Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

  Sincerely,

  R.F.

  LE ROYAL HÔTEL, BRUGES

  6TH—XI—1931

  Sixsmith,

  Divorces. V. messy affairs but Ayrs’s and mine was over in a single day. Just yesterday morning we were at work on the second movement of his ambitious swan song. He announced a new approach for our Compositional. “Frobisher, today I’d like you to come up with some themes for my Severo movement. Something eve-of-war-ish in E minor. Once you’ve got something that catches my eye, I’ll take it over and develop its potential. Got that?”

  Got that I had. Like it I didn’t, not one bit. Scientific papers are coauthored, yes, and a composer might work with a virtuoso musician to explore the boundaries of the playable—like Elgar and W. H. Reed—but a coauthored symphonic work? V. dubious idea, and told V.A. so in no uncertain terms. He tsked. “I didn’t say ‘coauthored,’ boy. You gather the raw material, I refine it as I see fit.” This hardly reassured me. He chided me: “All the Greats have their apprentices do it. How else could a man like Bach churn out new masses every week?”

  We were in the twentieth century when I last looked, I retorted. Audiences pay to hear the composer whose name is on the program notes. They don’t pay money for Vyvyan Ayrs only to get Robert Frobisher. V.A. got agitated. “They won’t ‘get’ you! They’ll get me! You’re not listening, Frobisher. You do the block-and-tackle work, I orchestrate, I arrange, I polish.”

  “Block-and-tackle” work like my “Angel of Mons,” robbed at gunpoint for the Adagio in Ayrs’s glorious final monument? One may dress plagiarism up however one wishes, it’s still plagiarism. “Plagiarism?” Ayrs kept his voice low, but his knuckles on his cane were whitening. “In bygone days—when you were grateful for my tutelage—you called me one of the greatest living European composers. Which is to say, the world. Why would such an artist possibly need to ‘plagiarize’ anything from a copyist who, may I remind him, was unable to obtain even a bachelor’s degree for himself from a college for the terminally privileged? You’re not hungry enough, boy, that’s your problem. You’re Mendelssohn aping Mozart.”

  The stakes rose like inflation in Germany, but I am constitutionally unable to fold under pressure:—I dig in. “I’ll tell you why you need to plagiarize! Musical sterility!” The finest moments in “Todtenvogel” are mine, I told him. The contrapuntal ingenuities of the new work’s Allegro non troppo are mine. I hadn’t come to Belgium to be his damn fag.

  The old dragon breathed smoke. Ten bars of silence in 6/8. Stubbed out his cigarette. “Your petulance doesn’t deserve serious attention. In fact it deserves dismissal, but that would be acting in the heat of the moment. Instead, I want you to think. Think about reputation.” Ayrs unrolled the word. “Reputation is everything. Mine, save for a youthful exuberance that earned me the clap, is beyond reproach. Yours, my disinherited, gambling, bankrupt friend, is expired. Leave Zedelghem whenever you wish. But be warned. Leave without my consent and all musical society west of the Urals, east of Lisbon, north of Naples, and south of Helsinki will know a scoundrel named Robert Frobisher forced himself upon purblind Vyvyan Ayrs’s wife, his beloved wife, yes, the enchanting Mevrouw Crommelynck. She will not deny it. Imagine the scandal! After everything Ayrs had done for Frobisher, too … well, no wealthy patron, no impoverished patron, no festival organizer, no board of governors, no parent whose Little Lucy Lamb wants to learn the piano will have anything, anything to do with you.”

  So V.A. knows. For weeks, months, probably. Was badly wrong-footed. Highlighted my impotence by calling Ayrs some v. rude names. “Oh, flattery!” he crowed. “Encore, Maestro!” Stopped myself battering the pox-nibbled corpse to a premature death with the bassoon. Didn’t stop myself hissing that if Ayrs was half as good a husband as he was a manipulator and a larcenist of better men’s ideas, his wife might not put it about so much. Come to think of it, I added, how much credibility would his campaign to smear my name carry when European society learned what kind of woman Jocasta Crommelynck was in her private life?

