Runaway Nun (Misbegotten) (4 page)

6

Nautilus
finally arrived one hour past
midnight.

She brought back from the island ten
replikas: two Freuds, two Churchills, one Hitler, and five Cannies. The Cannies
were in bad shape—tripping in and out, fighting epileptic seizures,
vomiting blood. All five died within half an hour of reaching
Domus Mariae
. Father Micon rushed to
their side, but only one slipped out of his coma and regained consciousness long
enough to accept the last rites.

Flesh from the flesh of men, souls robbed from on high…

The last Canny, a young woman with
piercing purple eyes and orange hair, had a hard time letting go. She kept
lashing at the monks and nuns gathered around the bed, jerking her head, foaming
at the mouth, trying to bite. Her eyes about to snap out of her ravaged
sockets, she kept yelling guttural words in a strange idiom, a language dark
and coarse. It took three hulking monks to keep her down. Her lacerated body
let out a putrid stench that reeked of hidden tumors and puss and only God knew
what cohort of worms rioted her flesh. Or maybe He didn’t... Micon had never
thought that God’s knowledge extended into the recesses of Hell, so it was more
likely that He himself was watching the Canny’s torment with nothing more than
a sentient detachment. The Franciscan priest tried to exorcise the dying Canny,
but gave up halfway through the invocation prayer. Behind the replika’s desperate
struggle to hold on to life, Micon recognized fear—the fear at the
threshold between life and eternity—and not a cohort of demons. He
sprinkled her with holy water,
then
ordered for her to
be restrained with ropes. They all watched her agony winding down, the blood
and spittle drying around her mouth, her raging utterances ascending toward
Heaven in less and less fervent outbursts. When she finally died, the ropes had
cut into her self-mutilated arms, pulling both skin and tissue aside to expose
the white of her tibia.

God’s grace rules over Heaven and Hell, high in the boundless sky and
down into the darkest depths of the ocean. No flesh is ever hidden from His
eyes…

Father Micon watched as the five
corpses were wrapped in burial shrouds. All in God’s good time, he thought as
he traced the sign of the cross over the Cannies’ heads, their long fangs
protruding from between death-frozen lips, clenched tight over their chins. He
never looked at them as DNA-mutated creatures whose chromosomes had more in
common with those of cave lions than with the humans they outwardly resembled.
To him, anybody who left Harlequin Island on his own accord was a soul God had
called unto Himself.

His love relentlessly chases everyone, whether born from a woman or molded
inside a vat—the misbegotten ones, those with no mother. And no father
but God Himself…

The five Cannies were buried
hastily at sea the same night.

Right before the gangplank lowered
them toward their watery grave, the curtain of clouds pulled aside for a few
swift moments and the moon shone upon their veiled bodies.

A stubborn, jealous God, the Maker and Finisher of this world.

By sunrise,
Domus Mariae
braced the ocean gracefully, her massive keel crushing the giant waves in her
way. Deep down in the ship’s belly, inside a reactor shielded by a hundred tons
of lead, a core of uranium the size of man’s fist turned water into steam and
pumped it into the twin engines that made the steel floating abbey slide
effortlessly across the rimmed face of the sea and away from Harlequin Island.

7

A carpet of dusky clouds was slowly unfolding over the
continental shore. Once in a while, lightning shimmered through, painting the
advancing dark mantle with strokes of purple and orange, yet still too far in
the distance to be heard. To the East, the ocean looked laden with molten
steel, with no horizon line to separate the sky from the waters below.

Black smoke
chortling from the engine’s exhaust, rotors tirelessly slashing the air, the
old Huey chopper banked tight on a loop around the imposing statue.
From before the controls of the
helicopter, Elano and Ulf took their eyes off the incoming storm and gazed out
the cabin’s window at the massive restoration work in progress on the grounds
below, where Our Lady of Sorrow of New York was slowly reborn from the rubble
of a defunct world.

Elano had seen the
Church-sanctioned blueprints a year before, during the last meeting of the
Curia he’d attended, but, watching the colossus that once stood as a symbol for
freedom transformed into the ultimate effigy of the Catholic faith, he was at
once awestruck. A giant cross had replaced the torch; gone was the tablet from
her left hand, and now scaffolds and pulleys surrounded the vacant space inside
her coiled arm awaiting the Holy Infant to be laid.

