Rapture

He lies contentedly on his deck chair, eyes half closed, gazing aft into the diverging white slash that is the wake of the Ocean Princess, as she moves effortlessly over the surface of a motionless Caribbean. This is the first morning of a seven-day dive cruise. The sun feels good--the air has a chill to it. Of medium height, and with a bronzed, athletic build fitted into black swim trunks, Mr. Marius looks like a normal member of any dive group--except for one thing. He is over sixty. But no one seems to notice his age. Only he does. And that is mostly because he wonders whether anyone will agree to be his dive partner on this trip. The divemaster has assured him there will be no problem, but--he still wonders. Will he be considered capable of taking care of himself?--never mind looking out for his partner. His lips form a slight smile at the thought--he is probably in better physical condition than some of the younger guests, considering their protruding bellies. What he fears most is that someone might feel obliged to accompany him.

The Ocean Princess, sailing out of Grand Cayman, is a twenty-metre yacht that the Cayman Dive Company has converted into a luxury dive boat. She accommodates sixteen guests, in six private and five double state rooms. There is a five-star dining salon, operated by a cordon bleu chef; a well appointed bar, a fully equipped infirmary, which includes a small operating theatre, and a recompression chamber to handle possible cases of decompression sickness. Also on board is a surgeon, trained in sub-marine medicine. Of course, there is a complete supply of SCUBA gear and a powerful compressor to re-fill the tanks. The marriage of the Ocean Princess to the Caribbean has produced a diver's paradise, in week-long packages.

Mr. Marius is roused from his thoughts by a voice over the loudspeaker.

On behalf of the Cayman Dive Company, welcome to the diving experience of your life, says the powerful looking, bronze Olympian. The first thing we do is get you all paired up. How many have buddies? Twelve hands go up. Good, says the Olympian, that leaves only four of you to get twinned. Any ideas?

Suddenly, the annoying chill in the air is accompanied by a disturbingly warm sensation for Mr. Marius. At his shoulder a voice he will never forget says, Do you mind? He turns and sees nothing for a moment except two very blue eyes. His whole consciousness loses itself for a moment in those eyes--the eyes of the goddess.

Not at all, he finally gets out, if you are quite certain you wish to take me on.

I'm certain, the eyes state, while the voice says, You look to me as though you know how to dive, so why shouldn't I take you on?

No reason--I guess, his grin is slightly sheepish. It's just that--well, I am several years past my twenty-first birthday, and you, well...?

Her laugh is as enchanting as a Mozart symphony. My dear sir, her eyes dance, we are going to dive; not date.

Touché, he holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Enough said. I happily accept you as my buddy. Actually, he is elated.

OK, the voice of the divemaster intervenes, I see everyone is buddied up. Great. As he is speaking, the crew brings up the equipment, all decorated in the crimson and gold colours of the Cayman Dive Company. This first plunge, he continues, will be a relatively simple one, to get everyone acquainted with the gear and Cayman's rules--I see a few raised eyebrows--yes, we do have rules. Thats why we can boast eight hundred and fifty dives with nothing more serious than a couple of mild cases of the bends. But we promise not to mother you any more than is absolutely necessary. He describes the rules, which are pretty standard, and the dive plan. This is to be a dive on a Second World War British destroyer, lying in sixty feet of water on a coral shelf, and is to last for thirty minutes, so there will be no need for decompression stops on accent. The group will stay together and within sight of the guide at all times. He introduces the guide, a very healthy-looking young man whose face wears a broad grin. Any questions? asks the divemaster. There are no questions. Then they're all yours, he informs the guide, who is beginning to don his own gear. Oh, one other thing, the divemaster glances around the group, The water temp is about eighty degrees Fahrenheit, so wet suits are not really required for thirty minutes of bottom time. But for those of you who want them, eighth-inch neoprene shorties are available.

Mr. Marius wonders whether he should wear a suit. That annoying chill is still there--the goddess isn't wearing one--a suit would almost certainly draw added attention to his age--don't be so bloody silly--you either need a suit or you don't--never mind what it looks like! The goddess has already chosen her gear and is busily putting it on. Get to it old man, he tells himself. He will not wear a wet suit.

Mr. Marius picks out a back pack unit, which combines an eighty cubic foot air bottle and a buoyancy compensator, then chooses mask, snorkel, regulator, depth gauge, weight belt, knife, fins, light, and a pair of gloves to protect his hands from the razor-sharp coral. After attaching the regulator to the air tank, he dons his equipment. In five minutes he is ready, and the goddess is standing before him. God! don't look so deeply into her eyes, he scolds himself. You'll scare her away. But she does not appear to be scared. She asks him if he would mind checking her out.

Oh, yes Ma'am! he nearly blurts. Coming up, he grinned. Hoses free, belts and buckles fastened and snug, pressure on at three thousand pounds, weight belt free, CO2 capsule in place. You'll do, he announces, Now, my turn.