  Hadn’t even scratched him. “You ignorant ass, Frobisher. Jocasta’s numerous affairs are discreet, always have been. Any society’s upper crust is riddled with immorality, how else d’you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts. Disinheritance. Fleeing famous hotels. Defaulting on monies owed to the gentry’s lenders of last resort. Jocasta had my blessing when she seduced you, you stuck-up piffler. I required you to finish ‘Todtenvogel.’ You fancy yourself a larky buck, but there’s alchemy between Jocasta and I you cannot begin to fathom. She’ll fall out of love with you the moment you threaten us. You’ll see. Now go away and come back tomorrow with your homework done. We will pretend your little tantrum never happened.”

  Was only too pleased to comply. Needed to think.

  J. must have played a major part in investigating my recent history. Hendrick doesn’t speak English, and V.A. couldn’t have done this delving alone. She must like louche men—explains why she married Ayrs. Where E. stands on all of this I couldn’t guess, because yesterday was Wednesday, so she was at school in Bruges. Eva could not know about my affair with her mother and still make such open signs of love to me. Surely?

  Spent afternoon walking across the bleak fields in solitary rage. Sheltered from hailstones in a bombed-out chapel’s lych-gate. Thought about E., thought about E., thought about E. Only two things were clear:—hanging myself from Zedelghem’s flagpole was preferable to letting its parasite master plunder my talents a day longer; and never seeing E. again was unthinkable. “It’ll all end in tears, Frobisher!” Yes, possibly, elopements often do, but I love her, I actually love her, and there it is.

  Returned to the château just before it got dark, ate cold meats in Mrs. Willems’s kitchen. Learnt that J. and her Circean caresses were in Brussels on estate business and would not be back that night. Hendrick told me V.A. had retired early with his wireless and instructions not to be disturbed. Perfect. Took a long soak in the tub and a wrote a well-knotted set of scalic bass lines. Crises send me scurrying into music, where nothing can harm me. Retired early myself, locked my door, and packed my valise. Woke myself this morning at four o’clock. Freezing fog outside. Wanted to pay V.A. a final call. Barefoot except for socks, I crept along the wintry corridors to Ayrs’s door. Shivering, eased it open, at pains to avoid the slightest noise—Hendrick sleeps in an adjoining room. Lights off, but in the ember glow from the hearth I saw Ayrs, stretched out like that mummy in the British Museum. His room stank of bitter medicine. Crept to the cabinet by his bed. Drawer was stiff, and as I jerked it open an ether bottle on top wobbled—just caught it. V.A.’s flaunted Luger lay bundled in its chamois cloth wrapped in a string vest, next to a little saucer of bullets. They rattled. Ayrs’s fragile skull was only inches away, but he didn’t wake. His breathing was wheezy as a ratty old barrel organ. Felt an impulse to steal a clutch of bullets, so I did.

  A blue vein throbbed over Ayrs’s Adam’s apple, and I fought off an unaccountably strong urge to open it up with my penknife. Most uncanny. Not quite déjà vu, more jamais vu. Killing, an experience that comes to few outside wartime. What is the timbre of murder? Don’t worry, I’m not writing you a confession of homicide. Working on my sextet while evading a manhunt would be far too much trouble, and ending one’s career swinging in soiled underwear is hardly dignified. Even worse, murdering Eva’s father in cold blood might put the kibosh on her feelings for me. V.A. slumbered on, oblivious to all this, and I pocketed his pistol. I’d stolen the bullets, so taking the Luger too had a sort of logic. Curiously heavy things, guns. It emanated a bass note against my thigh: it’s killed people, for sure; this little Luger went to market. Why did I take it, exactly? Couldn’t tell you. But place its mouth against your ear and you hear the world in a different way.

  Last port of call was Eva’s empty room. Lay on her bed, stroked her clothes, you know how I get sentimental over partings. Left the shortest
letter of my life on her dressing table: “Empress of Bruges. Your belvedere, your hour.” Back to my room. Bade my four-poster bed a fond farewell, raised the stubborn sash window, and effected my flight over the icy roof. Flight was nearly the word—a tile slid out and crashed down to the gravel walk below. Lay prone, expecting shouts and alarums at any second, but no one had heard. Reached Earth courtesy of the obliging yew tree and made my way through the frosty herb garden, keeping the topiary between me and the servants’ rooms. Rounded the front of the house and walked down the Monk’s Walk. East wind straight from the steppes, was glad of Ayrs’s sheepskin. Heard arthritic poplars, nightjars in the fossilized woods, a crazed dog, feet on frozen gravel, rising pulse in my temples, some sorrow too, for myself, for the year. Passed the old lodge, took the Bruges road. Had hoped to hitch a lift on a milk truck or cart, but there was nothing about. Stars were fading in the frosty predawn. A few cottage candles were lit, glimpsed a fiery face in the smithy, but the road north was nobody’s but mine.

