James Morrow - Towing Jehovah

“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?”

“To respect his children,” said Van Horne.

“Provide them with unconditional love,” said Miriam.

“A strong moral foundation,” said Di Luca.

“Feed them, clothe them, house them,” said Fowler.

“Forgive me, but I think you’re all wrong,” said Thomas. “A father’s ultimate obligation is to stop being a father. You follow me? At some point, he must step aside and allow his sons and daughters to enter adulthood. And that’s precisely what I think God did. He realized our continued belief in Him was constraining us, holding us back — infantilizing us, if you will.”

“Oh, that old argument,” sneered Di Luca. “I must say, I’m saddened to hear it from the author of The Mechanics of Grace.”

“I think maybe Tom’s on to something,” said Miriam.

“You would,” said Di Luca.

“A father’s obliged to step aside,” said Van Horne. “He’s not obliged to drop dead.”

“He is if He’s you-know-Who,” said Thomas. “Think about it. As long as God kept aloof, His decision to enter oblivion would remain a secret. But if He incarnated Himself, came to earth…”

“Excuse me,” said Di Luca, “but at least one of us at this table believes just such an event happened about two thousand years ago.”

“I believe it happened too,” said Thomas. “But history marches on, Eminence. We can’t live in the past.”

Fowler sipped oolong tea. “What, exactly, are you saying, Father? Are you saying He killed Himself?”

“Yes.”

“Cripes.”

“Knowing full well His angels would die of empathy?” asked Van Horne.

“That’s how much He loved the world,” said Thomas. “He willed Himself out of existence, simultaneously giving us ponderous proof of the fact.”

“So where’s His suicide note?” asked Fowler.

“Maybe He never wrote one. Maybe it’s inscribed on His body in some arcane fashion.” Thomas loaded his fork with counterfeit calamari in black bean sauce. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I, for one, am quite moved by our Creator’s selflessness.”

“And I, for one, think you’re way out on a limb,” said Di Luca, eyes narrowing. “Could you tell us exactly how you arrived at this bizarre conclusion?”

“Jesuitical deduction,” Thomas replied, “combined with a crucial fact I learned this afternoon from Michael.”

“What fact?”

“God never asked to be buried. The archangels acted completely on their own. They looked down, saw His body, and with the last of their strength they built Him a tomb.”

“Pretty meager data,” said Di Luca, “for such a lofty hypothesis.”

Van Horne tore into his ersatz Hunan chicken. “When you radioed me from the Regina, you said you knew what our next move should be.”

“Our duty is clear — at least, I think it is,” said Thomas. “After supper, we must bring the Maracaibo about and go back to Svalbard. We’ll re-enter the tomb, hook ourselves up to the body again, and take it on a grand tour.”

“On a what?” said Di Luca.

“Grand tour.”

“The hell we will,” said Fowler.

“Have you lost your mind?” said Di Luca.

“We’ll visit every major Western port, corpse in tow,” Thomas insisted, rising from the table. “If the Maracaibo can’t handle the load, we’ll press other tankers into service en route. The news will travel ahead of us. We can count on CNN. Okay, sure, initially the public will react with denial, terror, grief, everything we observed on the Val when we told the sailors the score, and, yes, as the Idea of the Corpse takes hold there may be an epidemic of anomie such as occurred on Van Horne Island — though, of course, as the captain here explained to Tullio in the wardroom, that was primarily an effect of prolonged and intimate contact with the body — but in any case the categorical imperative will soon kick in, and after that euphoria will follow. Are you seeing this, people? Can you picture the excited mobs charging through the streets of Lisbon, Marseilles, Athens, Naples, and New York, thronging onto the docks, eager for a peek? The human race has been waiting for such an hour. They may not know it, but they’ve been waiting. Bands will play. Flags will fly. Vendors will hawk hot dogs, popcorn, T-shirts, pennants, bumper stickers, souvenir programs. ‘We’re free!’ everyone will shout. ‘Today we are grown men, today we are grown women — the universe is ours!’ ”

Thomas sat down and quietly loaded a flaky pancake with pseudo mu shu pork.

Fowler snorted.

Van Horne sighed.

“I must say, Professor,” said Di Luca, “that is quite the most ridiculous proposal I have ever heard in my life.”

Despite Thomas’s profound lack of respect for Di Luca, the cardinal’s rejection hurt, cutting into him like the negative review The Christian Century had given The Mechanics of Grace.

Have I reasoned incorrectly? he wondered.

“I want to know what the rest of you think. I promised myself I wouldn’t pursue this plan unless a majority at this table tonight favored it.”

“I’ll tell you my opinion,” said Fowler. “If humankind ever learns en masse that God Almighty can no longer fog a mirror, they won’t feel like rushing out and climbing mountains — they’ll feel like crawling into holes and dying.”

“Well put, Dr. Fowler,” said Di Luca.

“And I also think, as I’ve been saying all along — I also think that, once they return to daylight, they’ll institute a theocracy so stifling and misogynistic it will make medieval Spain look like the Phil Donahue show.”

Thomas bit through an egg roll, pointing the stump toward Sister Miriam. “That’s two votes against my proposal and one vote — my own — for it.”

The nun patted her lips with a white linen napkin. “Goodness, Tom, it was so blasted much trouble laying Him to rest. The idea of undoing our efforts — it’s a bit overwhelming.” She wrapped the napkin tightly around her hand, as if bandaging a wounded palm. “But the more I think about it, the more I realize we probably have a responsibility to share the Corpus Dei with the rest of humankind. It’s what He wanted, right?”

“That’s two for, two against,” said Thomas. “It’s up to you, Captain.”