The Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

  He was right. That would not be difficult at all, because this was Alaska.

  During the war, the entirety of Alaska was declared of strategic importance. Press censorship was so tight, soldiers returning Outside sometimes weakly joked that their whole horrific Alaskan experience may have taken place in their imaginations. They'd been to this strange and wild place, after all; many of them never saw the enemy (nor the sun). Once they were home, they discovered that no one had heard or read a single word about what they'd done. Daily dispatches from the South Pacific appeared in the press, but the Alaska news blackout was almost total. Maybe nothing had happened there at all.

  And if Americans thought that, if the enemy thought that, it was fine with Gurley. He fought his war on two fronts, as he now explained. On one side were the Japanese, their balloons, and the prevailing winds. On the other side, the American press and public, whom he feared and loathed even more. The greatest danger these balloons posed, Gurley insisted repeatedly, was not that they would kill a few civilians or set ablaze a few acres, but rather that they would be discovered by the wrong sort of people-in particular, members of the press, who would inevitably sensationalize the issue. And why not? Japanese bombs were raining down on North America almost daily now, and not many Americans-though surely more than Gurley's supposed fifty-knew what was happening.

  Although there had been a few brief mentions of the balloons in the New York Times and elsewhere early on in the campaign, very little was known about the balloons at the time, and officials had quickly moved to smother any further coverage. Gurley told me his superiors had initially proposed sending out a general bulletin to editors nationwide, alerting them to the story, and then demanding that they not cover the story. Report any information they uncovered to the Army, but publish nothing.

  As it happens, just such a blanket agreement was later struck. But when I told Gurley that this sounded like a sensible plan, his reply was quick.

  “The best way to keep a secret is to tell as many people as possible?” Gurley said. I tensed for a fist or foot to come flying. “Tell as many journalists?” he pressed. “We all have a job,” he said. “Our job is to beat the enemy to a bloody pulp. Their job is to sell papers.” I stared at the ground. “So newsmen can choose. They can either be on our side or the enemy's.” Gurley had concocted his own response plan for balloon sightings. Get a recovery team there as quickly as possible and collect or destroy any piece of evidence that the balloon had arrived. If the initial spotters or witnesses were military, the follow-up was easy. Gurley ordered their silence and made job-specific threats to ensure it.

  If the witnesses were civilian, the job became a little more involved. Depending on what they had seen-or thought they had seen-Gurley would either order their silence (and call on them to consider that silence a patriotic duty) or, more often, he would tell them the balloon was a U.S. Army weather balloon that had gone awry. He wouldn't go into details, or make the balloon's mission seem secret at all, figuring that the more he downplayed its importance, the less likely the witness would be to spread the news.

  But now, Gurley's plan-indeed, his whole mission-was in jeopardy. He had been summoned to San Francisco by his superiors to discuss the progress of balloon interdiction efforts. Or rather, the decline of such efforts. Early on, the numbers of balloons spotted had climbed steadily, week after week. Then they had stabilized, and recently, had begun to decline. The question now was whether to scale back American efforts to track and recover balloons. After all, resources were needed elsewhere, especially as U.S. forces drew ever closer to Japan. Instead of soldiers, the U.S. would now rely on local authorities and private citizens to find and report balloons. The press ban would be lifted; a general alert would be issued.

  Gurley, of course, disagreed.

  “It's not just about me, Sergeant,” he said. “It's not just that I sense dark forces are, yet again, trying to sweep me into some forgotten corner of the war. I have America 's interests at heart.” He looked at me. “This campaign has only begun. These first balloons, what have they carried? Piddly little incendiary or antipersonnel bombs? You don't develop an entire program like this to start a few brush fires. Think, Sergeant.”

  I did, but all I could think of was how Gurley really was taking this personally.

  “There's worse coming, Belk. That must be evident, even to you.” He looked at me and waited. “A man, Sergeant. Manned balloons. An invasion force. Saboteurs. Spies. Silently dropped behind enemy lines.” He looked back toward the terminal, as if to make sure no one had overheard him. “Angels, indeed.”

