The Cloud Atlas

thud.

And what had happened then? He lay there, little breaths, but now the air was thick and wet, you had to open your mouth wide to swallow any of it. And where was the balloon? He looked up. The balloon was gone. How was he flying without the balloon? He crept up the side as best he could, looked out, looked down. The green looked so close now, the ocean was right there. He looked around. The balloon lay in an exhausted heap beside him. Land! He was on land! He tried to stand up, but couldn't. His whole body was frozen. Not cold, now, but frozen. He needed to get out. He tried rolling out, but his hands wouldn't work, his feet wouldn't work. And when he finally tumbled over the side, his hand got caught in something, some of the side rigging, and there was a little flash, brighter even than the sun, and though he could feel the hand still clenched there, he couldn't see it, his hand. He screamed.

This man wasn't his father. He didn't answer when the boy said his name. Wasn't helping with the hand, just hurting him more. Carrying him to-smelled good. Food. And water, more water, it trickled down his throat and hurt, but not as much as his hand. Had the man brought his hand?

Then it was inside, dark, warm. A woman there, a man there. And bright again, the balloon again, the flash again, crying again. And here was the other man now, coming up to him, picking him up, taking him flying again, the two of them sliding through the water. He would understand. I can explain, the boy said, and began to, talking on and on until he was uncertain he was still awake or if the man was, whether he was part of the man's dream or the man was part of his.

IT WAS THEN that I opened my eyes and saw them, Gurley and Lily. I didn't see them from the boat, I just saw them, on the ground, after the blast, a vision. I didn't see how their bodies had splintered, what had been severed and what had been burned. I only saw how a tiny breeze put a ripple on the water rising around them, and how the thin morning sun slowly lit their two faces, eyes closed, Gurley's lips just parted and Lily's a silent seam. They both wore expressions not of anger or sadness, but just the mildest concern, as if they'd been sleeping in of a winter Sunday, and had stirred slightly awake to a sound from somewhere downstairs in that great big house on the hill-the kids-the youngest probably-was crying. Not the sharp cry of pain, just hungry or sad or lonely.

Then I heard the crying, too, and like them, I thought it came from somewhere distant. But they were right and I was wrong; I looked up and saw that the boy was crying again. My hearing was returning. He'd let go of my hand. The vision vanished, replaced by the sight of a dock and a shack and a radio mast flying two flags: above, the Stars and Stripes, and below, a plain red cross on a worn white field.

AND THEN what did you do?

I'm slumped asleep in a chair beside Ronnie's bed in the hospice. I'm not really asleep, though; only as much as you can be in a chair. And since I can't enter a state quite deep enough for dreaming, I seem to be passing the time by talking with Ronnie in my imagination. I tell him the rest of the story- it's easier asleep. My throat's sore, besides. I've been talking too long.

You have.

It may not, in fact, be my imagination. If I accept my experience with the boy as evidence of some-spiritual-ability, perhaps I really am speaking with Ronnie. How far is it, after all, from intuition to connection, from guessing at what someone's thinking to actually knowing? I'm a priest, besides. I should know what it's like to look into another's soul. Whatever the source of my ability, I'm good at it, I have to admit: my imagined Ronnie interrupts me in all the right places, says all the right things.

You're not imagining me.

Like that.

What happened to the boy?

(Or this.) But I should answer: he died. He died, just like he was always going to. And not of plague. I got him to the infirmary-

Where Lily had led you-

Where Lily had led me, and once I got there, he died.

And so you must lead me.

And this is where I wake up. Because I always try to wake up before these conversations go on too long; it's not healthy. Not at my age. You reach a certain point in life and you discover that the little moat that's always surrounded your mind, kept it safe, defined things-this is real, this is not-has dried up. One day you're daydreaming and the next day someone's joking about Alzheimer's, and the next day you wonder- just what day is this?

“The next day.”

This I am not imagining. I don't think.

“Lou-is,” Ronnie says, and his eyes now meet mine. “You are awake?”

I nod my head.

“The next day,” says Ronnie. “What did you do then? Or was it that night?”

I can hear him, I can see him, but I need a little more time to adjust to Ronnie, still alive.

“Lou-is,” Ronnie says.

“Ronnie,” I say. “You came back.”

“One last time. I heard your voice and followed one last time. I did not know why, but now I do. Because of what you are about to tell me. What did you do then?”

“When?”

“With the boy. Lily's boy. The boy from the sky.”

The boy from the sky was as gray as the sky as the boat skidded west, out to sea, away from the infirmary where no one would help us. I had lost my mind or left it behind; I was making for Japan. The boy was Japanese. I would take him across the Pacific in my little open boat, the reserve tank almost empty, our food and medicine gone, completely gone.

I never saw Japan. A large island just off the southwestern coast of Alaska got in the way. I'd landed, a madman, only to be faced down by another: Father Leonard, a missionary, the last man on an island of women who had lost their husbands, sons, and brothers to the war effort.

Father Leonard was gaunt, bald, with a thin white beard, and no longer smiled or waved. When he saw my uniform, he said, “You're not taking any more.” He paused to make sure I understood. I didn't, and he went on: “What did you think would happen? Draft all the able-bodied men, and how are the wives supposed to find food? Tell me you brought food.”

I didn't answer. I presented him with the lifeless body of the boy. And Father Leonard took a deep breath, didn't ask who or why or where, just took the boy in his arms, and began working his way back up through the rocks behind the narrow beach I'd found. For a moment, I considered pushing off once more, using the thimbleful of gas I had left to set myself adrift. Then I'd wait until the time or sea or clouds were right and I'd go over the side, feel the water, feel the cold clamp my lungs, and then, feel nothing at all.

But then I looked up and saw Father Leonard struggle with the weight of the boy as his climb grew steeper, and my reaction was automatic. I scrambled up the rocks after him, offered help, was refused, insisted on at least steadying him, and then the two of us-three of us-made our way to his tiny house.

He asked some of the local women to wash and prepare the boy's body. And then there was a cemetery forested with weathered white whalebone, a short ceremony, horizontal rain, and the boy disappearing from view.

Everyone left; I stayed. I took down the tiny wooden cross Father Leonard had fashioned for the boy; I wasn't so sure the boy was ours to give to God. I waited the rest of the afternoon and into the night, afraid and hopeful that Lily would come for him.

Or perhaps for me.

I waited there for her, on Father Leonard's island, the Bering Sea island where I'd taken the boy. Father Leonard so despised the government that he was only too glad to shelter and hide an AWOL soldier. I waited for weeks; the war ended. Then weeks turned into months, into a year, and still I waited,