staring out of the window at the rushing water. I started rubbing the pocket of my glove and leaned my head closer to the window. Up ahead, we were coming to a low bridge over a narrow section of the river. Then I saw something very strange.
“Mama, look!”
“What, Z? What?”
“Look up there, Mama, by the bridge. There’s a scarecrow waving his arms.”
She moved closer to me and followed my finger to where I was pointing. Up ahead, next to the bridge on the embankment, someone or something in an enormous black coat was waving like crazy at the train.
“It’s a scarecrow, Mama.”
“That’s no scarecrow,” Mama said. Her voice was low and even, as if she were talking to herself. She rose slightly out of her seat and stared harder at the scarecrow. He was getting larger as we were getting closer. In a blink, we were passing him and I could see that he was not a scarecrow at all. He was a man, a tall man with a beard and a small, round cap on his head. His long arms in the great black coat dropped to his sides as we passed. I saw his eyes, which were wide open, and his mouth in the shape of an O. So did Mama. She grabbed my hand, jumped up out of her seat, and screamed, “Yaldi, Yaldi!”
The train was already on the bridge. Through the noise of the train and the men laughing, my papa heard Mama’s voice and turned toward the back of the car. I saw him catch her eye and I turned to look at Mama too. Her eyes were a bonfire of black, but without panic. I turned back to look at Papa. His eyes were the same. Their eyes were locked on each other, and for an instant, there was no sound in my world. No voices, no laughter, no metal screeching as the train tried to brake and avoid the washed-out track on the other side of the bridge.
I felt something pass through me, something that can only be described as Time. The weight of Time. Years upon years, people, places, joys, sorrows, and journeys, endless journeys. I was weightless, empty, and they were filling me, telling me. My mama held my hand, and she stared at my papa and he stared back, in that instant they gave me the weight of their lives.
All the cars of the train were uncoupling and falling from the tracks. There was nothing we could do. Bodies were being tossed around and Mama and I were flung through the window on our side of the car. I never saw Papa. He was somewhere in the middle of a tumbling mass of arms and legs and screams.
I saw the waterfalls. Hundreds, thousands of them; spinning, shining, falling upside down, trailing diamonds and gold, they were like comets. I watched how they spun and fell. I tried to reach out and touch them, but my arms wouldn’t move. I felt cold somewhere. Then there was only one waterfall and it was warm. I opened my eyes.
I was wedged between two boulders and Mama was above me, face down on the rocks with one arm dangling over my face. The waterfall was blood, blood that was gushing out of her neck where a large piece of glass was embedded, and running down her arm into my eyes. She was moaning and trying to speak. I forced myself to move and, in moving, felt the pain in my right arm. It was bent at a crazy angle and pieces of glass were sticking out everywhere like darts in a dartboard. But I could only think of Mama. I crawled up to her and gently rolled her over. It was easy, too easy. She was no more than a rag doll broken on the rocks. The blood was pouring out of her neck. She tried to speak, but it was low and hoarse. I leaned down closer.
“Yaldi. Yaldi,” she whispered.
“No, Mama, it is Z.”
She opened her eyes for a moment, those beautiful coal black eyes. She stared straight at me the same way she had been staring at Papa in that last instant on the train.
“You must find Papa, Z. You must find him now.” Her voice was weak, but clear and determined.
“No, Mama, no. You’re bleeding. You’re. you’re. ”
“I am dying, Z. But I will not die yet. You must be strong. You must go and find Papa and come back to me.” Her voice was so calm and I was shaking, trembling from head to foot.
“Go, now. Go, my son.”
Somehow, I did what she said and got up from beside her and made my way through the rocks and boulders, stumbling, crying, yelling, “Papa! Papa!” I was lost in a dead world, a world of broken glass, twisted metal, splintered wood, and bodies, dead bodies everywhere, torn and crushed and split apart.
I couldn’t find Papa and probably never would have, except for a tiny sound, a sound that was barely there, but so different from everything else around me I couldn’t help but hear it. It was singing. Someone was singing.
I followed the song, the voice. It was a sad and simple song, not in English, or Basque, or any language I had ever heard. It was. it sounded. older.
Then I saw him. Underneath several mangled seats from the train, my papa was impaled, flat on his back with a jagged piece of wood from the sideboard of the train jutting up and through his chest. And he was singing. With his eyes closed and blood running from his mouth, he was singing.
“Papa!” I yelled.
I tried to move the seats, but I couldn’t. I was too small and only my left arm would work. My right arm was broken and useless. I got on my knees and tried to crawl between the seats. It was too tight. I reached down with my left arm and stretched my hand out as far as it would go, but I still couldn’t get there, I couldn’t touch him. Then the tears fell from my face to his. He opened his eyes and stopped singing.
“Z,” he said, slow and soft, like someone whispering just before sleep.
“Papa,” I said. “I. I heard you. I heard you singing.”
“It was Mama’s song.”
“But it was. I mean. I didn’t understand it.”
“You will, my son, you will.” He coughed violently and blood shot from his mouth. I started crying again because I could do nothing to help him. Then, through an opening in the tangle of debris, he somehow raised his arm and I saw that tightly gripped in his hand was the baseball that he had made for me in St. Louis.
“Zianno, quickly, listen to me.”
“What, Papa? I’m here.”
“Zianno, you must listen now and listen with all your mind. Take this ball, this baseball, and never lose it, always keep it with you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa.” I was still crying, but I was listening hard. His voice was very weak.
“Z, my son, my blood. Remember, we are. we are. the Dreams.”
I took the baseball from his hand and held it next to me. He began to sing again, but only got through one line, then his head fell to the side and my papa was gone.
In the distance, a train car was coming apart, sliding down the rocks and crashing into the river. I could hear the wood cracking and splitting. I stood up dazed, numb, blank. Mama, I thought. Mama.
I ran back to her through the wreckage and mud and rocks and death. I couldn’t feel my arm. I couldn’t feel anything. I fell down on my knees beside her. She was covered in blood and her head was bent back on the slope of the boulder. Not six feet away was my baseball glove; I reached for it and put it gently under her head. The glass was still in her neck.
“Mama,” I whispered. “Mama, Papa was singing. Papa was singing and I heard and I ran and I. I. ”
“I know, Z. I could hear him.” Somehow, she was alive, but her voice was hollow and distant. “Zianno, come close, my child.”
I leaned down and put my face against hers so that her lips touched my ear.
“There is so much, Z, so much we never told you. So much you will need to know. You must be strong. You must not stop. You must find Umla-Meq. You. ”
Her voice trailed off. I rose up slightly and saw that her eyes were closed.
“Mama? Mama? Please, Mama, don’t go away. Don’t go away. ”
She moved her lips again. She tried to open her eyes but her lids were fluttering and when she did get them open, her gaze was dull and cloudy. “So tired,” she said, “so tired. the Dreams. tell Papa. Zianno. Zianno.”
“Yes, Mama, yes. I love you, Mama.”
She drew one long, slow breath and then, using all the strength left in her, she pulled me even closer and with that last breath whispered, “Find Sailor.”
The Window opened. All of Time and Space narrowed to a single, black dot. A dot that became a tunnel rushing toward me, growing larger, gaining speed. I screamed, but no sound escaped. I tried to run, but I had no
