Cloud Atlas (5 page)

Autua’s master was the lizard-tattooed Maori, Kupaka, who told his horrified, broken slaves that he had come to cleanse them of their false idols (“Have your gods saved you?” taunted Kupaka); their polluted language (“My whip will teach you pure Maori!”); their tainted blood (“Inbreeding has diluted your original
mana
!”
)
. Henceforth Moriori unions were proscribed & all issue fathered by Maori men on Moriori women were declared Maori. The earliest transgressors were executed in gruesome ways & the survivors lived in that state of lethargy engendered by relentless subjugation. Autua cleared land, planted wheat & tended hogs for Kupaka until he won enough trust to effect his escape. (“Secret places on Rēkohu, Missa Ewing, combes, pitfalls, caves deep in Motoporoporo Forest, so dense no dogs scent you there.” I fancy I fell into one such secret place.)

A year later he was recaptured, but Moriori slaves were now too scarce to be indiscriminately slaughtered. The lower Maori were obliged to labor alongside the serfs, much to their disgust. (“We forsook our ancestors’ land in Aotearoa for this miserable rock?” they complained.) Autua escaped again & during his second spell of freedom he was granted secret asylum by Mr. D’Arnoq for some months, at no little risk to the latter. During this sojourn Autua was baptized & turned to the Lord.

Kupaka’s men caught up with the fugitive after a year & six-month, but this time the mercurial chieftain evinced a respect for Autua’s spirit. After a retributive lashing, Kupaka appointed his slave as fisherman for his own table. Thus employed, the Moriori let another year go by until, one afternoon, he found a rare
moeeka
fish flapping in his net. He told Kupaka’s wife this king of fish could be eaten only by a king of men & showed her how to prepare it for her husband. (“Bad bad poison this
moeeka
fish, Missa Ewing, one bite, aye, you sleep, you never wake no mo’.”) During that night’s feasting, Autua snuck from the encampment, stole his master’s canoe & rowed across the current-prone, choppy, moonless sea to deserted Pitt Island, two leagues to the south of Chatham Isle (known as Rangiauria in Moriori & revered as mankind’s birthplace).

Luck favored the stowaway, for he arrived safe at dawn as a squall blew up & no canoes made the crossing after him. Autua subsisted in his Polynesian Eden on wild celery, watercress, eggs, berries, an occasional young boar (he risked fires only under cover of darkness or mist) & the knowledge that Kupaka, at least, had met a condign punishment. Was his solitude not unbearable? “Nights, ancestors visited. Days, I yarned tales of Maui to birds & birds yarned sea tales to I.”

The fugitive lived thus for many a season until last September, when a winter gale wrecked the whaler
Eliza
from Nantucket on Pitt Island Reef. All hands drowned, but our Mr. Walker, zealous in his pursuit of easy guineas, crossed the straits seeking salvage. When he found signs of habitation & saw Kupaka’s old canoe (each is storiated with unique carvings), he knew he had found treasure of interest to his Maori neighbors. Two days later a large hunting party rowed to Pitt Island from the mainland. Autua sat on the beach & watched them arrive, surprized only to see his old enemy, Kupaka, grizzled but very much alive & shouting war chants.

My uninvited cabinmate concluded his tale. “That b——’s greedy dog stole
moeeka
from kitchen & died, not the Maori. Aye, Kupaka flogged me, but he’s old & far from home & his
mana
is hollow & starved. Maori thrive on wars & revenge & feudin’, but peace kills ’em off. Many go back to Zealand. Kupaka cannot, his land is no mo’. Then last week, Missa Ewing, I see you & I know, you save I, I know it.”

The morning watch smote four bells & my porthole betrayed a rainy dawn. I had slept a little, but my prayers that the dawn would dissolve the Moriori were unheeded. I bade him to playact
he had only just revealed himself &
make no mention of our night’s conversation. He signaled comprehension, but I feared the worst: an Indian’s wit was no match for a Boerhaave.

Along the gangway I stepped (the
Prophetess
was bucking like a young bronco) to the officers’ mess, knocked & entered. Mr. Roderick & Mr. Boerhaave were listening to Cpt. Molyneux. I cleared my throat & bade all good morning, at which our amicable captain swore, “You can better my morning, by b——ing off, instanter!”

Coolly, I asked
when
the captain might find time to hear news of an Indian stowaway who had just emerged from the coils of hawser taking up “my so-called cabin.” During the ensuing silence Cpt. Molyneux’s pale, horny-toad complexion turned roast beef pink. Ere his blast was launched, I added the stowaway claimed to be an able seaman & begged to work his passage.

