by Steve Cash
“Be careful, Z,” Opari whispered out at me. “It is some distance to the ground.”
“I couldn’t fall tonight. Not now, it would be impossible.”
She smiled and kissed the knuckles of my hand holding the frame. “What do you see?”
“I see what I never have before.”
She laughed and turned, walking back toward the bed while removing the old barrettes from her hair. I watched her every move. She was as graceful and silent as Geaxi, with an added mystery in her step, as if she walked surrounded by a field of excited particles. I now knew one of her most intimate secrets. It is the reason kings, sultans, priests, and princes, even jealous empresses, have for centuries sought her presence and given her the same protection as their royal treasuries. It is not just the Stone of Blood, nor the gems that adorn it, nothing like that. It is something much more sublime and yet overwhelming, a knowledge every Giza and Meq has within them, but very few ever experience. Opari is a vessel of this knowledge, this experience. This is her “gift.” It is the most refined of all her “abilities” and in this world, in this form, her most powerful ally.
The experience lasts a little over an hour for Giza and can last two or more hours for the Meq. Beginning at approximately 10:00 P.M. and in various stages until about 12:30 A.M., through Opari’s touch and guidance, I had been shown this “gift,” this dance, this fugue, this impossible balance of control and surrender, and led to a sublime perimeter of possibilities and particles. I returned with a feeling of renewal I had never felt before. I felt connected to everything, to the…“Love impelled, that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.”
“Opari,” I said, ducking my head back in the room, “does it have a name?”
She was just turning out the last of the lights and about to climb into bed. “Yes,” she said through the sudden dark. “But the name is nonverbal. Do you…need a name, my love?”
“No, no,” I said, stumbling into the room.
“Come to bed, Z. I want you next to me.”
I bumped into the bed and crawled between the sheets where I found her skin.
“In the morning you leave,” she said. “Tonight, come dream with me.”
Not long after first light, I awoke to the voices of Owen Bramley and Mitch in the hallway. Owen seemed to be giving instructions and Mitch was saying, “I got it, I got it.” Then he was bounding down the stairs and I heard the sound of a door opening and closing. I sat up and glanced out the window. The sky was blue and clear and the sun was shining. If the time had come to leave St. Louis, I thought, at least it would be on a beautiful spring day.
As I dressed, Opari sang a song in Old French, a gentle Provençal poem she had learned from a troubadour a thousand years earlier. It was called an aubade, she said, and told the story of lovers parting at dawn.
We said good-bye at the bedroom door. It was much easier than I anticipated and lasted only a few moments. Opari simply reminded me that I must return; otherwise she would have to come and find me. I laughed and kissed her lips, which were moist and soft against mine. To this day, partings from the ones you hold most dear are a great mystery to me. They always seem to break your heart and fill it with warmth at the same time, a nearly impossible balance of feelings and emotion. Before she closed the door, Opari touched my cheek once more, then traced every feature on my face with her fingertips. Her last words were, “Au revoir, my love, and find a good place for Unai and Usoa to rest in peace.”
Owen met me at the end of the hall and handed over a packet of letters and instructions for various contacts along the train route and in New York. He had special letters written for a man in U.S. Customs and the captain of the ship on which we would be sailing, the Iona. He assured me that enough money to keep from worrying would be transferred to Barcelona and available to me upon arrival. He also said he had procured a private railcar for our journey, equipped with sleeping berths and a separate storage compartment for the coffins.
I looked across the hall to the room Ray had been using. The door was wide open but the room was empty.
“Where’s Ray?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Owen said. “He knocked on my door a good twenty minutes before sunrise and informed me he wanted me to find Mitch and tell him to meet him down at Union Station early. Never gave a reason. Just told me to tell Mitch. He was packed and on his way by dawn.” Owen adjusted his glasses and the two of us stood in silence for a few moments.
“Where’s Carolina?” I asked.
