The Meq

by Steve Cash

  “How can you get us out?” I asked.

  “You would not believe it.”

  “From where?” Opari asked.

  “From the old harbor,” Sailor said, and he looked at Opari, “near where the Topheth stood.”

  Opari’s dark eyes narrowed and her eyebrows bunched together. Though Carolina was blue-eyed and blond, I had seen her do the same thing occasionally at the mention of Georgia’s name. Then I remembered the Topheth from Eder’s story. It was the place where they had sacrificed slaves and children, where Sailor had held his hands over Opari’s eyes to keep her from seeing her sister, his Ameq, slaughtered in front of them. Opari reached up with her other hand and circled Sailor’s “ghost eye” with her finger. At first, he flinched and backed off, then closed both eyes and went inside himself, letting her fingertip follow the outline of his eye and cheek.

  “I still see her, Umla-Meq,” she said. “But only in my heart.”

  Sailor opened his eyes and he and Opari looked at each other for several moments, resolving something that had taken almost three thousand years to burn out and blow away.

  Then she turned to me and said, “It is because of you—” She paused and smiled. “It is, how you say, barre egin?”

  “A laughing matter,” Sailor answered.

  “Yes.” She smiled again and said, “I have never said the name out loud. It is because of you—” and she leaned over and kissed my cheek, then my lips. “Zianno,” she whispered.

  Sailor smiled also. A rarity. “These things occur,” he said.

  The moment passed as quickly as it came. There were voices coming around the hill and only seconds to get Star and the baby out of harm’s way. We all three ran to Star’s side and Opari said something to her in the ancient Berber dialect she understood. Star handed her baby weakly over to Opari. Sailor blew out the lamp and I kicked it over on its side along with Jisil’s saddle. I wanted it to look as if something violent had taken place, anything to confuse and delay Zuriaa and Cheng.

  I threw Mama’s glove in my pack and Sailor and I helped Star to her feet. She was able to stand and even walk, though it was slow and the voices were getting nearer. Sailor and I picked her up between us and we all ran for the low shelf and just made it around and down the hill before Zuriaa and Cheng came into view.

  Once we had descended a few hundred yards and were sure no one was following, Star wanted to be let down and we walked at her pace the rest of the way. She was pale from loss of blood and trauma of all kinds, but she never spoke out or complained. We followed Sailor through the darkness, winding back and forth down the slope and stopped at the place where he’d left his pack with the telescope and other things. A little farther on we stopped again and he picked up a second pack. From there, not fifty yards away in a grove of pine trees, we detoured and stopped to pick up Opari’s things.

  “You were that close?” Sailor asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Opari rearranged her pack so that the baby could ride inside and strapped the pack on her shoulders. The baby was safe, tight, and warm between her shoulder blades. We started toward the old harbor and she took Star’s hand in hers. The way was long and tedious and mostly in the dark. We used no lamps or torches and stayed close to the sound of Sailor’s footsteps. Along the way the young mother and the ancient young girl never dropped hands. Our final stop was an old fisherman’s shack next to what had once been a deep water port and was now marsh and lagoon leading out to the sea and the breakers of the Mediterranean. There was a long wooden walkway extending from the shack far out past the lagoon into open water. I saw a light in the east, but it was only a glow, a false dawn. The real one was still an hour away. I had plenty of time to think about the next day and that thought gave me a strange realization. I knew the year was 1918, but I had no idea what month or day. For some reason, I thought about the enigmatic message I’d read on the wall in the cave—where time is under water, where water is under time. I realized that I had no idea how I’d got to where I was. Then I realized it didn’t matter. When I looked around, I saw Sailor, Opari, Star, and her baby. Then I remembered that I didn’t even know if Star’s baby was a boy or a girl and realized that didn’t matter either. It was the living who mattered.

