Towing Jehovah (12 page)

Inevitably, she thought of her favorite moment from her irascible retelling of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac: the scene in which Runkleberg's wife, Melva, smears her hands with her own menstrual flow. "I shall guard my son's blood with my own," Melva vows. "Somehow, some way—no matter what it takes— I shall keep this monstrous thing from happening."

Slowly, methodically, Cassie removed the crucifix from the bulkhead and, taking hold of the brad, worked it free.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed the tiny spike into her thumb.

"Ow . . ."

As she withdrew the nail, a large red pearl appeared. She entered the bathroom, stood before the mirror, and began to paint, left cheek, left jaw, chin, right jaw, right cheek, pausing periodically to squeeze out more blood. By the
time clotting occurred, a thick, smeary line ran around Cassie's face, as if she were wearing a mask of herself.

Somehow, some way—no matter what it took—she would send the God of Western Patriarchy to the bottom of the sea.

Now, only now, standing on the starboard wing with the wind howling, the sea roaring, and the great corpse bobbing behind him—only now did it occur to Anthony that the tow might not work. Their cargo was big, bigger than he'd ever imagined. Assuming the anchors held, the chains remained whole, the boilers stayed in one piece, and the windlasses didn't rip loose and fly into the ocean—assuming all these things, the sheer drag might still prove too much for the
Val
to handle. Lifting the walkie-talkie to his lips, he tweaked the channel selector and tuned in the engine flat.

"Van Horne here. We got steam on deck?"

"Enough to make a pig sweat," said Crock O'Connor.

"We're gonna try for eighty rpm's, Crock. Can we do it without busting a gut?"

"Only one way to find out, sir."

Anthony turned toward the wheelhouse, waving to the quartermaster and giving Marbles Rafferty a thumbs-up. So far the first mate had acquitted himself brilliantly at the console, keeping the carcass directly astern and two thousand yards away, perfectly pacing the
Val
with her cargo's three-knot drift. (Too bad Operation Jehovah was a secret, for this was exactly the sort of venture that might earn Rafferty the coveted paper declaring him "Master of United States Steam or Motor Vessels of Any Gross Tons upon Oceans.") The kid at the helm knew his stuff, too: Neil Weisinger, the same AB who'd performed so splendidly during Hurricane Beatrice. But even with Sinbad the Sailor manning the throttles and Horatio J. Hornblower holding the wheel, winching in this particular load would still be, Anthony knew, the trickiest maneuver of his career.

Pivoting to stern, the captain surveyed the windlasses: two gargantuan cylinders twenty feet in diameter, like bass drums built to pace the music of the spheres. A mile beyond rose God's balding cranium, His white mane glinting in the morning sun, each hair as thick as a transatlantic cable. The mourners had all left. Perhaps they'd completed their duties—"swimming
shivah"
as Weisinger liked to put it—but more probably it was the ship that had driven them away. At some level, Anthony believed, they knew the whole story: the Matagorda Bay tragedy and what it had done to their brothers and sisters. They couldn't stand to be in the same ocean with the
Carpco Valparaíso.
He lifted the Bushnells and focused. The water was astonishingly clear—he could even see His submerged ears, the anchor chains spilling from their interiors like silver pus. Twenty-four hours earlier, Rafferty had taken an exploration party over in the
Juan Fernandez.
After sailing into the placid cove bounded by the lee biceps and the corresponding bosom, they'd managed to lash an inflatable wharf in place, using armpit hairs as bollards, then rappel up the great cliff of flesh. Hiking across the chest, walking around on the sternum, the chief mate and his team had heard nothing they could honestly call heartbeats. Anthony hadn't expected they would. And yet he remained cautiously optimistic: cardiovascular stasis wasn't the same thing as brain death. Who could deny that a neuron or two might be perking away under that fifteen-foot-thick skull?

The captain changed channels, broadcasting to the men by the windlasses. "Ready on the afterdeck?" The assistant engineers plucked the walkie-talkies from their belts. "Port windlass ready," said Lou Chickering in his actor's baritone.

"Starboard windlass ready," said Bud Ramsey.

"Release devil's claws," said Anthony.

Both engineers sprang into action.

"Port claw released."

"Starboard claw released."

"Engage wildcats," the captain ordered.

"Port cat in."

"Starboard in."

"Kill brakes."

"Port brake gone."

