Father Saint Stephen continued to me, “That is what happened in those forty days, my child. Think hard that Satan withdrew when he failed to tempt Jesus to damnation, yet also that Satan is said to have bided his time.”
Father Saint Stephen explained that since that day in the wilderness, twenty centuries of blasphemous critics had attacked Jesus’ courage. These critics had declared that mankind will worship anything, bird, star, or machine, for bread, power, and security. The critics said Jesus lacked pity, that he arrogantly presumed mankind was as strong as he. The critics said that mankind was desperately eager to forge even one kingdom on the sand to secure peace and prosperity, and that Jesus was irresponsible and pretentious to refuse Satan’s proffered kingdom, for Jesus then could have provided, however incompletely, some measure of love and health for mankind.
Father Saint Stephen identified the worst of the critics, the Russians, the Germans, the English, and the Americans, who he said were “the weaklings of the north, impatient and reckless.” These in particular claimed that there was so little goodness in the world, the world had become so inhuman, that a leap into Hell might be the only way to test if God still lives. They claimed that if Jesus had doubts enough to accompany Satan to the precipice, then who are we, sad sinners, to presume that God loves us?
In the late twentieth century, these critics had used their attacks to usurp Jesus’ power. Father Saint Stephen said they had announced they could nurture mankind better than Jesus ever had. They had established vast earthly empires that had knitted into one kingdom, filled with towers of Babel, offering food and weapons of security to the multitudes. And the rulers of this blasphemous kingdom had told the servants of God that mankind had no more need of God or knowledge of God. They say that God is a hypothesis that has proved unnecessary.
Father Saint Stephen said that the “obvious” has happened. He said that Satan had bided his time and continued to tempt men, and finally in the late twentieth century he had triumphed. The blasphemous kingdom had fallen under Satan’s control in exchange for food, power, security. It was not enough for Satan. Satan reviled any man who continued to hunger for more than bread, who continued to turn from earthly power for obedience to heavenly wealth, who continued to refuse to test God and his angels. He said that those people that Satan reviled he had had cast out of the blasphemous kingdom. He said that these outcasts were easy to identify, they were “obviously” the most meek, the most wretched, the slaves, the ones for whom God sent Jesus.
“You ask what happened at Ascension Island,” said Father Saint Stephen. “The same that has happened in the Caribbean, aflame with race war, or in the Pacific, where there are famine, tyranny, massacres. Satan slaughters the faithful. It is not enough he has cast them out, now he tempts them to damnation, and they, starving, brutalized, emptied of trust, sin in despair. They flee. How can one hide from Satan?
“And what is to be done?” asked Father Saint Stephen. “Here we are, in a ship we acquired by begging, filled with goods we begged for, because we thought we could nurse these outcasts back to the Lord’s straight path. We are not the only ship, or attempt. It is an ancient tale. And in our agony of good works, we were overwhelmed and exhausted. If you had seen what happened here! Thousands! We prayed for guidance! Reverend Fiddle, you know, you understand! And then there was revelation and mystery!
“Jesus has come into our hearts,” said Father Saint Stephen, smiling, sighing, gesturing, “to inform us that he has loved his children steadfastly for twenty centuries. He has not forgotten his promise to take us into the Kingdom of Heaven. He knew, however, that if he took us directly into God’s love before we had suffered a time in the wilderness, as he had, then we would never understand how magnificent is the Kingdom of God. Jesus has permitted us to suffer, with our free will, to turn from Jesus to Satan. Why? Because he wanted his children to learn the truth that men will live entirely for food, power, security—but that none of this will ever be satisfying! Children will still yearn for righteousness, though they live in palaces and enjoy near immortality and never know fear.”
Father Saint Stephen paused again. I could see he was pleased with his sermon. He asked if we would like a tour of the hold. Did we want to see what mankind’s freedom and learning had brought? Israel lowered his head rather than meet that man’s eyes. They shone with an ethereal recklessness.
“My brothers and I have discovered,” said Father Saint Stephen, hand in the air dramatically, “that the most supreme obedience to Our Lord Jesus Christ is not to feed men, not to assist men in establishing order, not to minister to men when they stumble. We have discovered that the goods in our hold, the learning in our minds, the sacraments we can offer to baptize, or marry, or ordain men to continue their lives—that all this is no longer righteous. We have discovered that Jesus is in our hearts telling us it is time, now, immediately, these last days, to help all the little children in the most loving way. The Lord’s straight path stands revealed. It is death to this sinful world. We celebrate the most courageous human journey, that of passing into the Kingdom of Heaven!”
