The Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

  Our pairing was both fun and funny, and surprisingly collegial. Even before he'd gotten wind of what we were up to at the hospice, my bishop frowned on such professional camaraderie. He'd liked things better, it seemed, when Ronnie had been more serious about trying to do me in. Try to pin my boss down on the issue, and the good bishop would always laugh and say “Now, I'm not about to tell you we need to go back to the days when missionaries outlawed dancing and we shipped the kids off to boarding school, but-”

  “Then don't,” I'd say, and things between the bishop and me would be set for another six months or so.

  I see now, of course, how it was all adding up.

  One thing I never told anyone was how I liked the traveling part of the trips best. Once we'd arrived somewhere, I was Father Louis, and in demand for a steady stream of confessions, baptisms, Masses, a calming word solicited here, a scolding one requested there. But traveling from one spot to another-in a beat-up old skiff that Ronnie had helped me find and repair-I was no one again, just a man out enjoying the widest skies on earth.

  Ronnie stayed up most nights. More often than not, I did, too. Because whatever skills Ronnie lacked as a shaman, he more than had as an amateur astronomer, or meteorologist, or skywatcher. It wasn't that he knew scientific names, or that he had a talent for predicting the weather (although he was fairly good). He simply had a way of using the sky as a canvas at night, using it as a means of telling a story. He'd analyze the way the winds were pushing a cloud, point out how the sun this far north was always fighting to keep from sinking below the horizon. In time I learned that you could get at least half the story from watching his hands alone, the way they moved a cloud or poked a hole in the blue and let a star shine down.

  It sounds funny, I know, to be so fascinated with another man, let alone his hands, but it has something to do with being a priest. No, not in that sense, thank you, but more of a professional interest. A good priest is sensitive to his hands the way a pianist might be to his. They are essential to his work-praying, celebrating the sacrifice of the Mass, offering communion, the sign of peace. It's well known, at least among missionaries, certainly among Jesuits, how Isaac Jogues, Jesuit missionary to Canada in the 1600s, had to later receive special dispensation from the Vatican to say Mass. His hands had been mutilated during his tenure in North America, fingers frozen or eaten, and without the pope's express permission, he would have been considered unfit to serve at the altar. (Jogues's later plea to return to Canada was reluctantly granted, but his arrival coincided with sickness and blight. The Mohawks took this as evidence of sorcery and cut off his head.)

  I think the real reason I admired Ronnie, or those hands of his, was that he clearly had never used his hands the way I had mine. He was a drunk, a failure, a grifter, but the earth was no worse for his being on it. If Saint Isaac Jogues had ever descended from the sky during one of those trips in the bush, he would have reached for Ronnie's hand first, and Ronnie would have taken it, whatever condition Saint Isaac's hand was in, and shook it firmly. Ronnie had a grudge against missionaries but admired men who, like him, had survived.

  More to the point, if Jogues ever dropped down, Ronnie would have been the first to see him. Ronnie was always looking up, especially in summer, especially out in the delta. He had a theory that if you sat in one spot long enough, stared at the sky carefully and remembered all you'd seen, you would be the wisest man in the world. All the knowledge of the world was contained in the skies, he said. He was going to write it all down one day, he swore, a book ofamirlut, an atlas of clouds, and it would sell better than any bible. I asked him how he'd ever manage to chart on paper something that was always changing. He shook his head at my stupidity. “Not a map of where things are now,” he said. “No: where they will be.”

  I WONDER IF RONNIE'S right, though. That staring at the sky will give you a better sense of what's to come. After the morning reconnaissance flight, for example, I was back out at Todd Field, searching the skies for some sign of the C-47 Gurley said he'd be on. And when I finally caught sight of one, I followed it all the way down to the ground, half thinking that, if I concentrated hard enough, I'd be able to see if Lily was inside.

  But Gurley could have had Saint Isaac or Saint Nicholas aboard; staring revealed nothing. It wasn't until I saw them emerge that I knew.

  They'd taxied to a stop some distance from the terminal, and a pair of jeeps raced out to meet them. I couldn't make out faces, but the first man at the opened door was certainly Gurley, whose preening I could have spotted from the moon.

