The Cloud Atlas

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.