THE EXECUTION OF WATER
 
Table of Contents

Book i of John Cadenza
Book ii of John Cadenza
Book iii of John Cadenza
Book iv of John Cadenza
Book v of John Cadenza
Book vi of John Cadenza
Book vii of John Cadenza
Book viii of John Cadenza
Book ix of John Cadenza

Book One of Noah
Book Two of Noah
Book Three of Noah
Book Four of Noah
Book Five of Noah
Book Six of Noah
Book Sev­en of Noah
Book Eight of Noah

Book 1 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book 2 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book 3 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book 4 of John on the Isle of Patmos

Or could he write a trea­tise that resem­bled the form of water, going back and forth in what could be called, dis­or­der­ly con­duct?
 
Book i of John Cadenza
Book ii of John Cadenza
Book One of Noah
Book iii of John Cadenza
Book 1 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book Two of Noah
Book iv of John Cadenza
Book Three of Noah
Book Four of Noah
Book Five of Noah
Book v of John Cadenza
Book 2 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book 3 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book vi of John Cadenza
Book Six of Noah
Book vii of John Cadenza
Book viii of John Cadenza
Book Sev­en of Noah
Book 4 of John on the Isle of Patmos
Book Eight of Noah
Book ix of John Cadenza

Book i of John Cadenza

The red moon near­ly large as the earth came up over the road. John Caden­za pulled down his visor so he could see into the dark­ness ahead. He was on his way to his par­ents’ cab­in at the lake to spend Labor Day week­end with friends. They had just fin­ished their first week of sem­i­nary. He didn’t know one of them on the dock late at night would trip and hit his head as he fell into the lake to drown. No one knew until the next morn­ing he was miss­ing. The lake patrol boats. The divers. The body of the friend.

       What unbe­liev­able shores of per­cep­tion, the blood-clot­ted eye of the drowned man. John Caden­za thought of Noah in the ark float­ing over the car­niv­o­rous flood. He thought his friend knew the flesh-eat­ing water when he fell into the lake. John Cadenza’s new vision of death made every­thing skewed— it gave every­thing a dis­tant rim that was not there. John Caden­za felt flat­tened by the death of his friend.

Book ii of John Cadenza

Night became his time to work. His time to write his sem­i­nary papers. He got more done then than he did in the day. He read and wrote and prayed to a God who was a stinger. He was all he was and stood there before every­one, invis­i­ble. It was pos­si­ble to live one’s life and not see God. Or to see him wrong­ly, as a God who wel­comed every­one to heav­en, when John Caden­za knew it was not that way at all. It was hard­er than that. There was noth­ing he could do now but accept the blun­der in his orig­i­nal con­cept of God. He didn’t like it, but that was the way it was. Waves from a pass­ing boat were wit­ness to the turbulence.

John Caden­za asked a series of ques­tions as he pre­pared to write his paper. How dili­gent he was. How much long­ing to break loose. He decid­ed to write on Noah, the Noah of the flood with the three sons. But John on Pat­mos kept break­ing in from the New Tes­ta­ment. What would he do with the blun­ders? The less­er blun­der of intru­sion and the greater blun­der of the friend’s death?
       What did John on Pat­mos think of the exe­cu­tion of water by God? Of a friend who drowned? Did John on Pat­mos leave nota­tions in the mar­gins of his orig­i­nal man­u­script that monks copy­ing lat­er edit­ed out? How much rewrit­ing had been done? How much changing?
       John Caden­za began to have a vision, but not on Pat­mos. He had to have a vision of some­one who did not drown.

