Cloud Atlas: A Novel

by David Stephen Mitchell

  Come evenin’ when I herded my goats home, Ma was flappin’ n’anxin’ like a one-wing gander an’ cussin’ me so crazy it was Sussy what I got the hole yibber off. After barterin’ at the Commons, the Prescient chief asked to speak to Abbess in private. After a long beat, Abbess’d come out o’ the meet an’ called a gath’rin’. Valleysmen from the nearby dwellin’s was there, ’cept Bailey’s, our dwellin’. See Ma’d not gone to the Commons neither. So the gath’rin’ kicked off there’n’then. The Prescient chief wants to make a spesh bart’rin’ this year, said Abbess. One Shipwoman wishes to live’n’work in a dwellin’ for half a year, to learn our ways an’ und’stand us Valleysmen. In return, the chief’ll pay us double ev’rythin’ we bartered today. Nets, pots, pans, ironware, ev’rythin’ double. Now think what an honor this is, an’ think o’ what we can get for all the gear at the next Honokaa Barter. Well, it din’t take long for one great Yay! to gather speed round the gath’rin’, an’ Abbess had to shout her next question over the rowdy. Who’s to host our Prescient guest? Oh, that Yay! stopped cold. Folks sudd’nwise had hole bags o’ ’scuses. We ain’t got nuff space. We got two babbits comin,’ our guest cudn’t sleep well. The mozzies round our dwellin’d bite her to shreds. Rusty Volvo that greasy buggah it was who first speaked it. What ’bout Bailey’s Dwellin’? See, Ma nor me wasn’t there to coldwater the plan, an’ it fired hot pretty quick. Yay, they got empty rooms since Pa Bailey was killed! Baileys taked more out o’ Commons’n they put in last harvest, yay, it’s their duty! Yay, they got need o’ workin’ hands at Bailey’s, Ma Bailey’ll be glad o’ the help! An’ so the gath’rin’s say-so was settled.

  Well, the one-wing gander now it was me, yay. What do Prescients eat’n’drink? Do they sleep in straw? Do they sleep? Six moons! Ma was cussin’ me for not goin’ to the Ship Barter, an’ even tho’, yay, Ma was the real chief o’ Bailey’s, I was the oldest man o’ the dwellin’ so I should o’ gone fair cop. I said, Look I’ll go to Abbess an’ tell her we can’t host no Prescient here … when knock, knock, knock, said our door.

  Yay, it was Abbess bringin’ the Prescient to move in, with Mylo the school’ry ’sistant. We all knowed we was lumbered with the Valleys’ guest then, like it or not like it, we cudn’t say Get lost now, yay? It’d bring shame to our roof an’ shame to our icons. The Shipwoman she’d got that vin’gary stink o’ Smart an’ she spoke first, ’cos me’n’Ma was both tongue-knotted so. Good evenin’, she said, I’m Meronym, an’ I’m thankin’ you kindly for hostin’ my stay in the Valleys. Mylo was grinnin’ mocksome’n’toady at my anxin’, I could o’ killed him.

  Sussy mem’ried her hostin’ manners first, an’ she settled our guests an’ sent Jonas to fetch brew’n’grinds’n’all. Meronym speaked, My people got a custom to give small presents to their hosts at the beginnin’ of a visit, so I hope you won’t mind … She reached into a bag what she’d bringed an’ gived us presents. Ma got a fine pot what’d cost five–six bales o’ wool at Honokaa, an’ she was left breathy sayin’ she cudn’t accept such a presh gift ’cos welcomin’ strangers was Sonmi’s way, yay, welcomin’ should be free or not at all, but the Prescient woman answered these gifts wasn’t payments, nay, they was jus’ thanks b’fore kindnesses, an’ Ma din’t refuse the pot a second time, nay. Sussy’n’Catkin got necklesses what twinked starry, bug-eyed’n’joysome they was, an’ Jonas got a hole square mirror what fass’nated him, brighter’n any busted shard what you still see now’n’again.

  Mylo wasn’t grinnin’ so toadsome now, but I din’t like this giftin’ not a bit, nay, see this offlander was buyin’ my kin sure ’nuff an’ I wasn’t havin’ it. So I jus’ said the Shipwoman could stay in our dwellin’ but I din’t want her gift an’ that was that.

