by Steve Cash
“Well, I suppose that’s it then,” he said. We were walking rapidly to catch up with the others. His tone was somber and he was looking straight ahead.
“Almost, but not quite,” I answered. “Carolina wants to bury them both in the ‘Honeycircle’ in back of her home. I’m sure it’s not legal.”
“The what?”
“It’s hard to explain. I think you better see it for yourself.”
Willie gave me a quick glance, raising an eyebrow. “If you say so, Z…and don’t worry about the legal bit. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Willie…for everything. I mean it.”
“Nothing to it, Z. It’s my pleasure.”
As we hurried to catch the others, we had to pass through the Midway, a 610-foot-long, 70-foot-wide concourse that connected the train shed with the Grand Hall. Halfway through I suddenly noticed Geaxi standing by herself and staring at a poster attached to the wall. I spoke to her, but she didn’t respond, so Willie and I walked over to see if anything was wrong. Of course, she had sensed our presence long before we got to her. She pivoted slowly and glanced up at Willie, as if she’d been waiting for him.
“What kind of aircraft is that?” she asked, pointing toward the poster.
Willie looked closely at the image on the poster, which was a biplane flying between clouds and banking sharply to the right. Under the image, along the bottom of the poster, were the words “Pilots needed—contact Marcellus Foose, East St. Louis, Illinois—if you can fly a Jenny, you can fly anything.”
“I believe that is a Curtiss JN-4,” Willie said. “The Americans like to refer to it as a ‘Jenny.’ Very reliable, but often difficult to handle, I’m told.”
Geaxi made no reply for several moments, then said simply, “I see.” She adjusted her beret slightly, and without saying another word or looking behind, started walking toward the Grand Hall. Willie turned to me for an explanation. I shrugged, then smiled and shook my head, once again realizing there is no explaining the inscrutable Geaxi Bikis.
With Geaxi in the lead, we made our way through the thinning crowd and into the Grand Hall. Willie stared up at the huge, barrel-vaulted ceiling and Romanesque architecture.
“Magnificent structure,” he said. “Never seen anything like it.”
“No, neither have I,” I said and meant it. The building was, and is, a wonder.
“Over there,” Geaxi shouted back at us, pointing toward our little troupe, all gathered around a shoeshine stand against the wall. The luggage was stacked on a large cart off to one side. Carolina was waving for us to come quickly.
When we reached them, she made the sign to keep quiet with her finger pressed to her lips, then leaned over and whispered to me, “Mitchell is teaching Jack about the shoeshine business.”
I squeezed between the others to get closer. What I saw was a handsome, young black man sitting in one of the raised chairs on the stand. He was wearing a tuxedo, complete with white tie, starched white shirt, and white silk scarf around his neck. A floppy, old snap-brimmed cap rested at an angle on his head, the only incongruity in his whole wardrobe. He was looking down and carefully watching a boy about my size, who was buffing the man’s patent leather shoes to a high sheen.
“You got it, Jack,” the man said. “Now whip the rag in the air and wrap it around my heel. Give it a good one-two, then snap your fingers and say, ‘That’s all, mister. There’s a shine that’ll stand the test of time.’ That old rhyme used to get me a tip for sure.” Then, as if on cue, the black man raised his head and found my eyes, breaking into a broad and generous grin.
“Mitchell Ithaca Coates,” I said.
“It’s still ‘Mitch’ to you, Z.” He paused and looked me up and down. “How you been, man? Did you get the bad guys?”
“Yes and no,” I answered. “You know how it goes, Mitch—it’s complicated.” I smiled back at him, then turned and reached for Star’s hand, pulling her forward so he could see her clearly. She held Caine, who had gone back to sleep, close to her chest. “I finally found this one, though.”
Mitch removed his cap slowly and marveled at what he saw in front of him, just as Owen Bramley had. “Well, don’t that beat the devil,” he said. “We been waitin’ for this day, but sometimes, well, sometimes I thought maybe…well, never mind what I thought.” Then he rose out of his seat and said to Jack, “Turn around, son, and take a look at your very own sister.”
For some reason the boy was slow to respond, as if he was shy or too afraid to look. Then I felt a nudge in my back and Nova pushed me aside and stepped forward. In gentle and even speech, she said, “It’s all right, Jack. It’s all right.” When he heard Nova’s voice, the boy turned immediately and gazed up at Star, the sister he had never known, the sister who had been kidnapped by the Fleur-du-Mal and taken to Africa, and the sister whose disappearance had driven their own father mad with loss and despair.
“Hello, Jack,” Star said quietly. She seemed to have an intuitive understanding of his shyness and waited for him to reply.
I watched the boy carefully. We were almost the same height and weight. He was wearing a cap similar to the one Mitch wore, which he slipped off and held with both hands. He had his father’s dark good looks and his mother’s gray-blue eyes flecked with gold. When he saw that Star had the same eyes, his expression brightened, as if their kinship suddenly became real to him; he really did have a sister and she was living, standing right in front of him, even speaking to him. I think he made an instant and unexpected compromise with a very old and very private enemy. “Hello,” he said with a half smile. “I’m Jack.”
