The Meq

by Steve Cash

  The peace was welcome and so was the time spent with Unai and Usoa. These were the last few days and weeks they would be as they were, as they had been for so long it was difficult to imagine. They had spanned an immense length of time with a conscious, living bridge of denial and survival and were on the brink of burning that bridge with another conscious decision that would both confirm their love and trigger their own mortality. The Zeharkatu. It was perhaps the greatest mystery of the Meq and the one I knew least about. I wasn’t even sure what to ask. When I did bring it up, I was surprised at their reluctance and shyness, as if they were as ignorant as I, but didn’t want it revealed.

  “Where will you go?” I blurted out. “What happens next?”

  We were sitting in the courtyard in the wicker chairs. It was a beautiful morning near the end of my stay. The sun was shining through the live oaks in warm pools of light and Usoa was pouring each of us a cup of rich chicory coffee. After a moment, Unai leaned forward in his chair, but before he could speak Usoa gently pushed him back and spoke for both of them.

  “We follow in the footsteps of your mama and papa,” she said. “In the old way.”

  “And how is that?” I asked.

  “We were with them when they decided to cross. We will do as they did.”

  She paused and looked at Unai, who took her hand in his.

  “Go on, please,” I said. “Where were you?”

  “We were staying on the island-city of Kilwa, across from Tanganyika on the East African coast. It was 1859. Your mama and papa arrived with the favorable winds from India, trailing a man who had supposedly done business with Opari. Ironically, it was the same man we were watching because we knew he did business with the Fleur-du-Mal. It was ironic because none of us ever found the man, but it was with us that Yaldi and Xamurra made their decision. The man’s name was Hadim al-Sadi and he was the current ‘sultan’ of an old Muslim family of trader-merchants that dealt in anything from gold and porcelain to silk and slaves, as long as it was profitable. Hadim’s family was said to have discovered an ancient trade route, older than the Sahara, that connected East Africa with West Africa through the kingdom of Mali. For centuries, the Fleur-du-Mal has been obsessed with Mali. Why, we have never known. The point is, we thought we had a link between the Fleur-du-Mal and Opari and we were excited. We thought we might find a way into her invisible world.

  “But as the months passed and we watched and waited, Yaldi and Xamurra became more abstracted and distant. Their interest waned, and, looking back, it is clear they were at the end of a much greater Wait, the Itxaron, only none of us knew it.

  “Then, late in the year, Baju and Eder came through Kilwa from the west on a Portuguese ship. Baju said he was making a survey of the stars in the southern hemisphere and seeking the lost African tribe that worshipped Sirius, the Dog Star. His interests were eclectic and ever-expanding and their visit was a surprise, but not unusual.

  “One morning, not unlike this one, we were all sitting on the abandoned walls of the old Gereza fortress, watching the everyday traffic of the harbor, when Baju casually mentioned there would be a Bitxileiho, a total solar eclipse, in Spain the following year. The news was not extraordinary, but for your mama and papa it crystallized every emotion and focused every vague yearning they had experienced for months. They looked at each other for a moment, smiled, then Yaldi announced to everyone that he and Xamurra would sail to Spain and cross in the Zeharkatu the old way, in the Pyrenees. His statement was shocking and grand. No Egizahar had crossed in hundreds of years and no one in our lifetime had crossed in our homeland, in the old way. I remember being a little jealous and greatly puzzled. You see, no one, including your mama and papa, knew what ‘the old way’ meant. When to go? Where to go?

  “Finally, Sailor had to be tracked down and asked what to do. It took another two months, but a day before their last opportunity to sail in fair weather, we got word from Sailor. His note said simply, ‘Sail to Biarritz . . . Trumoi-Meq will find you.’ ”

  Usoa paused and took a sip of her coffee. The sunlight streaked her cheek and flashed off the blue diamond in her ear. “And we shall do the same,” she finished.

