The Cloud Atlas (7 page)

“I'm a fucking
great
shot,” I said, my voice bouncing a little less higher over the profanity this time. Then I leaned forward like I had a secret. “Sir,” I added with a small grin.

Gurley broadhanded me with such force that I barked back into the bar and then to the floor, knocking over both stool and whisky.

“You
fuck,”
Gurley said. “Pray that the vessel containing that most precious elixir is not broken.” He kicked me-gently, I suppose, for him. “Do go and find out.” I looked up at him insolently-I had so much still to learn-and I could see he was about to swat me again. But instead, he gave another light kick and went to his glass, looking for another drop or two. Then he leaned over the bar and looked down.

“It's there,” he said, pointing. “Retrieve.” I crawled to my feet with the help of a stool, and walked around behind the bar. I bent over to get the bottle and almost passed out, but caught myself. I put the bottle on the bar and began walking back around, but he stopped me with a hand. “That's fine. You're safer back there, don't you think? Bar between us?” I nodded. “Thomas Gurley, Captain, U.S. Army Air Corps, late of the O-S-S, Office of Strategic Services.” He winked and held out a hand.

“Louis Belk,” I mumbled. “Sergeant, I guess.”

“My word, Belk, be sure about
some
thing.” He examined his empty glass and then me. “Good. So you're a good shot, you daresay.”

As I've explained, I was a terrible shot.

“Let's see if you can hit this glass,” he said.

“With what?” I asked.

“With your
gun
, Belk,” Gurley said. “Or-whatever. Your forehead. You seem like a bright lad.”

“I'm not-I'm not going to fire a gun in here,” I said.

“Of course in here. That's why I cleared the bar. So we could talk. Get to know each other. Kind of an entrance exam for your position. Includes a little target practice. Ready?”

“But I don't have a gun, not here,” I said. I didn't have one anywhere.

“What?”
said Gurley. “Maybe they didn't make it clear back in basic training-this is, in fact, a
war”

“A war,” I repeated.

“A holy war,” said Gurley, “a crusade, if you will.” He unsnapped his holster and pulled out his gun. He laid it on the bar. “Lesson one,” he said. “Gun. Colt M1911. Forty-five caliber.” I looked at it. Gurley leaned across the bar, and before I could realize what was happening, he'd backhanded me again. My mouth was a mush of blood. He regarded this. “Swallow.” I did.

And this is the point, were Ronnie awake, were he ever to awake, he would ask, Why? Never mind that avoiding that question is why most people come to Alaska; never mind that few questions are less answerable
in
Alaska: Why did I let Gurley abuse me so? Because Gurley was an officer? Because I was tired? Because I was a fool?

Why did I do what I did? For the same reason anyone in the army does what they do: because that's how you're trained. Now, it wasn't that I'd been trained to be a coward, and it wasn't simply that I'd been trained to follow orders.

I had been trained in the art of bomb disposal. Some guys might just take a rifle and shoot at an unexploded bomb to get rid of it, but that was artless (and in most situations, fatally stupid). No, what I did, what I'd been trained to do, was circle, study, plan, and when I was ready, move.

And Gurley, I didn't know him that well, yet. But I knew this: he could fume and rage and spit, but lay an ear to him and you'd hear it- he was still ticking. He hadn't gone off, not really, not yet. To haul back and hit him would have been like aiming that rifle and pulling the trigger. And then what would you have? What you always got when you didn't think ahead. Body parts, all over.

“Pick up the gun, Belk.” And I did, though doing so gave me an almost physical sense of things flying out of control. I blinked, hoping to regain my balance, but it only made me dizzier.

“Now we're going to shoot.”

I was surprised, and disappointed, that he was so obviously
not
worried that a man he had just struck, twice, might be interested in shooting him.

He held up the glass, and looked at me until I returned his gaze. “A moving target.” Then he pointed down the bar. “Ready?”

I nodded, adjusted my grip. Circle, study, plan.

Gurley made as if to toss the glass in the air, but then rocketed it down the bar, a line drive. It shattered against a far wall before I had a chance to do anything, let alone shoot.

“You didn't even fire,
mon
petit ami
,” Gurley said with a smile. He knocked the bar. “Another glass.” I drew a breath, found a glass, set it up. “Ready?” he said. I nodded and raised the gun. Another line drive down the bar, even faster this time. I almost squeezed the trigger, but held off when I realized I was far too late.

“C'm'ere,” said Gurley. I leaned over. He took the gun from my hand and, holding the barrel, smacked the side of my head with it. For a second I couldn't see, and when my vision finally blinked back, I realized my right eye was already swelling shut.

