The Cloud Atlas (23 page)

“No, last night, when he got hurt? Why weren't you there? You know he's not-he can't-you know he needs looking after.”

I was too taken aback to speak.

Then Gurley called for her, quietly, a kind of moan.

Lily glared at me. “Please,” Lily said. “From now on? Louis?”

My mouth was open to say something, but the best I could do was nod.

“Okay, okay,” Lily said, distracted. She walked back to Gurley and helped him inside. I watched and waited. The light in her office came on; I could see now that the window was open. She came to it, looked out, looked down, saw me, looked like she was about to say something, and then pulled the shade.

I sat there, staring up, watching as the thinnest line of light appeared and disappeared whenever the shade fluttered gently. I kept staring, long after the window went dark and remained dark, and the only light there was came from the sky. The moon had set and I had to use the stars to help me home.

GURLEY DIDN'T COME IN THE NEXT MORNING. I DIDN'T expect him to. I almost went looking for him in the vain hope that I would not find him where I knew he was. But I stayed put. He was Lily's, for now. And she could have him. She could use Gurley leech whatever secrets she might from him. That's what she wanted, all she wanted.

Alone in the Quonset hut, I spun open the safe, removed the atlas, and set it on my desk.

But I didn't open it, not at first. To do so would have been to stumble into another tryst. Lily and Saburo's romantic summer scrapbook. The most I could console myself with was that here, at least, lay evidence that Gurley had competition, too.

I laid my hand flat on the cover. How big was Saburo's hand? Was it callused? Soft? Smooth? Creased? What did it look like, when it was clenched as a fist or with fingers splayed, cupped or about to caress? Had it ever unlocked a cage, delicately removed a rat? Swatted a flea?

I wiped my hands on my pants, despite myself, felt foolish, and then opened the book again.

The problem was, our book-Gurley's and mine, Lily and Saburo's-was too beautiful. It might have looked like the other atlas on the outside-and the more I looked, the more certain I was that they came from the same source-but on the inside, it was completely different. What little I'd seen of the other book had revealed only writing, a scribbled diagram here and there, hasty notes, that strange code. No pictures. No watercolor sketches.

But this book-

I leafed through the drawings, the written passages alongside. Much of the book was given over to weather observations, with notes of wind direction and speed. The balloons were mentioned repeatedly and predictions were made as to where they would land in North America, Alaska in particular. Some of these locations were plotted on maps. Beyond that, however, little was clear. The book was “maddeningly poetic,” Gurley had said; the descriptions grew more lyrical and opaque as the book progressed. The maps were rich in topographic detail, but none bore place names. And they were done on a microscopic scale; no pages depicted the whole of Alaska, say, or the entire Pacific Northwest. Instead there were detailed coastlines of indeterminate islands. Stretches of riverbank. Tempting paths plotted across lush but vague landscapes.

I tried to imagine Saburo's hand at the end of a day, cradling a pencil or brush, dabbing at the page while Lily stoked a small fire for dinner. I tried to tease figures of Lily out of the watercolor sketches. That vertical brushstroke, there, the way it intersected with that thin line:
that was
Lily.

Saburo and I shared this, at least: only we knew that she was everywhere in this book of balloons and bombs, hidden within the stroke of a pen or a brush. There was no trace of her if you didn't know how or where to look. Once I decided I did, I found her everywhere, even in the little maps that were inked in here and there. One seemed to trace a path clear into a sun-clear across the Pacific, most likely, the route Saburo wanted to use to spirit Lily home.

I know what you're hiding, Saburo. Where you're hiding. Right-
here.

But it was no use. Trace the drawings as I might, rub at the maps with my thumb until the page began to smudge, nothing emerged, nothing of Saburo, of Lily. Gurley had thought bombs were hidden here, and I suppose there were, if Lily had been telling the truth. But I hadn't seen them, not balloons, not bombs, and certainly not buboes, swollen with disease. I found myself wanting to exonerate Saburo, at least from this last, most heinous crime. Well, Lily was alive and healthy, that was evidence enough, wasn't it? He couldn't have been handling dangerous germs, not without risking her life, let alone his own-

He's gone, Louis.

Oh, Lily, no-

I stood to leave. I had to find her, ask her. Even if Gurley was still with her. I looked at the clock: 1900 hours.

I was about to put my hand on the door when it banged open in front of me.

THE EYE PATCH WAS GONE, a red-stained, black-rimmed eye in its place. His color was better, though, and from his first words, I knew he had recovered, as much as he ever would, anyway.

