“Cherubs?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No survivors?”
“I don’t think so. It’s amazing they got this far north.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Van Horne.
“When cherubs come,” said Thomas, “angels can’t be far behind.”
Pitted with rust, pocked with corrosion, the Regina was in no better shape than her crew. It was as if she’d been scooped up and sucked upon by God Himself — smashed against His cuspids, burned with His saliva — then spit back into the sea. Thomas started into the amidships deckhouse, following a sharp, fruity odor of such intensity it overpowered the cherubs’ stench. His jugular veins throbbed. Blood pounded in his ears. The scent led him down a damp corridor, up a narrow companionway, and into a gloomy cabin.
On the far bulkhead hung Robert Campin’s masterful Annunciation — either a copy or the original from the Manhattan Cloisters, the priest didn’t know for sure. A lambent glow issued from the bunk. Thomas approached at the same respectful pace he’d employed three months earlier when greeting Pope Innocent XIV.
“Who’s there?” asked the angel, propping himself up on his elbows. A black, fallen halo hung around his neck like a discarded fan belt from Van Horne Island.
“Thomas Ockham, Society of Jesus.”
“I’ve heard of you.” The bed sheet slipped to the floor, revealing the creature’s wasted body. His flesh, though cracked and gritty, was exquisite in its own way, like sandpaper manufactured for some holy task — smoothing the Cross, buffing the Ark. A small harp bridged the gap between his knobby knees. His wings, naked as a bat’s, rested atop mounds of shed feathers. “Call me Michael.”
“It’s an honor, Michael.” Thomas pressed SEND. “Anthony?”
“Yeah?”
“We were right. An angel.”
“The last angel,” rasped Michael. His voice had a dry, brittle quality, as if his larynx had rusted along with his ship.
“Anything I can do for you?” asked Thomas, slipping the walkie-talkie into the pocket of his parka. “You thirsty?”
“Thirsty. Quite so. Please — on the bureau…”
Crossing the cabin, Thomas located a four-chambered glass bottle shaped like a human heart and filled with water.
“Am I too late?” The angel lifted the harp from atop his knees. “Did I miss His funeral?”
“You missed it, yes.” Pressing the bottle to Michael’s withered lips, Thomas realized the angel was blind. His eyes, milky and motionless, lay in his head like pearls wrought by some terminally ill oyster. “I’m sorry.”
“But He’s safe now?”
“Quite safe.”
“Not too much decay?”
“Not too much.”
“Still smiling?”
“Still smiling.”
Michael laid his right hand on his harp and began picking out the famous zither theme from The Third Man. “Wh-where are we?”
“The Hebrides.”
“That near Kvitoya?”
“Kvitoya’s two thousand miles away,” the priest admitted.
“Then I won’t even get to visit the body.”
“True.” The angel’s fever was so intense Thomas could feel the heat against his cheeks. “You built Him a beautiful tomb.”
“We did, didn’t we? It was my idea to inter Him with His masterpieces. Whale, orchid, sparrow, cobra. We had a tough time deciding what to include. Adabiel made a big pitch for human inventions… argued they were His by extension. Wheel, plow, VCR, harpsichord, hardball — we’re all such Yankees fans — but then Zaphiel said, ‘Okay, lot’s put in a .356 Magnum,’ and that settled the matter.”
A crepuscular cabin on a derelict freighter in the middle of the dreary North Sea: not a likely setting for revelation, yet that was what now struck Thomas Wickliff Ockham, S.J. — a revelation, a luminous truth blazing through his mortal soul.
“There’s a fact I must know,” he said. “Did God actually request the Kvitoya tomb? Did He come to you and say, ‘Bury Me in the Arctic’?”
Michael coughed explosively, peppering the Campin Annunciation with droplets of blood. “We peered over the edge of heaven. We saw His body adrift off Gabon. We said, ‘Something must be done.’ ”
“Let me get this straight. He never asked to be buried?”
“It seemed the decent thing to do,” said the angel.
“But He never asked.”
“No.”
“So in sending His corpse to earth, He may’ve had something other than a funeral in mind?”
“Possibly.”
Possibly. Probably. Certainly. “Do you want extreme unction?” asked Thomas. “I have no chrism, but there’s a ton of consecrated firefighting foam on the Maracaibo.”
Michael closed his sightless eyes. “That reminds me of an old joke. ‘How do you make holy water?’ Ever heard it, Father?”
“I don’t know.”
“You take some water and you boil the hell out of it.’ Extreme unction? No. Thank you — but no. The sacraments don’t matter anymore. Precious little matters anymore. I don’t even care if the Yankees are still in first place. Are they?”
Thomas would never know whether Michael heard the good news, for the instant the priest offered his reply — “Yes, the Yankees are still in first place” — the archangel’s eyes liquefied, his hands melted, and his torso disintegrated like the Tower of Babel crumbling beneath God’s withering breath.
Thomas stared at the bunk, beholding Michael’s ashy remains with a mixture of disbelief and awe. He drew out the walkie-talkie. “You there, Anthony?”
“What’s going on?” demanded Van Horne.
“We lost him.”
“I’m not surprised.”
The priest ran his fingers through the soft gray ephemera on the mattress. “Captain, I think I’ve got the answer.”
“You’ve discovered a TOE?”
“I know why God died. Not only that, I’ve decided what our next move should be.”
“Why’d He die?”
“It’s complicated. Listen — tonight’s supper will be a private affair. I’m inviting only four people: you, Miriam, Di Luca, your girlfriend.”
“Whatever your theory, I doubt that my girlfriend will accept it.”
“That’s exactly why I want her there. If I can persuade Cassie Fowler to disinter the corpse, I can persuade anybody.”
“Disinter it?”
Thomas bundled the divine dust and holy feathers into the bedsheet, securing the corners with a convoluted knot.
“Answer me, Thomas. What do you mean, ‘disinter it’?”
For reasons known only to himself, Sam Follingsbee bypassed the Maracaibo’s normal stores that evening and instead cooked up a copious Chinese buffet using the last of the meat they’d salvaged from the sinking Valparaíso. After Thomas said grace, he and his guests dug in. They ate slowly — reverently, in fact, even the habitually sacrilegious Cassie Fowler. Di Luca, too, seemed to approach his meal with piety, as if he somehow sensed its source.
Swallowing a mouthful of artificial mu gu gai pan, Thomas said, “I have a theory for you.”
“He’s solved the great riddle,” Van Horne explained, devouring a mock wonton.
“I’ll start with a question,” said Thomas. “What’s the most accurate metaphor for God?”
“Love,” said Sister Miriam.
“Try again.”
“Judge,” said Di Luca.
“Besides that?”
“Creator,” said Fowler.
“Close.”
“Father,” said Van Horne.
Thomas ate a morsel of bogus Szechuan beef. “Exactly. Father. And what would you say is every father’s ultimate obligation?”