  “Trumoi-Meq?” I asked. “I heard Eder mention his name once, but I assumed she was speaking of someone dead.”

  “Quite the contrary, Zianno. He is an old one, perhaps as old as Opari, and the only one who knows the mountains and ‘the old way’ of the Zeharkatu.” She leaned over and placed her other hand on top of Unai’s. “Finally,” she said. “He awaits us.”

  “But how . . . how did you know it was time?”

  Unai spoke from deep in the wicker chair. “It is like taking a breath,” he said. “How do the lungs know when they are full? I do not know, but they do, n’est-ce pas? We have breathed in long enough. We are too full of time and experience. It is right to let it go. It is right to breathe out.”

  “What about the Gogorati? The Remembering?”

  He shrugged and said, “You have found Opari, no?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Well, we now know she exists. And as Baju and Eder, your own mama and papa, and now Usoa and I have discovered, we look forward to our son or daughter being there, fresh and strong and less than a hundred years old. That is our wish, our dream. It is clearer to us now than it ever was imagining ourselves being there. It is best. It is right.”

  I stood up and walked to the fountain. Thoughts and images of Mama and Papa, questions and doubts about Opari, history, and mystery were all mixed up and racing in my mind one into the other like brushfires. I could not allow it. I turned and changed the subject.

  “What about this place?” I asked. “What happens to Isabelle?”

  Usoa looked over at me and laughed slightly. “You will be amazed to learn that he has asked and she has accepted.”

  “Who?”

  “Captain Woodget,” she said. “He has asked her to marry him and she has accepted, even though in her lucid moments she still considers him socially inferior.”

  I laughed along with Usoa and once again promised myself to go and see the old man. “How is he?” I asked. “And where is he, where will they live?”

  “He is fine. Crusty and ornery, but fine. And they will live on his family’s plantation, old property deeded to them after Andrew Jackson left. It lies on a tributary to Lake Pontchartrain, past Mandeville, and on the way to Covington.”

  “Covington?”

  “Yes. Covington, Louisiana. Why? Is there something odd about that?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “It’s just ironic, that’s all. The kind of irony that the Fleur-du-Mal might love. Has he ever been seen there? In that area?”

  Usoa looked over at Unai, then back to me. “No. Not that we know of,” she said and paused slightly. “But, as you know, we have made mistakes.”

  “No, you have not,” I said and walked over to where she sat in her wicker chair. I knelt down and took her hand in mine. “The Fleur-du-Mal is the mistake.”

  “Ecrasez l’infâme!” Unai grunted.

  I looked up at Usoa and she said, “Crush the loathsome one.”

  Three days later, I watched them set sail for London and Biarritz, their final destination. Farewells had already been exchanged, and as they boarded, I thought it was remarkable they still only carried two pieces of luggage: two finely crafted pieces of Italian leather, at least four centuries old. I watched them and thought of that moment as being the last time I would see them as they were, as I was. Then I thought about the chance of seeing them after whatever awaited them and realized they would be the only Meq I had known before and after the Zeharkatu. I smiled and looked forward to seeing them again, although I had no idea when or where that might be.

  I walked back to the St. Louis Hotel, making my way through the aftermath of Mardi Gras, where the exotic and the profane still lingered in every sight, sound, and smell. An ascent and descent bound so closely together, one was hardly distinguishable from the othe
r. An almost alchemical blend of real beauty and real beasts.

  Ray was waiting for me. I saw him from a block away, pacing the balcony outside our rooms and looking more agitated than I’d ever seen him. When I got within earshot, I called to him. He turned, located me on the street, and shouted, “I think I might of found somethin’, Z, you’ll have to tell me.”

  I kept walking toward him. He was gripping the iron railing so hard his knuckles were changing color. A spike of fear hit me in the chest.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I was directly under him and he was staring down. I could tell he hadn’t slept much since I’d seen him last.

  “Come on up,” he said. “It won’t happen until later, anyway. I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Come on up,” he repeated. “You ain’t gonna like it.”

