"We believe that the whale gives up his body-his parka, we call it-only if we are worthy. We must please the whale. If we pleased Leviathan, then we would catch him. Obviously we do not please the whale. But we are in Hell. How can we please anybody?" True," said Queequeg. He smiled, neat white teeth in the patchwork of tattoos. "But we can try, right?" So they tried.
Once they rescued a man from the jaws of the whale. They had harpooned Leviathan and were coming up on him for the kill. Leviathan rolled over, mouth agape, and a man swam out of the maw. They cut the whale loose, rowed over to the man, and pulled him out of the icy water.
He was blue and almost dead, and before his soul and body slipped back to Lord Satan for a new torment, he told them his story.
"I am Jose Marti, Cuban revolutionary," he said. "I was swimming for Purgatory when Leviathan ate me. You must help us. You must kill Leviathan."
"We are trying," said Qawik. "You said 'us.' Who is this 'us?' "
"We are the Revolution," said Marti. "We are led by a great man, Che Guevara.
There is something terribly wrong in Hell. People who should be in Purgatory-or even in Paradise-are damned to torments they do not deserve. We have appealed to Satan, but our appeals fall on deaf ears."
Queequeg smiled. "His ears are not deaf,' he said. "He simply likes to ponder these matters for a great time. You should know that."
"We beseech God, but He does not listen to us. We must get out. Many of us have tried to swim to Purgatory. But Leviathan gets us."
"That is true," said Qawik. "We see many bodies pierced on Leviathan's teeth. And when one of our own falls into the water. Leviathan crushes their body, and sends their soul back to Satan."
Marti sat up in the deck of the boat, clutched Qawik by his parka. "You must kill Leviathan. He cannot live anymore." Jose Marti let go of Qawik, fell to the deck, and his soul went to Satan once more. They lifted his body over the side and dropped it into the water.
Qawik stared at Marti's body as he fell into the depths. And an idea came to him.
"You are mad," Ukalliq said.
"Perhaps," said Qawik. "Still, I see no other way to kill the whale."
Qawik and Ukalliq sat in the unfinished iglus of Qitiqliq. Qawik was greasing the barrel and stock of the bomb gun with fat from the body of a man who had gone back to Satan, one of the corpses that Leviathan had spat back up.
Ukalliq was sewing a watertight bag from the man's skin.
"Do you know what happens to those who go back to Satan?" Ukalliq asked.
Qawik nodded. "I have heard stories."
"Stories! No story can match the reality. Did I tell you of the time when I first came here?"
"You have hinted."
"Ah, let me tell you more than hints. When I first came to Hell I was shamed at my torment. I went out on the ice, took off my parka and my boots, and let the cold take me. Paradise was not out, and I went quickly. I passed away. It was a great peace, a great sleep, but it did not last long.
When I awoke, I was back with Satan. I had returned to New Hell. And there I met the Undertaker."
"The Undertaker? The man who puts bodies back together?"
Ukalliq nodded. "A horrible, disgusting man, with breath worse than shit-breath that smelled like walrus , bile gone rancid for ten winters. When you awake, the Undertaker hovers over you, and tends to your wounds, and makes your body whole. He is very worried about you, and so gets very dose, so the whole time you are smelling this awful, disgusting man. He looks like a great lemming--a lemming shaved bald. It is disgusting. But that is not all,"
"What more can happen?"
"You enter Hell again. You must receive a new torment, and you must listen to the awful whinings of that fat pig, the Welcome Woman. When I met her again she was at the Undertaker's, watching my body become whole. When my penis grew back, she-you do not want to hear what she did."
"It sounds bad, Ukalliq."
"It is bad," Ukalliq said. "Qawik, you are content with hunting the whale. Let us keep hunting."
"It is not enough anymore," Qawik said. "I want to destroy Leviathan."
Ukalliq put the final stitch in the bag. "Done," he said, holding the bag up for Qawik to see. "Do you think your plan will work?"
He smiled. "God's Grace told me that I was to hunt Leviathan, but that I would never catch him.
And so I will not. But God's Grace said nothing about destroying Leviathan. And so I will."
Qawik slipped a bomb into the greased bomb gun, and handed the gun to Ukalliq.
Ukalliq slipped the gun inside the bag, squeezed as much air out of the bag as he could, and stitched the bag fight. He walked over to a great tub of water, and held the bag and gun under.
No air bubbles escaped, no water got into the bag.
"It will work," Ukalliq said.
Qawik grinned.
Leviathan came to them on the edge of the ice, with a gentle moan that rose into a high squeal.
The whalers jumped into the boat and gave chase. Leviathan swam slowly, let the whalers catch up with him. Queequeg stood in the bow, raised the darting harpoon, and drove the harpoon deep into the beast. The harpoon held, the bomb exploded, and Leviathan sank into a red sea.
He rose from the deep. The line flew out of the boat, whipped the boat around as it came to the end, and Leviathan towed the boat through the open channels, through the lead in the ice. Cakes of ice slammed against the side of the leaky boat, water sprayed over the bow, mist whipped through their parkas.
Leviathan surfaced once, twice, three times, and then floated calmly on the surface, flukes flapping feebly.
"He tires again," said Queequeg. "Ah, his old trick."
The whale began rolling, wrapping the line around his great body, reeling the boat toward him.
Queequeg and Qawik changed places ,in the bow. Qawik took out the bomb gun, still in its waterproof skin bag. He felt through the folds for the safety, switched it off, slipped a finger around the trigger.
"When we're within ten yards, cut the boat loose," he said.
"Aye," said Queequeg.
"You do not need to do this," Ukalliq said. "You can back out."
Qawik shook his head. "I want to do this, Ukalliq."
"Satan may not send you back here."
"I will return," he said. "This is my home." Qawik turned to Ukalliq, smiled.
He reached up, tugged on the ulu in his head., The woman's knife came free.
Qawik smiled, handed the ulu to Ukalliq. "See, Little Babbit? The blade comes free. It is a good sign. I will please Leviathan."
"Fifteen yards," Queequeg said.
"Goodbye," said Qawik.
"Goodbye, Wolverine," said Ukalliq.
"Ten yards," Queequeg said. He cut the line.
Qawik dove into the water, bomb gun held tight in his arms. He kicked toward Leviathan, swam toward the mouth. Leviathan opened his great jaws, and the water sank down his throat, a whirlpool sucking Qawik into the maw, Qawik held his head high, took deep breaths, and ducked as he was swept over and under the knifelike teeth. He sank down into the throat of the whale, into darkness.
He swallowed one last gasp of fetid, sulfarous air, puffed out his cheeks, kept his lips sealed. The whirlpool drew him down, down over the tongue of the monster, down toward the gullet.
As he swept down the whale's throat, under the brain, below me skull, Qawik raised the bomb gun. He jammed it up into the soft skin at the base of the whale's skull and pulled the trigger.
The gun kicked him back against the side of the gullet. Qawik grabbed, hung onto a flap of flesh on the inside of the throat. He looked up, saw a great explosion above him, saw blood stream out from a hole two yards wide at the bottom of the whale's skull. Torrents of blood, torrents of gray slimy brains washed over Qawik. He licked at the blood, let it wash down his throat, as the blood washed Qawik down Leviathan's throat. Qawik fell into the stomach of the whale, into darkness, into the deep blue sea.