Cloud Atlas (67 page)

I am back in my coffin, resting. We are passing through a great nursery of humpbacks. The cry “There she blows!” is heard so often that none now bother to watch. My lips are baked & peeled.

The color of monotony is blue.

Christmas Eve
—

A gale & heavy seas & ship rolling much. My finger is so swollen, Henry had to cut off my wedding band lest it prevent circulation & cause the onset of dropsy. Losing this symbol of my union with Tilda depressed my spirits beyond all measure. Henry berates me for being a “silly puffin” & insists my wife would set my health above a fortnight without a metal loop. The band is in my doctor’s safekeeping, for he knows a Spanish goldsmith in Honolulu who will repair it for a reasonable price.

Christmas Day
—

Long
swells left by yesterday’s gale. At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds. I rallied all my strength to reach the mess room where Mr. Sykes & Mr. Green had accepted Henry’s & my invitation to our private Christmas Meal. Finbar served a less noxious dinner than is his wont, of “lobscouse” (salt beef, cabbage, yam & onion), so I was able to stomach most of it, until later. The plum duff had never seen a plum. Cpt. Molyneux sent word to Mr. Green that the men’s grog ration was doubled, so by the afternoon watch the seamen were flown. A regular saturnalia. A quantity of small beer was poured down a luckless Diana monkey, who capped its crapulous mummery by jumping overboard. I retired to Henry’s cabin & together we read the second chapter of Matthew.

The dinner wrought havoc on my digestion & necessitated frequent visits to the head. On my last visit, Rafael was waiting outside. I apologized for delaying him, but the boy said, no, he had contrived this meeting. He confessed he was troubled & posed me this question: “God lets you in, doesn’t he, if you’re sorry … no matter what you do, he don’t send you to … y’know”—here the ‘prentice mumbled—”hell?”

I own, my mind was more on digestion than on theology & I blurted out that Rafael could hardly have notched up a mortal portfolio of sin in his few years. The storm lantern swung & I saw misery distort my young brave’s face. Regretting my levity, I affirmed the Almighty’s mercy is indeed infinite, that “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety & nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Did Rafael wish to confide in me, I asked, be it as a friend, or a fellow orphan, or a relative stranger? I told him I had noticed how downcast he seemed of late & lamented how altered was that blithe boy who had stepped aboard in Sydney, so eager to see the wide world. Ere he framed his reply, however, an attack of laxity obliged me to return to the head. When I emerged, Rafael was gone. I shall not press the matter. The boy knows where he can find me.

Later
—

Seven bells of the first watch were just smote. My Worm pains my head as if the clapper strikes my skull.
(Do
ants get headaches? I gladly should be turned into an ant to be freed from these agonies.) How Henry & others sleep through this din of debauchery & blasphemous caroling I know not, but keenly I envy them.

I snuffed some vermicide, but it no longer brings elation. It merely helps me feel halfway ordinary. Then I took a turn about the decks, but the Star of David was obscured by thick clouds. A few sober shouts aloft (Autua’s amongst them) & Mr. Green at the wheel assured me that not all the crew were “sixteen sheets to the wind.” Empty bottles rolled from port to starboard & back with the swell. I stumbled upon an insensible Rafael curled around the windlass, his corrupted hand gripping his empty pewter. His bare young chest was bespattered by ocherous smearages. That the boy had found his solace in drink instead of his friend-in-Christ made my own spirits glummer.

“Guilty thoughts disturbing your rest, Mr. Ewing?” spoke a succubus at my shoulder & I dropped my pipe. It was Boerhaave. I assured the Hollander that while my conscience was quite untroubled I doubted
he
could claim as much. Boerhaave spat overboard, smiling. Had fangs & horns sprouted I should have felt no surprise. He slung Rafael over his shoulder, slapped the sleeping ‘prentice’s buttocks & carried his somnolent burden to the after-hatch, to keep him out of harm’s way, I trust.

Boxing Day
—

Yesterdays
entry sentences me to a prison of remorse for the rest of my days. How perversely it reads, how flippant I was! Oh, I am sick to write these words. Rafael has hanged himself. Hanged, by means of a noose slung over the mainmast lower yardarm. He ascended his gallows between the end of his watch & first bell. Fate decreed I should be amongst his discoverers. I was leaning over the bulwark, for the Worm causes bouts of nausea as it is expelled. In the blue half-light I heard a cry & saw Mr. Roderick gazing heavenward. Confusion twisted his face; succeeded by disbelief; folding in grief. His lips formed a word, yet no word issued. He pointed to that he could not name.

