by Steve Cash
The Iona slowly found her berth among the crowded waters of the old port. It was late morning and the sun was high and bright in a clear blue sky. Ray was excited. He said, “I heard this city is as wild as New Orleans.” Arrosa said she had never heard that before, but she did say, “Barcelona is unique among all cities.” She was very familiar with Barcelona and all of Catalonia. Her fluency in Catalan even helped speed us through customs and the stack of paperwork concerning the caskets of Unai and Usoa. We were each in a good mood, perhaps too much so. When Pello met us at the exit gate and I looked into his eyes, I saw a certain kind of pain that brought me back instantly to the true and somber reason for our visit—we were here to bury loved ones. I could see clearly that Pello had loved no one more than his father, Kepa Txopitea. The loss in his eyes was infinite.
“I…I am sorry, Pello,” I said.
He now wore a blue beret instead of red. He was leaning on his cane and shifted his weight slightly, then removed his beret. His hair had turned completely gray in the six months since I had seen him last. “Thank you, señor,” he said softly. “My father was an old man and lived a long, good life.” I could still see the soldier in the back of Pello’s eyes, but the shepherd was in his voice. Pello and Kepa had shared a deep and special bond. Kepa was in his nineties when he died and Pello was his youngest son. Ever since Pello was born, Kepa had given him the friendship of a brother, the love of a father, and the wisdom of a grandfather, all in one. That is a lot to lose.
Ray said, “Long time no see, Pello.”
“Sí, señor,” Pello said, and he noticed Ray was wearing Kepa’s beret. He looked at me, then back to Ray, then back at me.
“I thought Ray should have it,” I said simply, hoping I had not offended him.
Slowly, a smile spread across Pello’s angular face. “Sí, sí,” he said, leaning down to give Ray a warm embrace. He welcomed Arrosa and kissed her on both cheeks several times. She told him she was glad to be home and asked about Koldo, a name I had not heard her mention before. “He is with the motor cars in Zaragoza,” Pello answered. “He waits for us there.”
“Who is Koldo?” I asked.
“My son, Zianno. He and Arrosa grew up together in our family’s baserri.” Pello looked closer at Arrosa, then reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. Gently, he turned her face right and left. “You have become a beautiful woman, Arrosa. Koldo will be pleased to see you.” He smiled again and looked at me. “Come, señor, all is taken care of here. Our train leaves in three hours. Is there anywhere you wish to go? Perhaps the bank, no?”
“Yes, Pello. I almost forgot.” I gave him the name and address that Owen had given me. “Do you know this place?”
“Sí. It is not far, and near to where we have an appointment.”
“Where is that?”
“A district that is becoming notorious, I am afraid, in the lower Raval, between Sant Pau and the sea.”
“What sort of appointment?”
“Someone is waiting for us.” Pello explained no further and led the way out of the waterfront, walking with a cane and a limp, but never slowing down.
We found the bank within half an hour and were lucky to arrive when we did. They were about to close for the midday meal and a siesta. Pello made sure there were no problems with the transaction and Arrosa spoke Catalan with the employees. We were out in minutes. We walked down La Rambla until we entered the district Pello had mentioned earlier, the tiny network of alleys and avenues later known as Barrio Chino, or Chinatown. It was a haven for drifters, criminals, pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, and drug dealers.
Ray said, “Told you so, Z…just like New Orleans.”
But as we entered an alley off the Nou de la Rambla, I thought the district felt more dangerous and sordid than New Orleans ever had. The only obvious similarity was the fact that we were ignored as children. Orphans, refugees, and runaways were no strangers here. I saw girls with faces no older than mine leaning over the balconies and standing in the doorways of several brothels. The bars and a few cabarets were open to anyone, anytime. Pello walked with one arm around Arrosa’s shoulder and Arrosa welcomed it.