Mr. Boerhaave forestalled his captain with the predicted accusations & exclaimed, “On Dutch merchantmen those who abet stowaways share their fate!” I reminded the Hollander we sailed under an English flag & put it to him why, if
I
had hid the stowaway under the coils of hawser, had I asked & asked
again
since Thursday night for the unwonted hawser to be removed, thereby begging for my putative “conspiracy” to be uncovered? Hitting that bull’s-eye fired my mettle & I assured Cpt. Molyneux that the baptized stowaway had resorted to this extreme measure lest his Maori master, who had vowed to eat his slave’s warm liver (I sprinkled a little “seasoning” on my version of events), directed his ungodly wrath towards his rescuer.

Mr. Boerhaave swore, “So this d——d Blackamoor wants us to be
grateful
to him?” No, I replied, the Moriori asks for a chance to prove his value to the
Prophetess
. Mr. Boerhaave spat out, “A stowaway is a stowaway even if he sh——s silver nuggets! What’s his name?” I did not know, I replied, for I had not conducted an interview with the man but come to the captain expeditiously.

Cpt. Molyneux spoke at last. “Able seaman
first
class, you say?” His wrath had cooled at the prospect of earning a valuable pair of hands he would not have to pay. “An Indian? Where did he salt his burns?” I repeated, two minutes was insufficient to learn his history, but my instinct considered the Indian an honest fellow.

The captain wiped his beard. “Mr. Roderick, accompany our passenger & his instinct & fetch their pet savage afoot the mizzen.” He tossed a key to his first mate. “Mr. Boerhaave, my fowling piece, if you please.”

The second mate & I did as bid. “A risky business,” Mr. Roderick warned me. “The only statute book on the
Prophetess
is the Old Man’s Whim.” Another statute book named Conscience is observed
lex loci
wherever God sees, I responded. Autua was awaiting his trial in the cotton trowzers I purchased in Port Jackson (he had climbed aboard from Mr. D’Arnoq’s boat in naught but his savage’s loincloth & a shark-tooth necklace). His back was exposed. His lacerations, I hoped, would pay testimony to his resilience & bestir sympathy in the observers’ breasts.

Rats behind the arras spread tidings of the sport & most hands were gathered on deck. (My ally, Henry, was still abed, unaware of my jeopardy.) Cpt. Molyneux sized the Moriori up as if inspecting a mule & addressed him thus: “Mr. Ewing, who knows
nothing
about how you boarded my vessel, says you regard yourself a seaman.”

Autua replied with courage & dignity. “Aye, Cap’n, sir, two years on whaler
Mississippi
of Le Havre under Captain Maspero & four years on
Cornucopia
of Philadelphia under Captain Caton, three years on an Indiaman—”

Cpt. Molyneux interrupted & indicated Autua’s trowzers. “Did you pilfer this garment from below?” Autua was sensible that I, too, was on trial. “That Christian gent’man gave, sir.” The crew followed the stowaway’s finger to myself & Mr. Boerhaave thrust at the chink in my armor. “He did?
When
was this gift awarded?” (I recalled my father-in-law’s aphorism “To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom” & I pretended to extract a speck from my eye.) Autua answered with primed percipience. “Ten minutes past, sir, I, no clothes, that gent’man say, naked no good, dress this.”

“If you are a seaman”—our captain jerked his thumb aloft—”let’s see you lower this midmast’s royal.” At this, the stowaway grew hesitant & confused & I felt the lunatick’s wager I had placed on this Indian’s word swing against me, but Autua had merely spotted a trap. “Sir, this mast ain’t midmast, this mast the mizzen, aye?” Impassive Cpt. Molyneux nodded. “Then kindly lower the
mizzen
royal.”

Autua fairly ran up the mast & I began to hope all was not lost. The newly risen sun shone low over the water & caused us to squint. “Ready & aim my piece,” the captain instructed Mr. Boerhaave, once the stowaway was past the spanker gaff, “fire on my command!”

Now I protested with the utmost vigor, the Indian had received holy sacrament, but Cpt. Molyneux ordered me to shut up or swim back to the Chathams. No American captain would cut a man down, not even a nigger, so odiously! Autua reached the topmost yard & walked it with simian dexterity despite the rough seas. Watching the sail unfurl, one of the “saltest” aboard, a dour Icelander & a sober, obliging & hardworking fellow, spoke his admiration for all to hear. “The darkie’s salt as I am, aye, he’s got fishhooks for toes!” Such was my gratitude, I could have kissed his boots. Soon Autua had the sail down—a difficult operation even for a team of four men. Cpt. Molyneux grunted approval & ordered Mr. Boerhaave to replace his gun, “But d—me if I pay a stowaway a single cent. He’ll work his passage to O-hawaii. If he’s no shirker he may sign articles there in the regular fashion. Mr. Roderick, he can share the dead Spaniard’s bunk.”

