The Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

  And I further knew that this was impossible, that those men had died, there, on that hill, and that even if they had lived, they would never have been transported to Alaska. Sure, I knew that. It didn't matter who they were, really, because Gurley had made all such men mine: Didn't move fast enough?

  Father Pabich went to the nurses who were changing the bed and seemed to ask them something. When they shook their heads, he straightened up and then began working his way around the room. He spoke quietly to each man; none spoke in return. Before moving on to the next man, he would murmur a short prayer and close with a slight, but slow and solemn, bow. He didn't rush. The eyes had all been open when we entered the room, and had followed our every move. But now I saw the man in the last bed close his eyes before we reached him. Father Pabich didn't notice until he was at the foot of the man's bed, and then breathed a deep sigh. We spent a longer time at that bed than anyone else's. Father Pabich slowly lowered himself to kneeling, and then pulled me down as well. I listened to the man breathe. I watched and waited for him to open his eyes.

  AS SOON AS WE got outside, Father Pabich dug around for a cigarette. A breeze had picked up, and he had some trouble with his match. When he finally got the cigarette lit, he started walking away without a word. I caught up, but he wouldn't look at me. “The man in the sixth bed, the empty one-gone this morning,” he said. “I should have been there. They couldn't find me.” He looked at his watch, then at me. “Scared?”

  I thought about telling him about Fort Cronkhite, about the explosion there, the men, how I wasn't able to or didn't help.

  “You can admit to being a little scared,” he said. “That's no sin. A little fear can help a man.” He took a long drag on the cigarette, then another, and then, even though it wasn't nearly done, dropped it on the ground and toed it out. “I don't know what happened. They were part of a special team, gone more often than they were here. Then one night, they were all brought in from who knows where. Badly burned. Limbs missing. Some kind of accident, I would have guessed, but- God doesn't permit accidents like that.” He zipped up his coat. “No one will tell me what happened exactly, and I suppose I don't want to know now. Some things you don't want to know are possible. Coming out here, I knew I'd see men who were hurt, men who'd died, but I didn't think I'd see that-men who'd died, but are still alive, somehow, with eyes like that, like ghosts.” Father Pabich looked at me. “I don't want to know how it happened. And I don't want you to tell me.”

  “I won't,” I said. “I mean, how could I? How would I know?” But what I really wanted to say was, how could he know?

  Father Pabich took a moment considering his next words. “I guess there're things you and your captain haven't talked about yet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like those men, Sergeant,” Father Pabich said. “They're your- they're your detail. Or they worked with your captain there, once. Nobody ever knew quite what they did, what he does. What you do.” He stared at me until I met his gaze. “I just hope you do it well. Or better.”

  “Father, I-”

  “Whatever he's asking you to do, do it,” Father Pabich said. “If it's going to keep those beds empty, do it.” I nodded. He picked up my hands. “No more bar brawls. Next time you put your hand on the door of a bar, you think of these men. You think about where you're needed.” He dropped my hands, and thumped my chest with two fingers: “You think about who needs you.”

  BUT TRY AS I MIGHT, it wasn't those men, but Lily, who came to mind at those words and who stayed there the entire day. I went back to the Quonset hut, I watched the training film, I stared at the little book until, once again, the artwork seemed to shift and flow and change before my eyes. What's more, I kept seeing, imagining, Lily's face, in a cloud, in waves, connecting the points of a map. I finally gave in and started for downtown.

  I told myself I was going because Lily was going to help me find some of these mysterious floating bombs, help me save lives. She'd said she wasn't as good at the future as she was at the past, but she could tell me something.

  THE FIRST THING she wanted to tell me was goodbye.

  “Hey, friend,” Lily said. She'd emerged from the entrance of the Starhope as I approached. “You came back to see me off.”

  I looked at her, and then looked around, in search of something to say.

  “I'm going home,” she said, checking to make sure I understood.

