His father's knife! It took forever to fall, and when it did, he had to strain to hear it land. He could see it, glinting there in some far-off light. He checked the rope. Could he climb back down, back up? He gave it a tug. He was almost done! Dad! The knife! The rope didn't understand what was happening. The knife was gone, but the rope kept splitting, shredding, tearing, the sound just like that first day at the factory, when he'd slipped and fallen and hurt his leg, torn his uniform. The older boys around him, teasing, yelling, and then his mother there, scooping him up, shrieking at the bleeding, at the boys yelling, then setting him down, taking the cloth from her hair, and tearing it slowly-it was hard to tear-crying as she did, yelling at the boys, and then at the boss when he came, she was crying and yelling while she tied the cloth around his leg, the blood seeping through and then stopping. And then snap, the rope broke, and he was gone, the balloon vaulting up like the moon had been waiting for it, impatiently, and finally just yanked it free like a flower.
It was incredible, wonderful, more wonderful than he could have imagined. His hand didn't hurt anymore. He wasn't crying anymore. (When had he started crying? He touched his cheek, wet.) And now he was flying, really flying, just him. Not a sound. Up over the factory, over the town. Where was his house? There? He waved. Bye, Mom! He looked out over the ocean. Where was Dad? How did you steer? Oh, but these were army balloons; they would know where to go.
It grew cold. While he was looking out over the town, for that cat, his mouse, looking out over the houses of all those friends who would be so jealous, a sudden gust of wind pulled the balloon so violently, he almost fell out-again!-and when he finally caught his breath and looked out, looked down-it was all gone. The town was gone. It was somewhere back there, a dark shape, no lights, of course, but the ocean now beneath, dark, too, and invisible. It was like the sky just stretched dark in every direction, above, below, before, behind. It made it hard to breathe, just to think of it, all that dark, all that night. Was the balloon moving? Going higher? Lower? How long would this take?
In the morning, he was frozen. Couldn't move. His hands curled up tight, little fists, his hair crunchy with frost. He had some trouble opening his eyes, but he did. And he pounded his fists together, pounded and pounded, and they opened up, slowly, like they were made of metal. They hurt, his fingers were stiff, numb, but he was still there. This was wrong, though. His father had gone to an island, where Mother said it was hot. The sun all day long, the heat continuing through the night. And the boy, he was cold, freezing. He pulled his arms inside the coverall, looked around.
But what a world! The sun so bright, you had to squint wherever you looked, even at the clear blue sky. Down below, something green. An island? The island? Or ocean? It stretched for miles. He was sleepy. He'd just woken up, but was sleepy. The sun was everywhere, crowding things out so there wasn't room for anything-no clouds, no islands, no air. It was hard to breathe, unless you took little breaths, teeny little breaths, like you were sleeping. Little breaths. Little breaths.
Now he was always hungry. Always cold. His feet felt funny-like they weren't there at all. And his eyes hurt. From the squinting? Just from the air. Just opening them hurt, and he didn't even look anymore. His father would have to see him first. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine it. His father, looking up, and him, looking down, just drifting down, like a cloud. He could see it, just like that. Eyes closed. Little breaths.
He was a cloud, a little cloud, and he was wet, always wet, and all around him was gray, other clouds, and no matter how the wind blew, he still felt wet and cold. But warmer now, somehow the wet made it warmer, and the ocean looked closer. The island! He must be getting close to his father's island. But it was so hard to see now, and all he could see was a mottled green scab on the ocean. It stretched along the horizon. And the next day, he looked down, and saw he was above the scab. Now closer and closer. And there were trees, little trees. In the middle of the ocean. And patches of grass. But where was Father? And water, of course, everywhere, a spider's web of rivers. A fire! There was a fire! And people! Where was Father? It was so hard to see. Little breaths. Father!
He dreamed he'd fallen again, was running in the factory again, his mother running after him, warning him, reminding him what had happened before, but he wasn't listening, he was running, across the roof, and then leaping, flying, until the ground rushed up at him and he'd landed with a thud.
