Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell Page A

identity. Perhaps he used the same ruse himself, at Grieg’s in Oslo? “Without a thorough mastery of counterpoint and harmonics,” V.A. puffed, “this fellow’ll never amount to anything but a hawker of fatuous gimmickry. Tell your friend that from me.” I fumed in silence. V.A. told J. to put on a gramophone recording of his own Sirocco Wind Quintet. She obeyed the truculent old bully. To console myself, I remembered how J.’s body is under her crepe de chine summer dress, and how hungrily she slips into my bed. V. well, I shall gloat a little over my employer’s cuckold’s horns. Serves him right. An old sick prig is still a prig.
    Augustowski sent this enigmatic telegram after the performance in Cracow. To translate from the French: FIRST TODTENVOGEL MYSTIFIED STOP SECOND PERFORMANCE FISTICUFFS STOP THIRD ADORED STOP FOURTH TALK OF TOWN STOP . We weren’t sure what to think until newspaper clippings followed, hot on the telegram’s heels, translated by Augustowski on the back of a concert program. Well, our “Todtenvogel” has become a cause célèbre! So far as we can see, the critics interpreted its disintegration of the Wagnerian themes as a frontal assault on the German Republic. A band of nationalist parliamentarians strong-armed the festival authorities into a fifth performance. The theater, eyeing receipts, complied with pleasure. The German ambassador made an official complaint, so a sixth was sold out within another twenty-four hours. The effect of all this is to raise the value of Ayrs’s stock through the roof everywhere but Germany, where apparently, he is denounced as a Jewish devil. National newspapers across the Continent have written to request interviews. I have the pleasure of dispatching a polite but firm pro forma rejection to each. “I’m too busy composing,” grumbles Ayrs. “If they want to know ‘what I mean’ they should listen to my bloody music.” He’s thriving on the attention, though. Even Mrs. Willems admits, since my arrival the Master is invigorated.
    Hostilities continue on the Eva front. Of concern is how she sniffs something rotten between my father and me. She wonders, publicly, why I never receive letters from my family, or why I don’t have some clothes of my own sent over. She asked if one of my sisters would like to be her pen-friend. To win time I had to promise to put her proposal to ’em, and I might need you to do another forgery. Make it very good. The devious vixen is almost a female Me.
    August in Belgium is blistering this year. The meadow is turning yellow, the gardener is anxious about fires, farmers are worried about the harvest, but show me a placid farmer and I’ll show you a sane conductor. Will seal this envelope now and walk to the village post office through the woods behind the lake. It wouldn’t do to leave these pages lying around for a certain seventeen-year-old snoop to come across.
    The important matter. Yes, I will meet Otto Jansch in Bruges to hand over the illuminated manuscripts in person, but you must broker all the arrangements. Don’t want Jansch knowing whose hospitality I’m enjoying. Like all dealers, Jansch is a gluttonous, glabrous grasper, only more so. He wouldn’t hesitate to try blackmail to lower our price—or even dispense with a price altogether. Tell him I’ll expect payment on the nail in crisp banknotes, none of his funny credit arrangements with me. Then I’ll forward a postal order to you, including the sum you loaned me. This way, you won’t be incriminated if any monkey business takes place. I am already disgraced and thus have no reputation to lose by blowing the whistle on him. Tell Jansch that, too.
    Sincerely,
R.F.

    ZEDELGHEM
EVENING, 16th—VIII—1931
    Sixsmith,
    Your tedious letter from my father’s “solicitor” was an Ace of Diamonds. Bravo. Read it aloud over breakfast—excited only passing interest. Saffron Walden postmark also a masterly touch. Did you actually drag yourself away from