The Cloud Atlas

Lily had trained me to believe in what I knew, what I knew because I was certain of it, not because I had evidence.

So it was Lily. Gurley hadn't sent me to Bethel just to get rid of me; the three of us really were going to journey into the bush. But then something happened that shook my faith a bit. Gurley and Lily exchanged words, it seemed, and then Gurley stepped back. The MPs took Lily by both arms, placed her in the jeep, and sped off toward some buildings at the other end of the field.

Gurley watched them go, then turned and began to walk toward me.

GURLEY HAD A NEW name for Lily: Sacagawea. We were discussing their arrival in an office he'd commandeered. I interrupted to ask him where she was. He said she'd been taken to Todd Field's “VIP quarters,” and then pressed on with his monologue.

“I introduced her this way, as ‘our very own Miss Sacagawea,’ thinking that a rather clever shorthand introduction-to wit, our Native companion and guide-when, to my slowly building horror and delight, I realized that the good men of this forgotten outpost were assuming that that was her actual name. Sacagawea. Tell me, Sergeant, of the many subjects no longer taught in school- is American history among them?”

Gurley seemed hurt when I did not reply.

His eyes were sunken and dark and he looked even more skeletal than usual. His hands were covered with fine scratches, as though his Franklin bouts had devolved to his fighting stray cats. But then I remembered the wall map, the pushpins, and the trails he'd trace across his skin.

“Dear Sergeant,” he said. “You're rather glum. This is a lonely outpost, and I imagine quiet duty, but look here: you have been given a reprieve, and your friends have come to join you. Where flees your smile? Think of what lies ahead: to catch a spy.”

For a moment, my mind had seized on fleas. I'd been out of Gurley's company for so long, I'd lost some of my ear for his strange language. As a result, it took an extra beat for the words to come out of my already-open mouth. “Sir, I'm not sure that-”

“Splendid, dear Belk. You are still among the living. You are sentient and curious and apparently sober. And so you have your questions. But more important, do you have my spy? Or will we, in fact, have to set out after him?” The words sped from his mouth, faster and faster. He smiled, as if he noticed this, too, and thought it delightful. “Forgive my eager possessiveness: but yes, before we speak of the devil we know- fair Sacagawea, dear Lily-let us speak of the devil we don't. Mmm?”

Mmm. I told Gurley about my wandering around town. I told him about the Emporium of Everything, and about Jap Sam. Maybe Lily wasn't worried if Gurley didn't find anything-anyone-but I was. So I tried to describe the now-interned Sam in such a way that Gurley might take him for our missing quarry. That would mean we could just pack up and leave Bethel - ruining Gurley's fun and Lily's quest, but giving us all, I thought, a better chance of finishing out the war alive. You didn't need Lily's kind of magic to sense the evil that was looming. Or maybe you did, and that magic had attached itself to me: here in Bethel, far from the numbing, civilizing influences of Anchorage, the spiritual world hummed that much closer to everyone.

Gurley wasn't the least bit interested in Jap Sam. He wanted Saburo. Lily's Saburo. The enemy's Saburo. His Saburo.

“No sign of him, sir,” I said. “I didn't go house to house, of course. But you'd think-in a town this small-he'd attract attention, too much attention to hide.” I made another attempt to derail the search. “If you want to know what I think, sir-”

“Always a dangerous preface, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir. But I think he died. I think he's dead. Captured, and we don't know about it, maybe, but I bet he”-I tried to call on a little magic for inspiration-“drowned. There's a lot of water around here,” I added, not hearing how foolish that sounded until I saw Gurley's face.

“There is that” Gurley said. “I assume you're joking?” he added, suddenly brusque. He patted his pockets for cigarettes that weren't there, and stood. “Perhaps you forgot we saw him. Lily and I, both. In the mist. In Anchorage. Perhaps you-” He started to pace. “I'm afraid I-I'm afraid I didn't tell you everything about the other night, about what Lily told me.” He was scanning the room as he spoke, not looking at me. If he had, he would have seen me turning red with alarm: What now? “She swore me to secrecy,” he said, talking more to himself now. “And what could I say? I shouldn't tell you, but I will, because it's relevant to what we have to do. To our mission. To our quest. But I tell you this in the strictest of confidence because-because-no woman, no girl, no girl even with a past as-as-weathered as Lily's deserved to have happen to her what happened-Louis!” He spun on me, with such force I almost burst out, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have gone to see her! He knew! He had to; he was just toying with me, but before I could speak he said something even more bizarre: “He raped her, Belk. The filthy, yellow-when we find him, Belk, no quarter. Lily. Lily.”

My heart was still pounding at the news he'd just delivered, and it was a moment or two before I was able to remind myself that he'd made this up-that the shadowy figure in the mist with Lily had only been me, that Saburo's presence had been Lily's invention, just as this rape was now Gurley's. But was it? Had she told him something else? Had Saburo been there, in the forest, farther on, in the dark, Lily running toward him, his having just arrived by balloon? No: Lily had lied to Gurley She'd told the truth to me. She always did. But-maybe- just not-Lily, what about the baby? Why hadn't you ever told me-

“So it was wrong to grow attached,” Gurley said, his eyes full of tears, but not full enough to cry. I wondered now if it mattered whether Gurley had invented the rape; he clearly believed there had been one, just as Lily believed there had been a Saburo. He wiped his nose with the heel of his hand, and then held his face for a moment. “A ring. There was a ring, Belk.”

“There was,” I said, automatically.

“He was always there,” he said. “Even before… this. I knew him before she told me of him, I could see him, sense him, somewhere back behind her eyes, whenever she and I kissed. Made love.” He sat in his chair, somewhat calmer now, and found a handkerchief, which he unfolded and then twisted between his hands. “I could never have all of her. I knew she wanted me to have as much as I would, but somewhere, back in there, deep inside her, this fiend held on-it's like he holds some piece of her soul. Holds it so tight that he is able to pull her all the way out here.”

I'm right here, sir: I wanted Gurley to look up, see me. I wanted to tell Gurley that I was this other person, but more than that, I wanted it to be true.

But when he did look up, all he saw was Saburo. “We have, what? Two days now, less maybe, before that major in Fairbanks sends his dogs out across the tundra in search of plague or spies. I've said I wanted to find the prize before him, and I do. But the reason is not so much for glory but revenge. If the major catches him, this spy becomes a prisoner of war, a resource. If I catch him-and we will, whether it takes forty hours or months-I will finish it. I will find him, remove him, and release Lily, to me.”

And what would happen when we didn't find him? Lily said he was gone. But Gurley was determined to find him-he'd have to find, and kill, someone. Lily hadn't thought through this part of her plan. But then, it hadn't really been a plan.

“Sir,” I said, making one last attempt. “I'm just not sure we will find anyone. It's more than a needle in a haystack, sir, it's-”

“It's a needle in a haystack for the major,” said Gurley. “But we have Lily.” He smiled. “We have you.” He rose.

“I'm just not sure, sir, what we'll find. What if he's dead?”

The color slowly returned to Gurley's cheeks. It was his fury rising in him, but in a way, it was a relief to witness-I'd had plenty of experience dealing with Gurley furious, and could steel myself against it. I'd been frightened, on the other hand, to find myself vulnerable to feeling sympathy when faced with Gurley despondent and brokenhearted.

That danger had passed.