Chapter 2 – Both Sinner and Saint
Slowly and methodically, the melody of "Good Old Summertime" played on what sounded like a harpsichord. Each note felt light and a little empty, like air. Booker latched onto the tune like an anchor, so he could tell himself that this was all real. Inside the capsule, felt himself floating as the view outside his tiny window descended softly. His eyes adjusted to the overwhelming brightness of the sunlight, to behold the city in the clouds. So much like a dream it was, from the windmills perched atop buildings to the hot air balloon propelling itself across the city like a motorboat and all the wonders Booker had dreamt about as a boy, the wild promises of traveling shows and the photographs out of the World Fair.
At first glance, Booker didn't think it could be a city, though he couldn't deny entire buildings floating above and amongst the clouds. But they were joined together – even as the sky and the endless drop opened up between them – by rails and cables that wrapped about the buildings like wires instead of railroad tracks.
"Welcome, pilgrim," the voice inside the capsule emitted.
From inside, Booker saw his vehicle descending into the city, past rails and balloons and giant posters he tried to read but couldn't catch full sight of. When he finally came down it was gentle, but the shock of something solid shook him from within and he was panting, and he was panting heavily before he could even realize he was descending further, into darkness, accompanied only by the sound of grinding gears.
Carried down by his capsule as it sank into an array of steel girders, Booker found the only light coming through his window, refracted into many colors. Adjusting his eyes again to the darkness, Booker could make out a gigantic stained glass window set against a mass of steel and stone, carved like a grand cathedral. As he sank further a dim, yellow light grew brighter and brighter. The stained glass window was distant, but for Booker it was enough to find a distinct shape in the mass of swirls and colors: a man, with one of those implacable expressions stained glass figures had, with a flowing white beard, his arm pointed out and upward, his shoulders covered by a gray-blue overcoat that flowed along with his pose of grandeur. Booker thought that it all looked slightly like a geriatric Jesus, and that was probably the exact point of whoever made it.
The light grew brighter and the sounds coming from below began to drown out the grinding of the gears. Most people might have been relieved to hear the choral chant below, so drawn out and lightly annunciated you couldn't actually hear a word. Most people – whether they enjoyed the sound of hymns or not – would simply be comforted knowing that there were others nearby. Not Booker DeWitt.
The capsule landed. This time Booker was ready for it, but he still shook as the vapor hissed and released from the rocket. His manacles snapped off from both his wrists and ankles. Rubbing his wrists, he waited as the door slid open, rising above his head. But before it came to a complete stop and the steam dissipated, he recognized another sound: the slushing and rolling of running water. Great, he thought, exasperated, of all the things to find more of in the sky. He nearly felt like smacking himself over the head for so quickly accommodating to that idea: I'm in the sky, like it was no different from any odd job he had been assigned back with the Pinkertons.
The water was thankfully shallow and as he sloshed through the tunnels of this steel church, Booker tried not to think of what was happening to his feet after all this. The tunnels and caverns were well lit with thousands of small candles, like the kind worshippers leave at a saint's statue. The occasional stained glass window brought in a purple- or blue-tinted burst of bright light. Beneath his knees, flower petals clumped together in the water and flowed off in one direction. He followed them, hoping the current would lead him out of this place and into the city. But after two endeavors, following the clumps through unbearably long hallways, he couldn't even find sealed-off drains. Each path only led him to more candles, more stained glass, and long, dark hallways with more choral chants in the even greater distance.
Kicking the water pointlessly, he went to find a dry place to rest. Moving on, it struck him that despite all of this water, there was no stench – not sewage, not algae, not even piss. He cupped his hands and lifted the dripping water up to his eyes. Crystal clear, without even rust from the metal. That meant one of two things: either this place had some kind of purification device, or it was small enough that water never stayed here for very long.
From around another bend, Booker found a staircase, spiraling down into darkness. He stepped down carefully, trying not to slip on the uneven steps. Through his descent, he was flanked by smaller windows, each with a single, familiar icon: cutlass, scroll, and key. At the bottom of the steps, a great chamber opened itself to him, cloaked in muted light. As he waded through the water, he felt it grow deeper and until it had risen above his knees. Finally, he came to a wall. At first, it seemed another barren, featureless wall in this maze of water and glass, but when he placed his hand to lean on it, he recognized the texture of dry stone. More than that, it was a smooth rock, with an even smoother crack bisecting it that he could feel curved precisely. Booker had assumed the whole complex was iron and steel and glass. He stepped away and saw the writing carved into the rock, cut out of the marble bricks inserted into the wall. The inscription was so big, he needed to back out even further to see it all and squint to read the parts that were left in shadows by the candles' dim light. When he was far enough away he found the message, but no answers. Written into the wall, it said: "The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flames the mountains of man."