Star laughed out loud. “I know, I know. Mama told me all about you.”
Mitch laughed along with her, rising out of his chair and brushing Jack softly on the back of the head. “Come on, everybody—I got two Packard Twin-6 touring cars parked outside. And I’m sorry, Miss C., about keepin’ Jack from seein’ you on the train, but I couldn’t resist the temptation when I passed by the shoeshine stand. I mean, shoeshinin’ was my life!”
“I know that, Mitch,” Carolina said. I looked up at her. She was laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s all right.” She stepped forward and put her arms around Star and Jack, who continued blushing and trying to hide under his cap. “Let’s go home,” she said.
We crammed our luggage and ourselves inside the cars, slipping and sliding in the dark and the snow, which had lessened, but was still falling. After leaving the traffic of Union Station and Market Street, the trip to Carolina’s house became a magical homecoming, with our own laughter and Mitch’s singing filling up the silence of the snowy streets.
“How long is this snow supposed to last?” I asked Owen Bramley, just as we pulled into the long drive leading up and under the brick arch of the big house. Every window glowed from the inside. I thought of a lighthouse, seen from the sea at night, after a strange and difficult journey. Only one word came to mind—“welcome.”
“They say until the day after tomorrow,” Owen said, “but who really knows?”
2. Pinpilipauxa (Butterfly)
Often when a child first catches sight of a butterfly, he or she may ask the question “Where did it come from?” Then someone, usually someone older and presumably wiser, might relate the incredible yet true story of the humble caterpillar and its metamorphosis into the angelic, magical butterfly—dancing on air, a completely new form, shape, dream, and destiny. That part is easy. Then the child may ask, “Does the butterfly remember being the caterpillar?” After that, it is never easy.
A week later the snowstorm was already a distant memory and had been replaced by an early spring breeze, coming from the southwest and filling the bare trees with a promise of new life and new beginnings. The aftermath of the Great War, followed by the Spanish Flu, had hit St. Louis hard, with thousands of local young men lost in Europe and no one knows how many, young and old, men and women, lost to influenza at home. It seemed the whole city wanted to forget the pain and loss
, and forget quickly. Our odd little family was no exception.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this change in attitude took place upon our arrival at Carolina’s that first snowy night. We all gathered in the kitchen after unloading our luggage in the oversized living room. Owen Bramley was going to sort out who was staying in which room and save Carolina the trouble of having to deal with it. As we entered the kitchen, I noticed a familiar figure standing by the stove, though her figure was slightly fuller and her hair was now entirely gray. She turned and stared at each one of us as we sat around the long table in the center of the room. She was Ciela—premium cook and the last of Carolina’s “working girls” still living in the house. She had an anxious look on her face and held a large wooden spoon in her hand. When she caught sight of Star entering the kitchen, laughing about something with Nova, Ciela did the same as Owen and Mitch had done, only she almost fainted. She dropped the spoon to the floor and backed up against the stove, putting her hand to her mouth and stifling her own exclamation, “Madre de Dios, Madre de Dios,” which she couldn’t stop repeating. Carolina would tell me later that for all these years, Ciela had continued to feel responsible for Star’s abduction and disappearance. She kept the guilt bottled up inside, exclusively her own, a cross that God had given her to bear. In one split second it all fell away, and it was nearly too much for her.
“Ciela, please, sit down, get your breath, relax.” It was Owen and he helped her into one of the chairs around the table.
“Madre de Dios,” she mumbled again, staring at Star. “A miracle, a miracle,” she said in English. Star walked over and knelt down next to her, taking Ciela’s hand and holding it. Then the tears came and Star embraced her, letting her release fifteen years of blame and shame.
Another good and necessary change occurred three days later when we buried Eder and Nicholas in the “Honeycircle.” The snow had melted away quickly and Carolina wanted to have the ceremony as soon as possible. On the day after we arrived, during a long walk together through Forest Park, she had told Jack the sad news about his father, whom he had not seen in five years. Jack took it as best he could, she said, and only mentioned a single regret—that he never got to say good-bye. She told him she felt the same way and to compensate for it, they were going to put Nicholas to rest, along with Eder, in the “Honeycircle,” a place more sacred to them than any cemetery. Jack liked the idea and even asked Carolina if he could help, which he did, clearing the space and digging the graves with Owen, Willie, and me.
After our work was done and the coffins were in the ground, Carolina mouthed a silent prayer over the grave of Nicholas, and Nova stared up at the sky above where her mother lay, then walked over and kissed something standing in the center of the “Honeycircle.” I had seen the object once before, far to the west of St. Louis, in a meadow high in the hills above Kepa’s camp. It had been her father’s most prized possession. It was Baju Gastelu’s ancient Roman sundial.
Carolina, Jack, and Nova all felt a sense of completion after the informal ceremony. I could see it in their faces. It was a solemn occasion, but there was not a trace of melancholy or remorse. They had each said good-bye in the best way they knew how, and the ones they had loved were still close to them, underground in the private garden of their own backyard.