  So I thought, but the noise of an automobile was following me. Wasn’t going to hide, so I stopped and faced it. Headlamps dazzled, the car slowed, the engine stalled, and a familiar voice shrieked at me: “And where might you be creeping off to at such an ungodly hour?”

  Mrs. Dhondt, none other, wrapped up in a black sealskin coat. Had the Ayrses sent her out to capture the runaway slave? Confusedly, I garbled out, like an utter ass, “Oh, there’s been an accident!”

  Cursed myself for this cul-de-sac of a lie, for clearly I was fit as a fiddle, alone, on foot, and with my valise and satchel. “What terrible luck!” responded Mrs. Dhondt, with martial gusto, filling in my blanks for me. “Friend or family?”

  I saw my lifeboat. “Friend.”

  “Morty did warn Mr. Ayrs against buying a Cowley for precisely this reason, you know! Unreliable in a crisis. Silly Jocasta, why didn’t she telephone me? Jump in, then! One of my Arabian mares gave birth to two glorious foals just an hour ago, and all three are doing splendidly! I was on my way home, but I’m far too excited to sleep, so I’ll drive you to Ostend if you miss the connection at Bruges. I do so love the roads at this hour. So what is the nature of the accident? Buck up, now, Robert. Never assume the worst until you have all the facts to hand.”

  Reached Bruges by dawn by virtue of a few plain untruths. Selected this superior hotel across from St. Wenceslas because its exterior looks like a bookend and its flower boxes are well planted with miniature firs. My rooms overlook a quiet canal on the west side. Now I’ve finished this letter, will take forty winks until it’s time to go to the belfry. E. might be there. If not, will lurk in an alleyway near her school and waylay her. If she fails to appear there, a call at the van de Veldes’ may be necessary. If my name is fouled, shall disguise myself as a chimney sweep. If I am rumbled, a long letter. If long letter is intercepted, another one is waiting in her dressing table. I am a determined man.

  Sincerely,

  R.F.

  P.S.—Thanks for your anxious letter, but why the clucking Mother Goose? Yes, of course I’m fine—apart from the consequences of described contretemps with V.A. Am more than fine, to tell the truth. My mind is capable of any creative task it can conceive. Composing the best work of my life, of all lives. Have money in my pocketbook and more in the First Bank of Belgium. Reminds me. If Otto Jansch won’t budge from thirty guineas for the Munthe pair, tell him to skin his mother and roll her in salt. See what the Russian on Greek Street’ll cough up.

  P.P.S.—One last serendipitous discovery. Back at Zedelghem, whilst packing my valise, checked nothing had rolled under the bed. Found half a ripped-in-two volume wedged under one of the legs by a long-since-departed guest to stop the bed wobbling. Prussian officer, maybe, or Debussy, who knows? Thought nothing of it until a minute later, when the title on the spine registered. Grimy job, but I lifted the bed up and extracted the bound pages. Sure enough:—”The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing.” From the interrupted page to the end of the first volume. Would you believe it? Slipped the half-book into my valise. Will finish gobbling it down v. soon. Happy, dying Ewing, who never saw the unspeakable forms waiting around history’s corner.

  LE ROYAL HÔTEL, BRUGES

  NEAR THE ENDTH—XI—1931

  Sixsmith,

  Working nights on Cloud Atlas Sextet until I drop, quite literally, no other way to get off to sleep. My head is a Roman candle of invention. Lifetime’s music, arriving all at once. Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so. Take this island, midstream between timbre and rhythm, not down in any book of theory, but it’s here! Hear the instruments in my head, perfect clarity, anything I wish for. When it’s finished, there’ll be nothing left in me, I know, but this king’s shilling in my sweaty palm is the philosopher’s stone! A man like Ayrs spends his allotted portion in dribs and drabs over a dragged-out lifetime. Not I. Heard nothing from V.A. or that adulterous, rubbery, melodramatic wife of his. Suppose they believe I ran home to England. Last night dreamt I fell from the Imperial Western, clutching my drainpipe. Violin note, misplayed, hideously—that’s my sextet’s final note.