“The free gift of God,” said Lazarus.
I finished for Grandfather my summary of what Father Saint Stephen had said. Then I added what Lazarus—standing alertly behind Israel—had said, in an even, unsurprised voice. I asked Lazarus what he meant. Grandfather answered for him.
“For sin pays a wage,” said Grandfather, quoting the Fiddle Bible, Paul’s sermon to the Romans, “and the wages of sin is death, but Lord God gives freely, and his gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus Our Lord.”
“God bless you,” said Father Saint Stephen to me, touching my hand, “and may Our Lord’s love come to you swiftly.”
“Get away!” said Grandfather at my side, blocking off Father Saint Stephen.
“Mad, completely mad, do you see, Grim, both of them?” said Israel, moving in front of me, shaking his head, relaxed now, certain.
“This is a death ship,” I said. “They mean for it to be.”
“We suffer the ravages of hellfire,” said Father Saint Stephen, “because we must stay behind while the little souls go on to glory.”
“Grandfather, do you want me to believe him?” I spoke in Swedish, not wanting Father Saint Stephen to understand how shaken I was. “I cannot, not for anything. I think Israel is right. He’s crazy.”
“Not that, Grim, think for yourself,” said Grandfather.
“We should stop them! It isn’t right to give up! We can fight whatever they are afraid of—the British or the Americans, or anyone! Didn’t Jesus fight? He should have! It is crazy to quit! This ship is suicide, and that is insane!”
Grandfather spoke to Father Saint Stephen in German, “My grandson wants to stop you.” At that, they both started to laugh. The other missionaries joined in. How crazy their laughter seemed. I felt humiliated. I felt angry. Israel gave me what sympathy he could manage, a quick nod of agreement. It was small comfort.
Grandfather saw my upset, and turned, “They are not mad, Grim. Disagree with them, but do not dismiss them. As Lord God is my teacher and judge, they are wrong, not mad, wrong! You must learn the difference and the lesson. Them and their works. It all makes them err again. They worship their works, Grim. And when they cannot purchase their way into Heaven, they blame Lord God, and weaken, and break. Yes, Grim, fight! But you must see that your enemy is Satan. This priest is not the enemy. He is wrong!”
Father Saint Stephen set himself, as if to begin another apology. I can suppose now that what entertained those two was their opportunity to argue the Reformation once again: works, faith, justification, sacraments, Martin Luther, and tireless rhetoric. How revealing of them, and their confessions of faith, that they stood eager to dispute abstractions as if in an ecclesiastical court while hundreds agonized in the hold. They did agree on preening talk. They did not agree on correct course of action, the Catholic priest to help others first in order to help himself, the Lutheran pastor to h
elp himself first in order to help others.
It was action that settled the confrontation. Father Saint Stephen overreached himself and ushered his end. He might have genuinely believed that Satan ruled the earth—as worn as those men must have been in trying to minister to the so-called fleet of the damned, they might have hallucinated anything. But Father Saint Stephen had chosen to overlook that those were human beings not theological ideas whom he watched die in the ship’s hold, whom he watched die madly or wrongly, what matter? And an able brother of those people was present to rise up to destroy Father Saint Stephen’s clever talk with certain violence] I mean Lazarus Furore, a fair representative of those late-twentieth-century critics who had reached to establish a kingdom in the wilderness without need of God-talk or God. Lazarus flung himself—exactly like a bird of prey—across the room and against Father Saint Stephen. The two crashed through the table and rolled back against the bulkhead. I did not see Lazarus’s knife. Israel screamed, “Not that way!” Lazarus just screamed, unintelligibly, and then ripped. It was a crime of precision. Is the how worth recording? There is a soft spot at the base of the throat. Lazarus found it. He recoiled from the corpse as suddenly as he had attacked. He staggered backward, met no one’s eyes, wiped his blade on his clothes, found the cabin door by reaching behind him, and was gone.
I crouched defensively, Israel backed away. Grandfather advanced toward the corpse, said, “Lord God forgive them.”
The missionaries reacted sluggishly. Father Hospital looked at me with what could have been either condemnation or compassion. The others lifted the corpse onto the table. They began a prayer in many tongues, at least some of them speaking Latin. I observe now that the effect was babble. Within moments, they conducted themselves as if we were not present.