  “Where?” I asked, or stammered, honestly frightened-though more of Gurley than of what his imagination had produced.

  “Well, I doubt they're in goddamn San Francisco with my so-called superiors.” He turned around, waved broadly at the mountains that formed a backdrop to the base. “Here, Belk. Alaska. In the vast, concealing wilderness. Our backyard, Belk. We have to find them. And damn soon, before we get shut down. So you shall be busy while I'm gone.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, looking up to the mountains, their crowns still scabbed with snow.

  Gurley followed my gaze. “Not up there, you ninny. Or who knows, maybe. But we're not going to go hiking around aimlessly- I'm certainly not going to go hiking around anywhere-no, start your search here. Back at 520. Start with the book. I trust you came up with nothing?”

  “No sir,” I said. “Nothing yet.” I'd stayed in the office until midnight, staring at the book until the watercolor maps seemed to animate, its rivers flow and grasses glisten after a rain. Which seemed like more than a book could or should do, so I had closed it and crept back to the barracks for sleep.

  Gurley shook his head. “Well, of course I didn't expect a child prodigy. Just someone to put in the tedious work of comparing the book's maps to ours, quadrant by quadrant, feature by feature. Tedious work-you can see why I thought of you.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but didn't utter a sound when I saw Gurley's face harden into the one he assumed before delivering a blow. “Sergeant Belk,” he said, low and even. “One balloon, one explosion, one leg. I almost had my war taken from me.” He straightened up. “I barely held on to my commission. I had to fight to even get posted to this godforsaken place. They'd rather have me in a bathrobe and wheelchair in Princeton. If we fail to find more balloons, or worse still, find one and handle it injudiciously-if I lose the second leg-or a hand, or an arm, or an eye, or the skin off my fucking face-it won't matter how much I yell. I'll be shipped home before the blood's even soaked through the bandages.” He took a deep breath. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “I shall close by letting you in on a final secret,” Gurley said. “A trifle compared to all that I have told you so far, but still, a secret, and an important one nonetheless.”

  “Sir?”

  “Right, then: I know almost nothing about defusing bombs.”

  He paused.

  “And thus, I shall leave those details… to you.”

  I could only stare at him. He wore the same bomb disposal insignia I did. I'd assumed that when he'd gotten himself assigned to this mission he had picked up the bomb disposal training that went with it. Of course he would have. He'd learned, hadn't he, the price explosives exacted from the ignorant?

  “Sir,” I began, searching for the best way to phrase this. He was an officer, I was the sergeant. The way things worked-

  “You're incapable of this?” Gurley asked. “I was told you were the best in your class. Now that I have had some time to observe you, I can see that it was not much of a class, but still, I had certain expectations.”

  “Sir,” I began, thinking back to Manzanar, the pit, Sergeant Redes, and the “rare” fuze pocket that had simply fallen out of the bomb. Damnedest thing. I tried again. “Our training was-I mean, didn't you- well-there was always, you know, an officer who actually did the, well, the last part. That's procedure, proper proc
edure and all.”

  “So I understand,” said Gurley. “And so it was here, until recently. But, as I believe I've said, they've been trying to shut me down. Starve me. I used to have a full detail, including a young lieutenant, planning to read history at Oxford when this was all done.” Gurley's actor's mask fell for a moment, and then he resumed. “I must admit, I took a certain shine to him, although he was given to a younger man's ways. And, of course, he was no good at his job, or I assume as much, because he blew himself right up on the team's second mission.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that, sir,” I said, though I was barely listening. All I could think of was: It s up to me-I'm defusing the bombs. And then: “ Your Nazis, they build a good bomb…”

  “Well, I was pretty damn sorry as well. Not just because he was a good sort, but-an officer. That's when it struck me, this little swipe of genius: this is the work of an enlisted man. Talented, capable, yes, but enlisted. No need to waste officers on such. Surely you agree?”