2097 A. D. was the year Inocentis
III had chosen to dedicate once and for all the land of Amerikania to the
sacred heart of the Virgin. Thirty years after the seven fiery rocks hurled
from heavens had left the human race in no doubt about God’s displeasure with
his prodigal planet, Our Lady was finally adorned for the ceremony. But there
was still work to be done, and it looked like Passover—which was one week
away—was a deadline the Church would not be able to meet, Elano thought,
even if all the masons, engineers and builders were to work around the clock.

On its second pass, Elano brought
the helicopter low enough to discern more of the frantic toil going on below:
teams of masons were putting the finishing touches on the giant sculpture of a
reclined infant, naked and chubby with his feet up in the air and hands
stretched out in adoration. Atop a small scaffold, a group of priests,
engineers, and architects pored over rolls of blueprints. Heaps of sand and
carved stone, pilling, bags of concrete, and stacks of long, steel pipes
littered the grounds.

The last thing Elano and Ulf
caught a glimpse of before heading inland was a friar leading a team of donkeys
harnessed to a cart loaded with a huge hydraulic pump. Half a dozen workers walked
on either side, keeping their eyes on the clunky mechanical concoction, supporting
it with their hands, as the friar guided the cart toward the entrance to the
base of the statue. Alerted by the thumping of the helicopter’s blades, the
workers turned their heads toward the unexpected visitor swooping above. A few
waved; from behind the cockpit’s windshield, Elano waved back.

Leaving
the statue behind, the helicopter continued its journey flying low over New
York City—a grim panorama made of acres upon acres of nothing but heaps
of corroded steel frames, crushed blocks of concrete, and gutted buildings.
Patches of wild vegetation spread in dense leaf canopies covering the rubbles in
myriad hues of green. An abandoned highway winded its way through the emerging
jungle of ailanthus trees and onion grass, its cracked asphalt plates overrun
by thick shrubbery. At a junction where multiple roads crisscrossed like a
toddler’s poorly tied shoelaces, the overhead passes had collapsed and now
red-tailed hawks were nesting atop the still-standing abutments. Scattered
haphazardly, makeshift shelters—chunks of wall covered with roofs made
out of sheets of scrap metal or tent canvases—peppered the ruin-laden
landscape like the crude huts of a medieval shantytown.

In the shadow of a jagged dune of
fallen limestone and granite blocks, a marketplace was in full swing. A throng
of buyers gathered around wicker baskets full of shriveled vegetables, leftovers
from a long winter, or in front of tables
laid
with
jars of pickled fruit and bags of seeds. Smoked meats hung from rafters.
Bundles of furs, mostly from small animals—raccoons, rabbits, and once in
a while a fox—stood on display nailed onto board planks. Blacksmiths
brandished their tools, banging their iron blades against each other, counting the
seconds like some out-of-sync human metronomes. From underneath a
still-standing façade with the words TRAL STATION hanging under a truce, brewers
kept enticing passersby to an early-morning thirst-quencher to get them through
another day in the ruins; there was plenty of ale and cider in their kegs, and
plenty of souls who needed to forget or were ready to pretend. Strolling in from
around slabs of concrete covered in lichens and wild poison ivy, police monks
surveyed the crowd with frowning eyes. At their sight, beggars in rags
disappeared hastily among the mounds of rubble. So did the vagabond dogs.

As the helicopter thumped low over
their heads, everyone stopped and stared at the sky for a brief moment, then
returned to the business at hand.

Elano
gently pulled back on the cyclic stick. The old Huey vibrated and gained
altitude immediately as it prepared to fly over the giant pit five miles in
diameter that suddenly emerged before the pilots’ eyes: The Crater of God’s
Enduring Mercies… The earth bore the mark of divine justice with silent
resignation; to Elano, it looked like an invisible hand had scooped out a giant
tumor and left behind a grotesque wound never to close again. A Pilgrim Center
operated by the Carmelite nuns had been built on its Eastern ridge, the one
close to the city. It was early morning, but a school bus was already pulling
up to its entrance for the first tour of the day.

On its farther Western ridge,
perched atop a mangled outcrop, stood an imposing edifice fifty stories high:
the headquarters of the New Vatikan, an architectural hybrid between the Empire
State Building and Notre Dame Cathedral strapped in steel armature and layers
upon layers of stained glass. Intricate formations of flying buttresses and
spires cluttered its granite façade. Saint-adorned pinnacles poked at the sky
on every corner—one halo-accessorized man or woman for every day in the
calendar. And crosses; too many to count, some with the gaunt Man of Nazareth
sagging in tireless abandon, others still vacant.

