The Cloud Atlas (34 page)

Peter betrayed Jesus three times before the cock crowed at dawn. To my knowledge, the devil has asked me to be faithful just once-right there, before dawn-and I obeyed: I listened.

Gurley wanted to blow up the balloon, yes, but he also wanted to blow up the boy. A living, breathing Japanese who'd arrived by balloon was a glorious prize, but an outdated one. The war was ending. Worse yet, men like the major in Fairbanks would add the boy to the two dead “fishermen” and decide the sum equaled the start of a massive, and manned, balloon campaign. That could only mean extra months (years?) in Alaska. No: we had to dispose of the balloon and the boy destroy any trace that they had ever existed, and we had to do it immediately. The major and the men from Ladd Field were likely just hours away from deciding to strike out across the tundra in search of germs.

The boy was dying, Gurley said, building his case. What was wanted was mercy, not agony, not for anyone. Now, he couldn't put a gun to the boy's head, Gurley explained. He wasn't a barbarian. And he couldn't ask me to do it: I wasn't enough of a soldier. (He didn't even pause to smirk.) No, things had to proceed according to the natural order of things, which was this: whoever had put the boy in that balloon (“A stowaway?” I asked, merely to have some way to counter him, but Gurley rolled his eyes) had intended for him to die in the ensuing explosion. When the balloon crashed, it should have exploded. He should have died. Our presence had upset this plan; we could give fate its due by placing the boy back at the crash site, and then detonating the balloon. This was not about the army, or war, or anything else. It was about predestination. The divine order of things. We had the equipment, which was simple enough. C3, blasting wire, a little hell box. Put the boy in position, affix the explosives, run the wire, retreat to safety, depress the plunger, and-

“Lily?” I asked.

Gurley spun around, then turned back to me, relieved. We'd reached the boat. “I thought you meant she was here.”

“No,” I said, taking a quick look for her myself. “But she'll hear the blast.”

Gurley nodded and exhaled and said nothing for a while.

When he started speaking again, his voice had changed. Just slightly, but the effect was startling. “It's too much,” he said. “It's too much to ask her, too, to die-of simple heartache,” he added. “Not over
me
, of course,” he said, his face tight with disdain. “But dear
Saburo
.” I stared. “Rapist and rival, and spy.” He waited, clearly looking for a sign in me that I understood what he meant and did not need him to go on. But whatever he saw wasn't enough, so he continued. “As you must know, hormone-besotted as you are, Fair Belk, Miss Lily has become a… difficulty, yes. 'Tis true?”

“Sir,” I said, and stopped. “My-my God-”

“Yes,” Gurley said. “Your God. Does not smile down upon this part of the world. No, tremble not, Sergeant. As convenient as it would be if Lily, too, lay beside the boy, beside the balloon, only to disappear with the rest of the mess, it is a trifle inconvenient as well,” he admitted. “Morally.”

“She-loves you,” I said. It was all I could think of to say. “She told me.”

Gurley looked at me. First his face said:
a lie.
Then it said:
how sweet if it were true.
And then he spoke. “Well, Sergeant,” he said. “You see our dilemma.”

I COULD HAVE REFUSED to set the charge against the balloon. Refused to unspool the wire, refused to attach it to the hell box. I could have refused to knife the wall of the tent where the boy and Lily lay, refused to snatch the boy through the gash-his screams instant, inhuman-and sprint for the crash site while Gurley wrestled with Lily quieting her with the force of his words and, when that didn't work, force alone. I could have refused to set the boy in the place Gurley had designated within the balloon's wreckage. I could have refused to bind the boy's arms and legs to the control frame just as Gurley insisted he would tie Lily to the boat, or to stakes in the ground, or to whatever he had to in order to keep her from following us back to the balloon.

But I did as I was told, and, with Lily's plea still echoing, a little bit more. When Gurley and I met, however-me walking back from the balloon site and him walking toward it-I realized, too late, that I could have done better.

He looked furious, on the point of weeping. He didn't break his stride nor even turn to look at me as he spoke: “Change of
plans
, Sergeant.” I think my heart stopped beating. I certainly stopped walking, and turned to watch him lurch through the swampy tundra toward the balloon.