"Starboard gone."

Anthony raised his forearm to his mouth and gave dear Lorelei a kiss. "Okay, boys—let's reel Him in."

"Port motor on," said Chickering.

"Starboard on," said Ramsey.

Spewing black smoke, belching hot steam, the wildcats began to turn, raveling up the great steel chains. One by one, the links rose out of the sea, dripping foam and spitting spray. They slithered through the chocks, arched over the devil's claws, and dropped into the whelps like skee-balls scoring points.

"I need lead lengths, gentlemen. Call 'em out."

"Two thousand yards on the port chain," said Chickering.

"Two thousand on the starboard," said Ramsey.

"Marbles, let's get under way! Forty rpm's, if you please!"

"Aye! Forty!"

"Fifteen hundred on the port chain!"

"Fifteen hundred on the starboard!"

Anthony and the chief mate had been up all night poring over Rafferty's
U.S. Navy Salvor's Handbook.
With a tow this prodigious, a gap of more than eleven hundred yards would render the
Val
unsteerable. But a short leash, under nine hundred yards, could mean trouble too: if she suddenly slowed for any reason—a snapped shaft, a blown boiler—the cargo would plow into her stern through sheer momentum.

"Fifty rpm's!" Anthony ordered.

"Fifty!" said Rafferty.

"Speed?"

"Six knots!"

"Steady, Weisinger!" Anthony told the quartermaster.

"Steady!" the AB echoed.

The chains kept coming, over the windlasses and through the hatches, filling the cavernous steel lockers like performing cobras returning to their wicker baskets after a hard day's work.

"One thousand yards on the port chain!"

"One thousand on the starboard!"

"Speed?"

"Seven knots!"

"Brakes!" screamed Anthony into the walkie-talkie.

"Port brake on!"

"Starboard on!"

"Sixty rpm's!"

Sixty!

Both windlasses stopped instantly, screeching and smoking as they showered the afterdeck with bright orange sparks.

"Disengage wildcats!"

"Port cat gone!"

"Starboard gone!"

“ Hook claws!"

"Port claw hooked!"

“Starboard hooked!"

Something was wrong. The carcass's speed had doubled, eight knots at least. Briefly Anthony imagined some supernatural jolt galvanizing the divine nervous system, though the real explanation, he suspected, lay in a sudden conjunction of the Guinea Current and the Southeast Trades. He lowered the binoculars. The Corpus Dei surged forward, crushingly, inexorably, spindrift flying from its crown as it bore down on the tanker like some primordial torpedo.

The prudent tactic was obvious: unlock the cats, free the chains, hard right rudder, full speed ahead. But Anthony hadn't been hired to play it safe. He'd been hired to bring God north, and while he didn't relish the thought of presiding over the
Valparaíso's
second collision in two years, either this damn rig worked or it didn't. "Marbles, eighty rpm's!"

"Eighty?"

"Eighty!"

"Eighty!" said the mate.

"Speed?"

"Nine knots!"

Nine, good: faster, surely, than the oncoming corpse. He studied the chains. No slack! No slack, and the ship was moving! "Quartermaster, ten degrees left rudder!" Lifting the binoculars, laughing into the wind, the captain studied His vast shining brow. "Course three-five-zero!"

"Three-five-zero!" said Weisinger.

Anthony pivoted toward the bow. "All engines ahead full!" he shouted to Rafferty, and they were off—off like some grandiose water-skiing act, off like some demented rendition of Achilles dragging Hector around the walls of Troy, off like some absurdist advertisement for Boys Town, USA, the angelic youngster bearing his crippled brother on his back
(He ain't heavy, Father, He's my
Creator)
—off, towing Jehovah.

two

Teeth

AS THE BURDENED
Valparaíso
crawled north through the Gulf of Guinea, Cassie Fowler realized that her desire to see their cargo destroyed was more complicated than she'd initially supposed. Yes, this body threatened to further empower the patriarchy. Yes, it was a terrible blow to reason. But something else was going on, something a bit more personal. If her dear Oliver could actually bring off such a spectacular feat, successfully applying his brains and wealth toward God's obliteration, he would emerge in her eyes as a hero, second only to Charles Darwin. She might even, after all these years, acquiesce to Oliver's longstanding proposal of marriage.