“She’s in the kitchen. She said to remind you if you didn’t say good-bye this time, you couldn’t come back.” He picked up a fedora that lay on a side table, then pointed with it downstairs. “I’ll wait outside for you.”
I had said my farewells to Star and Willie and Jack the night before. I wanted to see Carolina last. “Give me five minutes, Owen.”
“Take your time, Z.”
Carolina was standing alone in the kitchen, caught in a beam of early light streaming in from the east. She was facing the window, kneading a loaf of bread on the counter. Her hands were covered with flour and a small cloud of flour dust surrounded her, floating in the beam of sunlight. Her freckles stood out in bright brown patches across her nose and cheeks. A strand of hair came loose and she stopped to brush it away from her face.
I stood just inside the door and spoke before she saw me. “I was told I had better come see you or else suffer the consequences.”
“Z!” she cried, then relaxed. “Well, yes, that’s true. There would have been consequences.” She smiled once and returned to kneading the bread. “Z, I want you to come back swiftly this time. There is no requirement for you to remain after you have done what you must do. And it is not because I live in fear of that evil one, the Fleur-du-Mal. I don’t give him a second thought and I don’t want you to give a second thought to worrying about us. We will be fine, I promise.” She stopped and turned to look at me directly. “Come back, Z, come back soon.” She paused and smiled again. “And I will make sure Jack keeps your mama’s glove oiled.”
“That’s all I could ask,” I said, and started to leave, then turned back. “Don’t forget, Carolina, Opari carries one of these.” I held the Stone out in front of me.
“I won’t forget, Z. Now go. And what did you say to me once at Union Station when you were leaving? What was the phrase…egi…egibiz…?”
“Egibizirik bilatu,” I finished. She was remarkable and she was my oldest friend. “I’ll be back soon, Carolina. I promise.”
Things went smoothly and quickly at Union Station. Owen Bramley introduced me to Caleb, a black porter who was a friend of Owen’s and the first of several porters along our route who made sure we had everything we needed. Ray and Mitch were already on board and the train left exactly on time. Within minutes we were crossing the Mississippi and heading straight for the morning sun. By late afternoon we were approaching Champaign, Illinois, where we would be recoupled to another line and another train.
Mitch and Ray had become friends the first moment they met in St. Louis. They spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon exploring what they had in common, sharing stories and anecdotes about places and characters they had known in the life on the riverfront and the streets of downtown St. Louis. Mitch was fascinated with the criminal past that Ray knew personally, and Ray wanted to know all about running a nightclub. I wasn’t really included or excluded, just ignored. Ray never mentioned why he left Carolina’s early and Mitch never brought it up. However, I didn’t mind the time alone, I welcomed it. I was still getting used to the idea of leaving St. Louis so soon and so suddenly. I watched the flat farmland pass by, corn and soybeans, one farm after another. I fell into a reverie of reliving the events from the day before, including Ciela’s feast. While I was smiling to myself, recalling the way Opari looked across the table, I remembered a single moment that I didn’t quite understand at the time. She was facing Ray and they were both excited, smiling, talking about something,
when Ray suddenly dropped his smile and glanced at me. I think I turned to listen to Owen for a few seconds, then turned back and Ray was gone. He was absent the rest of the evening and I didn’t see him again until I boarded the train. Whatever had happened in that moment with Opari had affected all his actions since. Ray’s friendship meant too much to me to wait and guess. I had to find out what was wrong. Champaign, Illinois, was the place to do it.
On a sidetrack several hundred yards from the station itself, our railcar was uncoupled. While we waited for the other train, I suggested Ray and I get some fried egg sandwiches from the café inside. Mitch agreed, saying he had business with the porter, Caleb, and to make sure we brought him three sandwiches instead of one, with fried potatoes, if possible.
As Ray and I started down the long platform toward the station, we didn’t speak. Ray saw a bottle cap on the platform and picked it up, then tossed it down the tracks so hard and so well, I lost sight of it completely. But it wasn’t only skill that threw the bottle cap so far, it was anger. I saw it in his eyes.
