The Remembering (18 page)

Geaxi said, “Do you feel like a spy, young Zezen?”

“No. I feel more like a criminal.”

“Even better,” she said with a laugh.

The air was warm and humid, and we walked south at a quick pace for nearly three hours. Geaxi seemed to know exactly where she was going. She told me she had spent some time in the region two hundred years earlier and even though many of the roads were now paved, they were the same roads leading to the same places. By late morning we had reached an intersection about thirty miles north of Sochi. Geaxi paused and looked around. An old school bus was parked off to one side. It was painted in stripes of at least six different colors, which were all fading and chipped. On both sides in bold Russian letters were the words
THE GREAT ZHORDANIAS
. As we approached, the doors of the bus opened and a tall, badly scarred, white-haired man in his early seventies stepped out. It was Giles Xuereb. Speaking Maltese to Geaxi, he said, “I was beginning to worry.”

Geaxi shrugged, then adjusted her beret and smiled. Also speaking Maltese, she replied, “Not to worry, old friend. After all, the show must go on.”

Giles looked down at me. A moment or two passed.

“Hello, Giles,” I said.

“Zianno … an unexpected pleasure. How long has it been?”

“Thirty-two years.”

“Yes … yes,” he said, pausing and glancing back at the school bus and the faces of a dozen Zhordanias staring out the windows.

“It is good to see you again, Giles. It is good to see you alive,” I added, both of us knowing I was referring to the Fleur-du-Mal.

He put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he whispered, then laughed out loud. He turned and gazed down the road to the south. Traffic was sparse, as it had been all morning. “Come with us. You must be hungry following such a long journey. We will find something decent to eat in town. After that,” he said, winking at both Geaxi and me, “we have a show to do.”

On the drive into Sochi, Giles introduced Geaxi and me to the Zhordanias, one by one. The youngest among them was twelve years old, a wide-eyed boy named Noe, and the oldest was in his mid-forties. His name was Giorgi, and thirty-two years earlier he had been the boy Giles first saw tumbling through the air upon his arrival in Zuratumi. Now Giorgi was the leader of their troupe and the anchor of the flying four-tiered human pyramid, the highlight of their act and the feat for which they were famous. When Giorgi was told that I was American, he became very excited and insisted I sit next to him. “We will talk,” he said, “and Giorgi will grow his English.”

We stopped for a wonderful two-hour meal at a restaurant called the Black Magnolia. Giles ordered
osciotr
caviar, along with
zakuski
, which included pickled herrings, cucumbers, cabbages, and beets, then
ukha
, or clear fish soup with potato piroshki stuffed with wild mushrooms, then fried filets of salmon with dill sauce and cucumber, and finally pumpkin
oladi
, or pancakes, with honey from the Altai Mountains. “Normally, we drink good Russian vodka with all this,” he said. “But not today. Today we shall drink good Russian tea.” While we ate, Giles described for Geaxi and me the sphere and the room in which it was kept. He said we would have to devise a plan once we arrived, depending on where we were to perform and the amount of security around us. “Whatever you do, you must do it quickly,” he warned. “If you are caught, all of us, including the Zhordanias, could be punished severely. We could even ‘disappear.’ It is not uncommon.” Geaxi and I nodded our understanding. After the meal, full and in high spirits, we boarded the old school bus and continued on toward our destination. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and our show was scheduled to begin at six o’clock sharp. There was no time for doubt or worry. I had to trust that what Geaxi taught me in just two days about acrobatics would be enough.

Nikita Khrushchev’s dacha was surrounded by a ten-foot stone and concrete wall with a heavy ironclad gate at the only entrance and exit. There were several outbuildings and two guesthouses, and the entire estate faced the shores of the Black Sea a half mile away to the west. To the east the snowy peaks of the Caucasus Mountains loomed in the distance. Fully armed and uniformed soldiers guarded the gate and patrolled the wall. After being told to stop, we were asked to step out of the bus while two of the soldiers, along with a large German shepherd, searched the interior thoroughly. Giles talked softly with the captain in charge, but none of the rest of us spoke and none of the other soldiers smiled or said a word. Twenty minutes later, we were allowed inside and directed to a service entrance at the rear of the huge dacha.