  I said it ruder’n I meant, an’ Ma looked spikers at me, but Meronym jus’ said, Sure I und’stand, like I’d speaked ord’nary’n’norm’ly.

  Now a herd o’ visitors bleated to our dwellin’ that night an’ some nights after, from up’n’down the Nine Valleys, kin’n’bros’n’lastlife fam’ly’n’half-strangers what we only met at bart’rin’s, yay, ev’ryun from Mauka to Mormon came knockin’ to see if Old Ma Yibber spoke it true, that a real’n’livin’ Prescient was stayin’ at Bailey’s. We’d got to invite ev’ry last visitor inside o’ course an’ they gaped in wonderment like Sonmi herself was sittin’ in our kitchen, tho’ their ’mazement weren’t so great they cudn’t chomp our grinds an’ down our brew no worries, an’ as they drank years o’ questions ’bout Prescience an’ their whoahsome Ship came pourin’ thick’n’fast.

  But the wyrd thing was this. Meronym seemed to answer the questions, but her answers didn’t quench your curio none, nay, not a flea. So my cuz Spensa o’ Cluny Dwellin’ asked, What makes your Ship move? The Prescient answered, Fusion engines. Ev’ryun nodded wise as Sonmi, Oh, fusion engines it is, yay, no un asked what “fusion engine” was ’cos they din’t want to look barb’ric or stoopit in front o’ the gath’rin’. Abbess asked Meronym to show us Prescience Isle on a map o’ the world, but Meronym jus’ pointed to a spot an’ said, Here.

  Where? we asked. See, there weren’t nothin’ but blue sea an’ I for one thinked she was mickin’ us mocksome.

  Prescience I weren’t on any map made jus’ b’fore the Fall, Meronym said, ’cos Prescience’s founders kept it secret. It was on older maps, yay, but not the Abbess’s.

  I’d got a bit o’ the brave by now an’ I asked our visitor why Prescients with all their high Smart’n’all want to learn ’bout us Valleysmen? What could we poss’bly teach her what she din’t know? The learnin’ mind is the livin’ mind, Meronym said, an’ any sort o’ Smart is truesome Smart, old Smart or new, high Smart or low. No un but me seen the arrows o’ flatt’ry them words fired, or how this crafty spyer was usin’ our ign’rance to fog her true ’tentions, so I follered my first question with this pokerer: But you Prescients got more greatsome’n’mighty Smart’n this Hole World, yay? Oh, so slywise she picked her words! We got more’n the tribes o’ Ha-Why, less’n Old Uns b’fore the Fall. See? Don’t say a hole lot does it, nay?

  I mem’ry jus’ three honest answers she gived us. Ruby o’ Potter’s asked why Prescients’d all got dark skins like cokeynuts, nay, we’d never seen a pale un or pink un come off of their Ship. Meronym said her ancestors b’fore the Fall changed their seeds to make dark-skinned babbits to give ’em protection ’gainst the redscab sickness, an’ so them babbits’ babbits also got it, like father like son, yay, like rabbits’n’cukes.

  Napes o’ Inouye Dwellin’ asked, was she married, ’cos he was single an’ had a macadnut orchard an’ fig’n’lemon plantation all his own. Ev’ryun laughed, even Meronym smiled. She said she’d been married once, yay, an’ had a son named Anafi livin’ on Prescience I, but her husband’d been killed by savages years ago. She sorried losin’ the chance o’ them lemons’n’figs but she was too old for the husband market, an’ Napes shaked his head in dis’pointment an’ said, Oh Shipwoman, you breaked my heart yay you do.