  I didn't, but told her I'd be happy to walk her home. I thought I was being quite gallant; a lot of guys back then wouldn't have wanted to walk anywhere near a woman who looked like Lily. Well-maybe they'd want to, beautiful as she was, but they wouldn't want to be seen doing it, given who she was.

  She looked down at my feet. “You don't have the right shoes,” she said. “And it's a long, wet walk.”

  “How long?” I asked. “I don't have to be back in my barracks till midnight.”

  “About four hundred miles,” Lily said.

  I stared at her. “You're leaving,” I said. “Really leaving.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That's the idea. I'm still working on how- travel's not as easy with this war you all got cooked up. But I've got something to do anyway, before I go.”

  “What's that?”

  “Have dinner with a friend.” She smiled and put out an arm.

  LILY WALKED ME THROUGH the darkening streets to a part of town I hadn't discovered yet. There were fewer soldiers and sailors here, and more-people. White faces, Asian faces, women, men, children, and very few uniforms. I drew more stares than Lily as she threaded our way through narrower, older streets to a diner.

  There were no menus; Lily said they just brought you whatever was on the stove. That night, it was a stew of Thanksgiving leftovers.

  We didn't say anything while we waited for the food. I was tongue-tied-she was leaving?-and Lily was tired. She leaned her head against the back of the booth and closed her eyes.

  I wouldn't have had words then to describe what I saw; I'm not sure I do now. Why did her hair make black seem the brightest color? Why did her breathing through slightly parted lips, her tongue flitting once to moisten them, seem risqué? How could her bare neck, all smooth curves and shadows, suggest that the loose clothes she wore weren't there at all? I suppose the chemicals that flood a boy at that time in his life are partly to blame, but give Lily and the God who made her some credit.

  “Don't stare,” she said, not opening her eyes.

  I mumbled something about how I wasn't, and she opened her eyes in time to see that I was. The food arrived and she immediately started in.

  “You were, just a moment ago, when I had my eyes closed,” she said.

  “I wasn't staring,” I said. “I was trying to figure out what I was going to do without you.”

  She stopped eating, and laughed. “That's silly.” She took another bite, and before she swallowed, added, “And very sweet.”

  “No, I had-I had a question for you.” And I did, a hundred, mostly about her. But I had another question, the one I'd spend the war asking.

  “I don't think those two thugs are coming back, if that's your question,” Lily said. “That's what I like about sailors. Or liked. They sail away on their little ships. They don't come back.”

  “It's about something else.” I looked at my hand, then held it up and showed her my palm.

  Lily shook her head. “You know-the palm reading-I don't really read palms.”

  “But you know things. You knew things about me.”

  Lily put down her spoon; she spent a moment carefully aligning it with the plate. “What do you need to know?”

  I offered her my hand, but she kept her hands at her sides and shook her head. “Not here.” She looked around. “I'm not going to do that here.”

  “Then how can you tell me-?”

  “Just talk,” she said, and as she did, I could feel her feet entangle mine. “Just talk,” she repeated, more softly.

  By now, of course, I could hardly breathe.
It took me a moment to remember what I wanted to ask. “I need to know where this-thing- will-” I stopped. “I need to know where something's going to be.”

  But that wasn't good enough for her. She shook her head, again and again, no matter how I phrased the question, until she finally said, “I need a place to start. A detail. Without that, it's just dreaming.” I thought of all the things I could tell her: places where we knew balloons had landed and exploded; the map in Gurley's office; the eyes of those men in that private ward. Or I could just tell her my secret- Gurley's secret, our country's secret, or Japan's-I could tell her that high above the Pacific, even now, clearly visible if you only knew where to look, floated balloons laced with powdered fire. All you had to do to catch them was give up a hand, an arm, a face, a leg-or find out first where they were landing and when.

  “Are you dreaming?” she asked.

  “I'm trying to think where to start,” I said.

  “Here's an easy detail,” she said. “What's your name, Sergeant Belk?”

  I blinked.

  “Your first name, brother of Bing.”

  “Louis,” I said, relieved I could give up such an easy secret.