  And the second person: no hat, no uniform. Just long black hair, black trousers, and a knee-length, Native-style shirtdress I've since learned is called a kuspuk. Though I could see well enough that I saw her turn to face my direction briefly before continuing down the stairs, I could not see her features. I couldn't be sure, but I was. Military men are trained, after all, to recognize the silhouettes of aircraft and ships, friendly and foreign. And Lily had trained me to believe in what I knew, what I knew because I was certain of it, not because I had evidence.

  So it was Lily. Gurley hadn't sent me to Bethel just to get rid of me; the three of us really were going to journey into the bush. But then something happened that shook my faith a bit. Gurley and Lily exchanged words, it seemed, and then Gurley stepped back. The MPs took Lily by both arms, placed her in the jeep, and sped off toward some buildings at the other end of the field.

  Gurley watched them go, then turned and began to walk toward me.

  GURLEY HAD A NEW name for Lily: Sacagawea. We were discussing their arrival in an office he'd commandeered. I interrupted to ask him where she was. He said she'd been taken to Todd Field's “VIP quarters,” and then pressed on with his monologue.

  “I introduced her this way, as ‘our very own Miss Sacagawea,’ thinking that a rather clever shorthand introduction-to wit, our Native companion and guide-when, to my slowly building horror and delight, I realized that the good men of this forgotten outpost were assuming that that was her actual name. Sacagawea. Tell me, Sergeant, of the many subjects no longer taught in school-is American history among them?”

  Gurley seemed hurt when I did not reply.

  His eyes were sunken and dark and he looked even more skeletal than usual. His hands were covered with fine scratches, as though his Franklin bouts had devolved to his fighting stray cats. But then I remembered the wall map, the pushpins, and the trails he'd trace across his skin.

  “Dear Sergeant,” he said. “You're rather glum. This is a lonely outpost, and I imagine quiet duty, but look here: you have been given a reprieve, and your friends have come to join you. Where flees your smile? Think of what lies ahead: to catch a spy.”

  For a moment, my mind had seized on fleas. I'd been out of Gurley's company for so long, I'd lost some of my ear for his strange language. As a result, it took an extra beat for the words to come out of my already-open mouth. “Sir, I'm not sure that-”

  “Splendid, dear Belk. You are still among the living. You are sentient and curious and apparently sober. And so you have your questions. But more important, do you have my spy? Or will we, in fact, have to set out after him?” The words sped from his mouth, faster and faster. He smiled, as if he noticed this, too, and thought it delightful. “Forgive my eager possessiveness: but yes, before we speak of the devil we know-fair Sacagawea, dear Lily-let us speak of the devil we don't. Mmm?”

  Mmm. I told Gurley about my wandering around town. I told him about the Emporium of Everything, and about Jap Sam. Maybe Lily wasn't worried if Gurley didn't find anything-anyone-but I was. So I tried to describe the now-interned Sam in such a way that Gurley might take him for our missing quarry. That would mean we could just pack up and leave Bethel -ruining Gurley's fun and Lily's quest, but giving us all, I thought, a better chance of finishing out the war alive. You didn't need Lily's kind of magic to sense the evil that was looming. Or maybe you did, and that magic had attached itself to me: here in Bethel, far from the numbin
g, civilizing influences of Anchorage, the spiritual world hummed that much closer to everyone.

  Gurley wasn't the least bit interested in Jap Sam. He wanted Saburo. Lily's Saburo. The enemy's Saburo. His Saburo.

  “No sign of him, sir,” I said. “I didn't go house to house, of course. But you'd think-in a town this small-he'd attract attention, too much attention to hide.” I made another attempt to derail the search. “If you want to know what I think, sir-”

  “Always a dangerous preface, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. But I think he died. I think he's dead. Captured, and we don't know about it, maybe, but I bet he”-I tried to call on a little magic for inspiration-“drowned. There's a lot of water around here,” I added, not hearing how foolish that sounded until I saw Gurley's face.

