Lazlo’s ash eyes flash downward. Fear of the Ex-Oh? Of what such a meeting might mean? It has been some time since I have been summoned to his quarters.
There is no mistaking St. John’s expression—a simmering jealousy.
The caplain’s quarters are forward, on the same deck as the control room, past dials and blinking panels and tables full of water-stained charts and periscope tubes and the helm and sonar room. We are only allowed to enter this area upon permission.
“Do not tax him needlessly,” Ex-Oh warns, leaning over me. “He is very ill.”
About his neck hangs a piece of metal, bent, chipped to look like a key.
We wear keys. Mine, dried kelp, shaped into eye and stem and teeth, held by a length of old electric wire.
“Aye, Ex-Oh.”
“And you will report to me anything of import he might share with you, yes?”
I nod. He sees my hesitation, peers down at me a moment longer before taking his leave.
I rap once and hear, on the other side of the soft wooden door, a weak, raspy invitation to enter.
The caplain’s cabin is the largest of the personal quarters on board. Even so, this is no great space—most of it given over to desk and shelves of books—most of which I have read. The Confessions of St. Augustine. The Rule of St. Benedict. The Letters of Jerome. But more than just religious texts. Books on sea life, on sailing. Navigation. Ancient history. Music. Even a few novels. About castaways and adventures and His will.
Caplain is tucked into his bunk. Stepping forward, I cross a fetid threshold. Not just the rank oil fueling the three lamps that illuminate the chamber—but a deeper, darker odor that lingers in the room heavy as grease smoke. Eel bile and bilge.
Sunk, deflated. Caplain’s skin, a map of palm fruit–colored open sores. I hear his ragged breathing, even standing at two arms’ distance.
“Come into the light, Cantor,” he says, as though exhaling. The wheeze like the compressors make when kept running for too long.
A whalebone-and-thatch stool stands at the bedside. I sit. Close to him, very close.
His clouded eyes seek me out. They do not find me. His pale hand does. Fingers, long and pale and bony, like the legs of the white spiders that spin their webs in the corners of the balneary, folded together.
“I fished you out of the sea,” he says, part of him in the past.
“Yes,” I tell him. He has told me this before. I don’t remember it. Not really. Perhaps the taste of salt and blood on my cracked lips. The sun-scoured feeling of my skin. Angry, raw. But sun.
Light.
And an illustrated image. Of a palm tree set against blue sea, rooted in yellow sand. Some piece of wavering cloth, a banner.
But the whiteness. The warmth. That is what has always lingered most.
“My little Moses,” he says. A sound comes from him. Was it meant to be a laugh? A strangled one. “Plucked you from the ragged sea, from a sinking boat. From the wicked world. Couldn’t have been more than five or six. But smart. Even then, I knew you were special. That voice. That’s why… why I kept you. Despite it all. Why I have taught you.
“God told me. To keep you. And I did. I knew it was meant to be when I heard your voice. An angel’s voice. We have kept quite some confidence, haven’t we? You and I?” he asks, trying to muster energy for sitting up. He wears something like a grin. A gap-toothed, red-lipped smile. A black void of a maw.
How have we kept it secret so long?
Such tight quarters. Shared bunks and ablutions.
But we Choristers and brothers bathe in our linens. Thin, sopping cloth plastered to skin masks enough. And the darkness. In this darkness, one could hide almost anything.
“They’ll soon find out about me,” I blurt out, unable to keep it inside any longer, voice trembling. I don’t want for him to see my fear. He, who knows me better than even Lazlo.
“Ah, so the curse has come to you,” he says. His cold hand squeezes mine with a surprising strength. Quells the terror that has been twisting inside me since Matins.
We spoke some time ago about this eventuality. About how to handle it, if it happened.
“God will protect you, child. There was a time when I wondered,” Caplain says, “would He see fit to stop all these—female processes of yours—when He saw that you had found a home amongst us? Among the last of the righteous. But I’ve gone off that thinking—His will remains cryptic as ever. Even to us, the penitent. Though what remains clear, even to a man who has lost his sight, is that God allowed you to be saved for a purpose. To wit, I have summoned you today.” He winces, quite suddenly, a throe of pain or palsy. He, at last, breathes.
Then he lets go my hand. Has left something behind in my palm. A cold, thin object. In the oil light, a silvery key. Long, toothed.
“Caplain?” I ask, looking down at it.
“For the Last Judgment. It cannot be launched without it.”
“But what of yours,” I say, pointing. I see it lying there against pale skin, against a washboard rack of ribs.
“It was the old captain’s habit to wear a false key—before the war. Before we heard God’s word and took this submarine in His name. A secret he shared with me, our old captain.”
Captain.
Such a strange variation on the word. A precursor to the holy position that all on board have come to know and revere.
“Such a small object that wields so much power must be protected. Hidden from even the most loyal. This key that I give to you—it is the real one. I have kept it hidden.” Caplain pauses to swab his lips with a purple tongue.
“But… but why? Why this deception?”
The old man closes his eyes. “I’ve waited these long years—have built this order, have put our prayers and praises and psalms into the depths—where God may hear us. I have also been listening, yes. Waiting for His word that the years of tribulation have finally come to an end. I expected it after some seven years. Seven years after I answered that first call. Launched the missiles. We unleashed all the fury of heaven upon that wicked world above. Yet one did not launch. Divine intervention, I thought. Saved for later. For purpose. To usher in that final terrible judgment. I have been listening, but I have heard nothing”—and his foggy eyes are staring at nothing. “I listened, I listened,” he breathes. “I have long promised that our final dive would… would come soon, that our long years of service would finally be rewarded. But I see now that my role in the grand plan shall soon be done. And I realize now that I have put my trust in an unfit heir to this Brotherhood.”
I draw in a hot breath.
Have I heard it correctly? Never—never—has the caplain shared such notions. He’s lost his mind, I think. I should stand. Should go. Remember him as I have always known him. Not this rambling man.
Caplain continues. “Ex-Oh Marston is a true disciple. A strict observer. Unfailing in his practice of devotion. A stern disciplinarian. But he will not hear the Word when the time comes. His own ego stands in the way of that. An artless soul. He will rely upon a flawed judgment as to when we should deliver the Last Judgment.”
“And you think I will hear the word? I’m from Topside. From the wicked world—”
“And given unto us by Grace,” Caplain interjects. “Purpose. As I said, you have purpose. We can’t know it yet.”
“What about Brother Silas, or Brother Ernesto… they are wise, they are good—”
“You, Cantor. It must be you.”
“But…” I tread carefully here, key still in my hand, weighing cold. Heavy as an anchor. “If Ex-Oh does try to launch, he’ll quickly discover the key is false.”