What the fuck does that mean? Frustrated and bracing himself for whatever trap was waiting, Booker reached for his holster, only to remember that his pistol had fallen out back in the lighthouse.
"Is there anybody out there?" Booker called. "I need to find a pathway out."
At first, Booker just listened to the echo of his voice, indistinct and muffled in this watery chamber. Then a call rang out. "This is the path, pilgrim." It sounded like a man, but whoever it was hadn't shouted. The voice was too soft for that. Too much of it came in echoes for Booker to pin down what direction it came from, so he moved away from the wall and called again.
"Where am I?" Booker said.
"Heaven, pilgrim," the voice responded. "Or as close as we'll see, 'til Judgment Day."
Pushing further away from the candles, Booker found the source of the voice. A man stood, patiently and still, against a long flat stretch of wall. Booker realized this was what made his soft voice echo so far. The man wore a white robe, with dampness rising from its bottom. His face hung on the line somewhere between young and old, and he smiled at Booker like he was expecting him. Not him specifically, but perhaps some kind of person he accepted Booker for.
"Follow me," he said, and trudged away toward another opening in the wall. "Don't worry, we're all equals here. There's no initiation for walking the path. Only for committing to it."
"I need to find a way into the city. Do you know the way?" Booker cautiously followed the man, but kept his feet ready to sprint.
"Of course, I do, pilgrim," he said. "And everyone is here for the city. For the new Eden. A last chance for redemption."
The inscriptions don't give straight answers. Shouldn't be surprised the people don't, thought Booker. Strange as it all was, he had at least gotten his head around what all of this was. Past the crazy machinery and the watery maze, he recognized it as the collection of the same folks who spent their days in the river, calling out for people to be saved. He saw their kind all throughout his life: from the soldiers who lined up Indians and slaughtered them like animals, to the Pinktertons who bashed in the skull of a coal miner – a hard-working fellow, probably no better or worse than any of their fathers, who just wanted to bring home bread and soup – because an old man didn't want to slow down production. All of them, the brutes and killers who surrounded Booker his whole life, the fellows whose work he shared; all of them knew it was wrong, but there were always the ones who kept the crucifix under their uniforms and told themselves they weren't too far gone. He didn't try to lie to himself like that. He knew exactly how far gone he was. He knew it deep down in his soul the moment he felt the sunrise over Wounded Knee. And he openly admitted that he hadn't changed much since then. The only difference was the nightmares.
So when he followed the old man into a tunnel, covered in glowing candles that illuminated the faces of about thirty people, young and old, men and women, all beaming with whatever they told themselves was waiting for them, he saw the same lost souls looking for a way back. He saw it in their deluded faces: people who had been lost like him, but who refused to accept it.
"Praise be to the Lamb, the future of our city!" said the man who had led Booker here. The flock repeated, somewhat clumsily, like they were picking up the words from each other.
Out of the crowd, a woman spoke up. "Preacher Witting," she said to the man, "who's this you've brought into our flock?"
Preacher Witting looked back at Booker, who stood dumbstruck for a moment, trying to decide if it was too dangerous to give away his name. He started to mumble something, but Witting cut him off.
"He doesn't have to give his name if he doesn't want to," said Witting, his eyes fixed on Booker though he didn't exactly address him. "Who we were in the Sodom below holds no bearing in this place." Witting suddenly took Booker's hand and led him to the flock, sticking him between the other pilgrims. A few of them were dressed in white robes, while others just wore soggy versions of their Sunday best. "You see, pilgrim, this is no mere temple for ablutions. These are waters of rebirth. In the words of our prophet: One man goes into the waters of baptism, a different man comes out, born again."
Booker shrugged. No point in playing along, and he wasn't a good enough actor do it anyway. "I just care about getting into the city. I have important business to take care of."
Witting leaned in until his nose nearly crept on Booker's chest – he was significantly shorter. "So hungry for the path, he doesn't see what's required. Don't be led astray in your desires, pilgrim."
Just you wait, old man, Booker thought.
As Preacher Witting led the flock through the waters, Booker dipped his head into every other chamber they passed, seeing if there was a quicker way out of this maze. Though the water stayed deep, the stream had grown stiller. Some of the chambers opened to completely still water, whose ripples softened the reflections of the illuminated chapels. Booker would catch a glimpse of each one as they moved through the hallways: small but grand houses with large stained glass images. Nearly all of them displayed the man himself, the bearded fellow whose face Booker recognized from when he first entered the place. The woman next to Booker looked young enough to be in finishing school. She was dressed in muddied white and wore that strange variation of nun's wear that looked like a big, dying flower on her head. Her hands were clasped together and she was muttering under her breath.
"Excuse me?" asked Booker, quietly. "What are you praying for?"
