The Cloud Atlas (12 page)

It cost twenty dollars, as predicted, but I know it's worth much more than that. They are precious things to those who have them, and I find that more of the elderly and dying I visit in the hospital or hospice these days do. They're meant to spare patients pain and everyone else second-guessing. Ailing parishioners usually try to hide the existence of Do Not Resuscitate orders from me; they know the Church stands against euthanasia and worry that their DNRs might run afoul of such beliefs. As it happens, they need not be concerned, but that doesn't keep the patients who have DNRs from prizing them.

I marvel at some of those I visit here, so desperate to die. I think of those Japanese soldiers on Kiska, surrounded by the enemy, with no hope of survival. I think of their wounded, the Japanese soldiers in their field hospital, committing suicide. The doctor doled out grenades, gently laying one on each man's chest. Those who could, pulled their own pins. He pulled the pin for those who could not. Three hundred died this way; the doctor wrote as much in his diary. Then he put down the pen, closed the book, and picked up the grenade he'd reserved for himself.

I'm surprised Ronnie ordered the bracelet. It means he had to get the paperwork, have a doctor sign it, and send it off. It suggests planning and foresight that he never seemed capable of nor interested in. More to the point, it suggests he's going to die, and that he knows this. It makes me realize that I may be the only person who doesn't think he's going to die. Or, for that matter, the only one who doesn't want him to die. Not now. Not yet.

Which is why I'm keeping the bracelet, for the time being, in my pocket. I'm keeping it safe-I've tucked it inside a pyx. I'm sure the bishop would be horrified; the pyx is for carrying communion to the sick and homebound. But I shudder to think what Ronnie would do if I presented him with the Host. Better to let the bracelet rest in the pyx for now, where God can keep an eye on it.

Bad idea? We'll see. It's not like I had the best of models for hospital ministry.

“KILL ANYONE YET, Sergeant?” Father Pabich surprised me with a clap on my back. I jumped; his hand had hit a bruise I hadn't known was there. He'd found me walking back from the airfield terminal.

I wanted to tell him about the morning's conversation with Gurley but didn't dare. After that first encounter with Gurley in the bar, I'd done a bit of whimpering to Father Pabich. It didn't go over well. This was an army for fighters, not whiners, Father Pabich had told me, and urged me to shoot someone as soon as I could, preferably Japanese.

Thus his question: Had I killed anyone?

But before I could answer, Father Pabich wheeled me around so I was walking in his direction. “I've not seen you at Mass for a few mornings running, and I was putting two and two together. You've been out, on a mission? What's the good word?”

“No, Father.”

“Sergeant Belk,” Father Pabich said. “This won't do. The meek are gonna inherit the earth, God willing, but not until men like you and me take care of a little business.”

I nodded.

“Kill some Japs,” Father Pabich said. I nodded again. Father Pabich coughed and looked at me. “What's the matter, son? Shouldn't you be at work, defusing some bomb, blowing something up?”

“Got dismissed early, sir,” I said.

“Father,”
Father Pabich reminded me, and I repeated the word. “And I can see why you were dismissed early,” he said. “You're drunk?” He leaned in so close I thought I could smell alcohol on him. “Hungover?”

“I almost killed someone,” I said quietly, thinking of the glass I'd shot out of Gurley's hand-and the belt I'd tightened around the neck of that sailor at Lily's.

“Well,
almost
ain't going to do anyone any damn good-” Father Pabich started, and then stopped walking to study me a moment. “We're not talking about a Jap, are we?” He picked up my hands, which bore some evidence of the scuffle with the sailors. “Bar fight,” he said, making a sour face. I hesitated, and then nodded because it was easier, and almost true. “Come with me, son,” he said. He didn't say another word until we'd reached the base hospital.

Once there, he told me to wait outside while he made his rounds, but then changed his mind and ushered me in by the elbow. The hospital was fairly new, but it was already showing signs of overuse. One or two soldiers were lying in cots in the hallway. One ward had spaces for twenty beds, but two were missing, their places taken by a tarp and buckets that were trying to do the job of the roof that had failed above.