  “Sir, I'm not sure that, well, in training, they-”

  “Yes, of course, they're always behind in training. No, no, Sergeant, I'm quite pleased with my proposal, and expect you to be as well. Or… I can… reassign you, if you like.” He looked back toward the terminal. “I'm frequently told that young and able men are needed to clear out caves and bunkers on treeless islands throughout the Pacific. North or south, your choice.” He waited.

  “No, sir,” I said quietly.

  “No to the north, or south? Aleutians or Philippines?”

  “I'm your man, Captain,” I said. “For this mission.” Gurley said nothing for a full minute, and I could feel him staring at me the whole time.

  “Sergeant,” he finally said, “I believe that you shall never again find a mission as intriguing-or easy. You are used to digging out half-ton bombs that have plummeted from great heights deep into the earth; these bombs flitter and float to earth via balloons. Thirty-some pounds, tops. Carting one off is like carrying groceries, and about as dangerous.”

  We began walking back to the terminal. I wondered what Sergeant Redes would have had to say about Gurley's dangerous-as-groceries bombs. “ Your Jap bombmaker… he's ready to lose a man here and there…”

  “And if it weren't all obvious enough,” Gurley said, “there is even a film. A training film. Didn't sit through all of it myself, but it looks helpful enough.”

  We'd reached the door of the terminal, and he paused. “One more thing, Sergeant. Examine your heart while I'm gone. Examine your hands, for that matter. If you feel you're not up to this task-if you're not up to tackling alone what bombs we do find, tell me when I get back. Because I don't want to face another scene like I did with that Harvard man. He didn't die immediately, you know. Lasted long enough to ask me to put a bullet in him. Put him out of his misery.” Gurley grimaced. “Can you imagine such a thing? Good Lord, there was hardly enough left of him to shoot.”

  With that, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  THERE IS PLENTY of Ronnie left to shoot.

  But they don't allow guns in the hospice. It doesn't matter; I have an equally efficient weapon in my hand. Ronnie's Comfort One bracelet. It is pretty, in its way. A heavy gold chain with a green and gold charm featuring the program's curious logo: the two words, plus two restroom-sign-style humanoids, a gold person standing behind a white one. Is the white one the patient, and the gold the comforter? Or is the white the soul, the gold the body? Unfortunately, what it resembles most to me is a mugging, the gold man about to pounce his hapless white counterpart.

  It cost twenty dollars, as predicted, but I know it's worth much more than that. They are precious things to those who have them, and I find that more of the elderly and dying I visit in the hospital or hospice these days do. They're meant to spare patients pain and everyone else second-guessing. Ailing parishioners usually try to hide the existence of Do Not Resuscitate orders from me; they know the Church stands against euthanasia and worry that their DNRs might run afoul of such beliefs. As it happens, they need not be concerned, but that doesn't keep the patients who have DNRs from prizing them.

  I marvel at some of those I visit here, so desperate to die. I think of those Japanese soldiers on Kiska, surrounded by the enemy, with no hope of survival. I think of their wounded, the Japanese soldiers in their field hospital, committing suicide. The doctor doled out grenades, gently laying one on each man's chest. Those who could, pulled their own pins. He pulled the pin for those who could not. Three hundred died this way; the doctor wrote as much in his diary. Then he put down the pen, closed the book, and picked up the grenade he'd reserved for himself.

  I'm surprised Ronnie ordered the bracelet. It means he had to get the paperwork, have a doctor sign it, and send it off. It suggests planning and foresight that he never seemed capable of nor interested in. More to the point, it suggests he's going to die, and that he knows this. It makes me realize that I may be the only person who doesn't think he's going to die. Or, for that matter, the only one who doesn't want him to die. Not now. Not yet.

  Which is why I'm keeping the bracelet, for the time being, in my pocket. I'm keeping it safe-I've tucked it inside a pyx. I'm sure the bishop would be horrified; the pyx is for carrying communion to the sick and homebound. But I shudder to think what Ronnie would do if I presented him with the Host. Better to let the bracelet rest in the pyx for now, where God can keep an eye on it.