The nun smiled up at him. Booker's face remained steeled. "You can't pray for anything. Father Comstock has already given us what we need. We only pray to maintain our spirit to follow his wisdom."
"Comstock?" Booker paused. He thought for a moment on how he could come across as knowing more than he did. "Are there any windows in this place that don't have him plastered over it?"
"A few," she said. "We're coming up on one now."
She slowly drifted away from the flock, toward another chapel. Booker stayed still. "Won't we lose them?"
"Don't worry," said the nun. "I'll lead you back after we've prayed in the Mother's chapel."
The nun pressed forward to the chamber. Booker shrugged and swore that this would be the last time he followed some kooky stranger as long as he was on this job. The chapel was bathed in a dark, purple light. The water was shallow, so the bottom of his legs shivered. He followed the nun to the front row of pews and rolled up his trousers to rub his calves dry. Around the two of them, the chapel was decorated with purple drapes, looking dry as a bone, and candelabras that were driven into the walls and hanging from the ceiling. The ripples of the water shimmered on the illuminated walls. Statues, one on each side of the altar, of a woman praying on her knees, towered before Booker and the nun. Finally, fixed between the statues, in the place where the image of the saint went, was not a stained a glass window but a portrait of the same woman – a bit tame, Booker thought, by the standards of this place. It wasn't messianic, or even grandiose. It looked like some cheap thing you found at a fair: just a woman in a navy petticoat, standing with a slight look over her shoulder, and giving a vacant expression to something outside the frame. Far from a Mother Mary, but farther from the strangest thing Booker had seen all day.
"Love the prophet because he loves the sinner," said the nun, in a tone that indicated she was reciting. "Love the sinner because he is you. Without the sinner, what need is there for a redeemer? Without the sin, what grace has forgiveness? Hail the Mother, Lady Comstock."
The nun turned to face him, catching Booker off guard.
"Why did you come here, pilgrim?" she asked.
"Does this work a like a confession?" he asked. "I can tell you and you won't pass it along to some other guy you work for?" Booker spoke in a coarse tone, the kind of grumbled lilt that was meant to keep people on edge without sounding like you were bluffing. "Except for the big guy, I guess," he added, pointing up.
The nun nodded, which didn't completely satisfy him. But he knew that he wouldn't get information without an exchange. "I came here on a job, to find something for someone else. Someone lost in the city."
"No one's lost in the city," said the nun.
"Yeah, I get it. They're all already found. I've heard it before."
"Do you see yourself as a cynical man, pilgrim?"
Booker didn't answer. It was a loaded question, and even though the nun spoke softly, he heard it as an intimidation.
"If you're here on a job," she continued, "a mission to find something – then you're hoping you can solve a problem. You believe you can solve some problem. A mission is an act of hope." The nun rose and strolled off, as though she expected Booker to follow. "You're not a cynic. You're one who hopes."
Booker snorted. He didn't bother telling her she was wrong and he was just following her to find away into the city. That was the petty insistence of a frightened boy, puffing his chest. He didn't think of himself as a cynic though: just a man with nothing to prove.
Booker and the nun made their way to a massive, well-lighted chamber, sparkling with candlelight that shone off the smooth, still water. Rising from the tides were statues of angels, their hands clasping real candles dripping with wax. More people dressed in white waded through canals on both sides of them. At the end of their canal, the unmistakable hue of sunlight burst from an opaque window. Booker breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't quicken his pace, realizing he needed to move with the others. Taking his time, he finally recognized the hymn that had been echoing in every corner of this metropolis of a church. It was "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."
They pick their songs right, Booker thought, and hummed to himself, knowingly, There's a better home awaiting, in the sky, oh in the sky.
Booker and the nun neared the window at the end of the canal, where the familiar voice of Preacher Witting rumbled from behind a crowd of robed worshippers. Beneath the window, which shone daylight over the canals, Booker saw a dark crevice, where the water flowed through a drain in the wall. The drain was tall enough for three men to stand on each other and still not reach the top. There didn't seem to be a door. Even over the draining water, Witting did not need to scream to be heard.
"And every year on this day of days we recommit ourselves to our city, and to our prophet, Father Comstock. We recommit ourselves through the giving of thanks and by submerging ourselves in the sweet waters of baptism."
Booker tried to push through the crowd, thinking that some kind of door or passageway had to be on the other side of this mass.
"And lo! If the prophet had struck down our enemies and not railed against the Sodom beneath us, it would have been enough. If the prophet and just railed against the Sodom beneath us, but not accepted the three golden gifts of the Founders, it would have been enough. If the prophet had accepted the three golden gifts of the Founders, and not prayed for our deliverance, it would have been enough! If the prophet had only prayed for our deliverance, and not led us to this new Eden, it would have been enough! If the prophet had just led us to this new Eden, and not purged the vipers of the – You!"