Late that same night, I asked Nova how the sundial had come to be in the “Honeycircle.” She was in one of the upstairs bathrooms and the door was open. She stood in front of the mirror by the sink, washing the heavy eye makeup from her face. Her eyes were clear, but she looked surprised at the question, as if everyone knew about the sundial. I reminded her that Ray Ytuarte and I left on our long search for Star the day after she arrived, in the summer of 1904. There was no sundial in the “Honeycircle” at that time. Then, suddenly, I remembered a particular moment when Ray and I were leaving. I remembered seeing two large wooden crates, stacked together under the stone arch in the driveway. When I asked if they were his, he’d said enigmatically, “Don’t ask.” It had to be the sundial. Nova confirmed my theory. Eder had insisted that they bring the sundial from Kepa’s camp and Owen Bramley and Ray were responsible for the dismantling, crating, and shipping.
Then Nova did something rare for her. Nova continued to be a great mystery to me. With her Egyptian-style cosmetics and mascara, eccentric dress and manner, she often seemed to be in her own world, or at least her own version of it. But just then, she looked honest, innocent, vulnerable. She turned and held both my hands, glaring at me with her dark eyes. “What about Ray?” she asked, then in a kind of whisper, “Do you think about him like I do, Z? Do you think about him at all?”
I paused and drew in a deep breath. She had touched a nerve, though I didn’t want to admit it. I knew where his bowler hat was—just inside my closet—but I still had no idea where Ray was. “I think about him every day, Nova. Every single day.”
“So do I,” she said, turning back to the mirror and wiping away a tear, pretending it was mascara.
A few days later an early spring breeze came, bringing with it the wonderful, eternal feeling of renewal and the desire to forget and start again. We all welcomed it and it was good, but for Nova and me, there would still be one thought, one person, one question that both of us knew we would never forget.
* * *
Opari had not met anyone like Mitch Coates in all her long life. “There was one man, an Indian prince in Vishakhapatnam, he reminds me of in some ways,” she said, “but Mitch has, how do you say, a ‘joie de vivre’ that is all his own.”
“That is exactly how you say it,” I told her. “And I agree, except for one man you never met—Solomon J. Birnbaum.”
“Yes, Carolina has said the same.”
We were in the bedroom Owen had assigned to us, on the second floor at the far end of the hall. His own unusual bedroom and living quarters were behind the door directly across from ours. It was late Saturday morning, the first day of April. “What was the prince’s name?” I asked, curious because at that point in time, Opari seldom mentioned her incredible history or anyone in it.
“I do not recall the exact name, though I remember several seconds were required to pronounce his complete and formal name and title. I referred to him as ‘Skylark.’ He was an heir to great wealth and possessed the intellect of Pythagoras, along with a rich personality, which Pythagoras did not have.”
“You knew Pythagoras?” I asked with a smile.
“Yes, briefly, however I was in flight to the East and could not linger. I recall the prince was also a ‘Listener.’”
“A what?”
“A translated word for a member of a…bitxi…how do you say?—strange Hindu sect. They believed in organized, no, I should say symphonic ‘listening’ to the spheres for secret meanings, all of them gathering outdoors atop boulders and cliffs to the west, sitting silently for days, ‘listening’ for answers to the most mystical questions of the Veda. In Sanskrit they were known as Abisami, or simply the ‘samupa.’ They would sit grouped, facing all directions, but in such a manner as to never catch the eye of another. Skylark was a known master in this mute music and futile prayer. Their gatherings began in the season when Sirius rises in the east. Sirius, the Dog Star, the star the ‘samupa’ called ‘The Leader.’ According to Skylark, it was sacred to them. I have even heard rumors that remnants of the sect may still exist.”
“How did you meet Skylark?”
“That answer is for another time, my love. The real matter here is that Skylark became the only true Giza friend I could trust. It may have been because he had spent time with one of us—a great deal of time, enough to learn many more things about the Meq than most Giza ever know.”
“Who was the one in ‘one of us’?”
“Zeru-Meq.”
“Ah…of course.” I thought back to the brief time I’d spent with him in China—not time enough to know him well, but I knew I owed him a great deal. He had led me to Opari.
She said, “Mitch makes me
laugh; he is full of contradiction and surprise, yet he is a Giza I could trust. Much like Skylark.”
Mitch had awakened us earlier that morning. Just before sunrise, he knocked softly on our door in a distinctive rhythm, then slipped inside, holding a lit candle and whispering, “I want to invite both y’all to a party, a tribute to someone down at my place. Tonight.”
It was a surprise, but not a shock. Mitch had been coming and going at all hours, beginning the day after we arrived. In a week I learned how important he was to Jack and how indispensable he was to Carolina daily, while running his various enterprises all night. Opari was used to the random nature of Mitch’s visits; still, we did wonder when, or if, he ever slept. He wore a tuxedo, which was not unusual, but what he held behind his back was. Wrapped separately in white linen handkerchiefs, he slowly brought forward two long-stemmed white roses, their petals streaked with orange and red. Each rose was about to release into full bloom.