“Second lesson,” Gurley said. “Are you looking at me?” I assumed I was, and stared more intently. “Second lesson,” he repeated. “Never, never let a man take your gun.” He gave it back to me, and raised his hand to strike again. Reflexively I aimed the gun at him. The hell with circling. Training can only take a man so far.

Gurley whistled low. “Third lesson,” he said, hands halfheartedly in the air. “Never aim a gun at a man unless you plan on shooting him.” I held my aim for a moment and then lowered the gun. “Good,” Gurley said. “I'd hate for us to get off to the wrong start.” He knocked the bar again. I set up a third glass. It rattled as I put it down and we both watched my shaky hand struggle for a second to release it. “Ready?” he said. I nodded. He reared back to pitch the glass down the bar.

I shot it out of his hand.

He staggered backward. His hand was miraculously not injured, and honestly, I don't think I was prepared to deal with the consequences if it had been. He studied his hand, as if trying to remember whether he'd ever picked up the glass, and then let a smile seep across his face. He reached across the bar and, as I flinched, clapped me on the shoulder.

“Nice, god, damn, shot, Belk,” he said. “Maybe we'll make a warrior out of you yet.” He bared his teeth; perhaps he thought he was grinning. “I'll be gone again, two days,” he said. “Thus you can understand my eagerness to meet you tonight.” I must have looked woozy because he eyed me carefully. “Belk? Listen, now: you have two whole days to come to your senses. Meet me at 0800, two days from now, Building 520.” I nodded this time. He smiled. “Building 520,” he repeated. “And bring your gun, if you like.” With that, he turned on one leg, wobbled, found his balance, and walk-swayed out of the bar.

ELEVEN P.M., THE STARHOPE HOTEL.

It had taken me some puzzling over the dollar that Lily had pressed into my hand before I decided that what she'd scribbled on the back was an invitation. But to what?

I stood outside the building, looking up at the windows of Lily's “office” on the second floor, thinking about Gurley Lily, and Lily's bare legs. Would another man be there tonight? Would another interrupt us?

And yes, innocent that I was, I even thought about her advertised business, those careful and correct palm readings: after all that had happened so far, I was more interested than ever in learning my future. Especially if that future included sex.

I apologize: there are certain words a priest can't say, like
sex
, or the proper names of various parts of the anatomy, or the improper names, or, of course, the full raft of obscenities, carnal and otherwise. I can't say these words not because I lack the nerve, but the audience. These are things people can't hear me say; that's why it's a pleasure to talk to Ronnie now, who apparently can't hear me at all.

Whom else could I tell what it was like to stand outside that hotel, looking up, sweating hormones, the tart, metallic taste of blood from the fight with Gurley only now going stale in my mouth?

Whom else could I tell that of everything I felt, the sharpest feeling was fear?

Damn right I was scared. Scared of Gurley? Maybe I thought that then, but that was a fleeting fear. You can't be scared of a car that loses control on the highway. There's no time, no reason: you just concentrate on staying alive.

No, I was scared of the woman up on the second floor. And it kept me standing on the street right up to, and then after, eleven o'clock. Five after, ten after. I couldn't bring myself to go in, although I decided I would rush ahead if I saw any other man make for the building. But in the meantime, I stood there, rubbing between thumb and forefinger the magic dollar Lily had given me, wondering as I did so what crime I might have already committed and what crimes I might soon commit.

Here was the problem. Lily was a woman, a spit-in-the-eye-of-God occultist (the distance between palm reading and worshiping idols seemed shorter in my youth), a siren-she was all this, yes, but what consumed me was that Lily was Japanese. And while that didn't automatically make her a spy, everything else did: her presence here, in Alaska, when all other Japanese had been sent to camps; this strange building; her dark office; Gurley's mysterious arrival; the dollar she'd given me-and, of course, the fact that she was supposedly a palm reader. She made no secret that she dealt in secrets.

“Boo,” came a voice from behind me, and I must have leapt in the air, straight up, several inches, with my heart going faster and higher. “Don't turn around,” said the voice, which was doing a fair impression of a movie hoodlum until it broke down laughing. “Boo,” the voice said again between laughs, and I turned around to find Lily, grinning so broadly she couldn't see.

“Hello,” I said, using the biggest, most adult soldier voice I could manage. Lily imitated me-not very well, I thought, but she also found this funny, and laughed until I at least started to smile.

But when she finally caught her breath and focused, she stopped laughing altogether.

“What happened to you?” she asked. She started to extend a hand to the bruises on my face, and if she'd actually touched them, I would have counted the battle with Gurley as well worth the pain. But she stopped short, just inches from my skin. There was that kind of buzzing that comes just before a first kiss-yes, I know about these things, or knew-and I couldn't say anything, do anything. She'd immobilized me faster than Gurley, and panicked me just the same.