Book One of Noah

They sat in the ark sit­ting in a dry yard. The peo­ple out­side shout­ing, laugh­ing, throw­ing dirt clods. It scared the ani­mals whose pens were against the wall of the ark. Hell was the sev­en days they sat closed in the ark before the rain. The sons ques­tion­ing. The wives nag­ging. Maybe Noah had mis­heard. Had mis­in­ter­pret­ed. Maybe Noah was a quack. The ani­mals, unused to con­fine­ment, com­plained. It was hard to sleep in the shut up ark. The smells. The neigh­ings and coo­ings and moo­ings and NOISE all night. COULD THEY BE QUIET? Then there was a lull when the ani­mals were qui­et, usu­al­ly when they were eat­ing. When Noah threw out the first buck­ets of manure from the roof, he and his fam­i­ly heard the howl­ing laugh­ter. The moth­er of one of his son’s wives knocked on the door. Why was her daugh­ter shut up with the crazy fam­i­ly? She could come back to her. It was gen­uine con­cern, not mock­ery, which hurt worse than the mock­ery. The daugh­ter wailed loud­er than the ele­phants, it seemed. But Noah stead­ied him­self. He walked through the three storeys of the ark. He told the ani­mals they would be all right. They looked back, most­ly through their dull eyes, but one or two of them showed under­stand­ing. One or two of them picked up the tone of mock­ery they heard from out­side and seemed to join in, espe­cial­ly the don­keys that could return the haws.
       Noah began to make a log book of the ani­mals. As Noah stud­ied the place­ment of ani­mals in the ark one evening, he saw a pos­si­ble imbal­ance and had his sons help him exchange places of some of the ani­mals, the heav­ier in the cen­ter, the lighter ones on the ends. They ate once again in silence. Then, as the women were wip­ing the sup­per plates, they heard a strange rum­ble. They did not know what it was. [It had not yet rained on earth.] A bull­doz­er, maybe, one of the daugh­ters-in-law thought, to GET US OUT OF HERE. Just push this ark over, so we can climb out. The rum­ble con­tin­ued and Noah wrote [thun­der] in his log book as if it was a pas­sen­ger. Just one of the ani­mals growl­ing. But what an ani­mal. No, it was out­side the ark, not inside, Noah real­ized. Then there were streaks of light. Noah saw them when he opened the win­dow in the roof to throw out the day’s manure. In the night, they heard the ani­mals out­side claw­ing against the ark. Try­ing to get in. But it was not an ani­mal, but some­thing else. Every­one was awake, sit­ting up in their cots. Then more claw­ings, more rum­bling and [thun­der­ings]. [It was a sound that did not yet have a word.]
       The claw­ing, the smell of [rain] [Did Noah have a word for the water that pelt­ed his ark?] There was minor grum­bling from the ani­mals. But most of them lift­ed their noses and smelled that smell of [rain].
       Lat­er, much lat­er, John Caden­za sat on the porch of his par­ents’ cab­in at the lake when rain fell. He liked the pun­gent odor. He lift­ed his head to smell the air, much like the bear and fox and wolver­ine and deer had done on the ark. He tried to over­look the dock where his friend drowned, but it kept insert­ing itself into his vision like an ark. Big enough to fill the sky.
       Noah and his fam­i­ly heard the pound­ings on the door. The scream­ings of the peo­ple out­side. The moth­ers of the daugh­ters-in-law call­ing out their par­tic­u­lar names. The girls scream­ing back. Hit­ting the door of the ark that was closed. Pick­ing wild­ly at the pitch in the door with their sup­per forks, but the Lord had shut them in— Gen­e­sis 7:16.
       In the ris­ing water, the ark slipped awk­ward­ly one way, then the oth­er, before it stead­ied, or stead­ied somewhat.
       The ark was an act of preser­va­tion, so God did not have to start all over again, breath­ing his breath into the dust. And thus, the first ocean voyage.

The sem­i­nary pro­fes­sor marked John Cadenza’s paper with the words, care­ful of exu­ber­ance. But that’s what the water was like.

Book iii of John Cadenza

The first time he saw the ocean as a child, he cried because he was fright­ened. It was a giant dog jump­ing at him, but held back by a leash. His moth­er push­ing him toward it, but he didn’t want to go. The hard­er she pushed, the loud­er he screamed, until his father was yelling then too because of the embar­rass­ment. He saw the white edge of waves as teeth that snapped and snapped at him. Why was his moth­er push­ing him toward such a ter­ri­fy­ing ani­mal? Was it because his father want­ed her to?
       Years lat­er, vis­it­ing Flori­da, he drove to the shore at night. There was a wharf and the waves run­ning toward him. They were pound­ing the shore. He stood there over­come by what he real­ized was sor­row. Then their sor­row seemed more like anger as they relent­less­ly hit the land.
       All this John Caden­za thought as he sat in his first year of sem­i­nary classes.