  Am perfectly well. So damnably well! Wish I could make you see this brightness. Prophets went blind if they saw Jehovah. Not deaf, but blind, you appreciate the significance. Could still hear him. Talk to myself all day long. Did it absently at first, the human voice soothes me so, but now it takes real effort to stop, so I let it run and run. Take walks when not composing. Could write a Michelin guide to Bruges now, had I but space enough, and time. Round the poorer quarters, not just the groves of the wealthy. Behind a grubby window a grandmother was arranging Saintpaulia in a bowl. Tapped on the pane and asked her to fall in love with me. Pursed her lips, don’t think she spoke French, but I tried again. Cannonball-headed fellow with absolutely no chin appeared at the window, spat out brimstone curses on me and my house.

  Eva. Every day I’ve climbed up the belfry chanting a lucky chant at one syllable per beat, “To—day—to—day—let—her—be—here—to—day—to—day.” Not yet, though I wait until it’s dark. Golden days, bronze days, iron days, watery days, foggy days. Turkish delight sunsets. Nights drawing in, frosty nip in the air. Eva is guarded in a schoolroom down on Earth, chewing her pencil, dreaming of being with me, I know it, me, looking down from amongst exfoliating apostles, dreaming of being with her. Her damn parents must have found the note in her dressing table. Wish I’d gone about things more cunningly. Wish I’d shot the damn fraudster when I had the chance. Ayrs’ll never find a replacement for Frobisher—Eternal Recurrence’ll die with him. Those van de Veldes must have intercepted my second letter to Eva in Bruges. Tried to bluff my way into her school but got chased out by a pair of liveried pigs with whistles and sticks. Followed E. back from school, but the curtains of day are undrawn so briefly, cold and darkling when she leaves her school, cowled in her brown cape, orbited by v.d.V.s, chaperones, and classmates. Peered out between my cap and muffler, waiting for her heart to sense me. Not funny. Today I brushed Eva’s cape as I passed in drizzle, in crowd. E. didn’t notice me. As I near her a tonic pedal rises in volume, from groin, resounding in my chest cavity, up to somewhere behind my eyes. Why so nervous? Tomorrow maybe, yes, tomorrow, for certain. Nothing to be afraid of. She has told me she loves me. Soon, soon.

  Sincerely,

  R.F.

  LE ROYAL HÔTEL

  25TH—XI—1931

  Sixsmith,

  Streaming nose and bad cough since Sunday. Matches my cuts and bruises. Hardly stepped outside, nor do I wish to. Freezing fog crawls out of the canals, it stifles one’s lungs and chills one’s veins. Send me an india-rubber hot-water bottle, would you? Only earthenware ones here.

  Hotel manager dropped by earlier. An earnest penguin with no bottom at all. One presumes it is his patent-leather shoes that squeak so as he walks, but one never knows in the
Low Countries. His real reason for calling was to ensure I am a wealthy student of architecture, not some dubious Cad the Lad who’ll skip town without settling his account. Anyway, promised to show the color of my money at Reception tomorrow, so a bank visit is unavoidable. This cheered the fellow up, and he hoped my studies were proceeding well. Excellently, I assured him. I don’t say I’m a composer because I can no longer face the Moronic Inquisition: “What kind of music do you write?” “Oh, should I have heard of you?” “Where do you get your ideas from?”

  Not in the mood for letter writing after all, not after my recent encounter with E. Lamplighter is making his rounds. If I could turn back the clock, Sixsmith. Would that I could.

  Next day

  Improved. Eva. Ah. I’d laugh, if it didn’t hurt quite so much. Can’t remember where I was when last I wrote to you. Time is an allegrissimo blur since my Night of Epiphany. Well, it had become pretty clear I wasn’t going to be able to catch E. on her own. She never appeared at the belfry at four P.M. That my communiqués were being intercepted was the only explanation that occurred to me. (Don’t know if V.A. kept his promise to poison my name back in England; maybe you’ve heard something? Don’t overly care, but one would like to know.) Half-hoped J. might track me down to this hotel—in my second letter I wrote my whereabouts. Would even sleep with her if it could open a channel to Eva. Reminded myself I’d not committed any crime—va bene, hare[sic]splitter, not a crime against the Crommelynck-Ayrses that they know of—and it seems that J. was once again playing under her husband’s baton. Probably always was. So I had no choice but to pay a call to the van de Veldes’ town house.