He had killed Lily. I had failed her, utterly. And now what: Was I supposed to chase after him? Leap on him, press his face into the nearest puddle and drown him? Or race to where Lily lay, apologize to whatever life of her still remained?

I ran to Lily. There'd be time enough to deal with Gurley But Saburo, Jap Sam, the girl who died in childbirth at her boarding school-all the seeing spirits might all be drawing Lily into the clouds, even now.

I said prayers as I ran. Ones I knew by heart and others I made up. Whatever I said, though, it must have been powerful. Because when I reached the camp, I found Lily, alive and upright, packing our supplies onto the boat.

“Lily,” I cried. I went to hug her, but something about the way she looked at me stopped me short.

“Where's Gurley?” she said. I was anxious to explain away my role in hustling the boy away from camp, to mention how I needed to do so in order for the rest of the plan to work, but Lily wasn't interested. “Where is he?” she asked again, nervous now.

I know what I wanted to say, but I hadn't heard the noise I'd been waiting for yet. So instead of answering her directly, I explained what I'd done. I'd
protected
them, her and the boy, and by extension, Saburo. Gurley had wanted me to wire the balloon to explode. He'd planned to place the boy in the balloon, retreat to a little tuft of tundra where I'd placed the hell box. Then he'd depress the plunger, the charge would go down the wire, and all his problems, save Lily, would disappear.

I'd placed the hell box on the small patch of dry land, as requested. I'd run the wires out to the balloon, as requested. The wires disappeared under the balloon, as though that were where they connected to the invisible charges. But they actually continued on past the balloon, hidden in the grass, and looped all the way back, still hidden, to the tuft of land where Gurley now stood.

Evil as I was, or am, I could not kill a man. I knew this even then. The granting and taking of life is best left to fate, to God, and I had left it so. I could lay the wire, attach it to charges (not a stick or two, but all we had) buried in the grass beneath the spot where Gurley would have to stand, but only God could see to it that Gurley did what he did. That is, if Gurley chose to kill the boy, he would kill himself. If he spared the boy, he would spare himself.

But Lily did not fall into my arms, sad and relieved. Instead, she cried: “What have you done?”

“Protected you,” I said, quiet with shock. “Both of you.”

“Didn't you see him?” she said. I nodded. “He was going out there to get the boy.”

“He was going out there to kill him,” I said. “He was going to-he talked about-he was going to kill you. He said, ‘Change of…’- he-I thought he had.”

“Louis!” she cried, and began to run.

During the past hours, we'd worn a path from our landing spot to the balloon, and for a while, Lily stayed on it. But as we grew closer, she left the path for the most direct route, sloshing through the water and brush straight to Gurley.

I stayed on the path. It would be faster.

I saw Gurley stoop and pick up the hell box. Even before crying a warning to Lily, I wanted to yell to her,
See what he's doing? He was going to kill the boy!

The morning was just breaking, and we were close enough now to see everything-the balloon resting lightly on the soggy tundra, as though it might inflate and fly once more; Gurley, hell box in hand, surveying the scene.

“Stop! Stop!”
Lily screamed.

I kept along the path, not saying a word, calculating how large the blast zone would be and when I would enter it.

Stop, stop!

She loved him.

The boy: she needed the boy.

But Gurley: she loved him.

And when Gurley looked back and saw her, I had to hope he saw this. I couldn't see, I couldn't see his eyes, I could only see him turn to face her as she staggered out of the last stretch of water. I wish I had been closer! To see Gurley, to see if he was angry, or bemused, if his cheeks were flushed or if he rolled his eyes. To see if when their eyes finally met, he realized that he had been in love, had been loved.

Or to see whether, in that moment before Gurley pressed the plunger, they touched, whether their hands met, or their lips, whether it was their lives, whole and complete, that flashed before their eyes, or whether it was merely the flash of the blast itself.