  Bad idea? We'll see. It's not like I had the best of models for hospital ministry.

  “KILL ANYONE YET, Sergeant?” Father Pabich surprised me with a clap on my back. I jumped; his hand had hit a bruise I hadn't known was there. He'd found me walking back from the airfield terminal.

  I wanted to tell him about the morning's conversation with Gurley but didn't dare. After that first encounter with Gurley in the bar, I'd done a bit of whimpering to Father Pabich. It didn't go over well. This was an army for fighters, not whiners, Father Pabich had told me, and urged me to shoot someone as soon as I could, preferably Japanese.

  Thus his question: Had I killed anyone?

  But before I could answer, Father Pabich wheeled me around so I was walking in his direction. “I've not seen you at Mass for a few mornings running, and I was putting two and two together. You've been out, on a mission? What's the good word?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Sergeant Belk,” Father Pabich said. “This won't do. The meek are gonna inherit the earth, God willing, but not until men like you and me take care of a little business.”

  I nodded.

  “Kill some Japs,” Father Pabich said. I nodded again. Father Pabich coughed and looked at me. “What's the matter, son? Shouldn't you be at work, defusing some bomb, blowing something up?”

  “Got dismissed early, sir,” I said.

  “Father,” Father Pabich reminded me, and I repeated the word. “And I can see why you were dismissed early,” he said. “You're drunk?” He leaned in so close I thought I could smell alcohol on him. “Hungover?”

  “I almost killed someone,” I said quietly, thinking of the glass I'd shot out of Gurley's hand-and the belt I'd tightened around the neck of that sailor at Lily's.

  “Well, almost ain't going to do anyone any damn good-” Father Pabich started, and then stopped walking to study me a moment. “We're not talking about a Jap, are we?” He picked up my hands, which bore some evidence of the scuffle with the sailors. “Bar fight,” he said, making a sour face. I hesitated, and then nodded because it was easier, and almost true. “Come with me, son,” he said. He didn't say another word until we'd reached the base hospital.

  Once there, he told me to wait outside while he made his rounds, but then changed his mind and ushered me in by the elbow. The hospital was fairly new, but it was already showing signs of overuse. One or two soldiers were lying in cots in the hallway. One ward had spaces for twenty beds, but two were missing, their places taken by a tarp and buckets that were trying to do the job of the roof that had failed abo
ve.

  Father Pabich visited with each man. He shared a joke with ones who could talk, and mumbled prayers over the ones who were sleeping, including one man whose chart indicated that he was Jewish. When Father Pabich finished making the sign of the cross over him, a man in a neighboring bed said, “He's, uh, not that way, Father,” and Father Pabich blessed him, too. “Baptist, that one,” Father Pabich whispered to me as we walked away.

  I thought we'd seen the whole of the hospital, but then he eased open a door that led into a small vestibule and paused.

  “You still feeling okay, Sergeant?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Say yes, son, so I know you're not just pressing your lips together to keep from puking.”

  I said yes.

  “Right. Now, be a good man in this next room. No staring, but no looking away, and no being sick. These are good men.” And then we went in.

  In this room, there were only eyes.

  Five of the six beds were occupied; the nurses were changing the sheets on the sixth. And from each of those five beds, two eyes watched Father Pabich and me enter. The rest of their bodies were swathed almost entirely in bandages or covered with sheets. I'd been told not to stare, so I couldn't confirm what my mind kept insisting- things were missing. Arms, legs, hands. Sheets lay flat in impossible places. Some of the eyes peered out of unbandaged faces that were a dirty pink, skin rubbed raw but somehow still flecked with black.

  I couldn't breathe. Father Pabich told me they were burn patients, but I knew that. And I knew who they were. I knew they'd been on that hillside above Fort Cronkhite. I knew that flames had leapt up around them because I hadn't called to them, run to them in time.