Free Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow Page A

the stuffing like a complex fracture or some other gross example from the Girl Scouts’ first-aid handbook. The hotel, Julie decided, was like one of Pop’s wrecked ships, William Rose or Lucy II, tossed up on shore. Maybe she’d been wrong about God’s arrival. It could happen as easily on land as underwater. God might even appear in a hotel room—a spray of divine light rushing from a shower nozzle, shaping itself into a mother.
    Julie visited the bathrooms, testing them. All the showers were dead. Whenever she flushed a toilet, a great moan arose, as if the Deauville could no longer perform even the simplest functions without pain.
    Room 319. She looked in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were as turquoise as Somers Bay; her dark hair was long and wild like the fur on the Wererat of Transylvania suit Aunt Georgina had made Phoebe for Halloween. (Phoebe always went trick-or-treating in the casinos, bringing home scads of quarters.) Her chin was chubby, her forehead bore a thin scar, and her nose, while nicely shaped, turned up slightly, as if she’d been punched by an elf. Her best feature was her skin, which had the smooth brownish gloss of a caramel apple.
    She left 319 and went to the gym—at least, that’s what it must have been. Sunbeams slanted through the glass ceiling, igniting the dust specks that swarmed around the parallel bars and broken trapeze. Rings hung down like nooses. Across the room, beyond a shattered wall, lay an empty swimming pool, big as a dinosaur’s grave.
    Near the deep end, a man sat on a plastic lounge chair, the kind people brought to the beach.
    “Hello.” His friendly voice bounced all over the room. He wore a red terrycloth bathrobe and an equally red swimming suit. Black-lensed sunglasses masked his eyes. “Welcome to my casino.” One hand gripped a glass of iced tea, the other a book. “Don’t be afraid.”
    “You must be lost, mister.” If he came toward her, she could easily get away: there was a whole swimming pool between them. “The casino’s next door.”
    “That’s the old Dante’s. We’re expanding. Once we knock this hotel down, we’ll have the biggest damn operation on the Boardwalk.” The man’s tongue shot into his tea and curled around an ice cube, drawing it into his mouth. “It’s not easy running a casino, child, so many details—separate accounts for mobsters, bogus fill slips, falsified markers. Silly to pay more taxes than we have to, eh?” He snapped the book shut and pulled a small silver box from his bathrobe pocket. “You may call me Andrew Wyvern. My other names are legion. You’re Julie Katz, aren’t you?”
    “How’d you know?”
    “From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Come here, sweetheart. I have something special for you.”
    “I don’t think I should.”
    “It’s a message. From your mother.”
    “My mother?”
    “God’s one of my best friends. Read Job.”
    A delicious warmth rushed over Julie, as if all her petting zoo creatures were rubbing against her. Her mother! He knew her mother! “What message?”
    “Come here. I’ll tell you.”
    Julie climbed into the shallow end. Rotten wrestling mats filled the pool; cracks and fungus wove through the tiles. She scurried up the far ladder. Mr. Wyvern had a queer sweet smell, like oranges soaked in honey. “What does she look like?” Julie asked. “Is she pretty?”
    “Oh, yes, very pretty.” He drummed his large, popcornlike knuckles against the book. Strange title: Malleus Maleficarum. “She’s just the way you imagine her.”
    “Yellow hair? Real tall?”
    “You got it.” Mr. Wyvern flipped open the silver box. One side was filled with cigarettes, the other was a mirror.
    “You shouldn’t smoke,” said Julie.
    “You’re right. Disgusting habit.” He rubbed the warts on his knuckles. “It stunts my growths.” Sunlight shot across the mirror, and then a peppery mist appeared, like static on a television screen. The mist