  Sailor stayed busy checking the walkway for missing planks and broken boards. Opari was looking after Star and the baby. She spoke to her softly in that old dialect and at one point Star’s eyes opened wide in a kind of shock, then accepted something. She turned her head to the side and calmly let Opari remove the rings and chains in her nose and ears. In a few minutes, I saw only the blond hair, the blue eyes, and the freckles. She looked down at the baby in her arms and smiled for the first time, then turned back to Opari. I could have sworn it was Carolina.

  Just then, I heard the hooves of horses. Only seconds later, Opari heard them too, and outside the shack I saw Sailor looking up the rutted road that led back to the ruins.

  I glanced at Opari. “Is it them?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I would know Zuriaa’s presence from years away, and easily when she is filled with this much, how you say, gorroto?”

  “Hate,” Sailor answered as he raced in from the walkway.

  “Yes,” Opari said. “She is hating.”

  What happened next, happened quickly. Opari made sure Star and the baby were safe and out of sight, then stood in the open doorway of the shack and told Sailor and me to stand behind her and wait. In moments, two horses approached down a short rise between the remnants of a gate and came to a halt ten feet from the shack. I saw the faces of the riders in the first few rays of real dawn. One was pathetic, paralyzed, sagging, dying, and empty. It was Cheng. The other wore no veil, looked exactly like Ray, and burned with fury behind her green eyes—Zuriaa.

  She yelled something at Opari in Chinese. I had no idea what she was saying, but I could tell she was offended at Opari’s presence, as if Opari had no business being there. Opari remained calm and told her to speak in English.

  “English?” Zuriaa shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “Why English?” she asked again and dropped her voice slightly, leaning forward in her saddle and finding me standing behind Opari.

  “You,” she said, staring at me blankly.

  Opari took a step forward. “You lied to me, Zuriaa.”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Yes, you said you would leave alone this business . . . this selling of the children.”

  Zuriaa paused a moment, then she spat out the words, “I was made to do it.”

  “By whom?”

  “You know the one, the only one who would.”

  “The Fleur-du-Mal?”

  “Oui.”

  Opari stood a moment in silence, then turned and glanced at me. “Why does he want this child, Zuriaa?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “I do not know.”

  I stepped forward next to Opari in the doorway. “But I do,” I said, “and you can tell him this will not happen.”

  “I . . . I cannot do that,” she stammered. She had trouble speaking to me, then I realized she thought I must be the only one who knew who she really was.

  “You will tell him that,” I said. And you will tell him who told you to tell him that.”

  “Where is he, Zuriaa?” Opari asked. “Where is the Fleur-du-Mal now?”

  Zuriaa glanced at Cheng, who was having trouble staying in the saddle, then together they spurred their horses to make a charge at the doorway. In the same instant their heels struck the horses, Opari and Sailor reached for the Stone that each wore around their necks, and held them out, tight in their fists, at arm’s length toward the horses. The horses snorted and stumbled, refusing to go forward, as if they sensed a cliff and a chasm and had the good sense to go no farther.

  Opari and Sailor had reacted instinctively. I’m not sure at the time if they knew what they were doing or if it was going to succeed. But it did and it made me think of the loss of the last t
rue gift my papa had given me—the Stone—and I remembered the one who had taken it.

  “Zuriaa,” I shouted. “Does Opari know about the gems that Cheng stole from the Stones of Geaxi and me?”

  “What?” Opari turned and asked.

  “And that Baju was shot and killed by Cheng?”

  “What?” Opari and Sailor said in unison.

  “And do you know, Zuriaa, that Cheng stole the Stone from me in Senegal? . . . The same place he probably sold Ray to a German, like a slave.”

  “What?” Zuriaa shouted from her horse.

  She whirled in one motion and threw the gems that she kept in her pocket into the air in the direction of Opari and the doorway. She spurred her horse and raced by Cheng, stabbing him in the heart as she passed. I never saw her reach for the stiletto, but it hung and dangled from Cheng’s chest before he and the knife fell together and the knife was dislodged, along with something else that rolled out from under him like an ugly black egg—the Stone.

