William Vollmann - The Atlas

You will die peacefully, he added. You know, some die of hunger, and some are hanged, but never you! You will meet death in a better way.

And I said again, with my palms under the pressure of the skull's fingers: How can I help Burma?

Better to give the help to the religious, the true religious, whispered the skull.

What he was saying was that I must not go against the stars, that I had no right to decide anything without asking permission of those who oversaw him.

* In 1993, a kyat (pronounced chat) was worth slightly less than a cent on the black market.

And yet some of you still disbelieve in astrology. For me those star-rays of influence are as reliable as the steely light-strings that the trolleys slide on beneath the Sunset District's gray skies. My wife and I used to live there, and so did another couple, a white man of ill luck and his wife, a Japanese whose face was a long slender triangle. Years after we moved away a sad thing happened; and that night I slept in the apartment of their sister-in-law, who was my friend. The sister-in-law had a Japanese doll that the Japanese girl had given her (she was always giving presents like drops of blood from her loving heart). This doll was as long as my arm, and more slender. Flat in shape, almost like an immense tongue depressor, it had been constructed from paper wrapped around a cardboard core; somehow it lived as a woman in a red kimono of white flowers, bearing a blue gift in her arms. She had Japanese pigtails and inky black Japanese eye-dots. A calligraphed cartouche ran down her. I thought that I knew the sister-in-law, but I had never seen this doll before.

The sister-in-law was moving away after seven years. After she left there'd be nobody I knew in this neighborhood anymore. Her new home was a room in a flat with other women. She could not take all her possessions with her. So she was having a garage sale, and the Japanese doll already had a price tag on it that said three dollars. — She's given me so many nice things, the sister-in-law said to me. I have another wooden doll from her. This one has been on my mantlepiece for years. I feel sort of bad about getting rid of it, but, you know, it's something that could make some little girl very happy. I would have loved it when I was that age. I hope a little girl buys it.

That night I could not sleep, partly because the living room was very stuffy, partly because for a week I'd had a fever that made me anxious, but mainly because I could not put out of my mind the Japanese girl sobbing in the kitchen as she'd told the tale of her days, pressing her cheek against my chest while her pure transparent tears splashed down onto my hands. 1 believe her husband was in the bathroom. So, as I said, I could not sleep (and the next morning the sister-in-law told me that she had not slept, either — although for different reasons, according to the stars). At three in the morning, overrun suddenly by such grief and loneliness that I was compelled to bite my lip, I sat up. I considered going in to the sister-in-law, just to hold somebody, anybody, but that would have been awfully selfish. So I took the doll in my arms. I felt better at once. Finally I slept.

In the morning the sister-in-law passed by on her way to the bathroom. — You know, you can have that doll if you want, she said. I'd be happy to give it to you.

Remembering how the Japanese girl's voice had been hoarse from so much crying, I thanked the sister-in-law but said I thought that keeping this doll would make me unhappy. After all, the doll had not been meant for me. If it had come from a person I never met, it could not do me any harm (for in astrology and voodoo we believe that auras have less power the less one knows about them). And I remembered that once the Japanese girl had said to me: No, if we must separate, I doan' want to see him again. Because I must forget him quickly, to find my new happiest. — And I knew that if the Japanese girl left her life, then she would leave her sister-in-law, too, and me, and everyone, forever. If I had a doll of hers, then that doll might pull her back a litde, keeping me a ghost in her heart that could not die. That would not be kind. So I sat up in bed and put the doll gently on the floor, knowing that I would never hug it again.

Years before, there'd been an October's day when we'd met at Anza Lake, which exuded a fog as livid gray as mercury, and the dog's wet fur stood up in clumps like tufts of reddish grass as she panted and snorted after thrown sticks, swimming narrow-nosed in the lake, waddling out and shaking herself, happy and alert in the clammy breeze. My wife stood plump-kneed, commanding, happily absorbed on shore, crying: Get the stick! Get the stick! Swim, swim, swim— good girl!

The Japanese girl and her husband came up the path. She called our names smilingly and hurried ahead to meet us. As I've said, she possessed one of those sweetly extravagant natures which long to make others happy, pouring themselves into work, gratefully returning every kindness a hundredfold. He'd found her when he was teaching English in Japan. Although I was happily married myself (I forget now if my wife was born on a Wednesday or a Sunday), I envied him his discovery. I too, as the Burmese astrologer well knew, have had many of my most joyous hours in being of service — or trying to; for many times one does harm meaning to do good. She at least I had helped, or so I believed. The first time I met her, she could speak only a little English. Her husband's Japanese was better that year than at any other period of his life, because they had just come from Tokyo, so he probably should have interpreted for her. But he was tired and had been doing that for months, and, as it happened, a friend of a friend had just given me a quarter-pound of marijuana — a princely gift, which (prince that I was) I mainly passed on to others. So the husband was in the kitchen, madly smoking the delicious herb, and I was left to entertain the wife, who was afraid of drugs. Now, it may seem that this situation demonstrates the sexual motive behind much of my supposed altruism — for why wasn't I content to have made him happy? But it was not like that. I had nothing against him smoking up all my marijuana. It was meant to be given away. But there was something so defenseless and good about her — a homesickness, a brave cheeriness to prevent others from being embarrassed by her own terrified incapacity. I had the sense that others had not perhaps been kind to her — oh, nothing cruel, but there were so many new Americans who could not speak English; maybe the longstanding Americans grew a little tired. I would not be one of them. I chatted with her, enunciating slowly, using simple words and pleasant ideas; and I could see that she was grateful; every moment I felt warmer toward her; and her husband smoked on.

A week or so later I bought her a dictionary and some English primers. Again she was grateful. The husband smiled a little distantly. I could see that she was ashamed that he did not thank me too; she cast him a look of shy reproach, which made me feel awkward; and I wondered if I had overstepped.

But we continued to be great friends, all of us. She prepared a four-course Japanese dinner for my wife and me (did I mention that they were very poor?). She was very intelligent and hardworking; her English continually improved. I was always happy to see her. Whenever we met, she came running into my arms, while my wife and her husband stood looking on.

So on this fall day as I stood inhaling the smell of eucalyptus and watching her come hurrying toward me along the edge of the white-wrinkled brownish creek, I found my arms flying open of their own accord. I watched her tiny feet flash through fallen moon-crescents ofleaves. — Hi, Jenny! she cried, waving gaily. My wife replied, unsmiling. The Japanese girl threw herself into my embrace and kissed me on the mouth. There was nothing wanton or teasing about her; she was only affectionate.