  “There is that” Gurley said. “I assume you're joking?” he added, suddenly brusque. He patted his pockets for cigarettes that weren't there, and stood. “Perhaps you forgot we saw him. Lily and I, both. In the mist. In Anchorage. Perhaps you-” He started to pace. “I'm afraid I-I'm afraid I didn't tell you everything about the other night, about what Lily told me.” He was scanning the room as he spoke, not looking at me. If he had, he would have seen me turning red with alarm: What now? “She swore me to secrecy,” he said, talking more to himself now. “And what could I say? I shouldn't tell you, but I will, because it's relevant to what we have to do. To our mission. To our quest. But I tell you this in the strictest of confidence because-because-no woman, no girl, no girl even with a past as-as-weathered as Lily's deserved to have happen to her what happened-Louis!” He spun on me, with such force I almost burst out, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have gone to see her! He knew! He had to; he was just toying with me, but before I could speak he said something even more bizarre: “He raped her, Belk. The filthy, yellow-when we find him, Belk, no quarter. Lily. Lily.”

  My heart was still pounding at the news he'd just delivered, and it was a moment or two before I was able to remind myself that he'd made this up-that the shadowy figure in the mist with Lily had only been me, that Saburo's presence had been Lily's invention, just as this rape was now Gurley's. But was it? Had she told him something else? Had Saburo been there, in the forest, farther on, in the dark, Lily running toward him, his having just arrived by balloon? No: Lily had lied to Gurley She'd told the truth to me. She always did. But-maybe- just not-Lily, what about the baby? Why hadn't you ever told me-

  “So it was wrong to grow attached,” Gurley said, his eyes full of tears, but not full enough to cry. I wondered now if it mattered whether Gurley had invented the rape; he clearly believed there had been one, just as Lily believed there had been a Saburo. He wiped his nose with the heel of his hand, and then held his face for a moment. “A ring. There was a ring, Belk.”

  “There was,” I said, automatically.

  “He was always there,” he said. “Even before… this. I knew him before she told me of him, I could see him, sense him, somewhere back behind her eyes, whenever she and I kissed. Made love.” He sat in his chair, somewhat calmer now, and found a handkerchief, which he unfolded and then twisted between his hands. “I could never have all of her. I knew she wanted me to have as much as I would, but somewhere, back in there, deep inside her, this fiend held on-it's like he holds some piece of her soul. Holds it so tight that he is able to pull her all the way out here.”

  I'm right here, sir: I wanted Gurley to look up, see me. I wanted to tell Gurley that I was this other person, but more than that, I wanted it to be true.

  But when he did look up, all he saw was Saburo. “We have, what? Two days now, less maybe, before that major in Fairbanks sends his dogs out across the tundra in search of plague or spies. I've said I wanted to find the prize before him, and I do. But the reason is not so much for glory but revenge. If the major catches him, this spy becomes a prisoner of war, a resource. If I catch him-and we will, whether it takes forty hours or months-I will finish it. I will find him, remove him, and release Lily, to me.”

  And what would happen when we didn't find him? Lily said he was gone. But Gurley was determined to find him-he'd have to find, and kill, someone. Lily hadn't thought through this part of her plan. But then, it hadn't really been a plan.

  “Sir,” I said, making one last attempt. “I'm just not sure we will find anyone. It's more than a needle in a haystack, sir, it's-”

  “It's a needle in a haystack for the major,” said Gurley. “But we have Lily.” He smiled. “We have you.” He rose.

  “I'm just not sure, sir, what we'll find. What if he's dead?”

  The color slowly returned to Gurley's cheeks. It was his fury rising in him, but in a way, it was a relief to witness-I'd had plenty of experience dealing with Gurley furious, and could steel myself against it. I'd been frightened, on the other hand, to find myself vulnerable to feeling sympathy when faced with Gurley despondent and brokenhearted.

  That danger had passed.

  He walked toward me, closer and closer, until he'd backed me up half across the room. “You wish him dead. Fair enough. So do I. But you wish him dead because you wish to be done with this mission, this war, me. You are scared, Sergeant. Both understandable and unattractive.” And closer. “This man is a spy” Gurley continued. “A spy for the enemy. The enemy whose one interest is slaughter. Have you heard what's happening in the South Pacific, Sergeant? Of the bodies of men and women, men like you, missing eyes and hands and whatever they had between their legs, stuffed into their mouths?” Gurley's mouth was now quite close to mine. “This-Saburo- raped a woman that I love, that I hope to spend the rest of a very, very long life caring for. If you need more reasons, God knows they're offering us plenty-from fires to plague to who knows what next-go ahead and do this for your country. But you know what? Our country's got more than ten million in uniform fighting for it.” He stared at me hard. “Lily's only got me.”