  Last up, my cuz Kobbery asked, So how old are you? Yay, that was what we was all wond’rin’. No un was ready for her answer tho’. Fifty. Yay, that’s what she said an’ we was ’mazed as you are now. Fifty. The air in our kitchen changed like the cold wind suddenwise comin’. Livin’ to fifty ain’t wondersome, nay, livin’ to fifty is eerie an’ ain’t nat’ral, yay? How old do Prescients live, then? asked Melvil o’ Black Ox. Meronym shrugged. Sixty, seventy … Oh, we all got the gaspin’ shock! Norm’ly by forty we’re prayin’ Sonmi to put us out o’ misery an’ reborn us quick in a new body, like bladin’ a dog’s throat what you loved what was sick’n’agonyin’. The only Valleysman who’d ever lived to fifty an’ weren’t flakin’ with redscab or dyin’ of mukelung was Truman Third, an’ ev’ryun knowed how he’d done a deal with Old Georgie one hurrycanin’ night, yay, that fool’d sold his soul for some extra years. Well, the yarnin’ was busted prop’ly after that, an’ folks left in gaggles to yibber wha
t’d been said an’ answered, ev’ryun whispin’, Thank Sonmi she’s not stoppin’ in our dwellin’.

  I was pleased our dammit crookit guest’d teached ev’ryun to step slywise an’ not trust her, nay, not a flea, but I din’t sleep none that night, ’cos o’ the mozzies an’ nightbirds an’ toads ringin’ an’ a myst’rous someun what was hushly clatt’rin’ thru our dwellin’ pickin’ up stuff here an’ puttin’ it down there an’ the name o’ this myst’rous someun was Change.

  ———

  First, second, third days the Prescient woman was wormyin’ into my dwellin’. Got to ’fess she din’t b’have like no queeny-bee, nay, she never lazed a beat. She helped Sussy with dairyin’ an’ Ma with twinin’n’spinnin’ an’ Jonas took her bird-eggin’ an’ she list’ned to Catkin’s yippin’ ’bout school’ry an’ she fetched water’n’chopped wood an’ she was a quicksome learner. Course the yibber was keepin’ a close eye on her an’ visitors kept callin’ to see the wondersome fifty-year-old woman what jus’ looked twenty-five years. Folks what s’pected her to be doin’ tricks’n’whizzies was dis’pointed very soon ’cos she din’t, nay. Ma she lost her anxin’ ’bout the Shipwoman in a day or two, yay, she started gettin’ friendsome with her an’ crowy too. Our visitor Meronym this an’ Our visitor Meronym that, it was cockadoodlydooin’ morn till night, an’ Sussy was ten times badder. Meronym she jus’ got on with her work, tho’ at night she’d sit at our table an’ write on spesh paper, oh so finer’n ours. A whoah fast writer she was, but she din’t write in our tongue, nay, she wrote in some other speakin’. See, there was other tongues spoken in the Old Countries, not just ours. What you writin’ ’bout, Aunt Meronym? asked Catkin, but the Prescient jus’ answered, My days, pretty one, I’m writin’ ’bout my days.

  I hated her pretty one stuff in my fam’ly an’ I din’t like the way old folks came creepin’ up askin’ her for lowdown on how to live long. But her writin’ ’bout the Valleys what no Valleysman could read, that anxed me most. Was it Smart or was it spyin’ or was it the touch o’ Old Georgie?

  One steamin’ dawn I’d done the milkin’ when our guest asked to come herdin’ the goats with me. Ma said yay, o’ course. I din’t say yay, I said, coolsome’n’stony, Grazin’ goats ain’t int’restin’ for folks with so much Smart as you. Meronym said politesome, Ev’rythin’ Valleysmen do is int’restin’ for me, Host Zachry, but course if you jus’ don’t want me to watch your work, that’s fine, jus’ come out an’ say-so. See? Her words was slipp’ry wrestlers, they jus’ flipped your nay into a yay. Ma was hawkeyein’ me so, Sure, fine, yay, come, I’d got to say.

  Herdin’ my goats up Elepaio Track, I din’t say nothin’ else. Past Cluny’s Dwellin’ a bro o’ mine, Gubboh Hogboy, shouted, Howzit, Zachry! for a discussin’, but when he seen Meronym he awked an’ jus’ said, Go careful, Zachry. Oh, I wished I could shruck that woman off my back, so I say-soed Stop draggin’, you slugger-buggahs, to my goats an’ hiked harder, hopin’ to wear her out, see, upstream thru Vert’bry Pass we went but she din’t quit, nay, not even on the rocky trail to Moon’s Nest. Prescient tuff it’s a match for goater tuff, I learnt it then. I reck’ned she knowed my thinkin’ an’ was laughin’ at me, inward, so I din’t speak nothin’ more to her.