On July 14, at 0900, Cassie went to the radio shack and made her pitch to Lianne "Sparks" Bliss. They must send Oliver a secret fax. Immediate and total sabotage was required. The future of feminism hung in the balance.

Not that she didn't love Oliver as he was: a sweet man, a committed atheist, and probably the best president the Central Park West Enlightenment League had ever had—yet also, Cassie felt, a castaway like herself, shipwrecked on the shores of his own essential uselessness, not just a Sunday painter but a Sunday human being. How better for a person to acquire some self-respect than to save Western Civilization from a return to misogynist theocracy?

"The future of feminism?" said Lianne, nervously fingering her crystal pendant. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly," said Cassie.

"Yeah? Well, nobody except Father Thomas is allowed to contact the outside world. Captain's orders."

"Lianne, this damn body is
exactly
what the patriarchy has been waiting for—evidence that the world was created by the male chauvinist bully of the Old Testament."

"Okay, but even if we
did
send a message, would your skeptic friends believe you?"

"Of course my skeptic friends wouldn't believe me. They're skeptics. They'd have to fly over, take pictures, argue among themselves . . ."

"Forget it, sweetie. I could get booted out of the Merchant Marine for something like this."

"The future of feminism, Lianne . . ."

"I said forget it."

The next morning, Cassie tried again.

"Century after century of phallocratic oppression, and finally women are gaining some ground. And now—bang—it's back to square one."

"Aren't you overreacting a bit? We're gonna
bury
the thing, not put it on fucking
Oprah."

"Yeah, but what's to prevent somebody from happening on the tomb in a year or two and spilling the beans?"

"Father Thomas talked to an angel," said Lianne defensively. "There's obviously a cosmic necessity behind this voyage."

"There's a cosmic necessity behind feminism, too."

"We shouldn't go tampering with the cosmos, friend. We absolutely shouldn't." For the rest of the day, Cassie made a point of avoiding Lianne. She had presented her case fully, outlining the ominous political implications of a male Corpus Dei. Now it was time to let the arguments sink in.

How different all this was from Cassie's previous voyage. On the
Beagle II
you were periodically knocked off your feet, thrown from your bunk, plunged into nausea: you knew you were at sea. But the
Valparaíso
felt less like a ship than like some great metal island rooted to the ocean floor. To get any sense of motion, you had to climb down into the forward lookout post, a kind of steel patio thrust out over the water, and watch the stem plates smashing through the waves.

On the evening of July 13, Cassie stood in the bow, sipping coffee, savoring the sunset—a breathtaking spectacle to which the tubby AB on duty, Karl Jaworski, seemed oblivious—and imagining the androgynous marvels that lay perhaps two miles beneath her feet.
Hippocampus
guttulatus,
for instance, the sea horse, whose males incubated the eggs in special ventral pouches; or groupers, all of whom began life as females (half destined to undergo a sex change at adulthood); or the wonderfully subversive lumpfish, a species whose maternal instincts resided exclusively within the fathers (it being they who oxygenated the eggs during incubation and subsequently guarded the fry). To her right, beyond the horizon, spread the wide sultry delta of the Niger River. To her left, likewise hidden by the planet's curve, lay Ascension Island. A suffocating heat arose, clothing her in equatorial steam, and she resolved to escape to the
Valparaíso's
congenial little movie theater. True, she'd seen
The Ten
Commandments
before—most recently Oliver's laserdisc of the 35th Anniversary Collector's Edition—so it wouldn't have much dramatic impact, but at the moment air-conditioning mattered more than catharsis.

She took the elevator to level three, opened the door to the theater, and plunged into the gloriously cool air.

As it happened, Cassie harbored a special affection for
The Ten Commandments.
Without it, she would never have written her angriest play,
God Without Tears
(a prophetic title, she now realized), a one-act satire on the many bowdlerizations Cecil B. DeMille and company had committed in transferring Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy to the screen. She'd been particularly severe with DeMille's unwillingness to consider the moral implications of the Ten Plagues, with his failure to record the injustices the Hebrews had suffered at their Sponsor's hands as they wandered in the wilderness (Yahweh striking down the people who disparaged Canaan, firebombing those who complained at Hormah, sending serpents against the ones who grumbled on the road from Mount Hor, visiting a pestilence upon everybody who backslid at Peor), and with his glaring omission of the speech Moses had made to his generals following the subjugation of the Midianites: "Why have you spared the life of all the women?