The Philosopher’s Apprentice

by James Morrow

  “Oh, yes,” I hissed between clenched teeth. What else was I supposed to say?

  Londa scanned the mob with a piercing eye, fixing first on Ralph Gittikac, then on Enoch Anthem, and finally on Felix Pielmeister. “Could it be that your teachers are right?” she said, each syllable dripping with derision. “A few days of tender loving privation, and you’ll all acquire a moral compass? I like to think so. In any event it’s time we returned you to your quarters. Enjoy your staterooms whilst ye may, masters of the universe, for there are no Persian rugs on G deck, nor damask curtains, nor flutes of champagne—as a matter of fact, it’s rather like a darkling plain down there, where ignorant armies clash by night.”

  SOCIALIST IN WORLDVIEW and cynical in sensibility, Colonel Fox predicted that the third-class passengers would leap at the opportunity to trade stations with the Phyllistines. What she didn’t understand was that the cheapest Titanic Redux tickets had been purchased not by oppressed Old World wage slaves eager to inaugurate a dictatorship of the proletariat, but by unionized European factory workers and civil servants who had no particular problem with the prevailing economic order and whose presence on the ship reflected a simple desire to cross the Atlantic at a bargain rate. When the Valkyries explained to these thrifty British, Irish, Scottish, French, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, and German voyagers that rather than spending the rest of their vacations in the United States, they could remain on the Redux and be treated like royalty, only three dozen out of five hundred and fourteen accepted the offer—a number sufficient for Londa to claim that she’d turned the status quo on its head, though hardly the Marxist revolution forecast by Colonel Fox. I could not fault the vacationers’ wariness. Given a choice between putting to shore right now and spending three weeks in the company of thirty-one Uzi-armed harpies on a floating munitions dump, I likewise would have erred on the side of caution.

  At first light I staggered from my cabin and ascended the companionways, arriving on the boat deck right before we dropped anchor off the Jersey coast. A dozen seamen and all four junior officers hovered near the lifeboats, removing the canvas tarps, plugging the drainage holes, unlocking the davits. Soon the second-class passengers appeared, most wearing expressions of blasé resignation, as if throughout their second-class lives they’d endured many such instances of monumental inconvenience. Next came the plutocrats’ families—two hundred and eight angry wives, three befuddled husbands, several dozen confused children—followed by those scores of third-class passengers who’d been rational enough to turn down Londa’s offer of an all-expenses-paid cruise to the heart of her darkness. Last to arrive was the Redux’s twenty-one-piece orchestra, along with forty or so stewards, waiters, and scullerymen who’d decided to jump ship while they could.

  Perched on the wheelhouse roof, amplifying her authority through a battery-powered megaphone, Londa directed the evacuation with the zeal of a creationist impresario barking outside a carnival tent where a vatling Charles Darwin stood atoning for the theory of natural selection. She assured everyone that the bay was only slightly choppy this morning, “which means you’ll have no trouble rowing to Brigantine,” then added that there were still plenty of unreserved first-class staterooms for any third-class passengers who wanted to “stick around and be waited on hand and foot by CEOs who earn upwards of two million dollars a year.”

  As Londa made her pitch, I retreated to the bridge and continued observing the spectacle from the starboard wing, where I was soon joined by my aide-de-camp, gripping a pair of binoculars. It happened that Lieutenant Kristowski was a native of these shores, having grown up in the Atlantic City suburb of Absecon. “The state flower of New Jersey is the common violet,” she explained, smirking, “the state bird is the eastern goldfinch, and the state fragrance is unrefined petroleum.”

  I scanned the lifeboats, each hovering two feet above the deck on its davits. Londa, shouting, announced that before taking a seat each departing voyager must present his passport to a junior officer and demonstrate that he’d not exceeded the luggage quota: a single valise or sack jammed with cash, jewelry, medicines, laptop—whatever items he’d deemed indispensable. Many evacuees refused to climb aboard until they’d received an officer’s personal assurance that their remaining worldly goods would be stowed away and ultimately returned. In lieu of conventional baggage, three plutocrat wives had brought along their dogs—pug, basset hound, cairn terrier—and because each pet was secured in a plastic carrier, nobody raised any objections.