And what had happened then? He lay there, little breaths, but now the air was thick and wet, you had to open your mouth wide to swallow any of it. And where was the balloon? He looked up. The balloon was gone. How was he flying without the balloon? He crept up the side as best he could, looked out, looked down. The green looked so close now, the ocean was right there. He looked around. The balloon lay in an exhausted heap beside him. Land! He was on land! He tried to stand up, but couldn't. His whole body was frozen. Not cold, now, but frozen. He needed to get out. He tried rolling out, but his hands wouldn't work, his feet wouldn't work. And when he finally tumbled over the side, his hand got caught in something, some of the side rigging, and there was a little flash, brighter even than the sun, and though he could feel the hand still clenched there, he couldn't see it, his hand. He screamed.
This man wasn't his father. He didn't answer when the boy said his name. Wasn't helping with the hand, just hurting him more. Carrying him to-smelled good. Food. And water, more water, it trickled down his throat and hurt, but not as much as his hand. Had the man brought his hand?
Then it was inside, dark, warm. A woman there, a man there. And bright again, the balloon again, the flash again, crying again. And here was the other man now, coming up to him, picking him up, taking him flying again, the two of them sliding through the water. He would understand. I can explain, the boy said, and began to, talking on and on until he was uncertain he was still awake or if the man was, whether he was part of the man's dream or the man was part of his.
IT WAS THEN that I opened my eyes and saw them, Gurley and Lily. I didn't see them from the boat, I just saw them, on the ground, after the blast, a vision. I didn't see how their bodies had splintered, what had been severed and what had been burned. I only saw how a tiny breeze put a ripple on the water rising around them, and how the thin morning sun slowly lit their two faces, eyes closed, Gurley's lips just parted and Lily's a silent seam. They both wore expressions not of anger or sadness, but just the mildest concern, as if they'd been sleeping in of a winter Sunday, and had stirred slightly awake to a sound from somewhere downstairs in that great big house on the hill-the kids-the youngest probably-was crying. Not the sharp cry of pain, just hungry or sad or lonely.
Then I heard the crying, too, and like them, I thought it came from somewhere distant. But they were right and I was wrong; I looked up and saw that the boy was crying again. My hearing was returning. He'd let go of my hand. The vision vanished, replaced by the sight of a dock and a shack and a radio mast flying two flags: above, the Stars and Stripes, and below, a plain red cross on a worn white field.
AND THEN what did you do?
I'm slumped asleep in a chair beside Ronnie's bed in the hospice. I'm not really asleep, though; only as much as you can be in a chair. And since I can't enter a state quite deep enough for dreaming, I seem to be passing the time by talking with Ronnie in my imagination. I tell him the rest of the story-it's easier asleep. My throat's sore, besides. I've been talking too long.
You have.
It may not, in fact, be my imagination. If I accept my experience with the boy as evidence of some-spiritual-ability, perhaps I really am speaking with Ronnie. How far is it, after all, from intuition to connection, from guessing at what someone's thinking to actually knowing? I'm a priest, besides. I should know what it's like to look into another's soul. Whatever the source of my ability, I'm good at it, I have to admit: my imagined Ronnie interrupts me in all the right places, says all the right things.
You're not imagining me.
Like that.
What happened to the boy?
(Or this.) But I should answer: he died. He died, just like he was always going to. And not of plague. I got him to the infirmary-
Where Lily had led you-
Where Lily had led me, and once I got there, he died.
And so you must lead me.
And this is where I wake up. Because I always try to wake up before these conversations go on too long; it's not healthy. Not at my age. You reach a certain point in life and you discover that the little moat that's always surrounded your mind, kept it safe, defined things-this is real, this is not-has dried up. One day you're daydreaming and the next day someone's joking about Alzheimer's, and the next day you wonder-just what day is this?
“The next day.”