There swung a body, a gray form brushing the canvas. Noise erupted from all quarters, but who was shouting what to whom I cannot recall. Rafael, hanged, steady as a plumb lead as the
Prophetess
pitched & rolled. That amiable boy, lifeless as a sheep on a butcher’s hook! Autua had scrambled aloft, but all he could do was lower the boy down gently. I heard Guernsey mutter, “Should never o’ sailed on Friday, Friday’s the Jonah.”

———

My mind burns with the question,
Why?
None will discuss it, but Henry, who is as horrified as myself, told me that, secretly, Bentnail had intimated to him that the unnatural crimes of Sodom were visited upon the boy by Boerhaave & his “garter snakes.” Not just on Christmas night, but every night for many weeks.

My duty is to follow this dark river to its source & impose justice on the miscreants but, Lord, I can scarce sit up to feed myself! Henry says I cannot flagellate myself whene’er innocence falls prey to savagery, but how can I let this be? Rafael was Jackson’s age. I feel such impotence, I cannot bear it.

Friday, 27th December
—

Whilst Henry was called away to attend an injury, I hauled myself to Cpt. Molyneux’s cabin to speak my mind. He was displeazed at being visited, but I would not quit his quarters until my charge was stated, to wit, Boerhaave’s pack had tormented Rafael with nightly bestiality until the boy, seeing no possibility of reprieve or relief, took his life. Finally, the captain asked, “You do, of course, have evidence for this crime? A suicide letter? Signed testimonials?” Every man aboard knew I spoke the truth! The captain could not be insensible of Boerhaave’s brutality! I demanded an inquiry into the first mate’s part in Rafael’s self-slaughter.

“Demand all you wish, Mr. Quillcock!” Cpt. Molyneux shouted. “
I
decide who sails
Prophetess
, who maintains discipline, who trains the ‘prentices, not a d——d pen pusher, not his d——d ravings & by God’s Blood not any d——d ‘inquiry’! Get out, sir, & blast you!”

I did so & immediately collided with Boerhaave. I asked him if he was going to lock
me
up in his cabin with his garter snakes, then hope
I
‘d hang myself before dawn? He showed his fangs and in a voice laden with venom and hatred, issued this warning: “The stink of decay is on you, Quillcock, no man of mine would touch you lest he contract it. You’ll die soon of your ‘low fever.’ ”

Notaries of the United States, I had the wit to warn him, do not vanish as conveniently as colonial cabin boys. I believe he entertained the notion of strangling me. But I am too sickly to be afraid of a Dutch sodomite.

Later
—

Doubt besieges my conscience & complicity is its charge. Did
I
give Rafael the permission he sought to commit self-slaughter? Had I divined his misery when last he spoke to me, interpreted his intention & replied, “No, Rafael, the Lord cannot forgive a
planned
suicide, for repentance cannot be true if it occurs
before
the crime,” the boy may yet be drawing breath. Henry insists I could not have known, but for once his words ring hollow to my ears. Oh, did
I
send that poor Innocent to Hell?

Saturday, 28th December
—

A magic-lantern show in my mind has the boy taking the rope, ascending the mast, knotting his noose, steadying himself, addressing his Maker, launching himself into vacancy. As he rushed through the black, did he feel serenity or dread? The snap of his neck.

Had I but known! I could have helped the child jump ship, deflect his destiny as the Channings did mine, or help him understand that no state of tyranny reigns forever.

The
Prophetess
has every inch of canvas aloft & is “sailing like a witch” (not for any benefit of mine, but because the cargo is rotting) & makes over 3º of latitude daily. I am terribly sick now & confined to my coffin. I suppose Boerhaave believes I am hiding from him. He is deceived, for the righteous vengeance I wish to visit upon his head is one of the few flames unextinguished by this dreadful torpor. Henry beseeches me write my journal to occupy my brain, but my pen grows unwieldy & heavy. We make Honolulu in three days. My loyal doctor promises to accompany me ashore, spare no expense to obtain powerful paregorics & remain at my bedside until my recovery is compleat, even if the
Prophetess
must leave for California without us. God bless this best of men. I can write no more today.

Sunday, 29th December
—

I fare most ill.

Monday, 30th December
—

The Worm is recrudescent. Its poison sacs have burst. I am racked with pain & bedsores & a dreadful thirst. Oahu is still two or three days to the north. Death is hours away. I cannot drink & do not recall when I ate last. I made Henry promise to deliver this journal to Bedford’s in Honolulu. From there it will reach my bereaved family. He swears I shall deliver it on my own two feet, but my hopes are blasted. Henry has done his valiant best, but my parasite is too virulent & I must entrust my soul to its Maker.