Father Pabich visited with each man. He shared a joke with ones who could talk, and mumbled prayers over the ones who were sleeping, including one man whose chart indicated that he was Jewish. When Father Pabich finished making the sign of the cross over him, a man in a neighboring bed said, “He's, uh, not that way, Father,” and Father Pabich blessed him, too.
“Baptist
, that one,” Father Pabich whispered to me as we walked away.

I thought we'd seen the whole of the hospital, but then he eased open a door that led into a small vestibule and paused.

“You still feeling okay, Sergeant?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Say yes, son, so I know you're not just pressing your lips together to keep from puking.”

I said yes.

“Right. Now, be a good man in this next room. No staring, but no looking away, and no being sick. These are good men.” And then we went in.

In this room, there were only eyes.

Five of the six beds were occupied; the nurses were changing the sheets on the sixth. And from each of those five beds, two eyes watched Father Pabich and me enter. The rest of their bodies were swathed almost entirely in bandages or covered with sheets. I'd been told not to stare, so I couldn't confirm what my mind kept insisting- things were missing. Arms, legs, hands. Sheets lay flat in impossible places. Some of the eyes peered out of unbandaged faces that were a dirty pink, skin rubbed raw but somehow still flecked with black.

I couldn't breathe. Father Pabich told me they were burn patients, but I knew that. And I knew who they were. I knew they'd been on that hillside above Fort Cronkhite. I knew that flames had leapt up around them because I hadn't called to them, run to them in time.

And I further knew that this was impossible, that those men had died, there, on that hill, and that even if they had lived, they would never have been transported to Alaska. Sure, I knew that. It didn't matter who they were, really, because Gurley had made all such men mine:
Didn't move fast enough?

Father Pabich went to the nurses who were changing the bed and seemed to ask them something. When they shook their heads, he straightened up and then began working his way around the room. He spoke quietly to each man; none spoke in return. Before moving on to the next man, he would murmur a short prayer and close with a slight, but slow and solemn, bow. He didn't rush. The eyes had all been open when we entered the room, and had followed our every move. But now I saw the man in the last bed close his eyes before we reached him. Father Pabich didn't notice until he was at the foot of the man's bed, and then breathed a deep sigh. We spent a longer time at that bed than anyone else's. Father Pabich slowly lowered himself to kneeling, and then pulled me down as well. I listened to the man breathe. I watched and waited for him to open his eyes.

AS SOON AS WE got outside, Father Pabich dug around for a cigarette. A breeze had picked up, and he had some trouble with his match. When he finally got the cigarette lit, he started walking away without a word. I caught up, but he wouldn't look at me. “The man in the sixth bed, the empty one-gone this morning,” he said. “I should have been there. They couldn't find me.” He looked at his watch, then at me. “Scared?”

I thought about telling him about Fort Cronkhite, about the explosion there, the men, how I wasn't able to or didn't help.

“You can admit to being a little scared,” he said. “That's no sin. A little fear can help a man.” He took a long drag on the cigarette, then another, and then, even though it wasn't nearly done, dropped it on the ground and toed it out. “I don't know what happened. They were part of a special team, gone more often than they were here. Then one night, they were all brought in from who knows where. Badly burned. Limbs missing. Some kind of accident, I would have guessed, but- God doesn't permit accidents like that.” He zipped up his coat. “No one will tell me what happened exactly, and I suppose I don't want to know now. Some things you don't want to know are possible. Coming out here, I knew I'd see men who were hurt, men who'd died, but I didn't think I'd see that-men who'd died, but are still alive, somehow, with eyes like that, like ghosts.” Father Pabich looked at me. “I don't want to know how it happened. And I don't want you to tell me.”

“I won't,” I said. “I mean, how could I? How would I know?” But what I really wanted to say was, how could he know?

Father Pabich took a moment considering his next words. “I guess there're things you and your captain haven't talked about yet.”

“Like what?”

“Like those men, Sergeant,” Father Pabich said. “They're your- they're your detail. Or they worked with your captain there, once. Nobody ever knew quite what they did, what he does. What you do.” He stared at me until I met his gaze. “I just hope you do it well. Or better.”

