V.

After stealing the bejeweled dentures from Eigenvalue’s office, Profane and Stencil meet up with Paola to discuss the upcoming trip to Malta. Paola throws herself at Profane, who dismisses her supposed love for him as she is “only eighteen” (193) but, as she embraces him, Rachel enters the apartment and assumes that Profane and Paola are already in a relationship. After spending the rest of the day with Rachel, fruitlessly protesting his innocence, Profane tells the Whole Sick Crew that he is accompanying Stencil and Paola to Malta.

Before leaving for Malta, Profane, Stencil, and Pig make a “flying visit” (194) to Washington DC. While Stencil visits the State Department for information on Malta, Pig and Profane meet Flip and Flop, two “government girls” (194) and cavort across the city in a blur of drunken debauchery. Flop and Pig drive to Miami to get married. Meanwhile, an insurance executive named Iago Saperstein (whose first name is that of the villain from Shakespeare’s Othello), thrilled by the idea that Profane is a Schlemihl (more commonly spelled schlemiel, this Yiddish word means “inept or incompetent person”), insists that Profane and Flip come with him to a party on the Maryland border. The four meet up again, partying until the police throw the group in a cell for the night. Pig is recognized as a deserter from the Navy and remains in custody.

Two weeks later, a “going away party” (196) is held for Profane, Stencil, and Paola. Profane and Rachel drink champagne in the nude, listening to the happy sound of the bubbles leaving the champagne bottle. The next day, the Whole Sick Crew gathers on the dock to wave goodbye to the departing trio.

Profane, Paola, and Stencil get to Malta as the ongoing Suez Crisis has turned the island into the epicenter of world politics. In Valletta, the Maltese capital, Pappy Hod, Fat Clyde, and Howie Surd take a break from duty aboard the USS Scaffold, the only American ship in the harbor. They can sense that the geopolitical crisis is having an effect on the mood of the people in Valletta.

At a bar named the Four Aces, the men drink and discuss the fact that the US and USSR have allied against the British and French about the ownership of the Suez Canal. Many of the walls in the city are graffitied with a cartoon character named Kilroy, who is described as “the only objective onlooker in Valletta” (202). Pappy slips away to another bar, the Metro, where he tells the story of his short marriage to Paola. Once he becomes “stinking drunk” (203), his friends haul him out of the bar, swapping stories, songs, and insults with British sailors. They find a taxi and go back to the harbor, where they find Profane and Paola. Paola promises Pappy that, once she returns to the United States, she will go back to being his wife. Until then, however, he cannot kiss or hold her. She hands him an ivory comb as a gif so that he will know in the morning that the reunion was not just “a dream” (205).

Profane, Paola, and Stencil find Fausto Maijstral. Stencil wishes to speak to Fausto but he struggles to do so. Eventually, he reveals to Fausto that he has read the Confessions. Fausto notes that Stencil’s father once saved his life and declares they should consider themselves “brothers” (206). Stencil outlines his investigation into V. He is particularly interested in the Bad Priest from Fausto’s writing, though Fausto insists that this person is dead. Fausto recommends that Stencil talk to one of the children who dismantled the Bad Priest. Stencil searches through the junk shops of Valletta for any trace of artificial limbs. One lead brings him to a girl, who admits that she once threw a glass eye into the sea.

Stencil is certain that V. is not dead. Fausto is captivated by Stencil’s work, even if the quest is meaningless. Stencil is struck by the idea of finding Father Avalanche, the successor of the sewer priest, Father Fairing, but when he speaks to Father Avalanche, the man barely remembers the incident involving V. Father Avalanche suggests Stencil talk to Fairing, but Fairing is likely long dead.

Stencil develops an obsession with the phrase “events seem to be ordered into an ominous logic” (208), which he writes down in many different ways. He has a new theory: Father Fairing departed Malta in 1919 and went on to preach to the rats in the sewers of New York. Stencil is now convinced that Profane’s sickness is actually a possession: Profane is possessed by the spirit of V. Fausto points out that Stencil is sick with the same possession, asking how many more Stencils there are in the world, all searching for their own version of V. When Stencil alludes to the suicidal nature of his pursuit, Fausto cryptically refers to the rocks scattered around the ramparts of the city.

As Profane’s fever breaks, Fausto tells him that Stencil claims to have found “the frayed end of another clue” (210)—someone named Mme. Viola may be another incarnation of V. Profane walks out through the city streets and runs into an American woman named Brenda Wigglesworth. Like Profane, she has no money. They buy drinks with Fausto’s money; later, Fausto warns that he cannot support Profane forever and that Profane should find a job. Profane and Brenda take to the streets again, running with careless abandon, “momentum alone carrying them toward the edge of Malta, and the Mediterranean beyond” (211).

In Malta in 1919, Sidney Stencil speaks to a merchant seaman named Mehemet. World War I has changed everything. Despite the “holiday” (212) spreading across Europe, British intelligence agents such as Sidney retain a dour outlook for the future. Stencil thinks about the brewing political unrest in Malta; he and his fellow spies are now relics of a bygone age when spy craft was a gentleman’s pursuit and technical details like sides or countries did not necessarily matter. Mehemet is also an anachronism. He and Sidney discuss sailing, war, society, and disease. They talk about the fate of the Earth and a potential Armageddon.

In his hotel room, Sidney thinks about returning to Great Britain to see his young son, Herbert. His reveries are interrupted by the arrival of Maijstral, Fausto’s father. Maijstral is an informer, passing Stencil information about the men who work on the docks: Tension among the dock workers threatens to break out in civil unrest in Malta. Suspicious, Sidney follows Maijstral and discovers that Maijstral has also been feeding information to Veronica Manganese. Stencil tries to follow her, but he runs into Demivolt, who brings up their previous encounter in Florence and the “symptom” (219) that is Vheissu.

Linus Fairing is another of Sidney’s informants. Fairing often makes the case for Christianity as a solution to the “trouble” (225) on the island. Stencil is about to leave Malta when one of his agents, sent to spy on Veronica, is killed. Sidney suspects that Veronica is connected to the nascent fascist movement, though in the past, they were on the same side working toward a common purpose. Now, although both want “to keep Italy out of Malta” (226), they have different approaches to this goal: Veronica (also referred to as V.) wants to spread social unrest. She also wants to replace parts of her body with artificial counterparts, which frightens Sidney.

Sidney becomes more melancholic as the situation becomes increasingly complex and “treacherous” (227). His only comfort is remembering when Veronica was kind. He thinks about global politics: Democracy will place geopolitics into the hands of millions of amateurs. Only the thought of his son Herbert keeps Sidney going. Similarly, he has promised Maijstral that he will do everything he can to protect baby Fausto. When Maijstral discovers that Veronica and Sidney are meeting, Sidney takes Maijstral off duty so that he can “stay out of the blood bath” (228). Later that month, the social unrest spills over into riots. The main issue is Maltese autonomy. Sidney leaves Malta, riding on Mehemet’s ship. As they sail across the Mediterranean, a “waterspout” (229) lifts the ship in the air and then crashes it back down into the sea, where it sinks.