The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

is one fucking lousy name, Sergeant.” He looked for the bartender, and then spun back: “God above, what sort of faithless name is that?”
    I said nothing.
    Gurley leaned over and grabbed my chin with a bony hand. I later decided his strength was a mystery until you looked closely. He was tall and thin, but more than thin: skeletal, a look that makes some look emaciated and others as though they'd been hammered out of steel. He had an odd way of standing, too: he teetered occasionally, as though he were having trouble finding his footing. I wasn't thinking about any of that then, though. I was just trying to figure out why I couldn't snap my head out of his grasp. He kept talking, punching each comma and period: “A question requires an answer, Sergeant, not some subhuman gesture. Speech is what separates us-
most
of us- from primates. Are you a primate?”
    “No,” I said.
    “I'm not sure you got that quite right,” he said, somehow managing to squeeze harder.
    “No,
sir
,” I said.
    “Better, but still, not enough,” he said. “Are you a primate?”
    “No, sir,” I said.
    “As in monkey, chimpanzee,
o-rang-u-tan
.”
    No.
    “Mmm,” he said, and then took a step back to regard me. “Lutheran?”
    I shook my head.
    “Methodist?”
    No.
    “I'm usually quite good at this…Let's see… ‘Belk’… Presbyterian?”
    No.
    “Not-Episcopalian? Couldn't be.” He frowned, and then leaned close, put his nose at my neck, and sniffed. Once, twice.
    “No,” he said, stepping back stiffly once more, eyes wide with mock horror. “Good God, Belk,
Catholic?”
He looked me up and down. “A papist?”
    “Catholic,” I said quietly.
    Gurley looked around as if to call someone else's attention to the zebra that had just walked into the room. “
Catholic
, then,” he said, and knocked on the bar, signaling something to the bartender. “My family always, and I mean
always
, had Catholic servants. But that was us. Only the best. Silver spoon in my mouth and all the rest.”
    The bartender brought over a bottle of Canadian Club and a glass. Gurley nodded at him. The man poured. Gurley picked up the bottle, sniffed it, and set it back down.
    “Go,” he said, and the bartender was gone before I'd swiveled back around. He looked to me. “It's true. My mother had a preference for them-and so did I.” I lowered my eyes. “Catholic girls, Belk,” he said, and inhaled. “Are you Irish?” he asked.
    “No,” I said, and started to say something else.
    “Alas,” Gurley said. “There might have been the chance I'd ravished-fucked-a
cousin
of yours. Perchance a
sister
.” He looked at me. “Quite sure?”
    “Captain,” I began, eager to stop him before his claims progressed.
    “Sergeant,” Gurley began again, and then changed his mind. “But you must excuse me. I am better bred than my babbling tirade betrays.” He stopped. “Do you know what
tirade
means?” I nodded anyway. “Ah,” Gurley said. “I see two things. One, that you do not know the word's definition, and two, that you are a pitiable liar.” He drained his glass, then poured himself another two fingers and downed that, upper lip drawn back like he was swallowing vitamins. “So, knowing this, I am pleased to proceed with my experiment. Ready, Sergeant?”
    “Captain,” I said again, and that's all I said, because I was a kid and scared. I tried to think about what Sergeant Redes would have done. Earlier that day, I learned he had been lost at sea, and now realized some things are just out of our control.
    “Are you a good shot?” Gurley asked. I could hardly hear him for my booming pulse. In the meantime, it was as if he'd invisibly handed something over, some sort of false courage that ran through me and made me want to deck him, ready to deck him, in fact, if he made one more crack about me or his servants. Before that, though, I'd do myself and my faith proud by being as obnoxious as I wanted. Simple enough.
    “I'm a