After she pronounces him ready to dive, they relax and await entry instructions. He is still curious. Are you not the least bit interested in my diving background? he asks.

No. Her eyes have taken on a mischievous, teasing look. Should I?

He laughed. OK, I give up. He feels really good. In fact, he has not felt this good in the eight months since Janie died. The sun is warm on his skin, but the air still has a chill in it.

Everyone is finally ready and anxious to go. The crew has lowered from the stern a hinged platform, which is positioned two feet above the surface of the water. This permits the divers to make an easy entry by sitting on the edge of the platform and doing a simple forward roll. Eight numbers are placed in a hat and each buddy pair picks one to establish the order of entry. Mr. Marius and his partner pick number 4. The divers are asked to remain on the surface, in a group, until their guide has made his entry. He will then lead them down. Within ten minutes the whole group is in the water. The surface suddenly becomes a garden of fins, as seventeen divers up-end and invade Neptune's domain.

Beneath the surface, with visibility seemingly endless, Mr. Marius scans a breath-taking panorama. The divers are fanning out ahead, the divemaster in the lead, with Mr. Marius and his partner bringing up the rear. They are descending on a coral garden of spell-binding beauty, and off to the left, at the periphery of their field of vision, looms their goal: the remains of the old warship. With its thick exoskeleton of coral, it is barely distinguishable.

The goddess is slightly ahead of him, and he studies her for a moment. The lithe, rhythmic, undulation of her movement through the water, with her hair flowing back in the watery breeze, fascinates him. The feeling for this young woman growing within him goes far beyond the mere carnal: he senses her soul gently probing his, in a kind of spiritual foreplay. This is an experience he cannot recall even having shared with his wife of forty years, although they had been extremely close, and he feels a pang of guilt. What right had he to be thinking of someone else so soon after Janies death!

He eases his thoughts gingerly back to that fateful day last September, when the Ontario Provincial Police had regretted to inform him that his wife had died instantly in a head-on crash on the Queensway. The cruel suddenness of the news had been as painful as the death itself. When he had thought of death at all, he had expected it would steal in, anticipated, after some form of precursory illness. But in one devastating blow, the accident had ripped half of him away, permitting no opportunity for the remaining half to tell the plundered one goodbye--I'm sorry for all the things I have done and said to cause you pain--please forgive me--I love you--you have filled my life with more joy than I could possibly deserve--I love you--. Then the funeral--the closed casket, committed ultimately, with its precious contents, to the cold earth--back to a house empty, yet full of Janie--throwing himself into his work as general manager of Microdot Systems Limited, until, finally, the pain had begun to recede and the missing half began to regenerate itself. Then, one morning two weeks ago while driving to work, he had noticed a poster ad describing a week of first-class diving on a luxury boat in the Caribbean. He had driven directly to the travel agency and booked the package.

They begin to approach the bottom, so Mr. Marius forces his thoughts back to the present. The party levels off at ten feet and continues on through a fantasy land of coral. They swim over and beside huge brain coral, delicate butterfly coral, tube sponges, kettle sponges, sea anemones, sea whips, sea feathers and the graceful sea fans that bow and wave as they are caressed by the warm currents. They pass giant coral heads, looming up like miniature mountains from the ocean floor. They come around one of these living mountains, and there, directly before them, is the sunken destroyer. If Mr. Marius had not been told about the ship, he might mistake it for a unique coral outgrowth. But on close inspection the general outline is apparent, as are the barnacle and coral-cocooned guns, pointing belligerently as though to protect the Anthozoan colony from some anticipated enemy. The ship, after having taken a lethal torpedo from a German submarine that dark night in 1944, had settled upright on the bottom, with a slight list to port.

They approach from starboard and the guide stops amidships, beside a gaping hole in the hull. He waits until all the divers have assembled in a semi-circle around him. He waves his right arm in a sweeping, circular motion, points to his watch, raises five fingers four times, then points to a spot directly in front of him, instructing the group to explore the target at its leisure and to return to this spot in twenty minutes.

The dive duos fan out in all directions over their prize, intent on making every second count. The goddess motions toward the great wound in the ship's side and fins through it, into the black interior. Mr. Marius follows, switching on his light. They are in a room that at one time might have been about ten feet square, but their lights reveal bulkheads and hatches blown out by the terrible force of the explosion that had sunk the vessel. Mr. Marius tries to imagine the confusion and horror that must have prevailed after the torpedo had ripped into this room, that night so long ago: the crew members who must have died instantly--others that would have tried to escape, terrified as the roaring ocean overtook and consumed them--and with the ruptured bulkheads and hatches, the relentless sea must have rushed into the rest of the ship, dragging to their watery deaths many of the crew before they could save themselves. Even now, without the mayhem, this hell of twisted, mangled steel, dangling cables and scattered debris, makes manoeuvring extremely dangerous, and the divers are careful to avoid all the lethal protrusions surrounding them.

