Time Dancers (40 page)

“Speaking of Zeru-Meq, I thought he liked to arrive earlier than expected. Where is he?”

“I said he may arrive early, it has been one of his patterns, but nothing about Zeru-Meq is expected or predictable, my love. Zeru-Meq is his own umpire.”

“Yes, I know,” I said, groaning slightly. “I remember China.”

June 8 passed uneventfully and without a word or sign from Zeru-Meq. No one expressed concern. On June 13, the Browns played the Yankees in a doubleheader. Ray and I decided to go, even though we rarely attended Browns’ games. Both of us were anxious to see the second-year center fielder for the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio. Jack was covering the doubleheader for the
Post-Dispatch
and let Ray and me sit with him in the press box. In the second game, Joe DiMaggio smacked three home runs and made several great defensive plays. DiMaggio’s third home run towered over the center field fence and was caught by a kid who made a spectacular bare-handed catch. The kid waved the ball high in the air, then removed his cap and took several deep bows, which drew laughter from the big crowd. I couldn’t see the kid’s face clearly, so I borrowed Jack’s binoculars and focused on the center field bleachers, but the kid had already disappeared somewhere among the fans.

That night, long after dinner, Opari, Ray, and I walked the short distance to Carolina’s “Honeycircle” to have a quiet conversation about Nova. While we talked, Ray was catching lightning bugs and then letting them go. Opari stood by Baju’s sundial and I was sitting on the grass next to her. At one point, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow moving silently into the opening of the “Honeycircle.” I turned my head slowly. In the darkness, I could see the dark figure of a boy, standing with his legs spread wide and his hands on his hips. I panicked at first, remembering the Fleur-du-Mal’s figure standing over me in almost the exact same place the night he slashed every tendon in my knees and shoulders. I jumped to my feet and faced him. There was just enough moonlight to see he was wearing boots laced to the knees and some sort of gem on one hand because it sparkled in the faint light. He started toward me and I knew he wasn’t the Fleur-du-Mal.

“Zeru-Meq?” I asked.

The boy took another step. “I should think not,” he said, and kept walking until we could all see his face easily.

Opari laughed and said, “Hello, Sailor.”

Sailor tossed a baseball he was holding to me. When I caught it, he asked, “Did you see the catch, Zianno?”

I didn’t understand until I glanced at the ball. It was an authentic Major League baseball. “That was you today, the kid in the center field bleachers?”

Sailor didn’t answer, but asked if I was aware of the fact that the stitching on a baseball was remarkably similar to an ancient design for infinity. Then he asked, “Did you find the ‘List’?”

“Yes,” I said. “What about—”

Sailor cut me off. “I will explain later, Zianno.”

“But the letter from Zeru-Meq?”

“A necessary ruse,” Sailor said, glancing over at Baju’s Roman sundial. He stood in silence for a few moments admiring the ancient timepiece before he spoke. “Last week, on the eighth of June, in the Pacific and on the coast of Peru, there was a Bitxileiho. Totality exceeded seven minutes. The last time this occurred was over eight hundred years ago.” He paused. “Baju and I were there,” he said, then looked away quickly. He offered his arm to Opari and she smiled, folding her arm in his. “Shall we go inside?” Sailor asked, and started walking toward the big house before Ray or I could move.

“Damn,” Ray said.

“I suppose that means yes,” Sailor said over his shoulder.

I was surprised Sailor didn’t ask to see the “List” the moment we stepped inside. Instead, he suggested tea in the kitchen. Geaxi and Mowsel had gone for a walk in Forest Park. Nova was washing dishes and Jack was sitting at the table writing a letter to Carolina and Star. The popular song “My Funny Valentine” was playing on the radio in the next room. Sailor greeted Jack warmly, then walked over to Nova and embraced her. “How is my niece?” he asked quietly. I had never heard Sailor address Nova as “niece” and he seemed to be acutely aware of her recent fragile state of mind. Nova assured him she was fine. Jack left to turn the radio off and the rest of us took our seats around the table. Except for his boots, Sailor was dressed like any other kid in America. He even had a floppy, snap-brimmed cap exactly like the caddies at the golf course in Forest Park. He said he wanted to hear everything that had happened to Pello and his tribe in Spain. He knew there had been many deaths, but he wanted to know the extent. Opari prepared the tea while I tried to relate some of what Geaxi had told us about the bombing of Guernica. Sailor listened without moving. His “ghost eye” glazed and clouded and swirled. He was horrified. I hadn’t yet told him of Mowsel’s blindness when the kitchen door burst open and in walked Mowsel himself, followed by Geaxi.

