Cloud Atlas (64 page)

Your what? Bubble popped, veins poisoned.

“I told you about him, that afternoon on the belfry! Why I came back from Switzerland, so much happier … I told you, but then you subjected me to those … humiliating letters.” No slip of her tongue or my pen. Grigoire the Fiancé. All those cannibals, feasting on my dignity. There we were. My impassioned love? No such thing. Never was. That unseen trombonist was now monkeying about with “Ode to Joy.” Roared at him with elemental violence—damaged my throat—to play it in the key Beethoven intended or not play it at all. Asked, “Swiss? Why’s he acting so aggressively, then?” Trombonist began a flatulent Beethoven’s Fifth, also in wrong key. E.’s voice was one degree off absolute zero. “I think you’re ill, Robert. You should leave now.” Grigoire the Swiss Fiancé and the butler each clamped one of my unresisting shoulders and marched me backwards to the doorway through the herd. High, high above, I glimpsed two small v.d.V.s in their nightcaps peering down the stairwell through the landing railings like nightcapped gargoylettes. Winked at ’em.

Gleam of triumph in my rival’s lovely, long-lashed eyes and his accented “Go home to England!” ignited Frobisher the Rotter, sorry to say. Just as I was flung over the threshold, I embraced Grigoire in a rugger grip, determined that smug cockatoo was coming with me. Birds-of-paradise in the hallway shrieked, baboons roared. Down the steps we bounced, no, we thudded, slipped, swore, thumped, and tore. Grigoire cried in alarm, then pain—the very medicine prescribed by Dr. Vengeance! Stone steps and icy pavements bruised my own flesh as black as his, banged my elbows and hips just as hard, but at least mine was not the only ruined evening in Bruges, and I yelled, kicking his ribs once for each word, before half-running, half-hobbling off on my whacked ankle, “Love hurts!”

Am in better spirits now. Hardly remember what E. even looks like. Once, her face was burned into my idiotic eyes, saw her everywhere, in everyone. Grigoire has exquisite fingers, long and pliant. Robert Schumann maimed his hands by tying weights to ’em. He thought it’d increase his range at the keyboard. Majestic string quartets but what a bloody fool! Grigoire on the other hand possesses perfect hands by birth but probably doesn’t know a crotchet from crochet.

Six or seven days later

Forgot about this unfinished letter, well, half-forgot, it got buried under my piano MS & too busy composing to fish it out. Icy seasonal weather. Half the clocks in Bruges have frozen fast. So, now you know about Eva. The affair hollowed me out, but what, pray, resounds in hollows? Music, Sixsmith, let there be Music and behold. During a six-hour fireside bath last night I scored 102 bars of a funereal march based on “Ode to Joy” for my clarinetist.

Another visitor this morning; haven’t been this popular since that notorious day at the Derby. Woken at noon by a friendly but firm knock-knock-knock. Called out, “Who’s there?”

“Verplancke.”

Couldn’t place the name, but when I opened the door, there stood my musical policeman, the one who had lent me the bicycle in my old life. “May I come in? Je pensais vous rendre une visite de courtoisie.”

“Most certainly,” I replied, adding rather wittily, “Voilà qui est bien courtois, pour un policier.” Cleared him an armchair & offered to ring for tea, but my visitor declined. Couldn’t quite conceal his surprise at the untidiness. Explained how I tip the maids to stay away. Can’t abide having my MS touched. M. Verplancke nodded in sympathy, then wondered why a gentleman might check into his hotel under a pseudonym. An eccentricity inherited from my father, I said, a notable in public life who prefers to keep his private one private. Keep my own vocation similarly hush-hush so I’m not put upon to tinkle the ivories during cocktail hour. Refusals cause offense. V. seemed satisfied with my explanation. “A luxurious home away from home, Le Royal.” He glanced around my sitting room. “I did not know amanuenses were so well paid.” Admitted what the tactful fellow doubtless already knew: Ayrs and I had parted company, adding I have my own independent income, which a mere twelve months ago would have been the truth. “Ah, a bicycling millionaire?” He smiled. Tenacious, isn’t he? Not quite a millionaire, I smiled back, but, providentially, a man of sufficient consequence to afford Le Royal.