At least two dozen black Zil limousines lined the gravel driveway. Most of their drivers were gathered together smoking cigarettes, and as our noisy, multicolored school bus passed by, they all turned their heads to watch. At the service entrance, two men in dark suits were waiting for us. We were led through the kitchen and into a sparsely furnished, unused banquet hall, which was to serve as our dressing room. I could hear music, loud voices, and laughter coming from another big room not far from ours. One of the men asked Giles if we needed anything. Giles answered no, then changed his mind and said, “Perhaps some vodka … for celebrations afterward.” The man gave him a long, deliberate look, then said he would see to it and both men turned and left the room, locking the door behind them.

The costumes of
The Great Zhordanias
were each handmade and combined the same rainbow of colors that were painted on the school bus. Since the youngest of them, Noe, was about our height and weight, Giles had brought two more costumes in Noe’s size for Geaxi and me. As everyone began changing their clothes, Geaxi quietly asked Giles, “Where are we performing?”

“Judging from the music and voices, I would assume the great ballroom. It is only one room away.”

“Where is the room containing the sphere and the artifacts?”

Giles looked at both of us with concern. “Unfortunately, that room is located at the other end of the dacha, all the way down the long hall in the center.”

“Will it be guarded?” I asked.

“From what we have seen so far, I would say so. I would not be surprised if there were men stationed throughout the dacha. The Soviets distrust their enemies
and
their friends.”

Geaxi and I glanced at each other. We hadn’t wanted to, but now we knew we might have to use the Stones. “When will it be best for us to slip away?” Geaxi asked.

“After the performance,” Giles said. “I shall find a way to create a disturbance … a slight distraction,” he added with a wink. He looked around the room at the Zhordanias. Some were exercising and stretching, some were doing cartwheels and back handsprings with full twists. “Have you practiced what I told you?” he asked Geaxi.

Just then the banquet-hall door opened and the two men in dark suits reappeared, along with a third man, also in a dark suit, carrying several bottles of vodka on a tray.

“Yes,” Geaxi whispered to Giles, “we are ready, are we not, Zianno?”

I hesitated a moment, watching the three unsmiling Russians. “I hope so.”

At ten minutes to six, the music stopped. At five minutes to six, we were led down the hall and through the double doors of the great ballroom. Inside, everything was brightly lit by two gigantic and elaborate chandeliers hanging forty feet over our heads. Dozens of people, including teenagers and children, sat at long tables facing the center of the room. They were all applauding as we walked into the light. After a few seconds, a middle-aged woman to our right stood and motioned for the applause to cease. She then spoke to us in a loud, strident voice. “Before the performance commences, the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would like to welcome each of you personally. Please come forward.” This was unexpected. I glanced at Geaxi, then Giles, who was standing near the double doors. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if to say “nothing to worry about.”

Nikita Khrushchev stood between two of his aides. He was smiling wide and almost giggling as we approached. With Giorgi leading, we walked by in single file. I was last in line. He shook the hand of everyone and nodded without speaking; that is, everyone except me. For some reason, he decided to ask me a question about being so young and still being a professional acrobat. I froze. I understood the question and I could speak some Russian, yet I knew if I did, it would be with an obvious Western accent. He repeated his question and I said nothing. The Premier’s smile began to fade. My heart was pounding. Finally, I opened my mouth and just as I was about to speak, Geaxi stepped forward. In perfect Russian, she said, “I am sorry, sir, but my brother is mute.” Nikita Khrushchev looked down at me with pity, patted my head, and I moved on to join the others with a sigh of relief.

The show went surprisingly well. Using a boost from two other Zhordanias, Noe led it off with a dramatic triple flip, landing like a feather on Giorgi’s broad shoulders. Geaxi made all her moves with flawless precision, and I was adequate enough to not draw any attention or suspicion. During the final act, the famous four-tiered pyramid, Noe nearly scraped one of the chandeliers as he tumbled through the air, and the entire audience burst into spontaneous, wild applause. Waving to the crowd, we circled the great ballroom in a slow trot, then headed toward the double doors to make our exit.