  For the next few hours, Ray told me about what he’d discovered and he was right, I did not like it. I was shocked and more frightened with every detail, but never prepared for what I actually saw later.

  We waited until after midnight, then walked to Storyville. Ray said the “show” was only held once a night at around one A.M. We stood in the shadows of an alley behind Emma Johnson’s place on Iberville. She was probably the most notorious madam in Storyville, known for anything sexually out of the ordinary. The “Parisian Queen of America” they called her. She was a trafficker in practically everything, but specialized in young virgins and supplying young boys for aging homosexuals. There was no perversion too repugnant or difficult for her, no crime too low. She also produced what she called “sex circuses,” where deviations of all kinds were performed on a raised stage, surrounded by an audience. It was one of these we waited for, only this “show” involved a much younger girl—a child—a child Ray thought I might know. “It could be her,” he said. “It could be Star.”

  Security was tight. There were three doors on the back of the building and all three were guarded by various bouncers and thugs. Two of the doors were legal fire exits and well lit, but the third was off to the side and kept dark. It was the “stage door” and the one we wanted. Ray had already “greased the wheel,” he said, by incurring a debt from the two biggest members of the security force, who he said were “suckers for three-card Monty.” They both thought letting Ray and me slip in to see the “show” was easy payment. At precisely five past one, their backs were turned as planned and Ray and I walked out of the shadows and through the unattended door.

  Once inside, we instinctively found a corner of the room where we could watch without being seen. It was dark, as dark as you could get and still find your way. The only continuous light was a single, bare, blue light, hanging from a twenty-foot-high ceiling over a round stage in the center of the room. Matches flared occasionally in the darkness around the stage, lighting a cigar or cigarette and outlining the leering faces of the audience. In the brief flashes, they looked like ghouls to me. There was no way of telling how many there were. It was too dark. I asked Ray how many times he’d done this and he said, “Once.” Then the music started.

  It began with rattles and shakers, then the slow and steady beat of a conga drum, then another conga with a deeper tone, playing fewer beats, and finally a hum of voices, all male and chanting an obscure African dream song.

  The far end of the room was really a curtain. Two black men walked through, naked to the waist and carrying a ten-foot log between them, hoisted on their left shoulders. In their right hand, each carried a burning candle. Wrapped around the log, and clinging to it like snakes with their heads entwined, were a man and a woman, completely naked and glistening with oil from head to toe. They were motionless on the log, as if they were sleeping. The woman seemed to be a quadroon or octoroon and the man was coal black. They made their way slowly to the stage, through the audience, which was beginning to stir. I heard at least two low whistles from somewhere in the room.

  Once on the stage, the first man holding the log turned to face the other and they stood that way in silence for several moments, then the rhythm of the drums changed pace slightly and two more men appeared, carrying stone posts, which they set on the stage at precise positions and the log was laid between, then secured, so it was resting a few feet above the stage. All four men turned and walked back through the audience and disappeared behind the curtain. The human snakes on the log remained motionless and silent under the single blue light.

  A female voice; a lilting, beautiful soprano began what sounded like an aria over the tribal chant. Finger cymbals were added, then a lone violin came out of nowhere, weaving its way melodically through the rhythm of the congas. It was East and West, good and evil, pain and pleasure, discordance and harmony. I glanced at Ray. He was extremely uneasy and shifting from one foot to another, as if he could run away without moving.

  I looked back at the stage and the blue light flickered out, followed by the sound of a gong that reverberated through the room. The drumbeats picked up tempo and five red lights descended from the ceiling slowly, until they stopped in a circle above the stage. At the same time, something was rising out of the stage, directly opposite the sleeping snakes. It was in the shape of an oyster, maybe four feet wide and three feet high. When it came to a rest, the top half of the oyster unlocked and began to open. The sleeping snakes awoke, then fondled each other and began writhing and undulating on the log in very much a human fashion. Three-quarters of the way open, I could tell there was something in the oyster, something or someone where the pearl should have been. I took a step toward the stage and Ray grabbed my arm.