Booker whipped around instinctively. The crowd had converged their eyes on him. Behind him, the mass had dispersed, so there was a clear path between him and the figure of Preacher Witting, pointing directly at him. Booker looked around, taking advantage of his new view to find the passage out of this place. No door. No tunnel. Above Witting's head yet another inscription. But it was the first one that made sense: "The path of forgiveness is the only way to the city."
"Is it someone new!" Witting announced less than asked. "Someone from the Sodom below, newly come to Columbia, to be washed clean before our prophet, our founders, and our Lord!"
Witting turned his hand over, invitingly. Booker panicked for a moment. He was having another flashback, slipping back into another memory and reliving it like a nightmare inserted into the world around him. He shook his head, realizing that this was just an eerie coincidence, so similar to that day at the river, when the man had reached out and offered him the chance to go under. That day at the river, when he made his decision – the afternoon following Wounded Knee.
"I just need passage into the city," Booker said. He was tired, and this place was bringing up more and more bad memories. He didn't feel like keeping up niceties.
Witting chuckled. "Brother, the only way to Columbia is through rebirth in the sweet waters of baptism. Will you be cleansed?"
Doesn't seem like I have a choice, Booker thought, it's either this or turn around and get back on the rocket. He pushed aside the prickling on his shoulders and moved forward into the deep water. Behind him the flock called out: "Reach out, brother." "Glory be!" "Hallelujah."
As he took Witting's outstretched hand, Booker called out over his shoulder, "Hey, I'm just looking to pass through." It didn't come out as aggressively as he thought – more of a nonchalant statement of fact. He was a fighter, not an actor, and despite the occasional burst of resentment, he wasn't one for anger. Anger's not good for fighting.
Might as well get it over with.
Witting shoved Booker back with a jolt, holding him up by his back. Booker almost lost his footing and fell in prematurely. The flock looked out, and Witting called to them, "In the words of the prophet: One man goes into the waters of baptism, a different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man!
"So I baptize you in the name of our prophet, in the name of our founders, in the name of our Lord!" Before Booker was allowed to take a gasp for air he was underwater. Witting hadn't just let him drop, but shoved him down forcefully beneath the surface. Acting on instinct, Booker struggled, wrestling against Witting's hands, which pinned both his back and chest in place. Witting was still railing above the surface, but Booker couldn't hear him over the pumping of the water in his ears and the bubbles pouring from his nose. After a few seconds, his face broke the surface and he gasped for air furiously. He coughed and yacked, as the crowd shouted praises and hallelujahs. Even as Booker tried to bring down his coughing, Witting kept going.
"I don't know brothers and sisters!" He turned his face to directly to Booker's. "But this one doesn't look quite clean to me!" Booker was still coughing, but this time Witting's hand came over his nose and mouth. Booker struggled for a moment to rip it off, but the old man already had him submerged yet again. Panicking, Booker lashed his arms out of the water trying to get a grip on Witting's arm. But his fingers kept slipping and he felt himself being pushed further down, until the light of that huge window shrank into a pinhole. The pumping in his ears grew louder and the bubbles poured from his nose, pressed down by Witting's hand. He wrestled his body from side to side, but only felt weaker as the light faded away completely. Then the water, so pristine and still, rushed down his nose, mouth and into his eyes.
The voices bang on the door, sending it nearly off its hinges and him out of his stupor.
"Mr. DeWitt!" Again, angrier. "Mr. DeWitt!"
Booker lifts his head from the desk, brushing away the papers from the racetrack. Two empty gin bottles crash to the floor. He's reliving it again, though the memories of that day are hazy: the sweat, the churning in his stomach, and the signs of his failures all around him. Falling out of the desk, he bangs his head on the floor, just inches away from the steel bedframe where his bare mattress withered away. Underneath, he had stuffed the losing cards from the racetrack, and his rusting Pinkerton badge. The banging on the door returns, pummeling against his brain. This whole room is his brain, gathering dust.
"We had a deal, DeWitt! This is your last chance! Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt! Open this door, right now!"
"I told you…" Booker calls out, gasping for air, wanting to scream in fury and remorse, "I told you! I'm not going to do it! Go away!"
"We had a deal, DeWitt! Open the door!"
He scurries to the back of the room and tries to force open the window. He wants to smash his head against the glass. But outside the window, there's only pure whiteness. Just like every time, in every flashback. Every time it goes the same. Every time, there is no escape.
"There's only one way out, DeWitt!" The banging comes back, louder and harder, strong enough that Booker nearly collapses onto the glass. "You've already made the choice! BRING US THE GIRL AND WIPE AWAY THE DEBT!"