I stopped walking and held back. “What happened last night, Ray? What did Opari tell you?”
Ray continued walking for another three paces, then stopped and turned slowly. There was a look on his face I will never forget and hope I never see again—a look of intense rage, anger, and profound disappointment. He slumped forward slightly, shaking his head back and forth. Quietly, he said, “Opari told me I had the same eyes as my sister.” He stopped talking and laughed to himself. It was his bitter laugh. “What the hell were you thinkin’, Z?” he asked. “How come you didn’t tell me you had seen Zuriaa? As far back as China, goddamnit! How come you didn’t tell me my sister was alive, Z?” He put his bowler back on and knelt down in a crouch, as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up any longer. He felt betrayed and cut to the bone. And I was the only one to blame. I had no defense or excuse. Opari was not aware that I had never told Ray about his sister. At the time, I thought it was better that he not know she had changed and was not the sister he remembered; however, true friends do not keep the truth from each other. No matter what my reasons were, they were wrong.
“It was a mistake,” I said. “A mistake I should never have made, Ray. And one I can never make right. I’m sorry. If you can’t forgive me, I understand. I can only swear to you that I will never make that mistake again. Ever.”
Ray removed his bowler one more time and held it with both hands, turning it, examining every square inch of the brim. He rose from his crouch and stood up facing me. The rage was gone. He cleared his throat and took his time. “You gonna tell me about her, tell me what you know?”
“Yes, everything, the good and the ugly. Right here, right now, if you want.”
“You don’t have to go overboard, Z. I forgive you. I know you probably meant well.” He winked once and turned toward the station and the café. “Just don’t do it again. Deal?”
“Deal.”
That night as we were rolling through northern Indiana and Ohio, on our way to our next change of trains in Cleveland, I told Ray everything I knew about Zuriaa, which wasn’t much. I told him how I had met her in China and recognized her immediately, exposing her as his sister and calling her by name. I told him of the shock in her eyes when I had said his name, and how she fainted on the spot in front of the Empress Dowager of China. I also told him about seeing her again in Carthage and watching her kill “Razor Eyes” without mercy, then ride away. I said Opari would be a better source of information because she and Zuriaa had traveled together for many years throughout Asia. There had been a falling out between them, the exact nature of which had never been explained to me. Lastly, I told him Zuriaa might have been in Africa doing business with or for the Fleur-du-Mal.
“What!”
“That’s right, Ray. He was waiting for Zuriaa and ‘Razor Eyes’ to deliver Star to him.”
Ray fell silent. He shook his head back and forth, then turned to me. “I ain’t seen her for over a hundred years, Z. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, Ray. I know.”
He paused. “A hundred years,” he said again, then in a whisper I barely heard, “Anybody can change in a hundred years. Anybody.” He picked up his bowler, which lay in the seat next to him, and studied it thoroughly. He shook his head again, then looked up and faced the window as our train continued east through the darkness.
“Ray?” I asked. “When are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
“Later, Z,” he said without turning around. “And you ain’t gonna believe it.”
He was nearly right. All night long, while Mitch slept peacefully in his berth, Ray told the tale of his travels and travails during the last twelve years. By the time we reached Cleveland, I could barely believe what I’d heard, and never would have if it hadn’t been Ray who had done the telling.