He got to the point at last. “You’ve made an influential enemy during your short residency in our city, M. Frobisher. A certain manufacturer, I think we both know of whom I speak, made a complaint to my superior about an incident a few nights ago. His secretary—a very fine harpsichordist in our little group, in fact—recognized your name, and deflected the complaint to my desk. So here I am.” Took pains to assure him it was all an absurd misunderstanding over a young lady’s affections. Charming fellow nodded. “I know, I know. In youth, one’s heart plays più fortissimo than the head. Our difficulty is, the young man’s father is banker for several of our city elders and is making unpleasant noises about charging you with battery and assault.”

Thanked M. Verplancke for his warning and tact, and promised to keep a lower profile from now on. Alas, not so simple. “Monsieur Frobisher, don’t you find our city intolerably cold in winter? Don’t you think Mediterranean climes might better inspire your Muse?”

Asked if the banker’s anger might be appeased if I gave my word to leave Bruges within seven days, after my sextet’s final revision. V. thought yes, such an understanding should defuse the situation. So I gave my word as a gentleman to make the necessary arrangements.

Business concluded, V. asked if he might have a preview of my sextet. Showed him the clarinet cadenza. He was unnerved at first by its spectral and structural peculiarities, but spent a further hour asking perceptive questions about my semi-invented notation and the singular harmonics of the piece. As we shook hands, he gave me his card, urged me to post a published copy of the score for his ensemble, and expressed regret that his public persona had had to impinge upon his private one. Was sorry to see him go. Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.

So you see, I must put my final days to good account. Don’t worry about me, Sixsmith, I’m quite well, and far too busy for melancholia! There’s a sailors’ tavern at the end of the street where I could find companionship if I chose (one catches salty boys going in and out at any hour), but only music matters to me now. Music clatters, music swells, music tosses.

Sincerely,
R.F.

HÔTEL MEMLING, BRUGES
QUARTER PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING, 12TH—XII—1931

Sixsmith,

Shot myself through the roof of my mouth at five
A.M
. this morning with V.A.’s Luger. But I saw you, my dear, dear fellow! How touched I am that you care so much! On the belfry’s lookout, yesterday, at sunset. Sheerest fluke you didn’t see me first. Had got to that last flight of stairs, when I saw a man in profile leaning on the balcony, gazing at the sea—recognized your natty gabardine coat, your one and only trilby. One more step up, you’d have seen me crouching in the shadows. You strolled to the north side—one turn my way, I would have been rumbled. Watched you for as long as I dared—a minute?—before pulling back and hotfooting it down to Earth. Don’t be cross. Thank you ever so for trying to find me. Did you come on the
Kentish Queen?

Questions rather pointless now, aren’t they?

Wasn’t the sheerest fluke I saw you first, not really. World’s a shadow theater, an opera, and such things writ large in its libretto. Don’t be too cross at my role. You couldn’t understand, no matter how much I explained. You’re a brilliant physicist, your Rutherford chap et al. agree you’ve got a brilliant future, quite sure they’re right. But in some fundamentals you’re a dunce. The healthy can’t understand the emptied, the broken. You’d try to list all the reasons for living, but I left ’em behind at Victoria Station back in early summer. Reason I crept back down from the belvedere was that I can’t have you blaming yourself for failing to dissuade me. You may anyway, but don’t, Sixsmith, don’t be such an ass.