Grandfather would not permit me to speak. He ordered Israel to get me out. Israel obeyed instantly. We got topside in a rush. Guy met us, demanding information, saying that Lazarus was huddled bloody and delirious in Black Crane. Israel outlined the murder. We three sagged on the quarterdeck, then fell into the work crew loading Black Crane. I made several trips into the hold for crates, and I admit that I have no memory of what I saw. I refused to see what was down there. It was an hour, or hours—time fails in that sort of shock—before Grandfather appeared on deck. He looked past Israel to Otter Ransom and Orlando the Black, declaring, “I shall have that mast down straightaway.”
The End of the Earth
AFTER that defeat, Grandfather gained effective control of his passengers as well as absolute command of his Angel of Death. He again bargained with me: he would get my family to Mexico if I would come away with him afterward. I did not agree, I did not refuse, a passive pledge of obedience that I understood as a final act of disloyalty to Israel. I would not speak against Grandfather in our councils that, to our discredit, became an opportunity for dreary exchanges between the factions on board united only in their fear of Grandfather: Earle baiting Thord; Israel shouting down Guy; Peregrine and Charity obtusely silent. Lazarus regained his composure but distanced himself from all including Cleopatra; he became dogmatic, saying the “revolution” had come and we were caught in a worldwide struggle. It may not have been Grandfather’s intention, yet he came to rule us in the same way he had once subdued the North, by division, subjugation, dismissal.
Grandfather declared our course was southwest for the Strait of Magellan. He said he would not go back through “the flames of perdition” at the equator, nor would he risk “the legions of Satan” in the Caribbean. It was not bad strategy, even if it was based upon grandiose metaphor. I stood with Grandfather; the Turks stood with me; the Furores with no one; my family dissolved in doubts. Grandfather’s will prevailed. We ran the horse latitudes, rode the Brazil Current for weeks; our progress was cautious and erratic, standing well seaward of the coastline and, after we were fired upon by a convoy of freighters, of the sea-lanes as well. We suffered squalls, ghastly heat, innumerable sightings of wreckage and corpses on rafts; we witnessed at least one large sea battle off Rio de Janeiro, gun flashes and deep thunder two nights running; we were chased soon after by two small vessels booming out of the edge of twilight. We no longer hesitated about derelicts or ships in distress. We monitored the radio waves to find more of the same silence we had experienced off Europe. We did see a plume of fire off the mouth of the River Plate; perhaps there are records of catastrophe at Montevideo. We assumed there was only disaster on that coastline.
Grandfather reconsidered his intention not to stop again. He weighed a new notion to make a landfall somewhere on the Falkland Islands, a rugged archipelago several days’ hard sail east of Tierra del Fuego and the Strait of Magellan. He worried about the jerry-rigged foremast and the damage to the bow. Worse, a blow off Cape Tres Puntas sent us careening into the South Atlantic, and beating back west ripped our best sails. I encouraged Grandfather’s reassessment because of my worry for our health: we were all heartsick; at least one of us, Gizur, was mind-sick (I was not unaware of Lazarus’s black mood, just insensitive); and we had infections, malnutrition, Earle’s back pain, Molly’s listlessness. Grandfather and I conferred over the charts and made a decision. Grandfather did not inform Israel, Guy, or Thord of our new course. I was too ashamed of my collusion with Grandfather to do more than mention that we were bound for a stop-off before making for the Pacific. Grandfather gave his sailing orders. He was obeyed.
We wore around one of the two large islands, East Falkland, keeping well clear in a freakish late summer storm of very dirty rain and heavy seas. By nightfall, we drew opposite where I put the capital of the archipelago, Port Stanley. We stood in close enough for Wild Drumrul to report large concentrations of campfires on the hillsides. At daybreak, a baffling fog closed on us and we put to sea again, hearing very distant booms to the south that we hoped were thunderclaps. At twilight, the fog lifted enough for us to observe several cutters well to port, making for Port Stanley. We came about to the south, back into fogbanks. We passed where I put the southern shore of East Falkland at moonrising, and decided to risk one of the out islands. I chose Mead’s Kiss, on my chart several miles off the southern cliffs. I was anxious by then, because my charts were too general; I had become acutely aware that one of the chief things we needed for Tierra del Fuego was better sailing information. We circled the lee shore of Mead’s Kiss, fighting contrary winds and another squall. There were campfires at several places on the north shore, so I chose what seemed a deep cove on the southern shore, and at dawn, with an opening in the fog, I took the jolly and a party to reconnoiter. I found a dilapidated weather station and a stone-built sealer’s shack. At my signal, Grandfather brought Angel of Death into the cove. That morning, we ate our first meal on land in more than three months.
