The Cloud Atlas

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