David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

You’ll mem’ry I, Zachry, was curled in my hideynick in the Icon’ry, list’nin’ to Napes tellin’ that mildewy yarn to my unwelcome dwellin’-guest an’ showin’ Meronym his fam’ly icons o’ dead-lifes. He teached her their meanin’s an’ usin’s for a fair few beats, then Napes said he’d got to go fix nets, an’ off he went, leavin’ Meronym ’lone. Now he’d not been gone hardly any time b’fore the Prescient called out in the dark, So what d’you reck’n ’bout Truman, Zachry?

Oh, I’d got the shock, I din’t dream she knowed I was there eavesdroppin’! But she faked her voice like weren’t her plan to ’barrass nor shame me, nay, she faked her voice like we’d both gone into the Icon’ry t’gether. D’you reck’n Truman’s jus’ an old woman’s stoopit yarner? Or d’you reck’n it’s got some true in it?

No point me fakin’ I weren’t there neither, nay, ’cos she knowed I was there, no frettin’. Up I stood an’ walked thru the shelfs to where the Prescient sat sketchin’ the icon. My eyes’d got owlier in the dim, an’ I could see Meronym’s face prop’ly now. This place it’s got the holy o’ holies , I telled her. This is Sonmi’s dwellin’ you’re in . My voice’d got my strongest say-so, tho’ my eavesdroppin’ made it weaker. No offlander’s got no bis’ness trespyin’ thru our icons .

Meronym was politesome as I weren’t. I asked Abbess’s p’mission to enter. She say-soed I could. I ain’t touchin’ no icon but Napes’s fam’ly’s. He say-soed I could. Please s’plain why you’re frettin’ so, Zachry. I want to und’stand but I can’t .

See? That dammit Prescient thinked o’ your attacks b’fore you thinked of ’em yourself! You may be stoopitin’ our Abbess , I telled her, coolsome’n’mean now, an’ you may be stoopitin’ Ma’n’my fam’ly an’ the hole dammit Nine Valleys, but you ain’t stoopitin’ me nay not for one beat! I know it you ain’t sayin’ the hole true! Now I’d s’prised her for once, an’ a pleasin’ feelin’ it was to stop my skulkin’ an’ show my thinkin’s to the open day.

Meronym sort o’ frowned. I ain’t sayin’ the hole true ’bout what? Yay, I’d got Queen Smart cornered proper.

’Bout why you’re here sussin’ our lands! Sussin’ our ways! Sussin’ us!

Meronym sighed an’ put Napes’s icon back in its shelf. What matters here ain’t part true or hole true, Zachry, but harm or not harmin’, yay . What she said next was a spiker thru my guts. Ain’t you yourself got a secret what you’re hidin’ this “hole true” to ev’ryun, Zachry?

My thinkin’ went blurry. How could she know ’bout Sloosha’s Crossin’? That was years ago! Was Prescients workin’ with the Kona? Did they have some Smart what dug deep’n’dark lookin’ for buried shames in minds? I din’t say nothin’.

I swear it, Zachry , she said, I vow on Sonmi —

Oh, I shouted at her, offlanders’n’savages don’t even b’lief in Sonmi, so she’d got no bis’ness dirtyin’ Sonmi’s name with her tongue!

Meronym speaked calm’n’quietsome like always. I was way wrong, she said, she b’liefed in Sonmi, yay, even more’n I did, but if I pr’ferred it she’d lay her vowin’ on her son, Anafi. On his luck’n’life, she vowed, no Prescient planned no harm to any Valleysman, nor ever, an’ Prescients r’spected my tribe way way way more’n I knowed. She vowed when she could tell me the hole true she’d do it.

An’ she left, takin’ her vic’try with her.

I stayed a whiles an’ visited Pa’s icon, an’ seein’ his face carved in the grain I seen his face lyin’ in Waipio River. Oh, hot tears o’ shame’n’sorryin’ brimmed out. Head o’ Bailey’s Dwellin’ I was s’posed to be, but I’d got no stronger say-so’n a frighty lambkin an’ no springier wit’n a coney in a trap.

Bring me ev’dence, Valleysman , Abbess’d said, or hold your counsel , so now I thinked ev’ry moment how to get my ev’dence, an’ if I cudn’t get grasp of it honor’bly well, so-be-it, I’d have to sneak my ev’dence. A bunch o’ days later my fam’ly was over at Aunt Bees’s, with Meronym, ’cos she was learnin’ honeyin’. I came back from herdin’ early, yay, with the sun still ’bove the Kohalas, an’ I crept into our vis’tor’s room an’ searched for her gearbag. Din’t take long, the Shipwoman’d stowed it under the plankin’. Inside was littl’ gifts like what she’d gived us when she first come, but some Smart gear too. Sev’ral boxes what din’t rattley but’d got no lid neither so I cudn’t open ’em, an eerie tool what I din’t know shaped’n’smooth as a goat’s shinbone but gray’n’heavy like lava-stone, two pairs o’ well-crafted boots, three–four books o’ sketchin’s’n’writin’s in secret Prescient tongue. I don’t know where them sketchin’s was drawn, but it weren’t on Big Isle, nay, there was plants’n’birds what I’d not even seen in dreamin’s, nay. Last was most wondersome.

One big silv’ry egg it was, sized a babbit’s head, with dents’n’markin’s on it what fingers rested in. Its fat weight was eerie an’ it wouldn’t roll. I know that don’t sound senseful, but yarns ’bout Old-Un Smart an’ flyin’ dwellin’s an’ growin’ babbits in bottles an’ pictures zoomin’ cross the Hole World ain’t senseful neither but that’s how it was, so storymen an’ old books tell it. So I cupped that silv’ry egg in my own hands, an’ it started purrin’ an’ glowin’ some, yay, like it was livin’. Quicksharp I let go the egg, an’ it died dull. Was my hands’ warmness makin’ it stir?

So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered’n’appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head’n’neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’ ! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.

What did she do? Nothin’ but talk’n’talk, like I am to you. But not a norm’ly storyman she weren’t, nay, she was talkin’ in Old-Un tongue, an’ not p’formin’ none, jus’ answerin’ questions what a man’s hushly voice asked, tho’ he never showed his face. For ev’ry word I und’standed ’bout five–six followed what I din’t. The ghost-girl’s lips was fixed in a bitter smile, but her creamy eyes was sad so sad but proud’n’strong too. When I got ’nuff spunk I speaked up, I murmed, Sis, are you a lost soul? Ignored me she did, so I asked, Sis, can you see me? Fin’ly I cogged the ghost-girl weren’t talkin’ to me an’ cudn’t see me.

I tried strokin’ her cloudy skin’n’bristly hair but, I vow it, my fingers passed right thru, yay, jus’ like a water ’flection. Papery moths blowed thru her shimm’rin’ eyes’n’mouth too, to’n’fro, yay, to’n’fro.

Oh, eerie’n’so beautsome’n’blue she was, my soul was achin’.

Suddenwise the ghost-girl vanished back into that egg an’ a man took her place. A ghost-Prescient he was, this un could see me an’ fiercesome he speaked at me. Who are you, boy, an’ where is Meronym?

The Prescient leant nearer an’ his face growed. Growly’n’fangy his voice was. I asked you two questions, boy, answer ’em now or I’ll cuss your fam’ly so diresome no babbit’ll live past one moon old now nor never!

I sweated’n’gulped dry. Zachry, sir , I said, an’ Meronym’s howzittin’ fine, yay, she’s at Aunt Bees’s learnin’ honeyin’ .