I have worn away a nib in narrating the day’s excitements. It is grown too dark to see.

Wednesday, 20th November
—

Strong
easterly breeze, very salty & oppressive. Henry has conducted his examination & has grave news, yet not the gravest. My Ailment is a parasite,
Gusano coco cervello
. This Worm is endemic throughout both Melanesia & Polynesia, but has been known to science only these last ten years. It breeds in the stinking canals of Batavia, doubtless the port of my own infection. Ingested, it voyages through the host’s blood vessels to the brain’s cerebellum anterior. (Hence my migraines & dizziness.) Ensconced in the brain, it enters a gestation phase. “You are a realist, Adam,” Henry told me, “so your pills shall be unsugared. Once the Parasite’s larvae hatch, the victim’s brain becomes a maggoty cauliflower. Putrescent gases cause the eardrums & eyeballs to protrude until they pop, releasing a cloud of
Gusano coco
spores.”

Thus reads my death sentence, but now comes my stay of execution & appeal. An admixture of urussium alkali & orinoco manganese will calcify my Parasite & laphrydictic myrrh will disintegrate it. Henry’s “apothecary” holds these compounds, but a precise dosage is paramount. Less than half a drachm leaves
Gusano coco
unpurged, but more kills the patient with the cure. My doctor warns me that as the Parasite dies, its poison sacs split & secrete their cargo, so I shall feel worse before my recovery is compleat.

Henry enjoined me not to breathe a word about my condition, for hyenas like Boerhaave prey on the vulnerable & ignorant sailors can show hostility to maladies they know not. (“I once heard of a sailor who showed the touch of leprosy a week out of Macao on the long haul back to Lisbon,” recalled Henry, “and the whole company prodded the wretch overboard without a hearing.”) During my convalescence, Henry shall inform the “scuttlebutt” that Mr. Ewing has a low fever caused by the clime & nurse me himself. Henry bridled when I mentioned his fee. “Fee? You are no valetudinarian viscount with banknotes padding his pillows! Providence steered you to my ministrations, for I doubt five men in this blue Pacific can cure you! So a fie on ‘Fee’! All I ask, dear Adam, is that you are an obedient patient! Kindly take my powders & withdraw to your cabin. I shall look in after the last dog.”

My doctor is an uncut diamond of the first water. Even as I write these words, I am tearful with gratitude.

Saturday, 30th November
—

Henry’s powders are indeed a wondrous medicament. I inhale the precious grains into my nostrils from an ivory spoon & on the instant an incandescent joy burns my being. My senses grow alert, yet my limbs grow Lethean. My Parasite still writhes at night, like a new babe’s finger, igniting spasms of pain & dreams obscene & monstrous visit me. “A sure sign,” Henry consoles me, “your Worm has reacted to our vermicide & seeks shelter in the recesses of your cerebral canals whence visions spring. In vain
Gusano coco
hides, dear Adam, in vain. We shall winkle ’im out!”

Monday, 2nd December
—

By day, my coffin is hot as an oven & my sweat dampens these pages. The tropic sun fattens & fills the noon sky. The men work seminaked with sun-blacked torsos & straw hats. The planking oozes scorching tar that sticks to one’s soles. Rain squalls blow up from nowhere & vanish with the same rapidity & the deck hisses itself dry in a minute. Portuguese man-o’-wars pulsate in the quicksilver sea, flying fish bewitch the beholder & ocher shadows of hammerheads circle the
Prophetess
. Earlier, I stepped on a squid that had propelled itself over the bulwarks! (Its eyes & beak reminded me of my father-in-law.) The water we took on at Chatham Isle is now brackish & without a dash of brandy in it, my stomach rebels. When not playing chess in Henry’s cabin or the mess room, I rest in my coffin until Homer lulls me into dreams a-billow with sails of Athenians.

Autua knocked on my coffin door yesterday to thank me for saving his neck. He said he was in my debt (true enough) until the day he saves
my
life (may it never dawn!). I asked how he was finding his new duties. “Better’n slaving for Kupaka, Missa Ewing.” Anyhow, growing sensible of my fear someone would witness our congress & report to Cpt. Molyneux, the Moriori returned to the fo’c’sle & has not since sought me out. As Henry warns me, “It’s one thing to throw a blackie a bone, but quite another to take him on for life! Friendships between races, Ewing, can never surpass the affection between a loyal gundog & its master.”