Likewise, hope you weren’t too disappointed to find me gone from Le Royal. The manager got wind of M. Verplancke’s visit. Obliged to ask me to leave, he said, on account of heavy bookings. Piffle, but I took the fig leaf. Frobisher the Stinker wanted a tantrum, but Frobisher the Composer wanted peace and quiet to finish my sextet. Paid in full—bang went the last Jansch money—and packed my valise. Wandered crooked alleys and crossed icy canals before coming across this deserted-looking caravansary. Reception a rarely manned nook under the stairs. Only ornament in my room a monstrous Laughing Cavalier too ugly to steal and sell. From my filthy window, one sees the very same dilapidated old windmill on whose steps I napped on my first morning in Bruges. The very same. Fancy that. Around we go.

Knew I’d never see my twenty-fifth birthday. Am early for once. The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateur conductors. A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, “Suicide is selfishness.” Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness. So I’ll make a thick turban from several towels to muffle the shot and soak up the blood, and do it in the bathtub, so it shouldn’t stain any carpets. Last night I left a letter under the manager’s day-office door—he’ll find it at eight
A.M
. tomorrow—informing him of the change in my existential status, so with luck an innocent chambermaid will be spared an unpleasant surprise. See, I do think of the little people.

Don’t let ’em say I killed myself for love, Sixsmith, that would be too ridiculous. Was infatuated by Eva Crommelynck for a blink of an eye, but we both know in our hearts who is the sole love of my short, bright life.

Along with this letter and the rest of the Ewing book, I’ve made arrangements for a folder containing my completed manuscript to find you at Le Royal. Use the Jansch money to defray publishing costs, send copies to everyone on the enclosed list. Don’t let my family get hold of either of the originals, whatever you do. Pater’ll sigh, “It’s no
Eroica
, is it?” and stuff it into a drawer; but it’s an incomparable creation. Echoes of Scriabin’s
White Mass
, Stravinsky’s lost footprints, chromatics of the more lunar Debussy, but truth is I don’t know where it came from. Waking dream. Will never write anything one-hundredth as good. Wish I were being immodest, but I’m not.
Cloud Atlas Sextet
holds my life, is my life, now I’m a spent firework; but at least I’ve been a firework.

People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it’ll no longer function.

Luger here. Thirteen minutes to go. Feel trepidation, naturally, but my love of this coda is stronger. An electrical thrill that, like Adrian, I know I am to die. Pride, that I shall see it through. Certainties. Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one’s core. Rome’ll decline and fall again, Cortés’ll lay Tenochtitlán to waste again, and later, Ewing will sail again, Adrian’ll be blown to pieces again, you and I’ll sleep under Corsican stars again, I’ll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you’ll read this letter again, the sun’ll grow cold again. Nietzsche’s gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities.

Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour.

Sunt lacrimæ rerum.
R.F.

join us. I am sorry to write, no man from either shift braved the first mate’s displeasure by attending, but we shall persist in our efforts undiscouraged. Rafael was up the masthead & interrupted our prayers with a treble cry of “Land! a-hoyyyyyy!”

We ended our worship early & braved dousings of sea spray to watch land emerge from the rocking horizon. “Raiatea,” Mr. Roderick told us, “of the Societies.” (Once again the
Prophetess’s
keel crosses the
Endeavour’s
. Cpt. Cook himself named the group.) I asked if we would be putting ashore. Mr. Roderick affirmed, “The captain wants to pay one of the Missions a call.” The Societies loomed larger & after three weeks of oceanic grays & blazing blues, our eyes rejoiced at the moss-drenched mountain faces, aglint with cataracts, daubed with cacophonous jungle. The
Prophetess
cleared fifteen fathoms, yet so clear was the water, iridescent corals were visible. I speculated with Henry on how we might prevail upon Cpt. Molyneux for permission to go ashore, when the very same appeared from the deckhouse, his beard trimmed & forelock oiled. Far from ignoring us, as is his custom, he walked over to us with a smile as friendly as a cutpurse’s. “Mr. Ewing, Dr. Goose, would you care to accompany the first mate & I ashore on yonder isle this morning? A settlement of Methodists lies in a bay on the northern coast, ‘Nazareth’ they’ve named it. Gentlemen of inquiring minds may find the place diverting.” Henry accepted with enthusiasm & I did not withhold my consent, though I mistrusted the old raccoon’s motivations. “Settled,” the captain pronounced.