Finally, we paused in front of a bar and restaurant with a blue awning over the doorway. In cracked and faded gold letters across the awning were the Catalan words Las Sis Caracoles, or The Six Snails. It seemed the only pleasant odors in the whole district were emanating from inside. Pello led the way and we left the bright sunlight for the darkness of a bar lit with candles and a single lightbulb over the cash register. The bar itself ran along one side of the room and a dozen or so tables lined the other. We walked past two merchant seamen sitting at the bar and stopped in front of the last table, which was lit by a candle placed in the center. There was no tablecloth. The candle dripped and spilled over the edge of its holder and hardened in pools over the years of graffiti carved into the wood. Five stools encircled the table and we sat down on four of them. On the fifth, leaning forward, ignoring our arrival completely, and lustily consuming a steaming dish of calamari and black rice, sat Sailor.
“You are late,” he said, pausing for a large gulp of cider. “Pello, it is good to see you are well. You know what your father meant to me.”
“Sí, señor,” Pello said.
Without a mention of how or when he left the Iona, Sailor motioned to a man behind the bar and thirty seconds later plates of olives, marinated anchovies, white asparagus, and a salad I did not recognize were brought to the table.
Arrosa seemed baffled as well. “Que es?” she asked the girl setting out the dishes.
“Pulpo gallego,” she answered.
I looked at Sailor. “Octopus Galician style,” he said, then added with a wink of his “ghost eye,” “eat it, Zianno, it is delicious.”
So for the next hour and a half, we ate and drank. What little we did say concerned only where we were going from Barcelona. Sailor asked Pello about the weather, the snowmelt in the upper valleys, problems with the Spanish Civil Guard, what effect the Great War had on the Basque homelands, and whether a few old fishermen that he and Kepa had known were still alive. They were not.
As we got up to leave and started for the door, Sailor grabbed my sleeve and pulled me aside. “Do you feel it, Zianno?”
“Feel what?”
“Look around, observe. Go slowly. Look with your senses; look through this place, backward and forward in time.”
I did what he said and turned twice in a slow circle. After scanning every table against the wall and every stool at the bar, I noticed a room at the rear I had not seen before, dark and hidden from view behind a beaded curtain. I felt it immediately—the prickly sensation in every nerve end, the net descending.
Sailor saw my recognition. “He was here, Zianno, and not long ago. The Fleur-du-Mal was here!”
“Yes,” I said, simple and dull as a heartbeat. “He was.”
Ray walked to where Sailor and I were standing. He glanced at Sailor, then spoke to me. “Have we got a problem?”
“Sure do.”
Ray looked around slowly, then stared directly toward the room behind the beads. He rubbed the back of his neck as if something had tickled him. “And the problem has been here, right?”
I didn’t answer. He knew who it was. The three of us turned and walked out the door, hurrying to catch up with Pello and Arrosa. We had a duty and a promise to keep high in the western Pyrenees. Outside in the open air and sunshine, something else occurred to me. I looked at Sailor. “Was that an accident or did he know we would be there and feel his presence?”
Sailor kept walking. He was staring straight ahead, looking past or through a thousand faces in the street. His jaw tightened and his “ghost eye” narrowed against the light. “I do not know, Zianno.” He was angry. Usoa had told me long ago: “You do not find Sailor, he finds you.” The current circumstance had abused his pride as much as anything. “But we shall find out,” he said, “I assure you.” Because of the unpredictable nature of the
Fleur-du-Mal, I wondered just how long it might be before we knew the answer. It came sooner than I expected.
Pello and Arrosa were waiting for us on the broad promenade of Las Ramblas. Pello announced we had one more appointment, not a mile away, but instead of walking toward the city, we headed back in the direction of the waterfront. Most people were off the streets taking their afternoon siesta and Pello quickly found the narrow, almost invisible alley where our meeting was to take place. At the end of the alley was a tiny bar called Agua and inside there was only one customer, a boy sitting at a little round table near the open door. The boy was about twelve years old with dark eyes and dark hair curling over and around his ears. He wore leather boots laced to the knees, baggy black trousers, a simple cotton shirt with no collar, and a blue kerchief tied loosely around his neck. He was drinking a glass of beer and as he wiped his mouth after a large slurp, he smiled. He was missing a front tooth. A French naval officer’s cap lay on the table in front of him. He picked it up and tossed it to Sailor.