  “Louis,” she said. “See, I'm not good at this at all. ‘Louis’ I never would have guessed. Okay, what do you want to know, Louis?”

  I looked around the room. No one was looking at us, but it seemed as though everyone was listening to us. Intently. I said nothing. Her feet left mine.

  “Next time, then,” she said. “Your wallet have anything in it tonight?”

  “Please don't leave,” I said.

  “Louis, I told you my secret,” she said. “I'm not a palm reader.”

  “But you didn't tell me how you-why you-know things.”

  “What do you do?” she asked. “Or what don't you do? Me, I don't read palms.”

  “I don't read palms, either,” I said. She looked at me, waited. “And I don't read feet,” I added. She smiled and clamped her feet back around mine. “And I don't…”

  I went through a whole litany of jobs, both military and civilian, that I didn't do. This was much easier than lying, this circling, joking. She seemed to enjoy it, too, protesting every now and then that some task I said I didn't do-blow reveille on a bugle each morning-I actually did do. Slowly, invisible to everyone but me, her hands crept closer to mine, until they were almost touching, then they were touching, and then resting on top of mine, contented and relieved.

  By then, the whole of me was humming. Maybe she wasn't a palm reader, maybe she had no special powers at all, but she could do this: tap something inside of me-more than hormones, perhaps blood- and seize it, take charge of it. Change the direction of its flow, or arrest the circulation altogether. Part of me believed I was allowing this to happen, part of me thought I was powerless, but most of me didn't care. I wanted to sit there, be held, touched, like that, and never move. I would have done anything to stay.

  “What do you do, Louis?” she said quietly.

  “Bombs,” I said, the word out before I even realized it.

  “Yes,” she said. “But what kind?” she asked, leaning closer, the shade of a new look in her eyes, but not enough of a new look to spook me, not yet.

  “Bal-loons,” I said, my mind rising in alarm with the second syllable, but by then it was too late. Gurley's thumbnail slid down, and across, and up my neck.

  Lily closed her eyes, slowly. And then her shoulders sank, her head sank, my blood began its nervous flow again, and my heart pounded at the secret it had just disclosed.

  “I didn't say anything,” I said, looking down to find my hands uncovered.

  “Not a thing,” Lily said, expectant.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “So soon?” she said. She waited a moment, and then appeared to make up her mind.

  “Lily, you can't tell anyone,” I said. “You have to swear.”

  She waited a moment, then smiled.

  “You came in with a question,” she said. “Now, I have an answer.”

  She leaned over, put her lips to my ear. I swear she kissed me. I felt the brush of a touch, a breath, and when I looked up, she was standing by me, smiling, and then leaving.

  It was a fine way to deliver a secret, because I heard nothing, not then. Oh, she'd whispered the name of the place-Shuyak-but I didn't realize that, not until later. At that moment, I was consumed with the way her breath found my ear, the way her face grazed my hair, the way her lips were moving- Shu-yak-so that it felt like (it must have looked like) a kiss. Even now, when I say the name of that place- Shu-yak-when I'm lonely or nostalgic or some unrelenting, everlasting Alaskan summer twilight has me pinned, sleepless, to the sheets, I can give myself chills when that first syllable, that sh, draws my lips forward, just so, like lips set to kiss.

  When I came to, she was gone, the counterman was gone. Al that remained was the bill, which I paid, and the whispered word, which started echoing in my head, louder and louder, as I made my way back to base.

  The boy would have survived had Lily been with us. I knew that the morning of the second day, which would be our last with adequate food, water, and fuel. The day before, we'd picked our way west through the delta in dense fog. I had no idea we'd made the Bering Sea until I realized I couldn't smell the tundra's mud and grass, just water and salt. I turned north. I had a map; it showed a tiny Red Cross symbol near a mission settlement just up the coast. I had a map, but Lily would have known a better, mapless route. She would have gotten us where we needed to go.