  Opari bent down to pick up the gems. I watched Zuriaa disappear up the rise and back through the ruins, then I walked out to where Cheng lay dead and picked up the Stone. I tossed it to Sailor, who had to hold one hand up against the rising sun to catch it. Opari watched the black thing fly through the air and couldn’t believe it.

  “These things occur,” Sailor shouted to me.

  “Are you going to be saying that now, I mean, from now on?” I asked.

  “Many times,” he said. “Many times.”

  Then we all heard a strange sound that was growing louder by the second, coming in from the open sea toward the lagoon. A sound that made no sense to me, the sound of engines whining at full throttle over water.

  Sailor said, “Look.”

  I looked and what I saw came out of a dream, but was real. My dreams could never have been that rich. I saw two biplanes outfitted as seaplanes with wooden skids hanging underneath, the kind I had seen a photograph of in the desert. They were at a height of no more than two hundred feet over the water, approaching and descending.

  Sailor said, “Come on.”

  I grabbed all the packs and Opari helped Star and the baby. We followed Sailor out to the end of the walkway where the two seaplanes were landing in the lagoon. The big engines roared and the two planes fishtailed in the water as they slowed down and got their bearings. Then they pulled up one behind the other alongside the walkway.

  When I tried to see the pilot of the leading plane, at first there seemed to be no one in the cockpit, then someone small leaped out and onto the walkway. She had short dark hair under a leather cap, which she yanked off with one hand. With the other hand, she removed her scarf and goggles. It was Geaxi.

  “Hello, young Zezen,” she said. “I did not expect to see you here.”

  “Well, these things occur, Geaxi,” I said. “Where did you learn to fly?”

  “Canada, actually,” she said without hesitation. “But tell me, why are you here? Sailor said it would only be himself and possibly Opari.”

  “He was right,” I said. “Only he had the wrong Opari in mind.”

  “What?” Geaxi asked.

  “Never mind,” Sailor interrupted.

  Geaxi pulled her beret out of a vest and set it on her head, looking around for someone until she found her.

  “You must be Opari,” she said and they exchanged a long look loaded with information.

  “Yes, I am Opari.”

  “You have been missing.”

  “Yes, but no longer.”

  Opari took my hand in hers and held it against her chest, near to where her heart beat underneath.

  Geaxi looked at us both and smiled. “I see,” she said, “but that still does not explain—”

  “Never mind,” Sailor said. “We will have time for this later. Time is not our problem. I need to know if we have too much weight for the planes to take off.”

  “That should not be a problem,” Geaxi said, “but I will ask Willie.”

  She waved over the second pilot. He was a tall man, about thirty years old with a boyish face. He wore a British uniform, but everything was slightly unbuttoned or fitted him oddly. He had sandy hair and, except for a broken nose, a handsome face. He seemed completely at ease with Geaxi and was not startled to see other Meq around. There was something vaguely familiar about him.

  As he came close, Geaxi started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I have just remembered something,” Geaxi said, and with a deep bow and a wave of her arm, she introduced him. “Willie Croft, I would like you to meet my good friend, the Buddha, also known as Zianno Zezen.”

  Then the name and the face came together and rang a bell. He was the kid outside the train in China, the one Geaxi told I was the Buddha and he had believed it. The recognition was simultaneous and the tall man dropped his face, almost embarrassed.

  “Hello, Zianno,” he said.

  “Hello, Willie, but you can call me Z.”

  “Well, then, hello, Z.”

  “We’ve got a weak and wounded mother and a newborn baby, Willie. Will it be too rough for them?”

  “No, I shouldn’t think so, just a bit long is all.”

  “Good. How did you hook up with Geaxi?”

  “Well, it’s a long story,” he said. “Would you want to hear it now?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Do we have too much weight?” Sailor asked.

  “No,” Willie said. “We’ll make it.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked Sailor.

  “Tripoli, then Alexandria and on to England by ship, if it’s safe.”

