The Six Messiahs

None greater than his inability to save his wife from a wasting disease for which there was no cure, that carried her farther and farther away from him by imperceptible degrees. How long now since they had truly been man and wife? Three months? Four?

The shipyards of the Portsmouth Naval Base came into view to the southeast. Lord; so many lazy afternoons passed there during his medical apprenticeship, gazing down from his office window to watch the gunboats maneuver in the harbor. When you treat one patient in six months there's not much else to do but sit and watch the gunboats. Nearly ten years since he'd moved there after that business with the Seven. Was it possible?

A flood of memories released: little Innes—only twelve then—working that summer as his hallboy; fresh- faced in his stiff blue suit, eagerly waiting to greet the clients who never arrived. Warm morning sunlight inching lazily across the kitchen wall of their Southsea cottage. The sharp tang of the kerosene lamp on his red maple desk where he sat up nights, writing, writing endlessly, dreaming of the new life his work might bring them. The tiny bedroom where their firstborn, Mary, was conceived and came into the world. Laughing as he carried Louise over that threshold, their marriage just beginning in a bubble of youthful ignorance, sentiment, and blind faith.

The horizon went blurry, his eyes misting over—mustn't think of her now, come on, old boy, put some backbone in it.

Passengers filled the decks below him. Excited chatter. Ship seemed at capacity. Germans mostly. Well- heeled. Only two dozen English had come on at Southampton. The Elbe, out of Bremen, a German steamer; the Nordeutscher Lloyd line, an entirely new breed of ship. Nine thousand tons. Twin screws; with a top speed of seventeen knots she cut a fast line through the hard gray chop of the Channel. First-class accommodations for 275, only 50 second-class cabins. An impeccable, disciplined crew. German lines nearly monopolized the North American commercial routes; one expected a high standard of professionalism from the German people: They were a nation on the march....

On a lower deck he caught a glimpse of Innes. Someone pressing in on him, handing him a card, hard to see the man from this angle—good Christ, it looked like Ira Pinkus.

'Heading home or taking leave of it?'

Doyle turned sharply; he thought he'd been alone at the rail. The man stood ten feet away, big-bellied, ruddy-faced. A receding halo of grizzled red hair. Graying muttonchop whiskers. Looked fifty. A lilt of Irish in the voice.

'Leaving,' said Doyle.

'Sorrowful partings often precede long journeys,' the man said.

Doyle nodded a polite agreement. Yes, Irish. The man shifted slightly, still facing out to sea, and Doyle saw the priest's collar, thick boots, the black beads and crucifix protruding from his pocket. Damn, the last thing he wanted to hear now was some empty, unsolicited homily from a Roman—

'Sometimes the pleasure of sadness is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself,' said the priest. 'Something new has entered us. We're able to look at the unknown without prejudice or preconception. Welcome it as an opportunity. And we may find in ourselves an undiscovered territory, a place closer to the heart of the terrible mystery of who we really are.'

The man's warm tone struck a deep note of authenticity. This wasn't the usual pious blather; real sympathy weighed in behind his words and moved Doyle in spite of his resistance. He found it difficult to respond; how could this priest know so precisely what he was going through? Were his feelings so transparent? The man kept his eyes toward the shore, respecting the borders of Doyle's privacy.

'Sometimes we leave the best of ourselves behind,' said Doyle.

'Journeys may have a purpose unimagined at departure,' said the priest. 'They can save a life. Sometimes they can even save a soul.'

Doyle allowed the words to slip in and soothe him; his inner voice went quiet. The lazy rhythms of the Channel captured his eye and a peaceful stillness descended over him.

A fracture of sunlight danced off the water and broke his reverie. He wasn't certain how long he'd been standing since they'd spoken; the shoreline had changed. Open countryside now, rolling hills. Ocean beckoning ahead. He looked over.

The priest was gone.

One deck below where Doyle stood alone, a tall, handsome, smartly dressed man, blond and big-shouldered, walked out of a stairwell leading down to the Elbe's cargo hold. He slipped smoothly into the crowd, speaking casually to people around him in flawless German that bore the clean, clipped aristocratic accent particular to natives of Hamburg. Having effortlessly made himself seem a part of their group without leaving any particularly vivid impressions, his strong features coiled in a mask of perpetual amusement, the man ordered a drink, lit a cigarette, and leaned against a column, studying his fellow passengers.

Intent on the receding shoreline, not one of these self-satisfied burghers had noticed him arrive from belowdecks, the man decided. That was good. No one had seen him in the hold, either. And so far no ship's officer had paid him so much as a passing glance.

Landfall faded from sight; he scanned the passengers carefully as they drifted from the rails. Many moved inside to the bar, turning their attentions to the empty-headed fun they all seemed determined to enjoy on board an Atlantic crossing.

There they were: the two young men—distinctly less well dressed than these vacationing bourgeoisie—in the corner near the lifeboats. The stink of merchants about them, talking in that earnest conspiratorial way he had seen so often while observing them in London; two Jews making an effort to assimilate, but he knew better.

Had they realized they were being watched? Not now. But something had scared them off, alerted the two men in London to make them book this passage so quickly. Assembling his team and following them here on such short notice had not been easy: He had managed.

In the midst of conversation the two men glanced his way; he casually moved his gaze to a passing woman, tipping his hat. When he looked back, their attention had not fixed on him; they were walking away, still absorbed in their discussion.

He watched them retreat. Finding their cabins was next. Then he would involve the others.

He tossed his cigarette over the side and strolled after the two men.

They were making it easy for him.

AT SEA, APPROACHING SAN FRANCISCO

Half a world away, from the deck of another ship—the Canton, a squalid tramp steamer, carrying only steerage class, a bucket of rust bound from Shanghai—as it sailed east and entered the straights that opened into another great deepwater port, a man stood quietly alone at the starboard rail, silently intoning a prayer as he watched the rounded headlands of a strange country draw near. A hoard of impoverished, ragtag immigrants swarmed around him, cheering as the mythical land of plenty glided into view. After enduring two weeks belowdecks in a pestilent hellhole of contagion and crime, it seemed for the first time conceivable that the gamble they'd made with their lives might have been worth the taking.

The man stood alone near the center of the pack, yet none of the others pressed in or jostled him. He was of moderate size, unextraordinary appearance, and occupied little space himself, but when he so desired it that space was never violated. Neither young nor old, nothing about him lingered long in one's memory: Even here, in the middle of an alert and agitated mob, his presence hardly registered. This was one of his most practiced abilities; to leave a hole in the air, rendering himself virtually invisible whenever the situation demanded. Yet even then he was left alone; the respect he commanded was granted to him unconsciously.

His parents and natural family were as unknown to him as these strangers on deck; no given name had followed him when he' was abandoned in an alley after birth. He had early on displayed such a self-reliant and single-minded strength of will that the brothers of the monastery who had raised the boy from infancy named him Kanazuchi—'the Hammer.'

When the ship docked and they passed through immigration in San Francisco, no official would question that he was anything other than what he appeared to be: one of four hundred indigent Chinese laborers from Quongdong province on the Mainland. With his shaved forehead and topknot queue, he knew he could depend on the white man's inability to distinguish one Asian face from another.

That he was Japanese, a race of people still seen only rarely in this country, would not occur to a single one