  And she could have told me more about the boy. I wanted to know his name, his real name. I wanted to know what chain of events had left him in my care. When he was awake, he looked at me with fear and barely spoke. When he was asleep-and he seemed to sleep, or slip from consciousness, more and more-he would often shout and screech, delirious. Sometimes it sounded like words, sometimes notes of music, high and thin.

  If he lay silent for too long I noticed that the seabirds-they looked more eagle than gull-would float down closer to us. If they got too close, I would bark and yell. Sometimes that was enough to get the boy raving again. But it was never enough to get him to open his eyes, fix them on me, and tell his story.

  CHAPTER 9

  THURSDAY. RONNIE HAS SURVIVED FOR AN ENTIRE DAY, and so have I. Maybe it's not right to compare our conditions? But in some ways mine is more dire: he's only dying, whereas I'm being asked to live out my days Outside, divorced from my Alaskan life.

  Having been through extended hospital stays a half dozen times before with Ronnie, though, I can tell you what the second day is like: busy, hopeful, anxious. There is still some carryover of that day-one-type relief- he got here in time!-that's usually counterbalanced by day-two anxiety: what's really wrong? There are other milestones, like day six, when you realize, it's only a night away from an entire week; surely that's not a good sign. And then, of course, there's the Last Day, which is always a surprise.

  But today's surprise arrived shortly after breakfast. Ronnie awoke. Or, as he put it, returned.

  His eyes opened, slowly, and he scanned the room. Then he found me. We watched each other silently for a full minute, maybe more.

  “They thought you were in a coma,” I said at last. “Not a ‘classic coma,’ mind you.” Ronnie considered this a moment; he was still coming to. Then he rolled his eyes, coughed, and declared he was hungry. I handed over several items I'd gotten from the vending machines for my breakfast, and he devoured them as he explained where he'd been.

  “Not a coma,” he said, shaking his head. “The ocean,” he declared, and then asked for my coffee. I handed him the cup. “I've been to the bottom of the ocean. Here and there. I went to where the seals live, the whales.”

  “They send their best?” I asked. This wasn't the first time that Ronnie had told me he'd “traveled.” While the rest of the world thought he'd passed out in a bar or fallen into a semi-coma in a hospital, Ronnie would later claim that he had been swimming to
the depths of the sea, or summiting the sky, en route to the moon. Shamans were known for such journeys; and indeed, they resembled comas. Long ago, the angalkuq would gather everyone in the qasgiq, a village's largest building, which served as both the men's quarters and communal hall. He (not always, but usually a he) would lie in the center of the floor, often bound. Sometimes the light would be extinguished, and witnesses would be left to deduce what was happening from the sounds they heard. Loud grunts, a struggle, then quieter and quieter as the angalkuq flew farther away, then loud again once he'd returned, perhaps with a crash or thump. Sometimes the angalkuq would narrate the journey, other times detail it upon his return.

  Ronnie only ever spoke upon his return, and his accounts were so fanciful I ascribed them to spirits more alcoholic than otherworldly. One time, I was sure Ronnie was plagiarizing the plot of a Disney movie that had recently played at the library. (We'd all seen it, every one of us: it was an actual, first-run movie, after all.) But then, I'd fallen asleep halfway through the movie myself. I was no more judge of what was real than Ronnie.

  This time, though, was different. He ignored my crack about the seals sending greetings and instead spoke rapidly: “I saw the boy,” he said. “I saw him.” He looked both excited and nervous. “Not the mother. Did you see her? There's a mother in the story. I can't remember. I can't remember if she's there.” He raised the cup I'd given him. “It's the coffee. Caffeine. This is a drug. I am telling you this.”

  “I'd blame alcohol, Ronnie,” I said. “Demon rum.”

  But he had already handed the cup back to me. “Wait here,” he said. “I'll be right back. Tell you what I find.” He lay back, closed his eyes, and then jerked awake. “The wolf, Louis-you'll watch for him.” He extended a hand toward me-hard to imagine, Ronnie actually reaching for help, for me-but as he fell back, I slipped out of his grasp.