This I am not imagining. I don't think.
“Lou-is,” Ronnie says, and his eyes now meet mine. “You are awake?”
I nod my head.
“The next day,” says Ronnie. “What did you do then? Or was it that night?”
I can hear him, I can see him, but I need a little more time to adjust to Ronnie, still alive.
“Lou-is,” Ronnie says.
“Ronnie,” I say. “You came back.”
“One last time. I heard your voice and followed one last time. I did not know why, but now I do. Because of what you are about to tell me. What did you do then?”
“When?”
“With the boy. Lily's boy. The boy from the sky.”
The boy from the sky was as gray as the sky as the boat skidded west, out to sea, away from the infirmary where no one would help us. I had lost my mind or left it behind; I was making for Japan. The boy was Japanese. I would take him across the Pacific in my little open boat, the reserve tank almost empty, our food and medicine gone, completely gone.
I never saw Japan. A large island just off the southwestern coast of Alaska got in the way. I'd landed, a madman, only to be faced down by another: Father Leonard, a missionary, the last man on an island of women who had lost their husbands, sons, and brothers to the war effort.
Father Leonard was gaunt, bald, with a thin white beard, and no longer smiled or waved. When he saw my uniform, he said, “You're not taking any more.” He paused to make sure I understood. I didn't, and he went on: “What did you think would happen? Draft all the able-bodied men, and how are the wives supposed to find food? Tell me you brought food.”
I didn't answer. I presented him with the lifeless body of the boy. And Father Leonard took a deep breath, didn't ask who or why or where, just took the boy in his arms, and began working his way back up through the rocks behind the narrow beach I'd found. For a moment, I considered pushing off once more, using the thimbleful of gas I had left to set myself adrift. Then I'd wait until the time or sea or clouds were right and I'd go over the side, feel the water, feel the cold clamp my lungs, and then, feel nothing at all.
But then I looked up and saw Father Leonard struggle with the weight of the boy as his climb grew steeper, and my reaction was automatic. I scrambled up the rocks after him, offered help, was refused, insisted on at least steadying him, and then the two of us-three of us-made our way to his tiny house.
He asked some of the local women to wash and prepare the boy's body. And then there was a cemetery forested with weathered white whalebone, a short ceremony, horizontal rain, and the boy disappearing from view.
Everyone left; I stayed. I took down the tiny wooden cross Father Leonard had fashioned for the boy; I wasn't so sure the boy was ours to give to God. I waited the rest of the afternoon and into the night, afraid and hopeful that Lily would come for him.
Or perhaps for me.
I waited there for her, on Father Leonard's island, the Bering Sea island where I'd taken the boy. Father Leonard so despised the government that he was only too glad to shelter and hide an AWOL soldier. I waited for weeks; the war ended. Then weeks turned into months, into a year, and still I waited, for I knew what Jesus knew: “Watch therefore,” He said, “for you know neither the day nor the hour.” He was speaking of the maidens awaiting the bridegroom, who sat waiting, as I do still, late into the night. The foolish ones used up their lamp oil. The wise ones waited. And hadn't Lily told me as much? Awaiting Saburo's return, she had acted foolishly; she had taken up with Gurley I knew I would not be so unwise. When Lily came, I would be alone, and ready.
So when, in time, Father Leonard mentioned the seminary, I stopped what I was doing and listened. He had read into my quiet, steady patience a vocation, or perhaps he had spoken with God, who reminded Father Leonard that I had been at the doorstep of the seminary not two years before and chose war instead.
But to return to the seminary now seemed fitting and just. If the ensuing deprivations proved painful, so be it: I could not live a life long enough to do adequate penance for my war's worth of sins. And truth be told, the life's promised restraint held real appeal for me, especially celibacy. I would not make Lily's mistake and fall in foolish love.