  Once Londa felt satisfied that the loading operation was proceeding apace, she permitted the captive Phyllistines to leave the staterooms and come on deck. Per Colonel Fox’s orders, they arrived still dressed in their pajamas. Searching for their families, our hostages surveyed the crowded lifeboats with eyes that betrayed, variously, rage, bewilderment, shock, and longing. A succession of farewells followed, some quite poignant, though probably none as wrenching as the partings that had occurred a thousand leagues to the northeast on the morning of April 15, 1912. Reaching over the gunwale of her lifeboat, Enoch Anthem accorded his chubby, whey-faced bride a protracted embrace. Ralph Gittikac was obliged to perform an especially elaborate adieu, as he’d embarked with an entourage that included his wife, their four daughters, and his divorced sister’s grumpy adolescent son. Felix Pielmeister did not appear on the boat deck that morning, so I assumed he’d left Southampton unaccompanied.

  On Londa’s orders, the junior officers swung the lifeboats out over the water—a frightening experience for the evacuees, judging from their howls and shrieks—then further employed the davits to send these same voyagers on a brief but bumpy downward ride. Throughout the lowering process, the Brigantine harbor police, tooling around in their patrol boats, worked diligently to keep the local fishing dories and pleasure craft out of the Redux’s vicinity. For the moment, at least, our plastique was having the effect Londa desired.

  Within a half-hour, all the evacuees were bobbing about on the pounding, foam-flecked bay. Their attempts to work the lifeboat oars proved unintentionally comical, but their incompetence hardly mattered, as the tide was rolling landward. Assuming no boat sprang a leak, our superfluous passengers would reach Brigantine in time for lunch.

  Borrowing the binoculars from Lieutenant Kristowski, I studied the crowded shore. It seemed that half the population of New Jersey was milling around on the beach, and I wondered what had inspired them to get up so early on a Saturday morning. While some onlookers had probably come to glimpse the fabled ship, others doubtless hoped to witness a rescue attempt by the Coast Guard or a SWAT team, still others to express their solidarity with the abducted plutocrats. And surely our audience included scores of Sabacthanites: youthful idealists who owned complete runs of The League of Londa, boasted full sets of Dame Quixote trading cards, and spent their free time mastering the way of the Splanx.

  Even as the evacuees headed for Brigantine, a flotilla came cruising toward us: two tugs hauling a barge bearing the additional coal required by this unforeseen amendment to the maiden voyage—so ran Lieutenant Kristowski’s explanation—plus three bumboats loaded with food, sundries, and prescription-drug refills, Major Powers having researched the hostages’ medical histories as part of the general strategizing for Operation PG.

  “So what’s our next port of call?” I asked my aide-de-camp.

  “There isn’t one, sir. We’re going to steam in circles until our hostages get cured or the Coast Guard shows up.”

  “And what happens if the Coast Guard shows up?”

  “We can count on Dr. Sabacthani to exercise restraint,” Lieutenant Kristowski said, pulling out her Godgadget. The metallic casing glinted in the morning sun. “Samson didn’t slay those four thousand Philistines until he was up against the wall, and Dr. Sabacthani won’t start whacking away at our own Phyllistines until it’s absolutely necessary.”

  SHORTLY BEFORE NINE O’CLOCK, the Titanic Redux weighed anchor, the bumboat supplies having been stowed away, the coal ba
rge lashed to our stern, and the demoted plutocrats exiled—sans clothing, laptops, cell phones, radios, money, and other such earthly possessions—to their draconian digs in the bowels of the ship. As the great voyage to nowhere began, I bade Lieutenant Kristowski adieu and retired to the Café Parisien, a swank first-class eatery on B deck, featuring bilingual menus and international cuisine. The cooks were happy to whip me up an extravagant breakfast: cheese omelet, Belgian waffles, croissants, fruit salad. I carried the feast to the table myself, as the former first-class passengers hadn’t been assigned their duties yet. No sooner had I taken my first bite than the stirring “Gonna Fly Now” theme Bill Conti had composed for Rocky filled the air, borne throughout the café—and the rest of the ship, too, I assumed—by the public-address system.