The helipad was located behind the
main steeple, so Elano guided the Huey around the soaring geodesic dome that
hosted the nave of the adjacent Saint Peter cathedral,
then
handed the commands over to Ulf, giving the young monk a chance to practice his
skills.

Ulf took over the chopper and
brought it to the ground in a perfect, smooth landing.

Bishop
Hurlin was a sullen man in his sixties who wore the golden-buttoned, red
Cardinal mantle fastened over his rotund belly with the distinction of a whale
strapped in a tuxedo. He waited for the chopper’s rotors to wind down, and for Elano
and his companion to climb out. He noticed the Jesuit warriors’ determined
step, and the envy of the civilian who never swung a sword, never tasted the
rush of adrenaline in the heat of battle, flickered on his face briefly.

“God have mercy,” he muttered
under his breath. He caressed his belly, arranged the cross around his neck,
and took two steps to meet Elano.

“It’s been a while, Monsignor,”
Hurlin said. He grimaced, hesitating to give the young Jesuit Cardinal the
customary embrace and holy kiss. Elano ignored the half gesture and headed
straight toward the access into the building—a tall, spiked gate at the
edge of the helipad guarded by two Swiss guards decked in full regalia.

“What do they feed you here, Hurlin
dear?” Elano said, glancing at Hurlin’s bulging gut.

Too taken to react, Hurlin bowed
his head and fell into step alongside Elano.

“Monsignor, at my age—,” he
mumbled.

“The flesh lusts against the
Spirit, and the Spirit lusts against the flesh. Or, if you would allow me to
translate it for you: the more fat, the less Spirit.”

“We all struggle, Monsignor,”
Hurlin replied. “The sins that beset one’s soul are not another soul’s
struggle. God doesn’t give us more than we can bear—”

“Save your sermons for your altar
boys, Bishop. So, are you keeping the Holy Father on the straight and narrow
these days?”

“Oh, his Holiness is—thank
God for His anointment! May the Holy Father’s name be blessed on Earth as it is
in
Heaven.
Amen.”

“His name shall be called
Blessed
of the Almighty, Patron of the Obese,” Elano said.

Hurlin rolled his eyes and crossed
himself
hurriedly. Together they passed between the
two Swiss guards who drew their lances in and snapped at attention. Elano
returned the salute with a nod and walked through the gateway.

“Mercy, Monsignor, mercy,” Hurlin
mumbled as he trailed Elano inside the building.

“Stop begging. Mercy’s in short
supply these days, Bishop,” Elano said. “You of all people should know better.”

The footsteps of the two men
echoed from the dark concourse.

8

Holding hands, scores of boys and girls dressed in the
sackcloth uniforms of the Orphanages of the Sacred Heart climbed down from the
school bus parked at the entrance of the Pilgrim Center. Made out of red bricks
neatly stacked around a skeleton of concrete beams and truces, the flat-roof one-story
building sat on the very edge of the crater. All the way in the back, a lookout
deck—wooden planks atop a steel frame—extended for thirty yards over
the precipice of the giant drop.

The children gathered in front of
the Center’s closed doors. Shaking the numbness away from their stiff bodies,
they proceeded to scuffle, skip around, and pull innocent pranks at one
another’s expense. The group of accompanying Carmelite nuns tried to quiet them
down, while helping them form two lines. The children kept on chatting
excitedly, tugging at each other, jostling to be first in line. The nuns’
patience was endless, the grip on the children’s shoulders firm.

A thunder rumbled high in the sky
and all eyes turned toward the blanket of contorted, dirty-grey clouds rolling
in from the Atlantic. Like a runaway ghost, a wind gust rustled as it twirled
around the redbrick building, caressed the children’s faces,
then
descended with a sinister shriek into the darkened crevice.

The doors finally opened.

Inside
the Center, the children gathered around Sister Deborah, a high-strung nun with
parchment-like skin stretched tightly over a face soaked in contrition save for
a pair of frigid eyes. She looked frozen at an age that was deemed to remain a
forever mystery, just like the truths of the faith she held so dear to her
heart. As the Prioress who ran the Center, Sister Deborah always took it upon
herself to lead the first guided tour of the day—a duty she’d performed
for the past ten years with the unquestionable resignation of a holy penance.
Hands folded on top of each other over her heart, a rosary wrapped around her
mummified fingers, she waited until the children’s curious murmuring came to an
end. Once she had their attention, she pointed toward an exhibit with a dozen
floor-to-ceiling posters displaying the skyline of Manhattan before the Blessed
Collision, the long string of skyscrapers aiming for the sky like a mishmash of
uneven volume bars on the display of a musical console.

