beach towel imprinted with the Carpco stegosaurus. "He went east, I think. Quite possibly He's unsinkable. Oliver, we have to talk. Meet me in the snack bar."

"I love you, Cassandra."

"I know," she said evenly—ominously—and, whirling around, vanished into the mist. As Oliver climbed out of the rewarming tub, a dizzying depression overcame him. He felt landlocked, marooned in the Age of Reason, and, meanwhile, way out to sea, nudging the horizon, there was his Cassandra, sailing into the post-Enlightenment, post-Christian, post-theistic future, moving farther and farther from him with each passing minute.

He dried off and, throwing on the bathrobe, limped through the ranks of dazed war reenactors, half of them sitting in re-warming tubs, the rest lying in bed. A ragged row of stitches ran down McClusky's left cheek. A turban of bandages sat atop Lieutenant Beeson's head. Burns dotted Lance Sharp's chest like abstract-expressionist tattoos. He pitied these eighteen men their snapped bones, their torn flesh, but he also felt betrayed by them. They should have made much bigger holes in God. They simply should have. When Oliver first encountered the sorry spectacle of Albert Flume, he understood as never before what it meant for a man to lose his arms. Leg loss was a different matter. Leg loss was Captain Ahab, Long John Silver—a whole gallery of romantic heroes. But a man without arms simply looked like a mistake.

Pembroke stood by the bed, his forehead a mass of bruises, a gauze patch over his right eye. "This is all
your
fault," he told Oliver, gesturing toward his mutilated partner. The impresario's arrogance stunned Oliver.
"My
fault?" Flume stared at the ceiling and winced. Spirals of linen covered his stumps, giving the starkly truncated limbs the appearance of baseball bats whose handgrips had been wrapped in adhesive tape.

"You said there wouldn't be any screening vessels," whined Pembroke.

"You want a villain, Sidney?" asked Oliver, beating back his impulse to scream. "Try your buddy Spruance. Spruance and his Op Plan 29-67. Try that fool McClusky over there—he should've blown retreat the instant the
Maracaibo
showed up. Try
yourself."

"Maracaibo,
not 'the'
Maracaibo."

"People around here are mumbling about lawsuits, extradition, manslaughter indictments," said Oliver. "I think we're in a lot of trouble,
all
of us."

"Don't be ridiculous. There weren't any
lawsuits
after Midway." Drawing a plastic comb from his bathrobe, Pembroke tidied up his friend's thick blond hair. "Jeez, I wish I could help you, Alby. I wish I could make Frances Langford appear right now and cheer you up."

"What'll
happen
to me?" moaned Flume.

"Nothing but the best therapy for you, buddy. You'll get wonderful mechanical arms—you know, like Harold Russell had."

"Harold Russell?" said Oliver.

"That double amputee who went into the movies," said Pembroke. "Ever see
The Best Years of Our
Lives?"

"No."

"Swell picture. Russell got an Oscar."

"I'll pay the bills," said Oliver, lightly brushing Flume's left stump. "No matter what those wonderful mechanical arms cost, I'll pay."

"I don't want wonderful mechanical arms," mumbled Flume. "Russell had to sell his Oscar."

"True," sighed Pembroke.

"Real arms."

"Hey, buddy, we're gonna stage one
hell
of a Guadalcanal, aren't we?"

"I don't want a Guadalcanal."

"No?" said Pembroke.

"I don't want a Guadalcanal, or an Ardennes, or a D-Day even."

"I understand."

"Arms."

Sure.

"I keep trying to move my hands."

"Naturally."

"I can't move 'em."

"I know, Alby."

"I wanna play the piano."

"Right."

"Pitch pennies."

“Or course.”

Time to leave, the Enlightenment League's president thought as Albert Flume voiced his wish to snap his fingers and twiddle his thumbs. Time to find Cassandra, Oliver decided as the armless impresario articulated his desire to wear a wristwatch, knit samplers, play with a yo-yo, raise the flag for Hudson High, and masturbate. Time to get on with the rest of what Oliver suspected was going to be a crushingly dull and utterly meaningless life.

A loaded bedpan, Thomas Ockham concluded, was a hopeless commodity. No fantasy could redeem it. Every time he bore one across the
Maracaibo'
s
sick bay, he started out pretending it was a chalice, a ciborium, or the Holy Grail itself, but by the time he reached the bathroom he was carrying a bowl of turds. And so it happened that, when Tullio Di Luca demanded an emergency meeting to discuss the fate of the Corpus Dei, the priest was more than happy to forsake his duties and head for the elevator. The
Valparaíso
group—Van Horne, Rafferty, Haycox, O'Connor, Bliss—was already in the wardroom when Thomas arrived, lined up along the far side of the table. Rafferty lit a Marlboro. O'Connor popped a cough drop. Dark concentric circles scored the captain's cheeks, as if his eyes were pebbles tossed into water. Gradually the
Maracaibo's
staff filed in—Di Luca leading, then First Mate Orso Peche, Chief Engineer Vince Mangione, Communications Officer Gonzalo Cornejo, and Vatican Physician Giuseppe Carminati—each man looking more miserable and homesick than the one before him. Mick Katsakos, Thomas surmised, was up on the bridge, keeping the Gulf tanker a safe distance from the foundering
Valparaíso.