“Sergeant… Belk,” he said, with enough space between the words to make me wish I'd left long before. “And where are you going? Please join me, in my office. We have much to discuss. So much.”

“Sir?”

“In-my-office.”

I followed him in, sat down. He went to the map and studied it for a while, running his finger along Alaska 's western coast and then on to Russia. He examined some spot in the Bering Sea. Then he removed a pushpin to play with, and sat down.

“Sergeant Belk,” he said. “First of all, I must thank you.”

Better to just sit there than respond.

“No, really. I shouldn't have gone to Fairbanks -delightful as it was, as it always is to see two dead enemy soldiers, stretched out before you. And you? A stalwart. Standing there, the soul of discretion, restraint. Didn't even turn green. You've earned my admiration. For getting through Fairbanks, and getting me home. And getting me downtown last night.” He'd been playing with the pin, but now looked up. “And for so much more, I understand.”

This time, he waited for an answer. “Sir?” I asked.

“My companion-our, what?
mutual friend
-tells me that you both have been, well-
looking out
for me. This is touching.”

“Sir, Lily and I haven't-not for-”

“Not fond of sentences that start that way, Sergeant, if we can get right to the point. I'm not fond of learning that I'm being
looked out
for, either, as though I were some doddering
uncle
, as though I were some amputee
invalid
unable to wipe his own
ass
-but no, what troubles me more is this ‘Lily and I’ business.”

“Captain, I'm not sure what-”

“Neither am I. I thought we had a rather clear, specific discussion about this topic on the plane to Wyoming so long ago. Christ, Belk, I showed you an ad for a ring. What did you think I was up to? I thought we had an understanding. I trusted you. And Lily. I told you that she was amp;unavailable. And now I learn you availed yourself of her quite consistently.”

“That was way back, sir,” I said, before realizing that made it sound like something
had
happened. “It's been weeks, sir. Months, since-” Worse. “Nothing ever happened. Or will. I swear. I promise.” What had Lily told him? I watched his hands, surveyed the desk, wondering which way he'd come for me, what he would hit me with.

“Sadly-for you-I almost believe that, Belk. But you're what? Fourteen? What
could
happen? No, the lovely Lily offered no insight into matters carnal between you. Rather, it was left to me to review all that she said-the number of times she used your name, or included you in a ‘we,’ or spoke tenderly of how you both would
conspire
to take care of me-and determine for myself exactly what you had or had not done.”

And that was his error, or hers, or mine: that he'd said she'd repeatedly mentioned my name; or that she had, even after all these months; or that learning this so thrilled and alarmed me that I turned the guiltiest shade of red a man can manage.

“Nothing happened, sir,” I stammered.

“Nothing, indeed. Without trust, there is nothing.”

“Surely Lily told you-”

“Oh, that woman,” Gurley said. “As painful as it was for me to hear her say
your
name, I find it even more grating to hear hers come from you. Silence.”

And so we sat there. Gurley stared at me for a while, as though I might break under the pressure and confess to-I don't know what. Had she told him we'd never shared more than a meal? Had she told him about that last evening we'd had together, about the map of her body that she'd undressed to show me?

I was too scared to speak, or move, or even look away. I sat there, swallowing his look, unable to muster anything for him in return. He finally swung around in his chair and looked at the map again.

“You know how I hate a spy, Sergeant,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder. “And by spy, I mean traitor. Do you know what I mean, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know that I would still be serving in the main of the OSS, serving in
Paris
, most likely. Or Rome. Or Casablanca. Some part of the war where there was as much sun as wine as women…”

“Yes, sir.”

He came around the desk, finally, and towered over me. “I'd still have two fucking legs to stand on, Belk, had it not been for a
spy
, for lack of a better word, for whoever betrayed me, got me kicked out of headquarters and into this maliciously absurd duty. Chasing balloons. With a boy sergeant. And an Eskimo-oh, what? Whore.”

He didn't hit me. He lost something with the mention of Lily, and after a moment, retreated back behind the desk.

“That's why this upsets me. More than wondering if you and Lily did… anything, that you discussed, plotted to-”

“I told her, sir,” though of course I hadn't, “you didn't need taking care of. I didn't know why she was talking about it. I could have cared less. I don't care,” I added, a second before realizing how far I had gone.

Gurley drew a deep breath and smiled. “That, too, is touching, Sergeant,” he said. “No better way to extricate yourself from a tight spot than by shooting yourself in the foot and then taking aim at your captor.” He smiled, and then pulled open a file drawer and rummaged through it. Out came the bottle. Then two glasses.