Book 1 of John on the Isle of Patmos

Now John Caden­za took the role of John on Pat­mos. How like an ark the island was. The same impris­on­ment as Noah, John Caden­za thought as he read Noah’s lec­tures [or what could be read].
       But God had oth­er plans for John. God told him to write in Rev­e­la­tion 21:1— And there was no more sea.
       The Great Dic­ta­tor. Didn’t God know he was talk­ing to a fisherman?
       If there sud­den­ly would be no sea, John on Pat­mos could walk back to the main­land. Where would he go? He didn’t say.
       Did that mean all the fish were marked for extinc­tion with the sea? The fish swirled around in the cur­rent of the water. John on Pat­mos, the fish­er­man, speared for his sup­per. What would he do with­out the sea? What of voy­age? How would the sun go down over the water? How could the author­i­ties send believ­ers to exile on a dis­tant island with­out the sea? And what would hap­pen to the word, boat?
       And there will be no night there— Rev­e­la­tion 22:5. What a dog of a sto­ry. God was on a roll. John on Pat­mos liked the night where the stars swam as fish, and dove for one anoth­er. Some­times the comets passed as har­poons. What a trou­bling pas­sage. It was hard to under­stand. Hard­er to accept. John on Pat­mos sat by him­self on the island that sat before the sea. How absolute­ly lone­ly the sea was. How aus­tere. The sur­face of it any­way. Though often tur­bu­lent with waves.
       Where did his instru­ments for writ­ing come from? Did God tell John on Pat­mos to bring blank scrolls to Pat­mos? Did he kill an ani­mal, tan its hide for a parch­ment of sorts? Was there papyrus he could peel? Did he build a fire, char a stick for ink? How did he write that intense and exten­sive book of Rev­e­la­tion, or take dic­ta­tion for it, fine as grass on the oth­er side of the pasture?

John on Pat­mos must have tried to make God’s sto­ry straight. But it kept curv­ing like the sky. Writ­ing was an act of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. It was com­ing to grips with what John had been told to say.
       On Pat­mos, the rocky shore was car­nelian. The sun, puce. The sea, black.

Book Two of Noah [frag­ment­ed]

Put ele­phants in the mid­dle of the ark. Not front or back heavy.
       The ark a fau­vist interpretation.
       The sky, beryl. The sea,________.
       Inside the ark________. All gopher wood and log-cabin.
       A drowned friend drowned with the animals.

There was a strange note at the end of his paper. John Caden­za looked at it in a lam­bent, red­dish haze that cor­nered his essay. The sem­i­nary had coun­sel­ing. Did he want to go? His pro­fes­sor wrote.

Book iv of John Cadenza

Now he was a boy in a boat on the lake at his par­ents’ cab­in. The father belit­tling the boy for not catch­ing fish. Had Noah fished, or had they eat­en grain they took on board in bar­rels? He kept think­ing of Noah on the flood­wa­ters. The ani­mals rush­ing from the ark when it was over. Had any of them turned to thank Noah for all the meal plan­ning he had done? How dif­fi­cult to pack for a voy­age for over a year. With all the four-legged pas­sen­gers that would eat. Were some ani­mals killed for oth­ers to eat? Or was only grain on the menu each day as they ordered. Some ani­mals were there by sev­ens too— Gen­e­sis 7:2. What of the odd num­bered ones? What of the left out ones? That was John Caden­za with his own point-of-view. All vision was the abstrac­tion of space. The pumped up move­ment at the end of the con­cer­to he attend­ed with his friends. The stage mov­ing jaun­ti­ly before his eyes, as if upon waves. The topaz music they played. Some­times sem­i­nary sent him a lit­tle crazy.
       John Can­den­za began writ­ing his next paper:

Book Three of Noah

Noah wrote the names of ani­mals in his jour­nal. His fin­ger­prints smudged the page. He placed them in their dif­fer­ent geo­gra­phies. How would the ani­mals sep­a­rate after the flood?
       It was all bright col­or, straight lines.
       Noah made the list. He liked cat­e­gories. This was before the inven­tion of phylum.
       He liked his pro­jec­to­ries and vision­ary imag­in­ings. He kept a prophet­ic log book on the voy­age to Ararat where his pas­sen­gers would disembark:

Hoolock Gibbon
Cheetah
Jaguar
Cana­di­an Lynx
Maned Wolf
Amer­i­can Black Bear
African Elephant
Ply­mouth Rock Domes­tic Fowl
Capybara
East­ern Gray Squirrel
Mace­don­ian Dwarf Donkey
Spot­ted Hyena
Fen­nel Fox
Marmoset
Emu
Retic­u­lat­ed Giraffe
Wolverine
Lory Parrot
Waterbuck
Cloud­ed Tiger
Com­mon Hippopotamus
Fal­low Deer

Who doesn’t know ani­mals have a hard time? Ask the Pit Bulls taught to fight and killed if they don’t. Imag­ine being chewed to pieces. A bite on the leg. A piece of the flank ripped out. Chest punc­tured. Ear torn away. Until the oth­er dog was at the throat, final­ly tear­ing it open.
       After the ani­mals, Noah tried to keep track of the cat­e­gories of reced­ing waves, leav­ing their sea foam like cha­lazae on the shore. But he knew the waves were relent­less and ever chang­ing. He knew they would con­tin­ue until the time God took away the sea. God always at his work of wip­ing out.
       All of it even­tu­al­ly marked for extinction.
       One strike against water.
       One vote for execution.

Book Four of Noah [unread­able— i.e. smudged]

Book Five of Noah [lost]

Book v of John Cadenza

Move on, John Cadenza’s pro­fes­sor wrote.

Book 2 of John on the Isle of Patmos

How could he leave notes about the sea for those who had nev­er seen it? How could he exe­cute the water? Could he draw it? Could he write notes that could be played? How could he express the upheaval? What rebus could he use?
       John on Pat­mos could have been sit­ting on Mars with the great uni­verse before him. No shrub­bery or trim­ming of any sort. Only the plan­et on which he sat. The island in space. What was before him trail­ing sea­green sparks through the atmosphere?
       John was walk­ing in a tune, of sorts. The sea was a dis­tur­bance— a dis­cor­dant, rhyth­mic song while every­thing in heav­en would be smooth as a slab of chalcedony.

Book 3 of John on the Isle of Patmos

What kind of place was heav­en? John on Pat­mos tried to say:
       I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he car­ried me away in the spir­it to a moun­tain, and showed me that great city— Rev­e­la­tion 21:9–10. How did a bride turn into a city? And why? A foursquare bride? A liv­ing city who was a per­son? In out­er space, a 1500-mile cube was wait­ing as a heav­en­ly city that also served as a bride.
       In his visions, he knew the heav­en­ly city was lev­els he could pass through as if water. Swim­ming and div­ing, its coun­ter­part, is what heav­en is. Is not the fish a sym­bol of the believer?
       With its cen­tral message:
       And whoso­ev­er was not found writ­ten in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire— Rev­e­la­tion 20:15
       That Great Mes­sage burned as toast.
The Lamb would be the light of it— Rev­e­la­tion 21:23. John knew the sun would not be nec­es­sary, though pos­si­bly it was in exile like John when he was sent to the island of Pat­mos. And, because in the heat of the day, John wished the sun away also, he was afraid God would tell him to write, and there was no more sun.
       Did every­thing come in puzzles?

Book vi of John Cadenza

What was it like to drown? What had his friend upturned when he was not able to breathe? The exe­cu­tion of water. The pre­ci­sion with which it marked lives. He would exe­cute his papers with the same precision.

Book Six of Noah

The sea was yel­low. The clouds, carmine.
       Noah saw the rain abat­ed. The clouds were break­ing up. Their sol­id mass had torn. Noah was a zoo keep­er in the ark. It was not a tidy job. None of the jobs God hand­ed out were.
       Noah watched the sky reflect­ed on the sur­face of the water. He always want­ed to see the oth­er side of things. Not the ani­mals on the ark, but the ani­mals who drowned in the flood. Maybe swim­ming for a time. Pre­tend­ing to cross a riv­er, telling them­selves there would be a bank to climb onto if they kept going. The ele­phants kick­ing their legs. The mon­keys flail­ing their arms. The ark float­ing away in the dis­tance. Final­ly they slipped under the water. The birds still try­ing to land on the ark, but blown off by the storm, beat their wings until they were heavy as lead, and sank then also.