“I have to go,” I said, and then started to back away.

“I should have warned you,” she said, and my heart stopped beating while it waited to see if the next word out of her mouth would be
Gurley.
“ Anchorage can be a bit rough on a new kid in town.” She waited for me to answer, but I could only shrug. “ Fourth Avenue, I'm guessing? I mean, you don't need to be a mind reader to see what happened to you. Bar fight-some sailors, likely, they're usually pretty pissed by the time they come ashore in Anchorage.” She wrinkled her nose and started smiling again. “So I feel kinda bad. Sending you off to wander half the night. A kid like you.”

She'd won me over again until she came out with that
kid.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I really do-have to go. I shouldn't have-”

“Not so fast, soldier,” she said, stepping after me with surprising speed. “You owe me something?”

“I-I don't owe you anything-I left before-”

“You left carrying something of mine. Something like-a dollar.” She waited for a response. “You think I'm a magician
and
a palm reader? I smack my palms together and the money comes out? Let's have it.” Her hand darted to my side. I felt something and then nothing, like a mouse had scurried into my pocket and then-
pop
-disappeared. She held up the dollar: “And I got another problem, sailor. What time is it?”

“Soldier,” I said.

“You're late. Note said eleven, didn't it?” She followed this with a friendly, weary frown, as if we always argued like this. Then she started inside.

“I'm not sure I should go in there,” my voice higher, age lower.

Lily just looked at me. “I think you should,” she said. “Seems pretty clear you're not safe on the streets,” she added, and then smiled. “Besides, how else are you going to get your wallet back?”

UPSTAIRS, ALL WAS it had been before. The door was ajar, the single bulb still burned overhead. Still no furniture, still the pile of blankets in one corner of the room. My wallet hit me in the chest as I crossed the threshold. I fumbled and it fell. As I bent down to pick it up, I saw Lily seated on the floor, back against the wall, studying her hands, studiously not watching me.

“I'm feeling a little bad about taking my dollar back,” Lily said, still not looking up. Then she rubbed her hands together and put them flat on the floor beside her. “Why do you carry that wallet anyway? There's almost nothing in it. Somebody jump you a block before?”

“I just got here, I guess,” I said, my mind spooning out words almost at random, since the whole of me was preoccupied with the situation:
I am in a room, all by myself, with a woman, with a Japanese woman, and we are at war with Japan, and I am an American soldier, and I've never slept with a woman, from Japan or anywhere else, and-

“Just got here'?” Lily said. “C'mon, sit down. Either your brain isn't hooked up to your mouth, or you don't have a brain, or you're just not telling the truth. Let's find out.” She patted the floor next to her. I didn't move. “ ‘Palm reader,’ right?” she asked. “This is what you came about?”

I finally spoke up. “Listen, I've got some questions, okay? I mean, up front?”

“That's what this all about, sailor,” Lily said.

“Soldier,” I said.

“Well, we'll see about that,” Lily said, patting the floor beside her again. “Sit, young man.” She was smiling once more.

“What?” I said. But it was useless. I was already starting to sit. Doing so was a bit painful, but not as much as I'd expected. Either my bruises were fading rapidly, or my mind was too occupied with Lily to register pain.

Lily wiped her palms on her knees. “Let's start with names. What's yours?”

I paused. “Harry,” I said. “Harry… Crosby.” I couldn't give her my real name.

She looked at me, waited, and then said, “And how
is
Bing?” She smiled. “With a brother that famous, I can see why you go under a secret name like ‘Belk.’” She pointed to the name strip on my pocket. I closed my eyes. “Just what are you so nervous about, Soldier Belk?” she asked softly.

“You know why,” I said. “It's that you're-you're-you know.”

“Taller?” she asked. “Than you? Worried I could toss you out the window? Worried I will?”

“No,” I said, imagining being heaved out the window, and then lingering on the scene as I thought about how she'd have to grab hold of me, hug me, probably, wrestle me over there, her arms wrapped around me, our faces inches apart. “You're not taller,” I said, surfacing. “You're-
Japanese
.” I whispered the word like it was a secret she'd asked me to keep.

Her eyes went wide with honest, and then exaggerated, alarm. “Oh dear,” she said. “You can read my every secret, can't you? Maybe the wrong person's running this palm-reading business.” She held out a hand to me. “Here, let's see what else you know. Read
my
palm. Tell me my future.” I still knew I had to leave, but I was hardly going to leave
now
, now that I had a chance to hold a woman's-this woman's- hand. I took it gingerly, cradled it with the same care I'd use on some new piece of ordnance that I was encountering for the first time.