But I wasn't closer. If I had been, I might have been killed instead of merely deafened. Thrown by the blast, I was flat on my back in an inch-deep puddle that had already been there or that I had created. I may have blacked out; I'm not sure. I could feel my fingers tangled in the
ayuq
, I could feel the tundra ooze pulling at my boots, my shoulders, my scalp. I could smell and taste the salt of the far-off ocean, and for some moments, I thought the water was high enough that it had entered my ears-all I could hear was a dull, muffled rustling somewhere inside my head. But when I finally stood, my ears didn't clear.

I stared at the blast site waiting for my hearing to return. It never has completely, but in a minute or two, some sounds returned. The rush of wind, a mosquito that sounded miles distant but appeared on my palm after I'd absently slapped at my ear, and after that slap, a high wail, also distant. I'd forgotten about the boy: even though I'd made sure that his spot in the balloon wreckage would be well clear of the explosion, the blast must have frightened him, and now he was crying.

But he was closer, too.

A few yards up the path, in fact, in a patch of salmonberries that were growing beneath a stunted cottonwood, where he was keening, choking, screaming, not having moved an inch from the spot where Gurley had safely placed him.

THE SMOKE AND NOISE OF THE BLAST HAD ALREADY DISSIPATED. The sky, incredibly, was just as it had been before. The birds that must have shrieked into flight were long gone or had already returned.

And now, this boy, wailing.

This partial deafness has been a curse all my life, but I was grateful for it then. Because if I had heard Lily screaming in pain, or Gurley moaning, I know I would have gone to them. And because they would have been too wounded for me to help in any way, I would have had to simply crouch by them, endure their screams-and eyes! Eyes! How they would have looked at me!-until they finally fell silent. Who first? Gurley? Lily? Or would they fall suddenly silent together?

And if I had heard the boy screaming, full volume, I don't think I would have stooped and tended to him. I would have been too angry. Two people dead; an officer, his lover, the man I served and the woman I loved, and this boy screaming as though his were the only real pain? I wouldn't have gone near him.

But I did go to him. I didn't go to Gurley and Lily. Because I heard Lily tell me to go to the boy. It wasn't her voice, just Lily, herself, there, inside me. Perhaps
hear
isn't the right word, then-but I knew that she wanted me to take the boy to the boat, to a doctor. You could argue that I knew she wanted that before she died, before I “heard” her within me. Fair enough. But as I pushed off from shore, the boy, barely alive, in the bow, she was there, too. And after the motor had hiccuped to life and we began picking our way down through the delta to the ocean, she was still there, marking sandbars and pointing out which turns to take when. She told us where to stop the first night, and again the second.

You still don't believe me.

Then what of this:

The morning of the third day, the boy was weak, close to death. Once we were in the boat, I gave him water, broke up some of our rations into tiny bites, some of which he spat out, some of which he ate. After the food, but especially the water, he seemed to recover some of his strength, but spent almost all that strength on moaning with new fervor. I waited until we reached a wide, almost currentless stretch of water, and then throttled back, letting the boat drift while I rummaged in the medical kit for the vial of morphine. I had wanted to wait for as long as possible before administering any, to stretch out its use for as long as possible. But now I found the needle, pierced the seal, drew a small amount, and carefully moved toward him.

I thought his eyes would be fixed on the needle, but they weren't; he stared straight at me. And the closer I got, the less he moaned, the more open his face became. When I was close enough, I put a hand out to touch his good arm, and stopped. The rapid breaths that had come after the crying were slowing, and through that touch alone, I could feel the whole of him relaxing, degree by degree. This wasn't me. This couldn't have been only me.

He laid his head back and stared at the sky a moment, then at me, and then closed his eyes. I started; I thought this was the moment. I reflexively raised the needle until I realized he wouldn't need the morphine now, not if he had reached the moment of death. I eased back and watched.

But one minute passed and then another with the boat still drifting, its progress no longer measurable. He didn't die. He kept breathing, ragged breath after ragged breath, and I couldn't break away. Who was he? How had he gotten here? I should have been able to tell with that touch. Even if we couldn't speak, I could learn, as Lily could, through touch alone, through the power of a hand, what secrets lay within.

So I closed my eyes, too, and concentrated, but all I could think of was Lily, and then Gurley and the sun coming up, and some tundra spirit seeking me out, and then Father Pabich-nothing about the boy.