  What did she do when we reached Moon’s Nest? She sat on Thumb Rock an’ got out a writin’ book an’ sketched that whoahsome view. Oh, Meronym’d got whoahsome drawin’-Smart I got to ’fess. On that paper the Nine Folded Valleys appeared an’ the coast’n’headlands, an’ highlands’n’lowgrounds, jus’ as real as the real uns. I din’t want to give her no int’rest, but I cudn’t stop me. I named ev’rythin’ she’d marked, an’ she wrote the names until it was half-picturin’ half-writin’, I said. ’Zactly so, said Meronym, it’s a map we done here.

  Now. I heard a twig snappin’ in a fringe o’ firs b’hind us. Not the fluky wind it weren’t, nay, it was a leg done it sure ’nuff, but a foot or hoof or claw I cudn’t tell. Kona up the Windward Kohalas weren’t knowed but so weren’t Kona at Sloosha’s Crossin’, nay, so into that thicket I went for a look-see. Meronym wanted to come with me but I telled her to stay put. Could it be Old Georgie come back to stone my soul some more? Or jus’ a hermity Mookini wand’rin’ for grinds? I’d got my spiker an’ I crept nearer the firs, nearer the firs …

  Roses sat straddlin’ a mossy fat stump. See you got fresh comp’ny, she said politesome, but there was a furyin’ dingo bitch in her eyes.

  Her? I pointed back at Meronym, who sat watchin’ us talk. Ain’t yibber telled you, the Shipwoman’s older’n my granny was when Sonmi reborned her! Don’t be jealous o’ her! She ain’t like you, Roses. She’s got so much Smart in her head she’s got a busted neck.

  Roses weren’t politesome now. So I ain’t got no Smart?

  Women, oh, women! They’ll find the baddest meanin’ in your words an’ hold it up, sayin’, Look what you attacked me with! Lust-bonered hothead what I was, a bit o’ knuckly talkin’d cure Roses’s senses, so I reck’ned. You know that ain’t what I’m sayin’ you dumb vamoosin’ bint—

  I din’t finish speakin’ my cure ’cos Roses schnockoed my face so hard the ground dived forward an’ I crashed on my jaxy. So shocked I was I jus’ sat there like a dropped babbit, I dabbed my nose an’ my fingers was red. Oh, said Roses, then Ha! then, You can bitchmouth your nanny goats all you wants, herder, but not me, so Old Georgie stone your soul! Our lovin’n’throbbin’ was smashed to a mil’yun ittybitties an’ off Roses went then, swingin’ her basket.

  Mis’ry’n’barrassment are hungersome for blame, an’ what I blamed for losin’ Roses was the dammit Prescient. That mornin’ on Moon’s Nest I got up an’ hollered my goats an’ droved ’em to Thumb Pasture without even sayin’ good-bye to Meronym. She’d got ’nuff Smart to leave me be, mem’ry she’d got a son o’ her own back on Prescience I.

  When I got home that evenin’, Ma’n’Sussy’n’Jonas was sittin’ round. They seen my nose an’ looked slywise at each other. What happened to your conker there, bro? Jonas asked, all la-di-da. This? Oh, I slipped’n’schnockoed it on Moon’s Nest, I telled him quicksharp.

  Sussy sort o’ snigged. You don’t mean you schnockoed it on Roses’s Nest there, bro Zachry? an’ all three of ’em cackled like a danglin’ o’ screech bats an’ I redded diresome’n’steamin’. Sissy telled me she’d got the yibber off Roses’s cuz Wolt, what’d telled Bejesus, what’d met Sissy, but I wasn’t really list’nin’, nay, I was cussin’ Meronym to Old Georgie, an’ I din’t stop, an’ it’s a bless she weren’t at Bailey’s that night, nay, she was learnin’ loomin’ at Aunt Bees’s.