  Geaxi took off her beret and slipped her leather cap back on. She fastened her goggles and wrapped her scarf around her neck. “Who flies with me?” she asked.

  Opari sat in the other plane behind Willie Croft, keeping Star and her baby warm and calm. I looked at her once as we took off and every other minute after we were in the air. The two planes stayed close and climbed to almost a thousand feet. Geaxi seemed born to fly and handled the experimental plane with ease. For a moment, I thought about Ray and how much he would have loved to be with us. In my heart, I resolved to find him and free him. We headed south, hugging the coastline, then east into and under the sun as it rose in the sky.

  Eventually, we flew over a strip of white sand that was scattered with the ruins of an old city. Broken stones and columns littered the area. The only structure I could identify was the remains of a Roman amphitheater. In the center, standing alone, was a small figure who looked up as we flew over. Even from a thousand feet, I could see the green ribbon and the white teeth.

  “What is that place?” I yelled at Sailor. We were sitting close, but the noise of the engine and the wind made it difficult to hear.

  “Sabratha,” Sailor yelled back. “The Fleur-du-Mal was born there.”

  I leaned forward and tapped Geaxi on the shoulder, pointing down at the ruins and the figure standing among them. Geaxi recognized him and couldn’t resist circling and waggling her wings. After one full circle, the figure knew who it was above him and what it meant. It was the first time I had seen his brilliant teeth bared in a grimace and not a smile.

  We flew on toward Tripoli and I forgot about the Fleur-du-Mal within minutes. Flying does that. The Mediterranean seemed as blue as Sailor’s star sapphire and the sky was bright and light. I looked over at Opari in the other plane and she was staring back, silently mouthing the first word she had ever spoken to me . . . “beloved.”

  I turned to Sailor and yelled, “By the way, do you know what day it is?”

  “Yes,” he yelled back. “It is your birthday.”

  He was trying to put on his goggles and having trouble with it. He finally tossed them over the side and let the wind hit him full face.

  “That can’t be true,” I said. Then I looked over at him and whether he was laughing or crying from the wind, I couldn’t tell, but his eyes were full of tears.


  “It is not true,” he said. “It just sounded good.”

  Then we both started laughing and he added, “I have no idea what day it is.”

  13

  PAR

  (LAUGH)

  Think of it like the two miners who were trapped and realized, once the dust had settled, there was no hope of escape. After countless confessions and a thousand tales of pointless regret, they decided instead to tell each other jokes until the very end . . . just to see who got the last laugh. The two miners were never found, but the others, the saved ones, remembered the echoes of that laughter for the rest of their lives. They all agreed it was the most genuine and contagious laughter they had ever heard.

  W e stopped five times on our flight to Alexandria—three times for fuel and twice for Opari to look after Star and the baby. Opari said the bullet wound was healing and the loss of blood was a concern, but both mother and son were doing well under the circumstances.

  “Son?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, then looked at me strangely. “Did you not know?”

  “No!”

  She laughed out loud and shook her head, then kissed me while she was still laughing. It was a rich, full laugh—not a giggle—and I laughed with her. I couldn’t help it even though I was the source of the joke. She was beautiful. Her dark eyes sparkled and danced. Her mouth opened and I almost wanted to count her teeth, they were so white and perfectly shaped. The sound of her laugh was free and spontaneous and I was jealous of all the others before me who had heard it. Much later, Opari would tell me it was the first time she had laughed in over a thousand years.

  Sailor took charge as I expected and I was grateful for it. He had a plan, which he and Geaxi had already set in motion, and he merely fitted Star, the baby, and me into it. It was unclear what he had in mind, but Sailor was the one who made sure Star got immediate medical attention after we arrived, not Opari or Geaxi. He told Willie Croft where to take her in Alexandria and even held the baby while she was helped onto a stretcher. Star could have made the trip under her own steam, but Sailor insisted on taking every precaution. I had never known him to put the welfare of the Giza before that of the Meq. It seemed very unusual, and even more strange, it seemed genuine.