“Father, I-”

“Whatever he's asking you to do, do it,” Father Pabich said. “If it's going to keep those beds empty, do it.” I nodded. He picked up my hands. “No more bar brawls. Next time you put your hand on the door of a bar, you think of these men. You think about where you're needed.” He dropped my hands, and thumped my chest with two fingers: “You think about who needs you.”

BUT TRY AS I MIGHT, it wasn't those men, but Lily, who came to mind at those words and who stayed there the entire day. I went back to the Quonset hut, I watched the training film, I stared at the little book until, once again, the artwork seemed to shift and flow and change before my eyes. What's more, I kept seeing, imagining, Lily's face, in a cloud, in waves, connecting the points of a map. I finally gave in and started for downtown.

I told myself I was going because Lily was going to help me find some of these mysterious floating bombs, help me save lives. She'd said she wasn't as good at the future as she was at the past, but she could tell me something.

THE FIRST THING she wanted to tell me was goodbye.

“Hey, friend,” Lily said. She'd emerged from the entrance of the Starhope as I approached. “You came back to see me off.”

I looked at her, and then looked around, in search of something to say.

“I'm going home,” she said, checking to make sure I understood.

I didn't, but told her I'd be happy to walk her home. I thought I was being quite gallant; a lot of guys back then wouldn't have wanted to walk anywhere near a woman who looked like Lily. Well-maybe they'd
want
to, beautiful as she was, but they wouldn't want to be seen doing it, given who she was.

She looked down at my feet. “You don't have the right shoes,” she said. “And it's a long, wet walk.”

“How long?” I asked. “I don't have to be back in my barracks till midnight.”

“About four hundred miles,” Lily said.

I stared at her. “You're leaving,” I said. “Really leaving.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That's the idea. I'm still working on how- travel's not as easy with this war you all got cooked up. But I've got something to do anyway, before I go.”

“What's that?”

“Have dinner with a friend.” She smiled and put out an arm.

LILY WALKED ME THROUGH the darkening streets to a part of town I hadn't discovered yet. There were fewer soldiers and sailors here, and more-people. White faces, Asian faces, women, men, children, and very few uniforms. I drew more stares than Lily as she threaded our way through narrower, older streets to a diner.

There were no menus; Lily said they just brought you whatever was on the stove. That night, it was a stew of Thanksgiving leftovers.

We didn't say anything while we waited for the food. I was tongue-tied-she was
leaving?
-and Lily was tired. She leaned her head against the back of the booth and closed her eyes.

I wouldn't have had words then to describe what I saw; I'm not sure I do now. Why did her hair make black seem the brightest color? Why did her breathing through slightly parted lips, her tongue flitting once to moisten them, seem risqué? How could her bare neck, all smooth curves and shadows, suggest that the loose clothes she wore weren't there at all? I suppose the chemicals that flood a boy at that time in his life are partly to blame, but give Lily and the God who made her some credit.

“Don't stare,” she said, not opening her eyes.

I mumbled something about how I wasn't, and she opened her eyes in time to see that I was. The food arrived and she immediately started in.

“You were, just a moment ago, when I had my eyes closed,” she said.

“I wasn't staring,” I said. “I was trying to figure out what I was going to do without you.”

She stopped eating, and laughed. “That's silly.” She took another bite, and before she swallowed, added, “And very sweet.”

“No, I had-I had a question for you.” And I did, a hundred, mostly about her. But I had another question, the one I'd spend the war asking.

“I don't think those two thugs are coming back, if that's your question,” Lily said. “That's what I like about sailors. Or liked. They sail away on their little ships. They don't come back.”

“It's about something else.” I looked at my hand, then held it up and showed her my palm.

Lily shook her head. “You know-the palm reading-I don't really read palms.”

“But you know things. You knew things about me.”

Lily put down her spoon; she spent a moment carefully aligning it with the plate. “What do you need to know?”

I offered her my hand, but she kept her hands at her sides and shook her head. “Not here.” She looked around. “I'm not going to do that here.”

“Then how can you tell me-?”

“Just talk,” she said, and as she did, I could feel her feet entangle mine. “Just talk,” she repeated, more softly.