An hour later the
Prophetess
kedged into Bethlehem Bay, a black-sand cove sheltered from trade winds by Cape Nazareth’s crook. Ashore was a stratum of cruder thatched dwellings erected on “stilts” near the waterline, occupied (I correctly assumed) by the baptized Indians. Above these were a dozen timber buildings crafted by civilized hands, & higher still, below the hill’s crown, stood a proud church denoted by a white cruciform. The larger of the skiffs was lowered for our benefit. Its four rowers were Guernsey. Bentnail & a pair of garter snakes. Mr. Boerhaave donned a hat & waistcoat more suitable for a Manhattan salon than a haul across the surf. We beached with no mishap worse than a good soak, but our sole emissary from the colonists was a Polynesian dog panting under golden jasmine & vermilion trumpet flowers. The shoreline huts & “Main Street” winding up to the church were devoid of human life. “Twenty men, twenty muskets,” commented Mr. Boerhaave, “and the place’d be ours by dinnertime. Makes you think, eh, sir?” Cpt. Molyneux instructed the rowers to wait in the shade while we “Call on the King in his Counting House.” My suspicion that the captain’s new graces were skin-deep was confirmed when he found the trading store boarded up & he vented a fanged oath. “Mayhap,” speculated the Dutchman, “the niggers unconverted themselves & ate their pastors for pudding?”

A bell rang from the church tower & the captain slapped his forehead. “D——my eyes, what am I thinking? It’s the Sabbath, by G—& these holy s—s’ll be a-braying in their rickety church!” We wound our way up the steep hill at a crawl, our party slowed by Cpt. Molyneux’s gout. (I feel a loamy breathlessness when I exert myself. Recalling my vigor on the Chathams, I am worried at how severely the Parasite taxes my constitution.) We reached Nazareth’s house of worship just as the congregation was emerging.

The captain removed his hat, boomed a hearty “Greetings! Jonathon Molyneux, captain of the
Prophetess.”
He indicated our vessel in the bay with a sweep of his hand. The Nazarenes were less effusive, the men awarding us wary nods, their wives & daughters hiding behind fans. Cries of “Fetch Preacher Horrox!” echoed into the church recesses as its native occupants now poured out to see the visitors. Upwards of sixty adult men & women I counted, of whom around a third were White, garbed in their Sunday “Best” (as could be managed two weeks’ voyage from the nearest haberdashery). The Blacks watched us with bare curiosity. The Native women were decently clothed, but more than a few were blighted with goiter. Boys protecting their fair-skinned mistresses from the sun’s fierceness with parasols of palm leaves grinned a little. A privileged “platoon” of Polynesians wore a natty brown shoulder band embroidered with a white crucifix as a uniform of sorts.

Now bounded out a cannonball of a man whose clerical garb declaimed his calling. “I,” announced the patriarch, “am Giles Horrox, preacher of Bethlehem Bay & representative of the London Missionary Society on Raiatea. State your business, sirs, be quick about it.”

Cpt. Molyneux now extended his introductions to include Mr. Boerhaave “of the Dutch Reformist Church,” Dr. Henry Goose, “Physician of the London Gentry & late of the Feejee Mission” & Mr. Adam Ewing, “American Notary of Letters & Law.”
(Now
I stood wise to the rogue’s game!) “The names of Preacher Horrox & Bethlehem Bay are spoken of with respect amongst us peripatetic devout of the South Pacific. We had hoped to celebrate the Sabbath before your altar”—the captain looked ruefully at the church—”but, alas, contrary winds delayed our arrival. At the very least, I pray your collection plate is not yet closed?”

Preacher Horrox scrutinized our captain. “You command a godly ship, sir?”