The priesthood offered something else, as well. A way to be with Lily, or tap into her world, while I waited. It would have been better to be a shaman, but I was not one and could not become one. It had been a struggle enough for Lily, and she had Yup'ik blood in her, had grown up in the bush. Becoming a priest was as close as an orphan Catholic could get. Please understand, though: I have never debased my vows. I do not pretend to pray to God while secretly seeking contact with the spirits of whales or walruses. I render unto God what is God's, but in my prayers to Him, I have always asked that He make me aware to all things unseen, not simply His mysteries.
But by now, if I am convinced of anything, it is God's omniscience- how else would He have seen to arrange my life as He has?-and I fear He knows the ulterior motive of my spiritual life. Knows it, and cannot abide it, and so my half-century waiting search for Lily has been a lonely one. He has never helped.
But I didn't know that then. I only knew Father Leonard, and he always helped. Indeed, in all my time with him, he never denied me anything, never except in the very beginning, the day we buried the boy. I had become obsessed with a need to build a fire, a fire large enough to consume the boy, cremate him, and send his ashes swirling in the air. Father Leonard said no, gently, and then firmly, and even tried to reason with me: there wasn't enough fuel for such a fire, to start with-
“The balloons,” I said. “I can do it. I just need one of the incendiaries from the balloons.” I was so addled I didn't realize that there was a possibility-or rather, as was always the case, a probability-that no fire balloons had happened to land nearby.
Father Leonard looked at me. “Balloons,” he said. “What, in God's holy name, are you talking about?”
Tell me how he died, Lou-is.
Ronnie: I glance at him; did I just hear him speak or imagine it? His eyes are closed. I take a deep breath. And then he says it again: “Tell me how he died.”
This time I am sure I hear him, and this time, for the first time, I realize something else.
“You first,” I say.
CHAPTER 21
SOMETIMES I DREAM I KILLED HIM. THAT I CLUBBED THE doctor who wouldn't ease his pain with morphine and went for the cabinet myself. Sometimes I find the morphine, enough to administer a compassionate, lethal dose. Sometimes the cabinet is empty. Sometimes the boy screams, and the doctor screams. Sometimes the doctor shoots him, sometimes I shoot the doctor.
And sometimes, the boy's wailing stops and his eyes close. And I move to his pillow, and I place the barrel of my revolver just two inches from his head. And then I wait. I wait for him to stop breathing, so as to render my bullet unnecessary. I wait for courage. I wait for mercy to replace rage. I wait for Lily to come into the room and open my hands and find the future there.
I wait for Ronnie to speak.
“There was a boy,” Ronnie said. This was just a few hours ago. “A boy and his mother.”
Would not stop crying, I could have said, but did not have to; Ronnie knew what I
was thinking.
“I did not tell you this,” Ronnie said. “There was a mother and her baby, a baby that had come too soon. And no one could help her, and the doctor wouldn't help her, and they sent for me.”
I-
I couldn't move, or speak: Ronnie had been there, in that room, with-
“Lily,” Ronnie said. “Yes. This was Lily,” he said, and waited. I still said nothing, and he went on.
“When I was young and strong, my tuunraq, my wolf, he was a good spirit helper. He could go inside a sick person, tear out the sickness. He would return to me, his jaws red with blood, and I would know he had done good. I saw this. I know this. But that night, with Lily, that was when he ran away. Lily had asked me to help her, and the tuunraq, he ran away. When we journey, we angalkut tie them to us, these spirits, because this is what they do, they run, and they will run away if they can. And this wolf broke free. I could not stop him. I have searched for him ever since. I wanted to find him before he found me.”
He did not so much speak as take the words and place them, one by one, behind my eyes, beneath my scalp. I can feel them there now.
Ronnie started again. “When they came for me, asked me to help Lily, I did not want to go. These were women's matters. But I came and I looked and I saw what the others had seen. The baby had come, the baby had died. I saw this. But I also saw something else, something else no one saw, something Lily had hoped I would see. I could see the child's spirit floating just above him, in the dark. You know what this looks like?”
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