  “Good morning, masters of the universe and mistresses of creation!” boomed Londa’s disembodied voice over the brass-heavy melody. The music diminished in volume, and she proceeded to lecture the hostages in the tone of a Devil’s Island commandant intimidating new arrivals. “This is Dame Quixote, welcoming you to the premiere of The Last Shall Be First, the one and only radio program originating aboard the Titanic Redux—local in its coverage, planetary in its reach, universal in its message!” The music swelled, then dropped away as Londa resumed talking. “Before long, dozens of stations will be broadcasting The Last Shall Be First to every corner of the globe. Doubtless your friends and relatives will tune in each episode, eager to know about life aboard the Ship of Dreams.”

  A tremulous anticipation seized the recently promoted first-class passengers in the Café Parisien. They set down their utensils and cocked their ears toward the loudspeaker, a fluted cone mounted on an Art Nouveau pillar.

  “Many of you are familiar with the Revelation to Saint John—hardly the noblest book in the Bible, though certainly the most garish, bursting with action and special effects, the summer blockbuster of the New Testament. I’m sure you remember the spectacular onslaught in chapter six, the thrilling cavalry charge of War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. Look inward, masters of the universe, and you will realize that the horseman called War has already arrived. I speak now of the conflict raging within each of you, that grand battle between your inflated self and your atrophied soul. As for Famine, Pestilence, and Death, they are not far behind.”

  After this pompous prelude, Londa shifted to pragmatic matters. A new monetary system had been instituted aboard the Redux, she explained, predicated on a medium of exchange called the lucre. Thanks to the bumboats, seven thousand freshly printed lucres in several denominations now filled the bank vault. For the duration of the voyage, the former first-class passengers would toil at “monotonous but spiritually rewarding jobs,” receiving a wage of five lucres per day.

  “Would you like my advice? Practice frugality and you’ll be able to make all sorts of impulse purchases, such as, for example, food.”

  She went on to assure the Phyllistines that although their private health-insurance policies were invalid under the new regime, their physical well-being would not suffer. The ship’s pharmacy was brimming with the drugs they took for their assorted ailments—diabetes, kidney disease, congestive heart failure, depression—and every pill would be distributed free of charge.

  “In other words, simply by booking passage on the Redux, you became beneficiaries of our socialized health-care system. I can’t help pointing out that two of your fellow voyagers, Senator Frank Endicott of Iowa and Senator Rupert Marbury of Alabama, have worked unstintingly to keep America’s citizens from enjoying affordable medical insurance. You can thank whatever gods may be that Endicott and Marbury are not in charge of political arrangements aboard this ship.”

  For the next twenty minutes, the plutocrats learned of the scrubbing, scouring, waxing, polishing, scraping, painting, swabbing, lifting, loading, toting, fetching, ferrying, and fawning jobs they would be performing in the days to come, and then the audio engineer snuck in the Rocky theme.

  “And so, masters of the universe, until the next exciting episode of The Last Shall Be First, this is Dame Quixote wishing you a memorable and enlightening voyage!”

  The music swelled to a crescendo. I took a final sip of coffee, sopped up a dribble of egg with a waffle, and considered what to do next. My great urge was to seek out Londa and tell her that in my opinion this crude approach to curing the Phyllistines was certain to fail, but I figured she hadn’t slept in the last twenty-four hours, so it would be prudent to postpone my visit. With a confused heart and an ambivalent gait, I returned to my D-deck cabin, where I spent the rest of the day revisiting Middle Earth while glutting myself on room-service lobster tails, delivered in person by Senator Endicott. I thanked him for his trouble. He told me to go crack a walnut in my ass.

  At nine the next morning, episode two of The Last Shall Be First came pouring from the ceiling speaker and gushed uninvited into my brain. As the Rocky theme faded, Londa started gleefully enumerating the menial tasks the plutocrats had completed during their first day under the new regime. I looked around for ways to silence the broadcast. Eventually I resorted to repositioning my writing desk under the speaker, stacking books on top, and capping the pile with a pillow pressed tightly between Londa’s sardonic recitation and A Farewell to Arms.