He began by informing me his “kidnapping” had turned out to be the greatest adventure of his life—the exact opposite of what I’d been imagining since that Christmas Day in Senegal. There were no terrors or tortures, no chains, no imprisonment or being held for ransom. In fact, after boarding the German yacht we’d seen anchored in the harbor, his abductor, Cheng, or “Razor Eyes,” made Ray an offer he couldn’t refuse. It was not a threat, but a genuine offer of a great deal of money, along with a fee attached for Cheng and the German ship’s captain to share. And he would not be required to “do” anything, other than be himself and accompany an old man on a quest through East Africa somewhere north of the Rift Valley. It was to be a search for a special one of the Magic Children, a girl the old man had known in his youth. He believed she had returned to her mythical homeland and he was determined to find it before he died. Cheng had been scouring the ports of Africa looking for one of us because the old man was positive that in order to find the girl, he needed someone of her own kind to help him. Completely by accident or providence, he had seen Ray and me coming ashore in Saint-Louis and decided to “surprise” the two of us, then make his offer. Because Ray wanted to create as much distance between Cheng and me as quickly as possible, he accepted the offer without hesitation. They set sail for East Africa, stopping along the way in the ports of Lomé, Douala, Swakopmund, and Luderitz Bay, then rounding the Cape and docking in the ancient port of Dar es Salaam, where the old man was waiting for them inside the walls of his private estate.
Ray was taken to an open courtyard covered in multicolored tile, laid in intricate geometric patterns, and introduced to Baron Ernst Rudiger von Steichen, the German-Austrian patriarch of a family and a business that spanned generations going back a thousand years or more. Their roots were in the lake country outside Salzburg. Their business was salt. The Baron seemed startled or puzzled at first, then shook his head slightly and smiled, asking Ray in English which would he prefer, tea or coffee? Ray liked the old man the instant he stared into his bright blue eyes and guessed him to be about seventy-five years old, but quick, slick, and charming as a riverboat gambler. The Baron assured Ray a considerable amount of gold would be deposited into a private account that would be established in his name, in Zurich, within a week. Ray could verify this before they ever left Dar es Salaam. After that, the Baron warned, where they were going or when they would return could not be accurately predicted. Ray said he would do it for nothing, but the Baron wouldn’t have it and insisted on paying him. Ray agreed and was immediately escorted by the old man to another part of his estate where forty or fifty men were busy sorting through massive amounts of supplies that lay strewn across the grounds of a polo field. It was a fully outfitted safari on the verge of departure. The Baron turned and told Ray he’d been waiting for him.
Six months later Ray had seen Mount Kilimanjaro and heard the sounds of the Serengeti at night. He had learned two languages and shared the campfires of warriors, herdsmen, fishermen, and kings. They had pushed on west to the shores of Lake Victoria and north to a river with three different names. This river and a reliable new guide would eventually l
ead them farther north to the remote area around Lake Turkana. From there, and for the next seven years, Ray and the Baron chased rumors and legends of the Meq girl’s origins. They never found a trace of her and by then the war had broken out, causing the Baron concern for his estate in Dar es Salaam. He decided with great reluctance to finally abandon his quest and return to protect his property. They made their way east to the port of Djibouti, where the Baron sold all his goods to local traders and procured illegal passage down the coast, avoiding any confrontations or blockades along the way.
The Baron’s estate was intact and the place became a safe haven for him and Ray during the early stages of the Great War, as it was fought in East Africa. The Baron confessed to Ray that he had a son and grandson who were both fighting for the German army, somewhere in France. He tried to persuade his friend, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, to arrange for their transfer to Africa. It never happened. When Dar es Salaam was under siege and then bombarded, the old man’s estate was destroyed. Baron Ernst Rudiger von Steichen was hit and killed by flying debris during one of the explosions. Ray said his own leg, arm, and five of his ribs were broken in the blast and it took him nearly a week to heal. Once he did, he contacted the Baron’s family in Salzburg. The Baroness Matilde, granddaughter-in-law to the Baron, sent a long letter in return, thanking Ray and giving him the sad news that the Baron’s son and grandson had both been killed in the war. In a postscript she asked Ray if he could somehow bring the Baron’s body back to Salzburg. She wanted to bury them all among their own family and ancestors.
War makes pirates and strange bedfellows out of almost everybody. With his abundance of street skills and plenty of money, Ray was able to smuggle himself and the Baron’s coffin by ship to the Black Sea, then up the Danube all the way to Linz, where he made connections to Salzburg. The trip was a difficult and dangerous journey, but Ray made it in less than four months.