"In my brief association with your father, I came to admire his seamanship and courage," said Di Luca, assuming the head of the table. "Your grief must be overwhelming."

"Not yet," grunted Van Horne. "I'll keep you posted." Wincing at the captain's candor, Thomas seated himself beside Lianne Bliss and glanced through the nearest porthole. The
Val's
deck island still towered above the choppy Norwegian Sea: the Rasputin of supertankers, he decided. Shoot her, poison her, bludgeon her, and still she clung to life. Why had God died?

Why?

"The Vatican has a proposition for you," said Di Luca to Van Horne. "We are not certain why you absconded last week, but the Holy Father, a most generous man, is prepared to ignore your insubordination if you will take over the
Maracaibo,
subsequently doing as Rome wishes."

"History's ahead of you, Eminence," the captain replied. "Before he passed away, Dad bequeathed me this ship."

"He didn't have that right."

"I can't agree to follow Rome's orders till I know what they are.

"Step one: assume command. In the interests of efficiency"— Di Luca swept his arm along the line of
Maracaibo
personnel— "these men have all agreed to defer to your own officers. Step two: pilot us to the motion-picture prop. Mr. Peche, do you still have it on your radar screen?"

"Aye."

"Step three: anoint the prop fore to aft."

"Anoint it?" said Van Horne.

"With Arabian crude oil," Di Luca explained. "Step four: set the prop on fire. Step five: transport us back to Palermo."

"On fire?" wailed Rafferty.

"What the fuck?" moaned O'Connor.

"No way," hissed Haycox.

"Ah,
now
we're talking!" cried Bliss, pointing her crystal pendant toward Van Horne. "Hear that, sir?

You're supposed to
burn
the thing!"

"You said you were hauling formaldehyde, not Arabian crude," Thomas protested. Di Luca grinned feebly. "We're hauling oil," he admitted.

"You have your orders, Captain," said Bliss. "Now follow them."

"You know perfectly well the body's meant to be entombed at Kvitoya," Thomas reminded the cardinal.

"You heard Gabriel's wishes in person."

Di Luca pressed his palms to his bosom and smoothed his waterproof cassock. "Professor Ockham, need I make the embarrassingly obvious point that Rome's liaison on this mission is no longer you but myself?"

Thomas grew suddenly aware of his own blood. He felt his plasma heating up. "Don't underestimate your man, Eminence. Don't expect this Jesuit to lie down and die."

Leaning toward Van Horne, Di Luca picked up a glass ashtray, holding it out like Christ offering the first stone to the mob. "The problem, Captain, is that Kvitoya provides no deterrents to intrusion. Only a cremation can guarantee that, in the years to come, the corpse won't be exhumed and defiled."

"What does it matter if a movie prop gets defiled?" asked Peche.

"The angels seemed to think Kvitoya would be just fine," said Thomas. "So do I."

"Please be quiet," said Di Luca.

"Angels?" said Mangione.

"I
won't
be quiet," said Thomas.

Di Luca gave the ashtray a sudden twist, making it spin like a compass needle gone berserk. "Sir, is it not true that, once our Creator's death became common knowledge aboard the
Valparaíso,
a severe ethical breakdown occurred?"

"Whose
death?" said Peche.

"Yes, but thanks to the meat, we're past that now," said Van Horne.

"Meat?" said Di Luca.

"When we fed the crew Quarter Pounders with Cheese, they regained their moral bearings."

"Quarter Pounders?"

"You don't want to know," said Rafferty.

"According to Father Ockham's fax of July twenty-eighth, there were thefts, attempted rapes, vandalism, quite possibly a murder." The cardinal arrested the whirling ashtray. "Now, sir, project such anarchy onto the planet at large, and you have chaos beyond comprehension."

"There's another way to look at it," said Van Horne. "Consider: our trip to the Gibraltar Sea was amazingly intense. We saw the corpse all the time, smelled it around the clock, killed its predators on every watch. Naturally the thing took hold of us. The whole world's never going to enter into such a close relationship with God."

"God?" said Mangione.

"The body must be obliterated," said Di Luca.

Thomas slammed his palm against the table. "Oh, come on, Tullio. Let's be honest, okay? Your heart was never in this project. If your OMNIVAC hadn't predicted a few surviving neurons, you'd have wanted a cremation straight away. But now the brain's beyond salvation, which means all your careers might be beyond salvation too, should the news ever get out. To which I say, 'Too bad, gentlemen. Swallow your pill. The Chair of Peter was never a tenure-track position.''