Andrew Stewart - We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep

I take Lazlo’s grease-blackened hand and roughly pull him along with me.

Later that night, me in my bunk, Lazlo in his, directly below me, I feel his fingers brush against mine, from the inch of space between the edge of our bunk and the bulkhead.

In this gesture, he is asking if I am mad at him. If I still trust him.

A question I answer by interlocking my fingers with his.

The whales are singing out there in the dark ocean, their song resounding against the hull.

We lie awake and listen to them, Lazlo and I. Sometimes, when we are in the chapel, singing, the beasts sing back.

Here, though, this deep, it is quiet enough to listen to their solemn strains fully. Every odd sonorous leap and ululation. Every rich bellow and delicate turn. One calling out to the other in these blind, cold depths, the dark chambers of the sea. When all they have in the darkness is one another. Each other’s song.

What were they discussing, these beasts? These leviathans?

“ Hello, I’m a whale ,” Lazlo whispers in a forced, deep timbre beneath me.

“ Hello, I’m also a whale ,” I respond, as deeply as I can, trying to stifle a laugh.

“ Do you have any fishes ?” he asks.

“ No, but I do have this man in my belly who keeps trying to get out ,” I whisper.

I hear Lazlo’s smile in his breathing. I smile, too. For a moment.

But I keep thinking, do they have a message for me? Like Caplain Amita said? Will they tell me what I am to do, when the end finally comes?

I realize I am gripping Lazlo’s hand too tightly. He doesn’t seem to mind. I suppose he is gripping mine just as tight.

Sometimes, I dream we are whales, Lazlo and I. Free, and unafraid of the dark, of the depths. Places that are natural for us to go, singing songs that are not yet written. Together. Him singing a secret song to me, and me singing to him. A song only the two of us in the whole world know. Like our names.

Alden Tomas , I mouth but do not actually speak.

Someday, perhaps, I will remember mine.

TERCE.

The canticles sung at this hour are done so in organum .

Just two voices. One Chorister takes the lower melody, and one takes the upper, at an interval of a fifth. Together, they sing, at times, in a harmonic unison—beginning and ending on the same note. But in the middle, the upper register might do what Caplain Amita called improvising.

It is the closest thing to creation I’ve known. To owning something.

You have to trust your partner. Anticipate where their melody will wander. As Cantor, I take the upper melody. It is usually Lazlo who takes the lower.

But Lazlo hasn’t yet taken his place beside me in the chapel.

At the tolling of the hour, Lazlo still not having arrived, Caplain Marston nods curtly to St. John, who eagerly steps before the psalter.

“Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus.”

Come, Holy Ghost.

Normally, singing, I lose myself. In the song, in the careful dance of melodies, the balance of harmony. This hour, indeed, often passes the quickest. However, my focus is divided. At first, concern for what punishment Lazlo will receive for arriving late. But, as the hour passes and still he does not rush to join the rest of the Choristers, a deeper dread begins to weigh in my belly.

As the singer of the top melody, it is my burden to embellish, to ornament and turn; however, St. John is taking liberties with the lower melody, so I must balance the duet, sticking closely to the more droning, center notes of the mode.

“Flammescat igne caritas.”

Let fraternal love burn with fire.

When did I last see Lazlo?

Lauds. Afterwards, he was sent to the main deck to help Brother Ernesto with repairs. Was he injured? Even if he were in trouble for something, he would still be made to sing the liturgy.

Unless…

“Accendat ardor proximos.”

Let ardor burn for our neighbors.

I glance sidelong at St. John when the canticle is done, when we are waiting for the recitation of prayers, but I cannot tell whether his expression is more or less haughty than usual.

Terce.

A time to invoke the Holy Spirit in order to bolster you. To give you strength to overcome the challenges of the day.

After the hour, in silent recession, Ephraim and Caleb share my similar, concerned expression. All except St. John.

I see it now. The smug grin on his face.

What has he done?

I find Brother Ernesto aft, sprawled on the deck of the first engineering compartment, working on the machine that takes seawater and runs a current of electricity to it, separating it into gases called hydrogen and oxygen.

Oxygen is what we breathe.

Hydrogen is dangerous, though. Flammable, which is why you have to be careful, skillful when working on it.

Brother Ernesto is none of these things.

Brother Calvert used to maintain this machine, as well as the CO 2scrubbers, the dehumidifiers. These machines that he tended, he called the most important. And they need constant fixing. The scrubbers stopped working at full capacity years ago. It’s one of the reasons we can only stay submerged for no more than a week at a time before venting. A task Brother Calvert took on with a quiet intensity and carefully taught Lazlo. Lazlo, in turn, has been teaching Brother Ernesto.

But Lazlo is not here.

“Cantor Remy,” Brother Ernesto says, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his robe.

“Lazlo was supposed to be working with you earlier, yes?”

He frowns.

“It’s only… you saw he wasn’t at Terce,” I say.

I glance behind Brother Ernesto, to the hatch that leads to the tunnel, the access to the reactor room, to the engine room. This barrier no one save the elders or a handful of the brothers can cross. Where the Forgotten dwell. Not that anyone in the forward compartments would want to enter. There isn’t even a guard posted.

Brother Ernesto follows my gaze. Squints heavily.

St. John. He must have been listening to everything Lazlo said yesterday. He must have told the caplain. Of course he told.

“Lazlo was a good boy,” Brother Ernesto says, looking down, shaking his head. But this is all he will say. He seems ready to move on.

They are not to be spoken of, those who are sent back.

They are to be forgotten.

Lazlo.

Sent back to toil. To slowly poison himself in the reactor compartment.

I think of the thin, faceless frail bodies I have loaded into the torpedo tubes.

“But this is wrong… Why… He didn’t do anything wrong… He doesn’t deserve this,” I say. My knees go weak. No tendons. I cannot keep standing. It’s as though all of the energy in me has suddenly evaporated.

I fall to the ground, can’t seem to catch my breath.

It’s as though there’s the weight of a sailfish pressing upon my chest.

I feel Brother Ernesto’s hand upon my back.

“Child,” he whispers, intently, urgently, “it is a terrible thing, but you must not do this.”

He grabs my chin, forces me to face him. Looking serious now, holding a blackened finger to his dry lips.

“You should get back to your duties,” Brother Ernesto whispers. “Collect yourself. Don’t let anyone see. Off you go. Use the lower deck…”

But before I can move, a figure steps in through the hatchway.

Ex-Oh Goines enters, head half-ducked, giving Brother Ernesto an admonishing look, one thick eyebrow raised.

Then his heavy, dark eyes level upon me. A withering look that makes me feel the heat of shame. He stares at me silently until I stand. I wipe my eyes, but it is clear that he knows I have been crying. And, of course, he knows that I am not at my assigned station.