Sailor looked the cap over closely. “Am I to assume you are now serving the country of France?”
The boy laughed and motioned for us to sit. “I only serve the Meq, you old pirate. I thought you might like it.”
“Yes, well, it was a generous thought, Mowsel.”
Mowsel, or Trumoi-Meq, was the oldest living Meq. He was born before the time of Those-Who-Fled, several generations before Sailor and Opari. His independence was legendary and with his deep knowledge of our past, he seemed to me like a caretaker of all things Meq, a protector of “what was” along with great concern for “what will be.” It was likely that his unexpected appearance in Barcelona had an immediate reason and purpose. He and Sailor had known each other for almost three thousand years. In that time, they had developed a kind of shorthand between them. A single nod, shrug, or remark from one could tell the other all he needed to know. Sailor understood everything in seconds and knew with certainty that the Fleur-du-Mal’s presence at The Six Snails was no accident or coincidence.
“We found the room at the rear, behind the beads,” Sailor said. “How long has it been?”
“Less than a week,” Mowsel answered, then turned and looked at Ray, glancing briefly at Kepa’s beret. “You must be Ray Ytuarte,” he said. “I was told you were missing. My name is Trumoi-Meq. Call me Mowsel, Ray.” He took Ray’s hand in his, placed a cube of salt in his palm, and closed Ray’s fingers around it. “Egibizirik bilatu.” It was the most informal formal greeting I had ever witnessed.
Without hesitating, Ray said, “You bet.”
At the same time, Pello was backing out the door with Arrosa. He was well aware that Mowsel had something to say in private. He told us they would be waiting at the entrance to the alley, then pivoted on his cane and walked away.
Trumoi-Meq turned to me and nodded. “Zianno Zezen,” he said, grinning.
“Mowsel,” I said, nodding back. “How are you?”
“I am well, except I think you are already missing St. Louis, no?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“It is common, it is common. Now, you must listen to me.” Mowsel turned to face Sailor. “The Fleur-du-Mal was here to meet with Giles Xuereb, against Giles’s wishes, according to my source. He wanted the same information Giles gave to you—the possible location of the Octopus.”
“How?” Sailor almost shouted. “How was he aware that Giles had met with me?”
“You know our Xanti Otso, Sailor. He seems to have networks within networks.”
“What is the Octopus?” I asked.
“A box,” Sailor answered. “A very old box made of onyx and serpentine with the image of an octopus inlaid in lapis lazuli on the top. Its origin is unknown, but it was last seen on Crete in the city of Knossos, before the island of Thera exploded. After that, it disappeared. However, it is not the box, it is what the box supposedly contains that interests me…and the Fleurdu-Mal.”
“The Sixth Stone,” Ray said.
“That is correct, Ray. And, Ray, I think you should let Mowsel see those photographs you made in Salzburg. Now.”
Ray handed over the small packet with the two photographs. Mowsel studied them for only a second and the color seemed to drain from his face. He looked up at Ray and stared at Sailor in disbelief. “Hail, Hadrian! Am I to understand that these are portraits of Susheela the Ninth?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. Truly.” Sailor glanced at Ray and me. “I should have told you both on the Iona. Susheela the Ninth is a name I have heard before. For centuries, she was rumored to be the only Meq older than Trumoi-Meq. This is the first time there has been any proof of her existence. Also, there is a theory she is connected in some way to the Octopus, though all of this is speculation, or was, until Ray showed me the papyrus and the note.”
“Now I am confused,” Mowsel interrupted.
“I will explain all to you later, but tell me, Mowsel, do you know where he went from Barcelona?”
“He forced Giles to leave with him, using threats to his sister, I believe. They left for Giles’s Mediterranean farm.”
“Which one?”
“The one on Gozo. His ‘little home above the cave,’ as he calls it.” Mowsel then looked out the open doorway toward the entrance to the alley, where Pello and Arrosa waited. “You will have to leave tonight, Sailor. I found a ship for you, all of you, but you must set sail tonight. The captain is a former officer in the French navy. His missions these days are of a more independent nature. He knows of us and can be trusted. The Fleur-du-Mal is sailing on a much slower vessel, a passenger ship. This man will catch him if it is possible.”