What happened next seemed to be the boy's decision more than mine. Or perhaps it was Lily's. As I was sitting there, staring at my own hands, the boy, eyes closed, reached out. I put a hand in the way of his, and he caught up two or three of my fingers in a tight grasp. It reminds me, now, of what infants will sometimes do, at the hospital or after a baptism. And the parents smile and laugh: such strength, such affection!

But I didn't smile then. His hand was a boy's hand, but it was dry and cracked. I found myself checking the tips of his fingers for gangrene-some telltale sign of Gurley's black death settling in. But they were just a boy's fingers, the dirt ringed beneath his nails the only black to be found. The feel of his hand, though, that surprised me: rough, callused. I wanted to turn his hand over, examine it more closely as Lily might have, or must have. But he held on tight, and I didn't move, and a story seeped through-a small boy, who'd been pressed into service in a wartime factory because all the able-bodied men were at war. The balloons he was helping build were more wonderful than anything he'd ever made for himself, and he wanted so much to fly in one.

They were experimenting with a new, larger model. They flew it on a short tether, overnight, to test a new mixture of gases. He'd watched from outside the fence. It was so close, so tempting. He crawled under the fence, and then, before he realized what he was doing, he was climbing up the rope. Climbing up, hand over hand, just like they'd been doing in school, all of them training to be strong young warriors, ready to fight when the last stand began. And then he was inside. It was impossible that this was happening, of course, impossible to any adult in particular, impossible to anyone who was not a boy who wanted to fly. He took out a knife, a little one. This they hadn't taught in school; this was what his father gave to him before his father left on a train that took him to a ship that took him to what his mother said was a tiny island, surrounded by a wide ocean, far away, so far that the boy was still waiting for an answer to the letters he'd written his dad, telling him how careful he'd been with the knife, how skilled he'd become with it.

He cut the first tether, the rope he'd climbed up on, and the knife worked beautifully, the rope helping him, each strand shattering as he drew the blade across it. When the rope snapped free, the balloon lurched, and he almost fell out, almost dropped the knife. But he was okay now, he was okay, a little scared, maybe, but okay, and his hand-saving the knife caused him to get a little cut. Was it bad? He held it up; he couldn't see it well, it was dark. It felt moist, sticky, but it didn't hurt, not yet. He licked it, and then it started to hurt, so he made a fist and sat back for a moment. It wasn't much of a cut, but it was in the same place he'd gotten scratched by that cat. That cat! She'd cornered the mouse he'd been keeping-these men had been keeping the mice in these little cages, outside, but he'd gone and gotten one, just for himself, he'd take care of it, and then that cat. He'd like to have his little mouse with him now, he'd like to see this: look, he was cutting the second tether. There were three. Snap. The balloon lurched again, but this time he was ready, braced, the balloon now rocking, angry or excited, he couldn't tell. If he were a balloon, he'd want to fly, he wouldn't want to stay tied to the ground. Now for the last cord. His hand was bleeding again, not badly. He wiped it on his coveralls, the little worker coveralls they gave him when he started at the factory. “So grown up!” his mother had said, crying for some reason, when she saw him for the first time in the coveralls. She should have been happy: he was helping now. Helping Father. Helping Mother, who was working in the same factory. If only he had had brothers, sisters, they all could have worked, all could have helped. All of them lined up in their uniforms.

He put his knife to the last strand and paused. The ground looked funny from the balloon. Really close one minute, really far away the next. He wondered how far the balloon would fly. Would someone come after him? Would his mother be angry? Would he get hungry? Thirsty? He had a stick of gum in his pocket. How long would this take? How long before he saw his dad, down on the beach, on an island, just like this one, but smaller? The boy could see him there. Dad! Up here! I'm coming! He sawed and sawed at this last rope, but it was tougher than the others, took a while, and now he was nervous. He was late. He was expected. He worked faster. His dad was right: it was a good knife, but even with a good knife, this took time. His hand started bleeding again, the same hand that held the knife. Sawing, sawing. The knife was getting dirty, getting bloody, and he thought of his father's stern face. He stopped sawing for a moment to clean it off, and the knife fell away.

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?