“They said in their hearts, ‘Let
us ascend to the Most High, let us build towers that will reach the
Unreachable, let us make a name for ourselves high in the heavens,’” Sister
Deborah recited in one breath. There was no intonation in her voice—the
sacred quote contained a simple statement of fact, profound and definitive, and
sinful lips needed not waste time embellishing it. Her hand remained aimed at
the posters like a prosecutor pointing at a culprit soon to be entrusted into
the merciful care of the hangman.

Enthralled at the sight of the
soaring buildings of the World Before, the children kept panning their prying
eyes from one jagged skyrise to another.

“But God, in His ever-abounding
mercy, did not let man reach up to Him, since He has already reached down to
each one of us in his Son, Jesus the Christ, His Name be blessed throughout
eternity,” Sister Deborah said. She lowered her arm and closed her eyes.

“Amen,” the children responded with
one voice.

From the wall, the other nuns
crossed themselves in silence.

Sister Deborah’s eyes remained
closed for a few seconds, heavy with pondering. When she finally opened them,
she saw lightning in the East descending from the sky, the fractured jolts of
electricity lashing at the earth with a fury. A rumbling thunder followed. The
windows of the Center vibrated.

As
the nuns guided the batch of orphans onto the lookout deck, a skinny boy, the
youngest of the group, tarried behind in front of a giant poster of Central
Park. He took a few steps closer and almost touched the laminated surface of
the photograph with his nose. His eyes skipped from one detail to another: the
hotdog stand, men and women in shorts running on the sidewalks, yellow cabs, a
mounted cop on a pitch-black horse, a long row of children walking hand in hand
past a clown selling balloons….

“Field trip,” the boy whispered,
and he touched the clown with his finger.

A nun laid her hand on his
shoulder and gently led him away to join his peers.

“Field trip indeed, my son,” she
said.

The boy smiled at her proudly.

“The wrong kind,” the nun added as
the two passed through the doors.

Aligned
at the rail of the lookout deck, the children could gaze at a thousand feet of
sheer drop down to the crater’s bottomless pit, dark and tenebrous. Far in the
distance, perched on the ridge across from the Pilgrim Center, the imposing
cathedral-like edifice of the New Vatikan remained veiled in thick tendrils of
fog, its battery of tall spires poking at the rainclouds dragging their fat underbellies
high above.

Early sprinkles had already
started to fall on the orphans’ faces as they recited in unison a passage from
the Sacred Book of Job, the Sufferer of God:

“‘Have you seen my armory of hail,
which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war
?,
’ asketh the Lord.”

“Indeed,” Sister Deborah said. She
smiled, pleased. An armory of hail, a secret place where the great I Am hides
His fiery stones, ready to hurl them at an estranged, un-repented race should
the gentle whisper of His Spirit fall on deaf ears. Yes, even God eventually
runs out of mercy, Sister Deborah thought, as she watched the two rows of
orphans peering into the bottomless pit underneath their feet.

She then squinted at the heavens
still concealed behind the darkened canopy. The wind had intensified its
whining. By now, the rainclouds were drifting low over the city, and the
thunders’ echo was coming in shorter and shorter intervals. Flashes of
lightning zigzagged through the shutter of clouds.

She would have to bring the
children back inside, she thought, and try to keep them busy until the storm
passed. Reciting the Sacred Genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel of Saint
Matthew was always a good place to start; it kept their young minds occupied,
their memories alert, and preserved the sacred record in their hearts.

Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot
Jacob, Jacob begot Judah and his brothers, Judah begot Perez, and so one and so
forth. All those men who knew no shame, begetting each other century after
century, pathetic hostages of an unbroken chain of lust and procreation. Of
course, women took a part in that, too, but in his wisdom, Saint Matthew
omitted most of their names until the long list reached its very end with Mary—the
Eternal Virgin, the Bearer of God’s son. One holy woman, her chaste womb
untouched by sin, shining at the end of a long roster of men—unclean,
four-legged creatures ruled by vile cravings that would make the beasts of the
wild blush.

Yes, the Sacred Genealogy would
do. Sister Deborah smiled again, pleased that the Devil couldn’t throw anything
her way, whether a morning storm or doubts about the Holy Writ, nothing she
couldn’t handle with a prayer on the go for the Lord’s guidance, the one Man
who never failed to deliver on His promises.

You only have to knock gently, she
reminded herself, and the door will be opened unto you.