Sailor followed Mowsel’s gaze with his own eyes. “Does Pello know we will be leaving?”
“Yes. He is at peace with it. You will not offend him. Pello, Arrosa, and I will attend to Unai, Usoa, and Kepa. Still, it is your choice. Each of you must decide what you must do.”
For Sailor there was no choice. His decision had already been made, and without asking, I knew Ray felt the same. In my heart, so did I. We were going after the Fleur-du-Mal and that was that. The guilt of breaking a promise and not saying a proper farewell to our friends would have to be the price. All paths of action have a toll. Revenge has several.
Pello and Arrosa walked with us to the docks. Awkwardly, we all embraced in a great rush. I would miss Arrosa and told her so, then thanked her for everything she had done. She smiled and said, “I think it is I, señor, who should be thanking all of you. Especially you,” she added, dropping her smile and looking straight at Sailor. Sailor nodded in silence. Pello told me I would have to come to the Pyrenees when our business was concluded and I promised I would, for Kepa’s memory and my own peace of mind. Mowsel said he expected to rejoin them on the train “somewhere between here and Zaragoza.” Then Pello and Arrosa were gone, into the streets of Barcelona and eventually into the mountains of northern Spain.
“Come,” Mowsel said, “we have much to do.”
The last rays of sunlight were fading fast by the time we had transferred and loaded everything we needed onto the Emme, our new ship and home at sea. At first glance, she appeared to be a simple, somewhat altered, small schooner, maybe sixty-five or seventy feet in length and no more than twenty across. In reality she was something else entirely. She had been cleverly refitted on and belowdecks with hidden state-of-the-art navigation equipment, armaments, diving accoutrements, and bolted down between two central bulkheads, a specially built lightweight Rolls-Royce engine that powered two concealed propellers in the rear. She had a shallow draft and could sail close to the wind. Painted dark blue and black, and almost invisible in deep water or at night, the Emme was beautiful, fast, and dangerous. I was impressed, as was Sailor, who commented that his favorite vessel to sail had always been the schooner.
It was obvious the ship had experience in clandestine missions. However, it was difficult to imagine from the appearance, attitude, and man
ners of the ship’s three-man crew and captain. The crew was young, late twenties or early thirties, and the captain looked to be only a few years older, yet they all were extremely polite and at ease around us. They each spoke softly, in English laced with varying degrees of a French accent. Two of the crew had neatly trimmed full beards, the third was clean-shaven, and the captain wore a goatee, which was sprinkled here and there with gray. Mowsel introduced him simply as “Captain B” and the others went by nicknames. Together, they made an efficient unit, practiced and precise, but relaxed.
We were given private cabins and Captain B led us on a short tour of his ship, pointing out everything we would need to know. Then he mentioned that if we got to the Balearics by midnight we might catch a good ride on a little breeze coming out of Africa. I looked at Ray to see if that could mean a storm was brewing, but he shook his head and mouthed the word “nothin’.” Captain B said we should leave soon and Trumoi-Meq asked if we could have a few minutes alone before we set sail. We gathered in Sailor’s cabin and Mowsel spoke to him first.
“This Giza, Captain B, is aware of who we are and can be trusted completely.”
“I assumed as much,” Sailor said.
Mowsel paused, staring into Sailor’s “ghost eye.” “I think we should attempt to contact Zeru-Meq.”
“No, no, please. A waste of time, I tell you, an absolute waste of time. That tree will not bear fruit, old friend. Ask Zianno. He remembers how troublesome that can be.”
I looked at Sailor, then Mowsel. “How can Zeru-Meq help?”
“Have Sailor tell you about the death of Aitor, your grandfather, Zianno.”
I stared at Sailor and my mouth dropped open. ”What do you know? Why have you never mentioned this before?”
“You never asked,” he said flatly.
Instantly, blood came rushing to my face. I was glaring at Sailor. “That is no excuse!”