Giles was waiting for us, whooping, hollering, and whistling louder than anyone else in the ballroom. Once Geaxi and I had reached the doors, he raised something in the air and turned, spilling and splashing the contents on the floor around him. It was one of the bottles of vodka that the man in the dark suit had delivered. Giles was feigning a state of drunkenness for all to witness. He took a sloppy sip and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, then made a wobbly step toward Nikita Khrushchev’s table. He held the vodka bottle above his head and yelled, “I propose a toast to our illustrious leader, Comrade Khrushchev, on the occasion of his glorious birthday!” He took another big gulp and seemed to
accidentally
drop the bottle. It fell to the hardwood floor with a loud crash, sending broken glass and vodka in every direction. Immediately, five men in dark suits, including two that were guarding the long hallway, rushed over to Giles, who had stumbled and fallen in a drunken heap. Geaxi grabbed my arm and we seized the moment, running swiftly down the length of the hall without anyone noticing. The whole event had taken less than thirty seconds—a perfect “distraction.”

The hallway was dimly lit, yet it was clear as we slowed to a walk that the room we sought was unguarded. And not only was the room unguarded, the door was unlocked and wide open. “Unusual,” Geaxi whispered. Both of us held our Stones at the ready, fully expecting we would need to use them. Without making a sound, Geaxi crept into the room. I glanced once back down the hallway, saw no one, and followed her inside.

Only a few lamps lit the cavernous room. One was near the door, on a table by a refrigerator and a small stove. The other two were in the far right corner, at either end of a large desk. The room itself was just as Giles had described it—high ceilings, large windows with iron bars on the outside, and cluttered throughout with hundreds of artifacts from all over the world, representing almost every culture and civilization. On first glance I saw an Egyptian sarcophagus next to an ancient bronze Chinese funerary urn with an African butterfly collection leaning against it. I saw an assortment of Babylonian ceremonial swords, along with Assyrian crossbows and an Aztec mask stacked up against a life-size marble statue of Aphrodite. It was an amazing, eclectic array of items and objects, all brought together in this one room without any apparent purpose or design. I looked around for Geaxi. She was standing in the far right corner and staring at something just beyond the desk with the lamps. “Here, young Zezen,” she said. “The prize is here.”

I hurried over to where Geaxi was standing, and as I made my way around the oversize desk, I noticed pages and pages of tracing paper spread across the desktop. They were each covered with odd-shaped lines, dots, half-moons, circles, and combinations of all four in multiple patterns. Several books on hieroglyphic languages, as well as books on codes and ciphers, were laid open on a bench next to the desk. Then I turned and saw the sphere. Perched like a circular egg on top of a wooden pedestal, the stone ball was perfectly round, and its polished black granite reflected the light of the two desk lamps. It was darker and slightly smaller than the one I’d seen in Cuba, but I could feel its silent power and mystery from where I stood. There were three bands of tiny markings etched into its surface, the same markings that someone had been copying onto the tracing paper. I knelt down and stared at the sphere in wonder.

“Beautiful, no?” Geaxi said.

“Yes … yes,” I mumbled. “More than beautiful.”

“Can you make anything of it, Zianno? Can you read it?”

“I … I don’t know. I’m not sure. Give me a minute or two.”

“Two is more than we can allow. You have one minute, then we must return.”

“All right, then,” I said. “One minute.”

I began by taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. I put my hands on the sphere and turned it, inch by inch, hoping to find a starting place in the bands of markings. But they were continuous, as if there was no beginning or end. I leaned in closer and examined each individual marking. Every single line, dot, circle, and half-moon was etched with the exact same precision, depth, and clarity. The sphere was a masterwork of stonecutting and stone polishing. Where had it been done? For what purpose, and most important, by whom? I had no answers, and the clock was ticking. Then, without thinking, I closed my eyes and let my fingertips dance lightly around the sphere, barely making contact with the markings, and something remarkable happened. Like a blind man reading braille, I suddenly understood one word—
West
. I read another word and then a phrase. It was the same phrase I had once discovered and deciphered in a cave in the middle of the Sahara Desert—
“Where Time is under Water, Where Water is under Time.”
I opened my eyes and turned to tell Geaxi, but she was no longer beside me. She was standing by an exhibit ten feet away, holding something in one hand and gazing at it with her mouth hanging open. “Geaxi!” I said. “I can read the sphere!” She didn’t respond or even blink. Her breathing was shallow and uneven. She seemed frozen, transfixed by what she was holding. I walked over to her and tapped her on the shoulder. Still, she didn’t respond. I looked down and saw that she was holding a skull. The skull was human, yet not quite like modern humans. The browridges were raised and much more pronounced. Also, the forehead sloped and the jaw was different. And it was most likely a child’s skull because it was too small to be that of an adult.