The Cloud Atlas

Those who had rejected traditional beliefs and become enthusiastic converts to Christianity rejected Lily for seeking to indulge in “the black arts,” as one missionary termed it. But Lily received even sharper censure from those elders who still had an admiration for, if not faith in, older Yup'ik traditions. A gift had been presented to Lily, and she had refused it. On the tundra, rejecting a gift freely given-whether the gift was shamanic powers or the season's first seal-was unconscionable.

But then, what do you expect, people said. She's a girl. A girl whose mother disappeared with a Russian sailor. This girl, half Yup'ik, a shaman? Peter had made a mistake. The ircenrrat had made a mistake. Lily tried to explain, she hadn't sought the job, she didn't want the job, but that only made matters worse.

In time, Lily realized that it wasn't just her who was making the Yup'ik community mad. It was the world, its missionaries, its kass'at, all flooding the tundra with new ways, food, language, ideas. Even if one no longer needed the services of a shaman to heal a sick child or predict weather, you still wanted one around, as a link to that other, older world they'd all once known. And with Peter dead, and Lily ducking the job, there really wasn't anyone around. Now, there was a young man from Lower Kalskag, a good distance upriver, who came to town occasionally. There were those who said he was a shaman, said they'd even seen him fly. But others said he only flew when he drank, and the only way you'd see him fly is if you drank, too-a lot.

Townspeople pressured Lily to leave. Go to your parents, they said. Go to Russia, they said. Go live with the other kass'at. Leave us alone. Lily weathered a winter of this and then decided to do as she was told. She'd go to Anchorage. And from there, maybe Russia. Maybe anywhere.

She waited through the spring, and just as the summer began and she was getting ready to leave, she found a reason to stay.

He was Japanese.

HER REASON HAD BEEN living, temporarily, in the back stockroom of Sam's Universal Supply. The Supply was Bethel 's second, and lesser, general store, and Lily worked there as a cashier.

Saburo spoke English fairly well, a little better than Sam, in fact, who had been born an unknown number of years ago to Japanese immigrant parents in Southern California. How Sam had made his way to Bethel, and whether he had done so on purpose, was never clear. But he'd done well once he'd arrived. He was kind, honest, fair to a fault, and extremely generous. Until the war with Japan began, his being Japanese attracted little attention- Bethel had a small but persistent collection of people who were neither white nor Yup'ik, and as a result, little discussed.

Saburo's arrival was only mysterious if you thought about it: one week he wasn't there, the next week he was. And people didn't think about it, not even Lily, at first. People were always passing through Sam's employ, particularly those, like Lily, who didn't quite fit in anywhere else.

She took Saburo at his word when he said he was a relative of Sam's; she didn't realize differently until they were a few days into a fishing trip together. Sam had suggested that Lily “show Saburo Alaska;” she had thought he was making fun. But then, it was summer; almost all of the Yupiit and many of the whites had already left town, journeying south and west to fish camps across the vast, marshy delta that surfaced each year beneath the lingering sun.

And there was the article she'd read in a two-week-old copy of the FairbanksDaily News-Miner. Persons of Japanese ancestry were being relocated to special camps throughout the American West, “for their safety.” Two days later, Sam received a large white envelope emblazoned with a government eagle. Before he even opened it, he suggested the trip to Lily again. The next day, Lily and Saburo were off, down the Kuskokwim River in a haphazardly packed outboard.

Lily had assumed she would serve as the guide; as a child, she'd often joined friends for the annual summer trip into the delta. But half an hour south of town, with Lily in the stern, piloting, Saburo pulled out a map-a journal, really, filled with page after page of drawings, charts and notes. After a few minutes' study, he looked up and pointed right.

Lily shrugged; if you weren't aiming for a favorite spot, it really didn't matter which waterway you chose once you left the broad expanse of the Kuskokwim River. Depending on the thaw and the previous week's weather, there were hundreds, even thousands, of sloughs to follow. And if a slough ever proved to be a dead end, all you usually had to do was turn around or drag your boat through the mud and grass and reindeer moss for a few minutes before another waterway appeared.