The first days we gave to reconnaissance, security, and rest. Mead’s Kiss was a four-mile-long triangle of treeless moors, penguin and seal rookeries, and battered cliffs. It seemed pastoral to us, more forgotten than desolate, a sense confused by the many sheep skeletons we found and by an unusual layer of black soot gathered in drifts in the rock crevasses. The campfires on the north shore of Mead’s Kiss were those of two large refugee parties. We avoided contact. When some of their number spied on us, we brandished our guns and showed our dogs and they scampered back to their part of the island. It is sad to suppose that they were more frightened of us than of their plight. Their ships were finished.
After establishing our defense, we worked at rehabilitating ourselves and Angel of Death. We fixed the sealer’s shack against the incessant wind and filthy rains. We fashioned a makeshift dry dock to get to the bow damage, removed the broken foremast to retop it by lashing on the mizzenmast pilfered from The Free Gift of God. At Gizur’s direction, we mended our sails; at Grandfather’s command, we reconditioned and cleaned Angel of Death.
Grandfather was blunt that we must leave before the storms that would begin in March. Within two weeks, we were set, except for two essentials: We were very short of fr
esh food; we had no information of conditions in the Strait. At a council, a reconnaissance to East Falkland was proposed, debated, voted upon in the affirmative. I was to lead the party. Grandfather dissented implacably. Grandfather had been unseated in his authority over us the moment we touched land, and knew it, and yet would not acknowledge it. He would not directly denounce Israel and Guy. He talked through me. He said that our fortnight on Mead’s Kiss was “Lord God’s grace,” and that we were fools to divide ourselves. He added, “They opposed me landing here. They oppose me when I want to leave. They are sheep! Like those bones there, they will not gather to their shepherd. I say damn them, damn all men who have eyes and ears and hearts but will not see and hear and turn to understand Lord God’s judgment on the sins of unbelievers!”
Israel and Guy scoffed at Grandfather’s advice; indeed, they seemed reinforced in their opinion by his prejudice against them. I was more upset by the quarrel than either side was. They were comfortable in their contempt for each other.
I recall that, soon after the council, I challenged Cleopatra with Grandfather’s declaration that we should not separate. I repeated it exactly. And why? I think that I wanted to engage her in order to test myself against her mind. I simply wanted to get her attention. And she shocked me. She was not unmoved by Grandfather’s warning. She spoke seriously of him and what she called “the Norse reach.” I felt proud. She had inadvertently used my way of thinking of myself. It was as if she admired my seamanship, more, for she seemed to evidence appreciation of my birthright. Cleopatra did not actually intend her remarks that way. She meant near opposite, adding, “You and he are crude, prototypical in some fashion new to me. You get what you want by pursuing ends without doubts. I’m curious if it is that you can’t recognize my world or I yours. How can you be certain like this? I have studied you. You don’t hesitate, or flinch, or reverse. You do this because you say it has to be done, then you do that. Do you think abstractly? Do you have an imagination? Are you happy or sad or afraid? Lazarus and I talk about what it could be you two have or know that makes you like those wolves of yours. Your dogs live in the shade of your existence. They would sleep on that fire for you because they believe in you completely. What do you believe in? Or is it that you are utterly primitive? That to crash through each experience is what you do, all you know to do, and I am irrelevantly imposing a pattern on you? Am I making the mistake of anthropology, presuming you have reasons when you only have reactions? Your Grandfather’s ‘Lord God’ seems to mean something to him. What? He’s no theologian. He’s a power. You’re a power. This fascinates me. If you wanted me, for no reason, because I was there to take, I doubt you could be stopped. Could you be? What would stop you? If we are sheep to you, to your Grandfather, does that make you the wolf? Who could your shepherd be? Do you know what I’m talking about? Mother says that man, your father, he doesn’t know what you are capable of. He’s been frightened of you for years. Not afraid, precisely, that would be too much. Better to say, under your power. The power of the barbarous. Do you see how the others treat you and your grandfather? When you turn on that face of yours, they get out of your way. I saw it at Vexbeggar. It stunned me. Israel says you saw me at the Nobel Prize ball. Is that where I remember your face from? You can look like a face in a nightmare. You mock civilization when you look like that. I can’t solve this. What are you for? What are you reaching for?”
The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica Page 17