Book vii of John Cadenza

The moth­er of the friend who drowned kept writ­ing John Caden­za. She said how often she felt her son in the room with her. Talk­ing as if from under­wa­ter. John Caden­za answered her by ask­ing if she real­ized how many peo­ple died in the water. Only eight were left after the flood: Noah, his three sons, their wives. His friend’s moth­er said she felt she had seen bub­bles ris­ing over her bed. She felt some­times she had drowned with him. She kept ques­tion­ing John Caden­za. There were lit­tle hints or ques­tion­ings that seemed to indi­cate she thought he was respon­si­ble. Noth­ing sol­id and direct that he could put his fin­ger on, but there were innu­en­does float­ing after she talked.
       Was John Caden­za respon­si­ble for a man on the dock in the dark?
       Noah and the sur­vivors had their trou­bles also.

Book viii of John Cadenza

The sem­i­nary was cold that win­ter. The room, drafty. John Caden­za took cold. He sneezed in class.

Book Sev­en of Noah [also frag­ment­ed and water spotted]

The pound­ings with the ham­mer        the crow­bar        the heav­ing of Noah and his sons against the door. Final­ly        the ele­phant pushed against it        the way they can move fall­en trees        the door burst open and light flood­ed in. They hid their eyes. They were unsteady        on their feet on the ground that did not move. The birds        flocked from the large door of the ark. They had trou­ble fly­ing        hav­ing been con­fined in cages.
       The daugh­ters-in-law cried. Where were they? Where were their fam­i­lies? They irri­tat­ed Noah. He there­after car­ried a grudge against his mewl­ing daughters-in-law.
       How far away were they from where they had lived? Did they try to re-find it? Did they trav­el with some of the ani­mals fol­low­ing? Did they try to get them to go away, throw­ing stones, but the ani­mals fol­lowed? Get away. Shu. But the hip­popota­mus lum­bered after them.

Book ix of John Caden­za [frag­ment­ed]

Because of        dis­tur­bances in your paper your        fail­ure to show        up for coun­sel­ing        your friend’s        moth­er        con­cerned about        would you        report

Book 4 of John on the Isle of Patmos

He was hold­ing out for a sig­nif­i­cant variation

Ian McE­wan, AMSTERDAM

Re: John’s vision: There was a cen­tral fire as in a fur­nace room. There was heat. Worse than the desert heat on Pat­mos. The heat ate at the skin and this would go on and on and on. What Hell was, was an inven­tion of ________? What? Who? Where did it come from? The God who cre­at­ed the uni­verse set aside Hell for those who would not come into his house? Was it a sin­is­ter inven­tion? An idea invent­ed as a manip­u­la­tion to get peo­ple to behave, because they did not behave. If Heav­en was a city, then was Hell a city too? An invert­ed city, going down instead of up. A cube of 1500 miles, a coun­ter­part of Heav­en? It was what the sea rep­re­sent­ed. That’s why there was no sea in Heav­en. It was Hell. Tor­ment. Dis­cour­age­ment. Suf­fer­ing. Sul­fur was there. And thirst. And though Hell was like the sea in its depth, there was no water to drink. Just water that was some­how fire and all the heat of the sun was there. With its pasty salt that swelled the tongue until it was a stop­per in the mouth. It would be slow­er than drown­ing in the lake.
       And far off, in the dis­tance, they could hear Heaven.
       Yes, Hell was a water­less sea.

Had the waves heard the rumor float­ing over the water? Both night and sea would be gone. How alike they were: night and the sea. They each were an underside.