  “You make sure you’re sure, Z,” he said. “This ain’t no place for mistakes.”

  I took another step and stumbled, tripping over an outstretched leg. I fell to the floor in the dark. Whoever I tripped over kicked me with his boot and said, “Scram, kid!”

  On my hands and knees, I looked up at the stage; the oyster was completely open, exposed in the circle of red light from above. When I saw what I saw, my body jumped, as if I’d been electrocuted. I felt rage, shock, terror, and pity all at once, and violation in the deepest sense. There was Star, dressed as a miniature Aphrodite in a white gown, sitting on a raised bench inside the oyster, staring across at the human snakes achieving every possible sexual position on and around the log beam. Her eyes were glazed, but not from drugs. It was something else, something worse. It was as if she were sitting at the bottom of a dry well, staring up at a light, an escape that was too distant to believe in or hope for, a light without salvation.

  I screamed inside at the Fleur-du-Mal and his evil, his “aberration,” as it had been so delicately described. I stood up and started for the stage again, grabbing the Stone in my pocket as hard as I ever had. This could not go on.

  Suddenly the drums became thunder in my head and the finger cymbals sounded like great glass panes crashing to the ground. The beautiful soprano voice was shrill and loud as a siren. The low sighs and moans of the audience became a snorting, slobbering herd of beasts. I could hear the skin of the human snakes slapping as they increased their tempo and passion. I could hear the log itself groan against the stone posts. I could hear Star breathing. I turned and glanced at Ray. He was a frozen silhouette in the darkness, watching me.

  I took another step toward the stage. Then, from somewhere in the middle of the cacophony of music and noise, I heard my name. “Zezen,” a voice said in a low whisper. I stopped where I was and waited, focusing. “Zezen,” it said again and this time I knew the source. I looked up at the stage behind Star to a narrow opening, a slit in the oyster shell, and peering back at me through the shafts of red light were two familiar green eyes.

  “Bonsoir, mon petit,” the voice said, slow and steady. “I thought you might acquire this ability sooner or later.”

  I looked left and right.

  “No, no, mon petit. Do not try and deny it. You can hear me easily, can you not?”

  I stared back. “Yes,” I whispered. “And I suppose you can
hear me just as easily. Correct?”

  “Of course, of course. An ability that is a necessity if one is to survive against all odds.” He paused. “You look upset. Not because you are already missing your sycophantic little Meq watchdogs, I pray.”

  I waited and tried to gather myself. “Why do you do this?” I asked. “This is sick and unnecessary.”

  His eyes darted briefly to Star in front of him. “It is never too soon to start an education. You should know this, mon petit.”

  I pulled the Stone out of my pocket. I was gripping it so hard, I could feel it almost piercing the skin on my palm.

  “I would reconsider using your precious Stone, Zezen,” he said. “Look to the left of the child, by her throat.”

  I looked and there, not two inches from Star’s jugular vein, was the point of a stiletto sticking through another slit in the oyster shell. I knew he would use it without a moment’s hesitation. “Please, I beg of you,” I said. “End this. End this now.”

  “Oh, but now would be too soon. Just listen to that voice, Zezen.” The soprano was in full throat, building to a crescendo. “She could be Pamina in The Magic Flute, no?”

  I looked at Star’s face. She had the same blue-gray eyes as Carolina, even down to the same flecks of gold in them. The same mouth and hair and freckles, but her expression was lifeless, traumatized, and lost.

  “When will you let her go back to her mama?” I asked. “And deal with me. You know I won’t relent. I will not quit. I will find you.”

  “You shall only find me when I wish you to, Zezen, and you shall never find me when I do not. In revenge, I am afraid you are a novice and compared to some Arabs I have known, you are truly a child.”