The Cloud Atlas

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.

Instead, he slowly drew the book across the desk toward him, staring at me all the while. “Before we part, Belk,” he said. “There was always something I had meant to show you. Something that will demonstrate to you why I might have predicted these balloons would, literally, come to ill in due time. Here is my point, Belk,” he said. “You must never underestimate the nefariousness of the Oriental mind.”

He sounded like Gurley the actor, but he no longer looked like him. He was no longer playing a part; he'd been consumed by it. One hears the term wild-eyed, and thinks of what? A raving drunk? A rabid dog or raccoon? Not nearly: this was wild-eyed. If I'd been nearer, he would have nipped at me, teeth flashing, and it wouldn't have mattered if I myself were a foaming pit bull or lion, or-take note, Ronnie-wolf: he would have bitten my nearest limb clean through.

His voice skittered high and low, the words tumbling out with manic speed.

“You admired the art in the book,” he said, flipping through it to the back, to those mysterious empty gray pages. He looked up, I nodded numbly. He smiled and produced a pocketknife. I leapt up; he clucked. “Shh, Sergeant. Down, boy, down. As though I'd sully my quarters with your foul blood.” He unfolded a blade and then added an afterthought: “Besides-who knows what disease lurks dormant in you?”

I sat, slowly. He sliced out a page, with difficulty, which shocked me almost as much as anything else: our precious book! Lily's book! It felt like he was peeling away an expanse of skin.

“As I said, you've admired the book, but your appreciation has been superficial, as it could only be.” He poured the glass before him almost full, and then folded the blank page and poked it in until it was submerged. “The paper, Belk. The paper, Sergeant, is most remarkable.”

I could be out the door in two steps, maybe one. Or the phone: it was within reach. But the knife, still open, was within his reach and much closer.

“The paper for the balloons is made of, what did we determine? Something like the mulberry bush.” He sang a little to himself while he poked at the paper. “Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel…” Then he looked up, head lolling as though he were drunk. “Quite similar, in fact, to the paper in this book, which, my yeeeeaaaars of education inform me is washi paper. Some of the balloons, in fact, appear to feature a few panels which are this very same paper.” I looked on, genuinely distracted with surprise. “Didn't that always strike you as odd? A mission this daring, this important, and they entrust it to paper?” I nodded, caught up, despite myself. “Indeed. Well, as it happens, as no one else in this grossly undereducated army seems to know, this paper has precisely the pedigree for the job. It's very strong, for one, curiously strong-so strong that-well, let me show you.” He drew the now-sodden paper out of the glass.

“Tradition holds that assassins-not radio show adventure heroes-made use of such paper. Say you wanted to kill someone,” he said, his voice sinking. “Say you wanted to kill someone and have no one find out. You wait until your quarry is sleeping. You take a billet-doux-sized sheet of washi paper and wet it”-he held up the dripping page-“don't worry, it won't disintegrate. Your prey lets out a great exhale-and you set upon him!” Gurley started, and I jumped, involuntarily, as he intended. “He awakes; he cannot breathe. He is startled, confused, he struggles, but you hold him down” Gurley said through gritted teeth. “You hold that paper right where it is. And he sucks and gasps, but all he's doing is pulling that paper tighter and tighter and tighter.” I looked away; it was too sickening, as though one of those plague-infected ulcers were spreading across his brain.

But he started speaking again, and when I looked at him once more, I saw that instead of his usual hideous smile, his face was slack and his eyes full of what had to be tears. “Why couldn't they have just done that, Belk? Why couldn't they have just-why couldn't Father Ioa-saph's angel been a real angel? Why couldn't he have leapt from his smoking basket beneath the balloon and set upon me?” He was talking solely to the paper now. “I asked them how long the pain would last, and one doctor said, ‘What do you mean?’ and the other doctor said, ‘Forever.’ I ask Lily to move with me south-the medical discharge is there, whenever I want it, a free ticket home, a check every month- and she says one thing and then another but never yes. She talks about how this is her home, but she never talks about the real reason. A goddamn leg that won't-”

What happened next is ridiculous, except that it really happened, in just this way. Gurley took the sheet he'd so carefully prepared, and slapped it to his face. And sure enough, it settled there, a second skin, each gasp further sealing it with an additional suture. He turned red, fell to the floor, and spasmed. The paper held absolutely fast. Maybe a minute passed, maybe two, and then I remembered that I wasn't Gurley, that I didn't have the stomach to stand by while someone killed himself, and that, however hard he'd tried to convince me otherwise, my first loyalty was to Lily, and she had said: take care of him.

I fell to the floor, reached to peel the paper away from his face, but lost my balance as he thrashed.

That's when he made his move.

And then the paper was on me. It smelled of whisky and spit and Gurley and something else-rice, I suppose, strange as that sounds. He couldn't get it to adhere, not as well as it had on him, but he didn't need it to; he was on top of me, pressing me down, his hands making up for anything the paper failed to do.

“And you hold him down, Sergeant. He sucks in, he gasps for air, but he is only making it worse.”

If I'd have taken a breath first, if I'd been prepared, I would have had no difficulties. I would have had the air to slither out from under him. But I hadn't taken that breath, and now, instead of fighting, I was panicking. I watched him, watched for him to watch me. Look at me, I willed him. Look at me. Wouldn't this make it harder to kill me? Even for Gurley?

I don't know. It would have made it harder for me. But for whatever the reason, he did look, and maybe he saw me, or maybe he saw Lily, or maybe he saw himself. He tore the paper away, rolled off, and stared at me while I panted there.

I slid away from him, but only a short distance; I was surprised by how tired I was. I looked back at him; he was tired, too. Sitting on the floor, back against the wall, he even looked a bit like the old Gurley, comically instead of criminally mad.

We sat like that for a while. I think it was only a minute, but if someone measured it as an hour, I wouldn't argue.

“I'm sorry,” he finally said. He waved an arm so that his apology included the whole office, the whole war, perhaps. “I'm-listen,” he said. “Help me up.”

I laughed. Well, I didn't laugh. I puffed. I rolled my head to look at him, and then rolled it back to stare straight up. His left foot was cockeyed; the leg had detached.

“Louis,” he said: my first name. I don't know why; I wish he hadn't. “I still think-I mean, we can see, but-given everything. Maybe you should go anyway to-maybe it's best.” He stopped.

“Sergeant,” he said, the old voice. Not angry, but the officer once more.

“I'll go,” I said.

“You might be able to help from there,” he said. “Truly. That fishing boat-it wasn't so far south of there. It's just that, with Lily and all-”

“I'll go,” I said, and slowly got to my feet. “First thing,” I said. “First flight I can get going anywhere. Anywhere north.”

“Good boy,” said Gurley. “Good man. I'm sorry, Sergeant-”

“Good night, sir,” I said, going to the door.

Gurley put on what he must have thought was a brave face: he wasn't going to ask, again, for help getting up. Which was good, because I wasn't going to.