“We met over a whisky, Sergeant,” he said, unscrewing the bottle, smelling it, and then pouring a measure in each glass. “Let us part the same way.”

I stood so rapidly that I knocked over my own chair. I really thought he was going to kill me. Had he been wearing his holster? The way he was sitting, I couldn't tell.

“Sit, dear boy,” he said. I backed a step away. He rolled his eyes. “And to think-I had such hopes. A young, tractable mind. A mind to fill with knowledge-wisdom.” He pointed to a spot on the wall to the left of the map. “ Greece,” he said. “Right about there. What did the ancient Greeks do to traitors, brave Belk?” He took a sip. “Good Lord, son, sit. It tires me so to see you devote feeble resources to both standing
and
thinking.” He drank down the rest, and then poured himself another shot. “We're sharing a drink, Sergeant. Appreciate this for the outlandishly generous gesture that it is-the sentry might burst in and charge me with fraternization, surely-and so sit down, and take, up, your, glass.”

I righted the chair, and moved around into it. What had Lily told him to make him this mad? It was jealousy, but it was more than that. It might have been his leg. Betrayal.

He raised his glass. I raised mine.
“Salut,”
he said, and watched me. “Now is when you drink.” I drank. He closed his eyes in pleasure. He pointed to Greece 's spot on the wall again. “You were killed, of course,” he said. “That goes without saying. Still true today. Spies are hanged. But-the ancient Greeks did us one better, as is true in so many things. The goods of a spy were seized. Their houses-razed. Their progeny treated as outlaws. And their bodies, Belk? Not buried, but cast out in some wild, desolate place.” He sipped at his drink. “Not as good as what I paid for it, but better than I've had of late. What think you?” I nodded.

Gurley turned back to the map. “So shall be your sentence, Sergeant.” I froze, but Gurley waved his glass at me when he saw I had. “No, no. I've had all day to think about this. You have no goods to seize, no house to raze, save that orphanage, I suppose, and I have no interest in immolating nuns.”

“Sir, I just want to apologize,” I said, only sure that was where to start.

“Accepted,” Gurley said. “Now, then. As I was saying, circumstances being what they are, my options are limited. The Greeks would have executed you, yes, perhaps, but they didn't have our modern legal system to worry about. So execution is tempting, yes, but… messy, for so many reasons. This leaves me with one option.”

“Sir, I don't understand how-if-I'll never go downtown again, sir.”

“No, Sergeant,” he said, putting his glass down. “You shan't.” He stood and went to the map. “Downtown, Anchorage, the Starhope- the lovely Miss Lily-will all be very, very far away.” He turned back to me. “For while I cannot kill you-though I do reserve the right to- I shall still cast your body out into a wild, desolate space. I'm having you transferred, Belk. To amp;Little-where are you?” He searched the map. “Yes. Diomede.”

“Where?” I stood now, too, squinting after him at the map. Was that near Russia? In Russia?

“Goodness, Belk, I'm not sure exactly
where”
he said. “We'll leave finding it to the plane or boat that deposits you there. La Petite Diomede. An island in the Bering Sea. Wild and desolate, and-”

“Captain,” I said, still unable to spot my specific destination on the wall. “Little Dio-what? Diomede? I don't understand. It looks-it looks like it's too far north. It's nowhere near the flight path of these balloons. I'm not going to find anything there.”

“Exactly, Sergeant. I should hope you don't find anything. That might complicate things considerably.” He found his chair and sat, though he kept his eyes on the map. “I did consider the South Pacific, of course, the front. Trench foot, land mines, snipers, tenacious enemy soldiers who insist on being killed, and killing, one by one by one. Surely death would find you there.” Now he turned back to me. “But you see how that would be disappointing, your suffering liable to end so quickly. No, I much prefer this island I've found. I understand it's a mostly treeless rock. Some Natives, some soldiers-rampant suicide, homicide, but I trust you'll hold your own.” He lifted his glass, saw it was empty, and put it back down. “See, Belk, I can be generous. Even to a traitor.”

Bravery, alcohol, the delight in escaping the front-line tropics- something inserted a thin line of steel within me, and I spoke. “Not generous,” I said quietly. “The South Pacific? Lily would never forgive you-for doing that to me.”

I saw him tense. I saw his hands curl into fists, and I saw the thoughts progress in his mind. This didn't happen quickly, but slowly and deliberately, as he considered each image before him. Heaving his chair at me. His desk. Leaping across the desk for my throat. Lowering his hand to his hip, removing his gun, raising it, aiming, pulling the trigger.