Jackson, when you are a grown man do not permit your profession to sunder you from loved ones. During my months away from home, I thought of you & your mother with constant fondness & should it come to pass […]
*

Sunday, 12th January
—

The temptation to begin at the perfidious end is strong, but this diarist shall remain true to chronology. On New Year’s Day, my head pains were rolling so thunderously I was taking Goose’s medicine every hour. I could not stand against the ship’s roll, so I stayed abed in my coffin, vomiting into a sack though my guts were vacant & shivering with an icy, scalding fever. My Ailment could no longer be concealed from the crew & my coffin was placed under quarantine. Goose had told Cpt. Molyneux that my Parasite was contagious, thereby appearing the very paragon of selfless courage. (The complicity of Cpt. Molyneux & Boerhaave in the subsequent malfeasance cannot be proven or disproven. Boerhaave wished evil on me, but I am forced to admit it unlikely he was party to the crime described below.)

I recall surfacing from feverish shallows. Goose was an inch away. His voice sank to a loving whisper. “Dearest Ewing, your Worm is in its death throes & expelling every last drop of its poison! You must drink this purgative to expel its calcified remains. It will send you to sleep, but when you awake, the Worm that has so tormented you shall be out! The end of your suffering is at hand. Open your mouth, one last time, handsomely does it, dearest of fellows … here, ’tis bitter & foul a flavor, it’s the myrrh, but down with it, for Tilda & Jackson …”

A glass touched my lips & Goose’s hand cradled my head. I tried to thank him. The potion tasted of bilgewater & almond. Goose raised my head & stroked my Adam’s apple until I swallowed the liquid. Time passed, I know not how long. The creaking of my bones & the ship’s timbers were one.

Somebody knocked. Light softened my coffin’s darkness & I heard Goose’s voice from the corridor. “Yes, much, much better, Mr. Green! Yes, the worst is over. I was very worried, I confess, but Mr. Ewing’s color is returning & his pulse strong. Only one hour? Excellent news. No, no, he’s asleep now. Tell the captain we’ll be going ashore tonight—if he could send word to arrange lodgings, I know Mr. Ewing’s father-in-law will remember the kindness.”

Goose’s face floated into my vision again. “Adam?”

Another fist knocked at the door. Goose uttered an oath & swam away. I could no longer move my head but heard Autua demanding, “I see Missa Ewing!” Goose bade him begone, but the tenacious Indian was not to be faced down so easily. “No! Missa Green say he better! Missa Ewing save my life! He
my
duty!” Goose then told Autua this:—that I saw in Autua a carrier of disease & a rogue planning to exploit my present infirmity to rob me even of the buttons from my waistcoat. I had begged Goose, so he claimed, to “keep that d——d nigger away from me!” adding that I regretted ever saving his worthless neck. With that, Goose slammed & bolted my coffin door.

Why had Goose lied so? Why was he so determined no one else should see me? The answer raised the latch on a door of deception & an horrific truth kicked that same door in. To wit, the doctor was a poisoner & I his prey. Since the commencement of my “Treatment,” the doctor had been killing me by degrees with his “cure.”

My Worm? A fiction, implanted by the doctor’s power of suggestion! Goose, a doctor? No, an itinerant, murdering confidence trickster!

I fought to rise, but the evil liquid my succubus had lately fed me had enfeebled my limbs so wholly I could not so much as twitch my extremities. I tried to shout for aid, but my lungs did not inflate. I heard Autua’s footsteps retreat up the companionway & prayed for God to guide him back, but his intentions were otherwise. Goose clambered up the hawser to my bunk. He saw my eyes. Seeing my fear, the demon removed his mask.

“What’s that you’re saying, Ewing? How shall I comprehend if you drool & dribble so?” I emitted a frail whine. “Let me guess what you’re trying to tell me—’Oh, Henry, we were friends, Henry, how could you
do
this to me?’ [He mimicked my hoarse, dying whisper.] Am I on the nose?” Goose cut the key from my neck & spoke as he worked at uncovering my trunk. “Surgeons are a singular brotherhood, Adam. To us, people aren’t sacred beings crafted in the Almighty’s image, no, people are joints of meat; diseased, leathery meat, yes, but meat ready for the skewer & the spit.” He mimicked my usual voice, very well. “ ‘But why
me
, Henry, are we not friends?’ Well, Adam, even friends are made of meat. ‘Tis absurdly simple. I need money & in your trunk, I am told, is an entire estate, so I have killed you for it. Where is the mystery? ‘But, Henry, this is wicked!’ But, Adam, the world
is
wicked. Maoris prey on Moriori, Whites prey on darker-hued cousins, fleas prey on mice, cats prey on rats, Christians on infidels, first mates on cabin boys, Death on the Living. ‘The weak are meat, the strong do eat.’ ”