  I'M NOT SURE IF it was a product of our conversation or his simmering madness or his fear of the major on our heels, but two minutes after he'd left, he returned and declared that we would leave at midnight. We may not have agreed on much about Saburo, but he didn't think Saburo was hiding in town, either. I thought Gurley would sneak off to Lily's “VIP quarters” before our departure, but he had me walk him down to the riverbank, doling out additional instructions all the while. He confirmed the time with me, and then I watched him hire a boat to take him across the Kuskokwim to town, in search of a drink or worse.

  I figured I had at least an hour, maybe more.

  I walked quickly back to the headquarters building, in search of Lily. When I asked the duty officer about her whereabouts, he gave me a blank look. He was putting on a front, of course; Lily had to be the only woman on the base-perhaps the only woman on the base in six months or more. Finally, he leaned back and said, “Oh, you mean the prisoner.”

  Now it was my turn to put on a front, and mask my alarm with a knowing nod. The prisoner. The man said he'd been left instructions that she was not to be disturbed, but I countered that I was under orders from Gurley, and the man accepted my bluff. Gurley had obviously made his usual terrifying impression.

  They didn't have cells on the base, so they had put Lily in a signal shed by the airfield with a guard stationed out front “for her protection.” When I entered and the guard closed the door behind me, Lily was sitting perfectly still in the middle of the room, on the only thing in the room, a chair.

  Neither of us said anything; we just looked at each other. I'm not sure what my face looked like, but Lily kept hers completely blank. I could have been Gurley I could have been Tojo, I could have been a six-foot raven. She stared.

  I looked at her hands; they were cuffed. What had Gurley done?

  I knelt beside her and tried to take one hand of hers in mine, but she moved away. “I'm okay,” she said.

  “Lily, I'm so sorry,” I said. “Who did this? I'm going to get you out of here. No, I promise. I think-I think Gurley's finally lost it. I mean, complete
ly. I think he's gone, or going. I don't think it will be long now, not at all. Jesus-he wants to leave at midnight. And he's got you locked in a closet. In handcuffs.”

  She shook her head, and rolled her eyes-the first I had seen so far of the old Lily. “He has me here for my safety,” she said and smiled. “He told them I was a prisoner of war, someone with information. He told them that so they wouldn't bother me. So no one would wonder why a captain flew an Eskimo girl out to the bush.” She smiled, and I couldn't decide what to do. Was Gurley this crazy? Was she?

  I felt bad for her, but now I also felt angry. Part of it was the old anger, jealousy-Gurley held her completely in sway. The new anger was that this growing debacle was all her doing. She'd told Gurley some story about Saburo in order to get herself back to Bethel, and now here she was, cuffed, and here I was, suddenly party to the whole rotten plan. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, but I got up as I said it, and ended up delivering the words more to the room than her.

  But she still heard me. “Louis,” she said. “I'm so close now. I'm almost there.”

  I turned to look at her and realized that Gurley was with us-or rather, within me. Standing there, eyes cast down at her, chin pointing up, disdain on my face. I was becoming him or had become him. And I couldn't shake it off. Maybe Gurley was a wizard, too. He'd obviously possessed Lily somehow, even though she was a shaman in her own right. Who was I to think I could resist? And when I spoke, it was his words, his tone.

  “A rapist?” I said, and everything about her changed. Her face, her hands, her body, flushed and strained against the cuffs. “You told him Saburo was a rapist? To get yourself out here?”

  “What?”

  “He told me Saburo raped you. Lily, what does he really know about Saburo?” She clasped her hands together until the knuckles went white. “You told him he was Japanese, a spy, but did you tell him everything about that summer, Lily? Did you tell him everything that he'd find out if he'd gone walking around town today, like me?”