Cpt. Molyneux glanced away in an imitation of humility. “Neither as godly nor as unsinkable as your church, sir, but yes, Mr. Boerhaave & I do what we can for those souls in our care. ‘Tis an unceasing struggle, I am sorry to say. Sailors revert to their wanton ways as soon as our backs are turned.”

“Oh, but, Captain,” spoke a lady in a lace collar, “we have our recidivists in Nazareth too! You will pardon my husband’s caution. Experience teaches us most vessels under so-called Christian flags bring us little but disease & drunkards. We must assume guilt until innocence is established.”

The captain bowed again. “Madam, I can grant no pardon where no offense was given nor any taken.”

“Your prejudices against those ‘Visigoths of the Sea’ are amply warranted, Mrs. Horrox”—Mr. Boerhaave entered the exchange—”but
I
won’t tolerate a drop of grog aboard our
Prophetess
, however the men holler! & oh, they holler, but I holler back, ‘The only spirit you need is the Holy Spirit!’ & I holler it louder & longer!”

The charade was having its desired effect. Preacher Horrox presented his two daughters & three sons, all of whom were born here in Nazareth. (The girls might have stepped from a Ladies’ School, but the boys were tanned as
kanákas
beneath their starched collars.) Loath as I was to be lassoed into the captain’s masquerade, I was curious to learn more of this island theocracy & let the current of events carry me along. Soon our party proceeded to the Horroxes’ parsonage, which dwelling would not shame any petty Southern Hemisphere consul. It included a large drawing room with glass windows & tulipwood furniture, a necessary room, two shacks for servants & a dining room, where presently we were served with fresh vegetables & tender pork. The table stood with each leg immersed in a dish of water. Mrs. Horrox explained, “Ants, one bane of Bethlehem. Their drowned bodies must be emptied periodically, lest they build a causeway of themselves.”

I complimented the domicile. “Preacher Horrox,” the lady of the house told us with pride, “was trained as a carpenter in the shire of Gloucester. Most of Nazareth was built by his hands. The pagan mind is impressed with material display, you see. He thinks:—How spick & span are Christians’ houses! How dirty our hovels! How generous the White God is! How mean is ours!’ In this way, one more convert is brought to the Lord.”

“If I could but live my life over,” opined Mr. Boerhaave, without the slightest blush, “I should chuse the missionary’s selfless path. Preacher, we see here a well-established mission with roots struck deep, but how does one
begin
the work of conversion upon a benighted beach where no Christian foot ever trod?”

Preacher Horrox gazed beyond his interrogator to a future lecture hall. “Tenacity, sir, compassion & law. Fifteen years ago our reception in this bay was not so cordial as your own, sir. That anvil-shaped island you see to the west, thither? Borabora, the Blacks call it, but Sparta is an apter name, so warlike were its warriors! On the beach of Bethlehem Cove we fought & some of us fell. Had our pistols not won that first week’s battles, well, the Raiatea Mission should have remained a dream. But it was the will of the Lord that we light his beacon here & keep it burning. After a half year we could bring over our womenfolk from Tahiti. I regret the Native deaths, but once the Indians saw how God protects his flock, why, even the Spartans were begging us to send preachers.”

Mrs. Horrox took up the story. “When the pox began its deadly work, the Polynesians needed succor, both spiritual & material. Our compassion then brought the heathen to the holy font. Now ’tis the turn of Holy Law to keep our flock from Temptation—& marauding seamen. Whalers, particularly, despise us for teaching the women chastity & modesty. Our men must keep our firearms well-oiled.”

“Yet if shipwrecked,” noted the captain, “I’ll warrant those same spouters beg Fate to wash ’em up on beaches where those same ‘cursed missionaries’ have brought the Gospels, do they not?”

Assent was indignant & universal.