But I defy you-or would have defied anyone-to read that hand. As soon as I saw her palm, I almost jumped as if she'd surprised me with another “boo.” Her hand was a welter of lines, as though it had been shattered and then reassembled, piece by piece. I looked at my own hands in vain for some reference point. I looked at her other hand, compared them-but they weren't alike, at least in no way that I could tell.

Stranger still, and what I remember even more clearly, is how soft her hands were.

“Here's a little advice,” Lily said. “If you decide to go into this profession after the war-and I don't think you should, because you're not doing so hot, so far-but if you do, it helps if you talk to the customer.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“And when you talk, don't use that word,” Lily said. “It scares them. Also:
sick, death, troubling, mother,
and
price”

I exhaled quickly and squinted, as if focusing would help me read her palms better. “Well, there goes my whole speech.”

She smiled, took her hands away. “That's not a surprise,” she said. “But you making a funny-that's a surprise. A nice one.”

But I wasn't listening to her. I was just watching those hands disappear out of mine; the loss of that touch was almost painful. “Please” was all I could say, and something about my pathetic appearance- combined with the fact that I was harmless, just a boy to her, made her put her hands back in mine.

“Okay,” she said. “But be quick. Remember, I'm here to read
your
palm. Which reminds me: How are you going to pay?”

I smiled again. “Let's take a look,” I said, and studied her palm.

I decided all you really had to do was tell a story. And all I wanted was an excuse to hold her hands, so I just took any line I saw and started in: She was born in… Tokyo. An only child. Her parents were-but she stopped me, and pointed out that Tokyo was far away. How did she end up in Alaska, and speaking English? I rubbed her palm with a thumb, pretended to think on this for a moment while I savored the touch, and then settled on a ship, a great, ridiculous ship that was full of language instructors, chalkboards.

“God, that sounds boring,” she said. I think now she was referring to the imaginary classroom as it bobbed across the Pacific, but I thought then that she was criticizing my imagination. Some palm reader I'd make. So I revised things; I found another line and started again. Born in Japan, on top of a mountain, a mother made of snow and a father made of fire. I didn't know where all this was coming from, but she'd fallen quiet and was listening. She spoke every language, I said, the words came to her in raindrops. Raindrops; a cloud; she'd traveled across the ocean in a giant cloud, floating this way and that, until a storm had gathered, and she'd dropped to earth in a flaming downpour-

Her hands flew away from me with a start, and just for an instant, I saw her wear another face, one she hadn't shown me before. But it passed, and then she was holding my hands. Holding them, but looking at my eyes.

“You're a very, very bad palm reader,” she said. “And a creepy storyteller. I, on the other hand-I'm very good at both. You want to hear your story?”

I THINK MINE is the sort of life that almost anyone could read from a hand, or better yet, my eyes. They say those eyes never leave you, eyes that blinked awake each morning wondering if this was the day your parents would come-not some foster parents they'd found for you, but your real parents, a mom and dad, like everyone had, even Jesus. So although I find it patronizing, I long ago decided it was also true: an orphan never loses that look, those eyes.

I wasn't too surprised, then, when Lily got that part right: orphan. And I admire her for not taking the easy route and pretending she knew who my parents were, and describing these imaginary beings to me in exquisite, unknowable detail.

But maybe it would have been better for her to embroider some fiction. Because the more she talked, the more she knew, and the more scared I became. She knew about the orphanage, knew it was nothing like Dickens, knew that the Mary Star of the Sea Home for Infants and Children was south of Los Angeles, knew it was just a block from the beach, knew-and no one would ever have made this up-that the nuns treated us like the grandchildren they'd never have. She knew no family ever came for me (though if she knew why she didn't say), and she knew that all those years saturated with sun and God's love had left me with the pure, naïve desire to be His priest.

And that's where I stopped her. Because I didn't want to know if she knew the rest, how I'd taken the train-paying the fare with money the teary-eyed nuns had given me-to San Diego. How I'd never made it to the high school seminary they were finally sending me to, because I stopped at the armed forces recruiting station first.

I didn't want to know if Lily knew I had been scared. Scared of what, I can't really say, not even now. (Maybe she could have.) All I knew was that I was a kid on a train, suddenly aware of where he was going, guessing at what he was leaving. There were soldiers on the train. And girls on the train. The world was on that train, and the world was going to war. I was going off to high school, a high school seminary, and I could see it, smell it: wax and wood and incense. The train smelled like perfume and aftershave and the ocean, which was just outside the window. By the time we got to San Diego, I was sweating and queasy because I'd realized what I would do. It wasn't that I
wanted
to lie about my age and enlist-I enlisted because I thought it the only other option God might possibly forgive.