Chapter 17: Leah — Summary, Themes, and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Chapter 17, narrated by Leah, opens in the darkness of the sunken submersible. Jelka has produced a small plastic figurine of Saint Brendan of Clonfert and set it beside one of the torches. She sits on the floor before it, her neck bent so far forward that her vertebrae press visibly against her skin, as though huddling around a fire.

Leah recalls a conversation in which Jelka corrected her phrasing: one prays with saints, not to them. Praying directly to a saint would be idolatry; instead, the saint makes an intercession to God on the believer's behalf. Jelka described this arrangement, with a hint of self-amusement, as spiritually akin to diving with a buddy.

Leah reflects on what she knows of Jelka's past. Jelka served as an altar server at a church in central Haarlem as a child and was convinced that Catholic policy would eventually allow her to train as a priest. When that did not happen, she turned to marine ecology and conservation, spending years doing fieldwork on the New Caledonian barrier reef. Leah once asked, glibly, whether the ocean appealed to Jelka for its religious universality—whether God felt everywhere in the sea. Jelka shook her head and said she was furious she could not do the thing she had wanted to do, and that she felt better in places without churches. Leah was chastened and stopped asking personal questions for a long time.

Leah recalls that Jelka, as a teenager, cycled through intense fascinations with various saints the way others might fixate on movie stars—Saint Erasmus, Saint Augustine, Saint Clare of Assisi, Saint Benedict, Saint Genevieve, and Saint Anne. At thirteen, she developed a particular passion for Saint Lidwina, a Dutch mystic who broke a rib in a fall on the ice and subsequently endured gangrene, bleeding, blindness, and stigmata. What Jelka loved most was that Lidwina continued to fast for God despite her suffering, eating only apples and dates and drinking salt water. Leah remembers the way Jelka touched her lips after telling this story, as if checking for moisture.

The chapter then turns to Saint Brendan, the patron saint of mariners, sailors, divers, adventurers, travelers, and whales. Jelka had told Leah the story of Brendan's Atlantic voyage in search of the Garden of Eden, a journey populated by devils, gryphons, and sea monsters. Jelka noted that different versions of the story exist: sometimes the voyage is a quest for the holy land, and sometimes it is a punishment—Brendan does something wrong, and an angel sends him out to sail for nine years.

The narrative shifts to the present. In the dark, without power, time loses its ordinary shape. Submariners normally maintain a twenty-four-hour watch schedule and use a cycling light system to mark day and night, but without power, circadian rhythms break down quickly—a few days is all it takes. Leah sat with Jelka, looking at the silhouette of the saint against the torchlight, and at some point she slept, though she is unclear when sleep began.

Key Events

Jelka places a Saint Brendan figurine beside a torch and sits before it in the sunken craft.
Leah recalls Jelka's explanation of praying with saints rather than to them, with the saint interceding to God.
Leah remembers Jelka's background: altar server in Haarlem, thwarted desire to become a priest, shift to marine ecology, fieldwork on the New Caledonian barrier reef.
Leah recalls asking whether the ocean appealed to Jelka religiously; Jelka replies she feels better in places without churches.
Leah remembers Jelka's teenage fascinations with saints, especially Saint Lidwina and her suffering-and-fasting devotion.
Jelka's earlier telling of Saint Brendan's voyage—as quest or punishment—is recalled.
The chapter notes the breakdown of circadian rhythms without power and ends with Leah sleeping beside Jelka, unsure when she drifted off.

Character Development

This chapter deepens the portrait of Jelka, who has so far been a largely opaque presence. Her Catholicism emerges as a defining, almost contradictory core: she is otherwise brisk, rational, and cold-blooded, yet her faith is a white-hot center. The chapter reveals that her career in marine science was a sideways step from a vocation she was denied—she wanted to be a priest, and the institutional church would not have her. Her preference for the ocean is not mystical but defiant: she feels better where there are no churches.

Leah's narration also reveals her own curiosity and restraint. She admits she does not know basic facts about Jelka—whether she has siblings, a partner, or parents she cares for—and that she typically asks such questions because Miri would be interested. After her glib question about God and the ocean, Leah is chastened and stops asking personal questions for a long time, suggesting a respect for Jelka's boundaries that coexists with genuine interest.

The chapter also shows Leah's vulnerability. She is the one who sleeps, uncertain of when, in the dark—an early sign of the circadian breakdown that threatens them both.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Faith and intercession. Jelka's theology is precise: saints do not receive prayer but carry it to God. This model of mediated devotion mirrors the structure of the novel itself, where Leah and Miri's stories are told in alternating chapters, each interceding for the other in the reader's understanding.

Devotion amid suffering. Saint Lidwina's story—enduring physical decay while continuing to fast for God—resonates with the situation of the crew in the sunken craft. The chapter invites a parallel between Lidwina's suffering and the slow deterioration of the submersible's inhabitants.

The sea voyage as quest or punishment. Jelka's telling of Saint Brendan's voyage offers two versions: a quest for the holy land or a punishment imposed by an angel. This ambiguity mirrors the novel's central question about the deep-sea mission—was it a chosen adventure or a sentence? The nine-year sail also echoes the crew's prolonged, unexplained ordeal.

The ocean as refuge from institutional religion. Jelka's statement that she feels better in places without churches reframes the sea not as a sacred space but as an escape from an institution that rejected her. The ocean becomes a place of exile that is also a place of freedom.

Disrupted time perception. The chapter's closing meditation on circadian rhythm breakdown—how a few days without light cycles can unravel the body's sense of time—speaks to the novel's broader concern with how trauma and isolation distort temporal experience.

Saints as patrons of mariners. Saint Brendan's patronage of sailors, divers, and whales connects the religious imagery directly to the characters' underwater predicament, suggesting that even in the deep, the crew is not entirely without spiritual company.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 17 is a quiet but pivotal chapter. It provides the most substantial characterization of Jelka to date, revealing the thwarted vocation and fierce independence that shape her. It also introduces a key symbolic framework—Saint Brendan's voyage as quest or punishment—that resonates with the novel's larger questions about the mission's meaning. The chapter's final turn to circadian breakdown marks an important shift in the narrative's treatment of time, suggesting that the crew's grip on ordinary reality is beginning to slip. This chapter deepens the novel's meditation on faith, suffering, and the sea as both refuge and prison.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Jelka's explanation of praying with saints rather than to them reflect her broader relationship with institutional religion?

Jelka's correction is precise and theological: praying to a saint would be idolatry, while praying with a saint means the saint intercedes to God on the believer's behalf. This distinction shows that Jelka's faith is not casual or superstitious but carefully reasoned. Yet her career shift from aspiring priest to marine ecologist, and her statement that she feels better in places without churches, reveals a deep rupture with the institution that denied her vocation. Her faith persists, but it has been displaced from the church to the sea.

2. What is the significance of the two versions of Saint Brendan's voyage that Jelka describes?

Jelka notes that in some tellings, Brendan's voyage is a quest for the holy land, while in others it is a punishment—he does something wrong, and an angel makes him sail for nine years. This ambiguity mirrors the novel's central uncertainty about the crew's own mission: was it a chosen adventure or an imposed sentence? The parallel invites the reader to consider whether the characters' suffering is meaningful or arbitrary, a question the novel keeps deliberately open.

3. How does the chapter's treatment of time prepare the reader for what may come next?

The chapter explains that without power, circadian rhythms break down within days, and that Leah is already unsure when she fell asleep. This signals a loss of temporal anchor that will likely intensify as the crew's situation worsens. It also suggests that the narrative's own chronology may become less reliable, preparing the reader for a story in which time itself becomes untrustworthy.