  So down I went to the ocean an’ watched Lady Moon to cool my fiery mis’ry. A greenbill came draggin’ itself up the beach to lay eggs I mem’ry, an’ I nearly spikered the turtle there’n’then out o’ spite, see, if my life weren’t fair why should an animal’s be? But I seen its eyes, so ancient was its eyes they seen the future, yay’ an’ I let the turtle go. Gubboh’n’Kobbery came troopin’ with their boards an’ started surfin’ in the starry water, a whoah beautsome surfer was Kobbery, an’ they called me to join ’em but I weren’t in no surfin’ mood, nay, I’d got more soberin’ bis’ness to push at with Abbess at the school’ry. So there I went an’ spoke my worryin’s for a long beat.

  Abbess she list’ned, but she din’t b’lief me none, nay, she thinked I was jus’ wrigglyin’ out o’ hostin’ Meronym. You seen the Ship, an’ you seen their ironware, an’ you seen the bit o’ the Smart they’ll show us. If Prescients was plannin’ on invadin’ Nine Valleys, d’you truesome reck’n we’d be sittin’ here discussin’ it? Bring me ev’dence Meronym’s plannin’ to murder us all in our beds, I’ll summon a gath’rin’. If you ain’t got ev’dence, well, hold your counsel. Makin’ ’cusations ’gainst a spesh guest, it jus’ ain’t politesome, Zachry, an’ your pa’d not o’ been pleased.

  Our Abbess never stamped her say-sos on no un, but you knew when the discussin’ was over. That was
it, then, I was on my own, yay. Zachry ’gainst the Prescients.

  Days rose’n’fell an’ summer hotted up green’n’foamy. I watched Meronym wormy her way round all the Valleys, meetin’ folk an’ learnin’ how we lived, what we owned, how many of us could fight, an’ mappin’ passes into the Valleys thru the Kohalas. One or two o’ the older’n’cunninger men, I tried to suss out if they’d got any doubts or anxin’s ’bout the Prescient, but when I said invade or attack they looked shocked’n’s’prised spikers at me’n’my accusin’s so I got shamed an’ I shut up, see, I din’t want yibber smearin’ me. I should fake a bit o’ manners to Meronym so she may get lazy an’ let her friendsome mask slip a littl’ an’ show me her true plannin’s b’hind that mask, yay, give me some ev’dence I could show to Abbess an’ summon a gath’rin’.

  I din’t have no choice to wait’n’see. Meronym was truesome pop’lar. Women ’fessed stuff to her ’cos she was an outsider an’ she’d not tell Old Ma Yibber no secrets. Abbess asked our guest to teach numbers at the school’ry an’ Meronym said yay. Catkin said she was a good teacher but din’t teach ’em nothin’ b’yonder Abbess’s own Smart tho’ Catkin knowed she could o’ done if she’d o’ wanted. Some schoolers even started inkin’ their faces blacker to look like a Prescient, but Meronym telled ’em to clean up or she’d not teach ’em nothin’, ’cos Smart’n’Civ’lize ain’t nothin’ to do with the color o’ the skin, nay.

  Now one evenin’ on our v’randa, Meronym was questionin’ ’bout icons. Is icons a home for the soul? Or a common mem’ry o’ faces n’kin’n’age’n’all? Or a prayer to Sonmi? Or a tombstone wrote in this-life with messages for next-life? See it was always whys’n’whats with Prescients, it weren’t never ’nuff sumthin’ just was an’ leave it be. Duophysite was the same here on Maui, nay? Unc’ Bees was tryin’ to answer but foggin’ out, he ’fessed he knowed ’zactly what icons is until the beat he’d to explain ’em. The Icon’ry, Aunt Bees said, held Valleysmen’s past an’ present all t’gether. Now it didn’t often happ’n I could read anyun’s thinkin’s, but that beat I seen the Shipwoman wond’rin’, Oho, then this Icon’ry I got to go visit it, yay. Nay, I din’t say nothin’, but the f’llowin’ sunup I strolled down to Bony Shore an’ hid up on Sooside Rock. See, I reck’ned if I could catch the offlander bein’ dis-’spectful to our icons or better still cockaroachin’ one, I could pit the older Valleysmen ’gainst her, an’ so wise up my people’n’kin to the Prescient’s truesome plannin’s’n’all.