Mr. Marius follows his goddess through a shattered bulkhead into a larger room, at the end of which their lights find the foot of a companionway, leading to the next deck. Moving toward the stairs, they pass a doorless cabinet-like fixture attached to a bulkhead. As they swim by, a moray eel sticks its head out and grins at them. His partner pays no attention to an animal that strikes fear into the hearts of many divers. This adds to the growing sense of professional respect Mr. Marius feels for this woman. They reach the bottom of the companionway, and proceed up in tandem. Halfway up, they have to move aside to permit a ponderous old grouper to pass on his way down. Again, although in spite of its size this fish is completely harmless, it would normally startle a diver when suddenly confronted by it in such a manner. But his goddess might simply have been politely moving aside to let an old gentleman pass. Fascinating.

At the top of the stairs, they find themselves in what might have been a wardroom, but it is difficult to say, given the state of disarray and decomposition. Suddenly, their lights converge on a pair of objects in one corner of the room. They move toward them, but Mr. Marius already knows what they are: human skeletons. He watches intently as his buddy pauses beside them, resting on her knees, motionless, her head bowed. Then she is moving again, towards the far end of the room, where he sees a passageway he had not been aware of. She is through it and he has to put on a spurt of speed to catch up with her. She glances back briefly, as if simply to inform him that she knows he is still with her, then continues along some sort of passageway, leading to--he has no idea where, but senses she does. Under other circumstances, he would be highly anxious about being in the bowels of a sunken destroyer with which he is not familiar. He knows he ought to feel some concern for their predicament. Instead, he has a sense of calm anticipation.

Finally, they approach an open hatch that deposits them onto the stern, now home to countless coelenterates. Finding themselves in a virtual jungle of coral, they proceed carefully. Any contact between their skin and the coral could cause seriously infected wounds. Short bursts of air into their buoyancy compensators lift them out of danger and they swim over the stern into open water. Once off the ship, Mr. Marius sees a cloud of bubbles rise from the goddess's BC, allowing her to sink. He suddenly notices there is nothing beneath them but an endless black void: about ten feet of the destroyer's stern is protruding over the edge of the shelf. The goddess is slightly below him as he follows her down beneath the stern. With depth filtering out colour-giving light, her hair, still flowing out over her back, is now a silvery grey. He wonders for a moment about her not consulting him on what they do. She evidently has a plan of her own, and seems to assume he agrees. He does.

He pauses beneath the stern to study the coral-encrusted screws, but his partner is not interested. Instead, she heads down the steep slope of the dropoff, where the coral garden continues, unrestricted. He is beside her now, as they continue their descent, past the most fantastic outgrowths that flash into blazing colour when caressed by their dive lights. Although he trusts his goddess completely, he has a vague sense of unease--feels chilled--should have worn a suit--not complying with the dive plan--in fact--breaking all the rules. He remembers his instruments. His depth gauge tells him they are at one hundred and fifty feet and still dropping; his watch tells him they are due back at the rendezvous in five minutes; his submersible pressure gauge tells him he has 500 psi of air remaining in his tank. But he is not certain what all this information means. He senses he ought to be concerned--but he is not. His goddess appears not in the least worried, so why should he? He gets her attention and makes a questioning gesture with his hands, pointing upward, then at his watch. She removes her regulator from her mouth and laughs a froth of bubbles, inviting him not to worry. She replaces the regulator, takes him by the hand, and they resume their downward odessey. Her optimistic abandon is infectious, and a feeling of euphoria creeps over him--he has never felt this good--how he adores his goddess! He glances at his depth gauge. Three hundred feet! Hilarious--the thing only registers to three hundred feet. The air coming from his regulator is now thick, difficult to suck out. No wonder, he laughs, looking at his SPG: the damned thing's empty. OK--nothing to worry about--at this depth--air's not important. His goddess has already rid herself of her regulator, so he releases his own mouthpiece, allowing the instrument to flip over his shoulder and trail behind him. His goddess removes her hand from his, flips a buckle and her weight belt falls ahead of them; another dexterous manoeuvre and her back pack floats off above them. She is now completely free and unencumbered--and so beautiful! He quickly doffs his own equipment and they rejoin hands, swimming straight down now, beside a sheer cliff that no longer wears its gown of coral. Instead, there appear to be families of sea dwellers, their homes carved out of the rockface like those of the cliff dwellers in the upper world. They catch glimpses of these citizens of the sea as they move down, like the passengers on a doorless elevator in an upper world tower. They see Poseidon, ruler of the sea, in his luxurious suite--and Thetis, mother of Achilles, visiting her father, Nereus.

And there, awaiting them far below on the ocean floor, they see a magnificent glow that is at once breathtakingly beautiful and overwhelmingly comforting.

Now, at last, Mr. Marius knows his goddess's dive plan.

She is bringing him home.