Mowsel almost bumped the table. He stopped short and felt his way to an empty chair. He was mumbling something about glass greenhouses and light. Geaxi saw Sailor instantly and stood still in the doorway. Sailor watched Mowsel without saying a word. Then Mowsel suddenly fell silent and turned his head toward Sailor, but his eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling. He grinned and said, “Do I smell the sea or is that merely the scent of an old mariner?”

Sailor made no response. He glanced once at Geaxi, who said nothing. He moved his chair closer to Mowsel and held his hand up in front of Mowsel’s face. Mowsel continued to stare at the ceiling. Sailor leaned even closer. “How long have you been blind, old friend?”

Without hesitation, Mowsel answered, “Since Guernica.”

Sailor paused. “Do you think it is permanent?”

Mowsel dropped his grin and angled his head in the opposite direction. He seemed to be remembering something, maybe Guernica. “It is possible,” he said.

Sailor looked up to see if Jack was in the room. He wasn’t. Sailor’s jaw was set tight with anger and he twirled the blue sapphire on his forefinger round and round. I hadn’t seen him that way since northern Africa when he told me about the Greeks who traded and sold the bones of the Meq who had been slaughtered in Phoenician temples. Sailor turned to me. “These Giza…” he said bitterly, “they will kill us yet.”

Opari leaned forward and laid her hands on the table. “We cannot change the Giza, Umla-Meq.”

“No, we cannot, but the Giza are changing everything else!”

Opari waited for Sailor to look at her. When he did, she pressed one hand against her chest, over her heart and over the Stone of Blood hanging from a leather necklace beneath her blouse. “We will survive, Sailor. We are Meq…we must.”

Mowsel reached out and found Sailor’s face with his right hand. He gave him a gentle slap on the cheek and grinned. “Do not worry, Umla-Meq, I am well, and Opari is correct—we must survive.”

Sailor started to respond just as Jack entered the kitchen. Jack looked at me and said, “I thought you might want to use Georgia’s room, so I opened the safe.”

Sailor glanced over at me. “The ‘List’?”

“Yes.”

He stood and motioned for me to lead the way. “Shall we, then?”

As we left the kitchen, Mowsel fell in behind Geaxi, never touching her and matching her step for step without running into anything. Sailor watched his longtime friend with admiration and affection. I even saw the hint of a smile cross his lips.

With all of us in Georgia’s room at once, it quickly became close and crowded. Sailor stood by the Tiffany lamp and read Antoine Boutrain’s letter without reaction or expression, except for a single nod of his head, as if confirming something. When he was finished, Geaxi asked him bluntly, “What is this about, Sailor?”

Jack had left as we entered and there were only Meq in the tiny room. I realized for the second time in my life, all five Stones had gathered in the same place. The last time had not gone well.

“Zianno,” Sailor said. “Do you recall our final conversation in Norway? I told you the Fleur-du-Mal now had a significant weakness because we knew something he did not.”

“That there is no Sixth Stone?”

“Precisely, and I said we could exploit his obsession.”

“Yes.”

“Our opportunity has arrived and we must act soon.” Sailor’s “ghost eye” swirled. He looked around the room from face to face.

“I’m confused,” I said, pointing at the letter. “What does the ‘List’ have to do with it?”

“Zeru-Meq and I recently became aware of this ‘List’ in Singapore, quite by accident through a family he has known and trusted for centuries. The family had once conducted several clandestine affairs with Captain Antoine Boutrain. I knew nothing of this ‘List’ and I am certain the Fleur-du-Mal is unaware of its existence. Someone on the third list, the list of five names who associated with Xanti Otso, has a descendant we must find and find soon.”

“Why?”

“He or she will likely know the exact location of the castle where Susheela the Ninth is imprisoned. Zuriaa is there. The Fleur-du-Mal is not. He seems to be working again, and at fever pitch, as well as searching for the Sixth Stone.”

“Now I am confused, old one,” Mowsel said, leaning his head to one side.

“I concur,” Geaxi added. “Make yourself clear, Sailor.”

Sailor rubbed the blue sapphire on his forefinger. “Yes, yes, of course, you are right. I shall begin where it began, which was India six months after leaving Norway. However, I suggest we do this in another room. This room is charming, Zianno, but not for seven of us on a summer night in this city.”