  I passed the afternoon putting Hemingway’s novel to a different use, immersing myself in Frederic Henry’s problems by way of escaping my own, most especially my anxiety over being in love with a person whose aptitude for malice seemed to increase every day. Shortly after six o’clock, Lieutenant Kristowski appeared at my door with an invitation from on high. If it would not be inconvenient, might I come to OPG headquarters for “mumquat and moral discourse”?

  “Lead the way,” I told my aide-de-camp.

  “Did you hear this morning’s broadcast, sir? Sounds like those folks on G deck are going to get their improved pineal glands sooner rather than later.”

  ALTHOUGH THE B-DECK corridor presided over by Dagmar Röhrig had been designated the reception area, anyone seeking an audience with Dr. Sabacthani was in fact received by two Valkyries who regarded most supplicants with the same caliber of suspicion Omar the Doberman had accorded all visitors to Casa de los Huesos. They were a redoubtable pair, the imposing corporal evoking the bronze Themis who’d once graced the fallen city, the lithe sergeant suggesting Alonso the Conquistador following a sex-change operation. A simple nod from Lieutenant Kristowski was sufficient to make the guards step aside—she outranked them both—whereupon Dagmar abandoned her desk, guided us along a glass-walled promenade offering spectacular views of a calm North Atlantic sea, and ushered us into the Louis XIV parlor suite that now functioned as Londa’s command-and-control center.

  True to her solidarity with the downtrodden, she’d peeled away the suite’s opulent trappings, so it was up to my imagination to supply the brocade draperies, Persian carpets, gilt-framed mirrors, and Fragonard reproductions that had doubtless once appointed the place. Although her surroundings were spare, Londa herself had opted for elegance that evening, her lips daubed with magenta, her exquisite skin wrapped in a strapless green taffeta evening gown. After gesturing Dagmar and Lieutenant Kristowski away, she gave me the sort of deep, aqueous kiss at which undines are adept, then sidled toward a serving table where a samovar stood heating over an open flame.

  “Ever drunk your nectar warm, darling?” she asked, indicating the great silver urn. “Dagmar recommends the experience, so I thought we’d try it.” She worked the stopcock, filling a black ceramic mug with a steaming measure of Proserpine. “Naturally I hoped we’d get together before now, but it’s been pure madness around here, with more chaos to come.”

  “I heard your first two broadcasts. I guess you think you’re being unbelievably brilliant inflicting poetic justice on the Phyllistines—”

  “Not brilliant necessarily. Clever, I suppose. Droll.”

  “But paying them starvation wages, that’s cruel.”

  She presented me with
eight savory ounces of equanimity. “At the risk of sounding rather too forward, I’ll get right to the point. I would like to formalize our bond.”

  My heart seemed to rotate on its axis. Formalize our bond? What was she suggesting? That we march straight into Captain Pittinger’s cabin and demand that he marry us? A bizarre nuptial tableau flashed through my mind, at once beguiling and repulsive, Londa and myself standing before the master of the Redux, the vatling in her evening gown, her groom wearing a three-piece Italian suit that had once belonged to a plutocrat, Dagmar and Lieutenant Kristowski getting ready to pelt us with rice. Did such a union make sense at any level? Would marrying Londa give me some sort of psychological leverage, a kind of Splanx-like power by which I might convince her to shut down Operation PG?

  “My most precious and impossible undine,” I sighed. “My infinitely exasperating sylph.”

  Londa stared at me as if I’d started speaking Chinese. “I’m wild about you, too, Mason, but that’s another day’s conversation. Right now we have to fix the Phyllistines.”

  “You said this was about our bond.”

  “Correct. Ambrose and Sabacthani, united against the misogynists and theocrats.” She turned the stopcock and filled a second mug. “Ah, now I get it—you’re referring to another sort of bond: Sythia and Thales, rolling around on their secret beach.” Her tone was wistful, as if our lovemaking had occurred in some mythic realm beyond time and space. “Believe me, Mason, I get goose bumps just thinking about that day, and if it gave you further proof of my good intentions, so much the better.”

  My overwhelming impulse just then was to bounce the ceramic mug off her skull. “Are you saying that because you fucked me, I’m now supposed to go along with this hijacking crap?”

  “I suggest we not dwell on those aspects of Operation PG you find objectionable. Let’s focus on the greater good.”

  “May I once again quote you to yourself? ‘There are no greater goods.’”