Mrs. Horrox answered my query about the enforcement of law & order in this lonesome outpost of Progress. “Our Church Council—my husband & three wise elders—passes those laws we deem necessary, with guidance of prayer. Our Guards of Christ, certain Natives who prove themselves faithful servants of the Church, enforce these laws in return for credit at my husband’s store. Vigilance, unflagging vigilance, is vital, or by next week …” Mrs. Horrox shuddered as apostasy’s phantoms danced a
hula
on her grave.

The meal over, we adjourned to the parlor, where a Native boy served us cool tea in pleasing gourd cups. Cpt. Molyneux asked, “Sir, how does one fund a Mission as industrious as yours?”

Preacher Horrox felt the breeze change & scrutinized the captain afresh. “Arrowroot starch & cocoa-nut oil defray costs, Captain. The Blacks work on our plantation to pay for the school, Bible study & church. In a week, God will it, we shall have an abundant harvest of copra.”

I asked if the Indians worked of their own free will.

“Of course!” exclaimed Mrs. Horrox. “If they succumb to sloth, they know the Guards of Christ will punish them for it.”

I wished to ask about these punitive incentives, but Cpt. Molyneux snatched back the conversation. “Your Missionary Society ship carries these perishable commodities back around the Horn to London?”

“Your conjecture is correct, Captain.”

“Have you considered, Preacher Horrox, how more secure your Mission’s secular footing—& by extension its
spiritual
one—would be, if you had a reliable market closer to the Societies?”

The preacher told the serving boy to quit the room. “I have considered this question at length, but where? Mexico’s markets are small & prone to banditry, Cape Town is a marriage of corrupt excisemen & greedy Afrikaners. The South China Seas swarm with ruthless, saucy pirates. The Batavian Dutch bleed one dry. No offense, Mr. Boerhaave.”

The captain indicated myself. “Mr. Ewing is a denizen of”—he paused to unveil his proposal—”San Francisco, California. You will know of its growth from a paltry town of seven hundred souls to a metropolis of … a quarter million? No census can keep count! Celestials, Chileans, Mexicans, Europeans, foreigners of all colors are flooding in by the day. An egg, Mr. Ewing, kindly inform us how much is presently paid for an egg in San Francisco.”

“A dollar, so my wife wrote to me.”

“One Yankee dollar for a common egg.” (Cpt. Molyneux’s smile is that of a mummified crocodile I once saw hanging in a Louisiana dry-goods store.) “Surely, this gives a man of your acumen some pause for thought?”

Mrs. Horrox was nobody’s fool. “All the gold will be mined out soon.”

“Aye, madam, but the hungry, clamoring, enriched city of San Francisco—only three weeks away by a trim schooner like my
Prophetess
—will remain & its destiny is clear as crystal. San Francisco shall become the London, the Rotterdam & the New York of the Pacific Ocean.”

Our
capitán de la casa
picked his teeth with a bluefin bone. “Do
you
believe, Mr. Ewing, commodities grown in our plantations may fetch a fair price in your city” (how strange ’tis hearing our modest township so appelled!) “both of the moment & after the gold rush?”

My truthfulness was a card Cpt. Molyneux had played to his devious advantage, but I would not lie to spite him any more than I would to aid him. “I do.”

Giles Horrox removed his clergyman’s collar. “Would you care to accompany me to my office, Jonathon? I am rather proud of its roof. I designed it myself to withstand the dreadful
typhoo.”

“Is that so, Giles?” replied Cpt. Molyneux. “Lead the way.”

Notwithstanding the name of Dr. Henry Goose was unknown in Nazareth until this morning, once the wives of Bethlehem learned a famed English surgeon was ashore, they recalled all manner of ailments & beat a crowded path to the Parsonage. (So odd to be in the presence of the fairer sex again after so many days penned up with the uglier one!) My friend’s generosity could not turn away a single caller, so Mrs. Horrox’s salon was commandeered as his consultation room & draped with linen to provide appropriate screens. Mr. Boerhaave returned to the
Prophetess
to see about making more space in the hold.