“It should be cool in the ‘Honeycircle,’” Nova suggested.

“Indeed,” Geaxi said, starting for the door with Mowsel a step or two behind.

On the way out, I whispered to Sailor, “I recognized one of the names on the list of five names. I met him briefly in 1904…and he knew I was Meq, I’m sure of it.”

Sailor stopped walking, completely surprised. He still held Antoine Boutrain’s letter in his hand. “Who is it?”

“Sangea Hiramura.”

“Japanese?”

“Yes and no. He was Ainu.”

“Is he still alive?”

“I doubt it. He was at least seventy-five then.”

“Tell me about him,” Sailor said. His “ghost eye” almost glowed.

“I will…after you tell the rest of your tale. I want to know what’s going on.”

Sailor nodded once. “Agreed,” he said.

“There’s something else. Opari and I discovered an unusual object in Cuba, as did Geaxi on Malta, almost simultaneously. They are old, Sailor, very old, and I know they have something to do with us, maybe the Remembering, or at least one Remembering. They were found
underwater.
”

Sailor gave me a quick glance. He seemed intrigued, but turned and started out of the tiny room. “Later,” he said.

We walked to the “Honeycircle” in silence. Overhead, only a few stars were visible through a dark haze of clouds. Traffic could be heard faintly in the distance, but Carolina’s neighborhood was still one of the most quiet neighborhoods in the city.

Everyone sat in a loose ring around Baju’s sundial. Sailor sat on the sundial’s stone base, while the rest of us were sitting on the grass, or in Ray’s case, lying on the grass. Lamps inside the carriage house shone through louvered shutters and cast long bars of light across Sailor’s face. “As I was saying,” he began. “Six months after leaving Norway, Zeru-Meq and I arrived in Madras. We had not yet seen, heard, nor felt a trace of the Fleur-du-Mal. In Madras, we were hoping to find the family of his Indian accomplice, Raza. In that effort we were unsuccessful. However, while we were there, on a whim, Zeru-Meq attended a Hindi gathering at which the pacifist leader, Gandhi, gave a passionate speech. When he returned he told me he felt the presence of his nephew at the event.

“Why the Fleur-du-Mal was present is still a mystery, but finally Zeru-Meq had a trail to track. Zeru-Meq has several unique abilities he has learned through meditation; however, I also learned Zeru-Meq has an innate ability to follow the Fleurdu-Mal without seeing him. We are not certain how or why this occurs, perhaps the reason is because he is the uncle of Xanti Otso. Whatever the answer, he is only able to sustain this ability at a certain distance, which is always difficult to predict. The Fleur-du-Mal moves rapidly, as we all know, and particularly so when he is working. Nevertheless, we followed his ‘trail’ to Goa.” Sailor paused for a moment, stroking the star sapphire on his forefinger. Then, suddenly, he asked Mowsel if he remembered their first voyage to Goa in the late 1500s. “Was the year 1581 or 1591?”

Mowsel angled his head toward Sailor’s voice and frowned. “It is you who are the Stone of Memory, Umla-Meq…you tease me, no? It was during the winter and spring of 1591. A magnificent voyage; we discovered a great deal.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sailor said quickly, all the time twirling the star sapphire as he spoke. He continued to talk and he talked for half an hour. When he finished, Sailor had revealed more about the Fleur-du-Mal, his activities, his motives, methods, moods, and madness than we’d ever known before, even how he began to establish bases of operation in India, Ceylon, Singapore, China, and Japan going as far back as the 1550s. It was as if Sailor had been corresponding with him—intimately, psychologically. We also learned Zeru-Meq was not and had not been in Singapore. Sailor wanted the Fleur-du-Mal to think the opposite, thus the “necessary ruse.” The Fleur-du-Mal had discovered he was being followed. The false letter Sailor wrote had enough veracity in it to be believable and was purposely allowed to fall into the Fleur-du-Mal’s hands. Meanwhile, Zeru-Meq continued his surveillance and Sailor was able to make his way to St. Louis. He also told us the Fleur-du-Mal had been working covertly for a Giza government, assassinating several political and social figures, though Sailor didn’t know which government or what country. The assassinations had occurred throughout Southeast Asia and along the coast of China and were becoming more frequent. The Fleur-du-Mal no longer took the time to carve roses into the backs of his victims, Sailor said. The kill itself, however, was the same—a quick and clean slash of the throat from ear to ear.