David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Fay Li wonders if she’s wasting her time. Wasting your time? Mexxon Oil upped their offer to one hundred thousand dollars for the Sixsmith Report. And if they’re serious about a hundred thousand, they’ll be serious about a million. For discrediting the entire atomic energy program into an adolescent grave, a million is a snip. So keep searching .

The phone buzzes four times: a warning that Luisa Rey is in the lobby, waiting for the elevator. Li ensures nothing is amiss and leaves, taking the stairs down. After ten minutes she rings up to Luisa from the front desk. “Hi, Luisa, it’s Fay. Been back long?”

“Just long enough for a quick shower.”

“Productive afternoon, I hope?”

“Very much so. I’ve got enough material for two or three pieces.”

“Terrific. Listen, unless you’ve got other plans, how about dinner at the golf club? Swannekke lobster is the best this side of anywhere.”

“Quite a claim.”

“I’m not asking you to take my word for it.”

35

Crustacean shrapnel is piled high. Luisa and Fay Li dab their fingers in pots of lemon-scented water, and Li’s eyebrow tells the waiter to remove the plates. “What a mess I’ve made.” Luisa drops her napkin. “I’m the slob of the class, Fay. You should open a finishing school for young ladies in Switzerland.”

“That’s not how most people in Seaboard Village see me. Did anyone tell you my nickname? No? Mr. Li.”

Luisa isn’t sure what response is expected. “A little context might help.”

“My first week on the job, I’m up in the canteen, fixing myself a coffee. This engineer comes up, tells me he’s got a problem of a mechanical nature, and asks if I can help. His buddies are sniggering in the background. I say, ‘I doubt it.’ The guy says, ‘Sure you can help.’ He wants me to oil his bolt and relieve the excess pressure on his nuts.”

“This engineer was how old? Thirteen?”

“Forty, married, two kids. So his buddies are snorting with laughter now. What would you do? Dash off some witty put-down line, let ’em know you’re riled? Slap him, get labeled hysterical? Besides, creeps like that enjoy being slapped. Do nothing? So any man on site can say shit like that to you with impunity?”

“An official complaint?”

“Prove that women run to senior men when the going gets tough?”

“So what did you do?”

“Had him transferred to our Kansas plant. Middle of nowhere, middle of January. I pity his wife, but she married him. Word gets around, I get dubbed Mr. Li. A real woman wouldn’t have treated the poor guy so cruelly, no, a real woman would have taken his joke as a compliment.” Fay Li smooths wrinkles in the tablecloth. “You run up against this crap in your work?”

Luisa thinks of Nussbaum and Jakes. “All the time.”

“Maybe our daughters’ll live in a liberated world, but us, forget it. We’ve got to help ourselves, Luisa. Men won’t do it for us.”

The journalist senses a shifting of the agenda.

Fay Li leans in. “I hope you’ll consider me your own insider here on Swannekke Island.”

Luisa probes with caution. “Journalists need insiders, Fay, so I’ll certainly bear it in mind. I have to warn you, though, Spyglass doesn’t have the resources for the kind of remuneration you may be—”

“Men invented money. Women invented mutual aid.”

It’s a wise soul , thinks Luisa, who can distinguish traps from opportunities . “I’m not sure … how a small-time reporter could ‘aid’ a woman of your standing, Fay.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. Friendly journalists make valuable allies. If there comes a time when you want to discuss any matters weightier than how many french fries the Swannekke engineers consume per annum”—her voice sinks below the clinking of cutlery, cocktail-bar piano music, and background laughter—”such as data on the HYDRA reactor as compiled by Dr. Sixsmith, purely for example, I guarantee you’ll find me much more cooperative than you think.”

Fay Li clicks her fingers, and the dessert trolley is already on its way. “Now, the lemon-and-melon sherbet, very low in calories, it cleanses the palate, ideal before coffee. Trust me on this?”

The transformation is so total, Luisa almost wonders if she just heard what she just heard. “I’ll trust you on this.”

“Glad we understand each other.”

Luisa wonders: What level of deceit is permissible in journalism? She remembers her father’s answer, one afternoon in the hospital garden: Did I ever lie to get my story? Ten-mile-high whoppers every day before breakfast, if it got me one inch closer to the truth .

36

A ringing phone flips Luisa’s dreams over and she lands in the moonlit room. She grabs the lamp, the clock radio, and finally the receiver. For a moment she cannot remember her name or what bed she is in. “Luisa?” offers a voice from the black gulf.

“Yeah, Luisa Rey.”

“Luisa, it’s me, Isaac, Isaac Sachs, calling long distance.”

“Isaac! Where are you? What time is it? Why—”

“Shush, shush, sorry I woke you, and sorry I was dragged away at the crack of dawn yesterday. Listen, I’m in Philadelphia. It’s seven-thirty eastern, it’ll be getting light soon in California. You still there, Luisa? I haven’t lost you?”

He’s afraid . “Yeah, Isaac, I’m listening.”

“Before I left Swannekke, I gave Garcia a present to give to you, just a dolce far niente.” He tries to make the sentence sound casual. “Understand?”

What in God’s name is he talking about?

“You hear me, Luisa? Garcia has a present for you.”

A more alert quarter of Luisa’s brain muscles in. Isaac Sachs left the Sixsmith Report in your VW. You mentioned the trunk didn’t lock. He assumes we are being eavesdropped . “That’s very kind of you, Isaac. Hope it didn’t cost you too much.”

“Worth every cent. Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep.”

“Have a safe flight, and see you soon. Dinner, maybe?”

“I’d love that. Well, got a plane to catch.”

“Safe flight.” Luisa hangs up.

Leave later, in an orderly fashion? Or get off Swannekke right now?

37

A quarter of a mile across the science village, Joe Napier’s window frames the hour-before-dawn night sky. A console of electronic monitoring equipment occupies half the room. From a loudspeaker the sound of a dead phone line purrs. Napier rewinds a squawking reel-to-reel. “Before I left Swannekke, I gave Garcia a present to give to you, just a dolce far niente… . Understand?”

Garcia? Garcia?

Napier grimaces at his cold coffee and opens a folder labeled “LR#2.” Colleagues, friends, contacts … no Garcia in the index. Better warn Bill Smoke not to approach Luisa until I’ve had the chance to speak with her . He flicks his lighter into life. Bill Smoke is a difficult man to find, let alone warn . Napier draws acrid smoke down into his lungs. His telephone rings: it’s Bill Smoke. “So, who the fuck’s this Garcia?”

“Don’t know, nothing on file. Listen, I don’t want you to—”

“It’s your fucking job to know, Napier.”

So, you’re addressing me like that now? “Hey! Hold your—”

“Hey yourself.” Bill Smoke hangs up.

Bad, bad, very bad . Joe grabs his jacket, snuffs his cigarette, leaves his quarters, and strides across the site to Luisa’s hotel. A five-minute walk. He recalls the menace in Bill Smoke’s tone and breaks into a run.

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