Book Eight of Noah

Noah’s insur­ance papers in his glove com­part­ment of the ark were left to be found by the ark-hunters. What use would they be? Who could sue? Noah asked in his dis­tort­ed handwriting.
       A Chee­tah tripped as he ran from the ark. A bird flopped on the ground with a bro­ken wing.
       Noah’s lec­ture notes turned into one wor­ry after anoth­er. John on Pat­mos was relieved the lec­tures were frag­ment­ed, smudged with por­tions missing.
       A griz­zled moun­tain. The hills, Quak­er gray. The sky, umber.

Why was he stay­ing so long in his room? His moth­er asked at the door. But he ignored her.

Then lat­er, Noah built a house for his wife, and his sons built hous­es for their wives, and Noah even built a pen in back of the house for the hip­popota­mus who con­tin­ued to fol­low, and could not be hit away. John Caden­za remem­bered the details. He built his own under­stand­ing into the ark of his work. The chick­ens on their perch.
       John Caden­za saw Noah in chaps and lizard vest. Bolo tie. Rop­ing gloves. Pis­tol. Pon­cho. Spurs. He car­ried sad­dle­bags in which he car­ried notes from the ark.
       Maybe no one should be invit­ed to the cab­in any­more. It belonged to his par­ents. John Caden­za wouldn’t ask his father about it. The father would belit­tle him for wor­ry­ing about an acci­dent. He felt awk­ward and bum­bling. Some­thing like waves try­ing to get to shore, but chang­ing their mind, and retreat­ing, while oth­er waves rushed over them.
       John Caden­za would escape through studying.
       When would all the envelop­ings— all the dis­as­trous cat­a­clysms of the Book of Rev­e­la­tion hap­pen? It cap­ti­vat­ed his imag­i­na­tion. He would write an unsta­ble paper for sem­i­nary. He would kill the water his father loved. It was what he want­ed to do— Report on the under­stand­ing of the things wrapped in mystery.
       John Caden­za posit­ed that John on Pat­mos want­ed to write a man­u­al on the meth­ods of net fish­ing, but God told him to write some­thing else. What did he know of God’s visions, his chevrony per­cep­tions with haloes and auro­ras? The sun radi­at­ing on the waves. John Caden­za thought of a mur­al, his vision blowsy as Van Gogh’s, as pos­si­bly Noah’s.
       The light will shine out of the dark­ness— II Corinthi­ans 4:6
       We are per­se­cut­ed— II Corinthi­ans 4:8
       We are exiled.
       We are outcast.
We are sent as freight across floodwaters.
       Imag­ine being torn apart.
       Imag­ine the fear of imag­in­ing it.
       John Caden­za did not need the Bible to tell him that. He felt his own Hell. His own short­com­ings. The drowned friend he could have helped, whose moth­er inferred he could have helped, though John Caden­za was in bed when the friend was out on the dock under the night for some reason.
       Then there was the girl at the sem­i­nary that John Caden­za could have mar­ried, but left her aban­doned. He did not want to be sad­dled with a wife. He tried to tell her, but she insist­ed on their rela­tion­ship, and final­ly pushed it too far, and he backed out. He was a dis­ap­point­ment to his father, who was a dis­ap­point­ment to him. These were the small hells that sur­round­ed his life. But the larg­er Hell was before him.
       Chris­tian­i­ty was the com­mon reli­gion of his coun­try, his region. He fled from his father to Christ. Was that any less threatening?
       All that Bib­li­cal his­to­ry. In class, it had been there in front of every­one, yet no one saw it. Hard­ly saw it. And some who saw it, saw some­thing oth­er than what it was. They saw or re-saw it in their own image, or they didn’t go far enough. They left it unimagined.
       The stars over him caught in their nets. The water assuaged. At last, he saw the fish swim­ming in his skewed vision.
       John Caden­za would write a re-cre­ation of Bib­li­cal his­tor­i­cal imagery in a bro­ken trea­tise of impro­vised and re-inter­pret­ed doc­u­ments until he was float­ing at last.

DIANE GLANCY is pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at Macalester Col­lege in St. Paul, Min­neso­ta. Her new col­lec­tion of essays, THE DREAM OF A BROKEN FIELD, was pub­lished by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka Press in 2011. Her new lat­est col­lec­tion of poet­ry, STORIES OF THE DRIVEN WORLD, was pub­lished by Mam­moth Press in 2010.