If only I could be like the tree at the river’s edge Every year turning green again!
6. MAMU (GHOST)
I remember the sound of a dog barking; more than anything else I remember that. As I walked toward Solomon and the carriage, I heard in the distance a dog barking in a steady cadence, like a chant, and urgent. I was sure there was someone trapped in the wreckage, but alive, and the dog was barking for anyone to come and look; find them; save them. No one else seemed to hear it. I stopped walking and looked past the carriage in the direction of the sound. Then he spoke and the barking stopped.
“It is long time since we see each other — eh, Zianno?”
Was it really Solomon standing there speaking to me? I didn’t know until that moment how much I had truly missed my good friend.
“I must say, Z, my partner, you look much the same.” He winked and made a formal bow, waving his top hat in a low arc across his body before placing it carefully on his head as he rose.
I laughed out loud. “I wish I could say the same for you, old friend.”
“What? You must mean these rags?” he said, pulling at the trousers of his very expensive suit. “Or zis?” He yanked on his full white beard. “I am same man, Z. Solomon J. Birnbaum I am, was, and shall be.”
“We thought you might be dead. You know that, don’t you?”
“Dead I am not.” He paused and took another slow turn, surveying the refuse and debris that had once been a neighborhood and Mrs. Bennings’s House. Speaking more to himself, he said, “We should have been here two days ago. We were delayed. by the weather.” He looked once at Carolina, who was staring at him hollow-eyed, and he glanced at Ray standing easy in his bowler hat. He turned back to me. “We will talk of all zis later. Now, come. Come and meet Sailor.”
The sun was glinting off the polished black surface of the carriage. Shading my eyes, I stepped between Solomon and the Chinese man holding the door open. As I passed Solomon, I whispered, “How did this happen?”
He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Business,” was all he said.
A single shaft of light cut through the darkness of the carriage, catching as it did a hand reaching from the shadows; a hand just like mine but for a small ring on the first finger. It was a ring made of star sapphire set in silver and six different rays of color shot out from it in the light. I grabbed the hand and was helped into the carriage and onto the bench.
“Happy birthday, I believe, is a proper opening.”
The voice came from the shadows. It was a measured voice; a voice that accented each syllable evenly; a voice that had studied this language and learned it as it had a hundred others.
“I had forgotten,” I said. “As you probably know, they start to seem the same.”
“Ah, but that is not true, Zianno.” He leaned forward out of the shadows, putting his elbows across his knees. I could see him clearly now. “Birthdays are not the same, not a one of them. Whether out of longing or loathing, you must remember each of them fully, if for nothing else — a testament to your survival.”
I heard him talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was finally seeing, in the flesh, this man-boy I had been looking for half my life. I ran my eyes over him. He wore leather boots like Unai and Usoa, laced to the knees. Tucked into them, black silk trousers held at the waist by an old leather belt with a brass buckle. He wore a burgundy silk tunic open at the neck, and hanging from a single leather strap worn as a necklace were the Stones. His hair was dark and cut short, except for one braid that hung from behind his left ear down to his shoulder, tied with a tassel and an oval of lapis lazuli. His eyes were dark as coffee beans and one of them, his right, had the only physical imperfection I’d seen in any of us. Around the iris, his eye was gray and cloudy instead of white. He was smiling. It was a shy smile, unexpected but genuine.
“I call it my ‘ghost eye,’ ” he said, aware that I was staring.
“Your name is Sailor?”
“Yes, most call me that.”
“I have been searching for you for much of my life. Now I don’t know what to say. The last thing Mama said was ‘Find Umla-Meq; find Sailor.’ Now, at least, I have found you. Umla-Meq remains a mystery to me.”
He was still smiling. “Then your journey is over, Zianno.”
“What? How do you mean?”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out something small and holding it in his fist. “Let me introduce myself,” he said, dropping his smile. “I am Umla-Meq, Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Berones, protectors of the Stone of Memory.”
“You mean, you’re the same person?”
“Yes. Your mother, Xamurra, must have been trying to tell you, but there was too much to tell and too little time.”
I looked out of the window of the carriage. I thought, “I am here, Mama, I have made it. I have done what you asked.” I felt something touch my hand and I glanced down at it. Nothing had.
“It was her touch,” he said, “it is common.”
I looked at him and then out of the window again. Solomon was talking to Carolina, holding her hand. Ray was kneeling down listening to him, but stealing glances at the carriage. The dog was barking again somewhere in the distance. I turned to look in the face of this boy, this ancient boy who I realized had found me, just like Usoa had said. I had not found him.
“Open your hand, Zianno. Open your hand and hold it out, palm up. I wish to give you the oldest Meq greeting and exchange.”
I held out my hand and he placed a cube of salt in it and closed my fingers. In a very low voice he said, “
I asked him what it meant and he said it roughly translated as “the long-living truth, well searched for.” I told him I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start. He said he would be glad to answer anything he could because that was part of the exchange in the giving of salt. It was the first exchange and the most important; when others are lost and questions asked, answers will be given. Then he did something strange. He told me to turn my head and look in the light. He knelt down and came in close, searching my eyes.
“You have seen the Fleur-du-Mal, have you not? He has burned himself inside you, has he not?”
I lowered my eyes and eased back against the seat, out of the light. “Yes,” I said. The same rage and sense of vengeance I had felt talking to Ray came rushing back to the surface.
“I have an offer to make to you, Zianno. It will involve the feelings you have toward the Fleur-du-Mal.”
Suddenly there was a commotion outside and I heard Solomon’s voice rising and coming toward us talking to the Chinese man. The door swung wide and Solomon thrust his head in.
“Zis young woman needs food and rest, Z!” He was red in the face and his eyes were watery. “She told me everything, everything that happened. Great Yahweh, Z! If only. ” He trailed off and turned to the Chinese man, talking belligerently about having enough room and not to worry. I looked at Sailor and he was smiling again, but not at me, at Solomon. Then Solomon was waving his arms for Carolina and Ray to get in the carriage and for the Chinese man to jump on top and get going.
“Now, Li! No more protests! Up you go!” he yelled.
In a matter of thirty seconds, we were all in the carriage and on our way. Solomon removed his top hat and, huffing a little bit, said, “You will all come and stay with me. No questions, no worries. Zis is good business.”
Ray and Carolina were sitting next to me. I looked at Ray and he shrugged, as if to say “why not.” I looked
