millionaire. I always said the big money would be on the water, eh, Z?”
“Yes, you did, Solomon, you did indeed. But how did you meet Li? And when did you meet Sailor?”
“Ah, first things first,” he said and stopped to refill everyone’s champagne glass. He turned and looked at Li, sitting like a human stone in the corner. Solomon lifted his glass in a silent toast to him. “A few years ago,” he went on, “things began to change in Shanghai for me and for all foreign investors. China wanted in on all the action. Most investors sold out and moved on; I stayed, maybe a little too long. A comprador there, Cheng Kuan-ying, who was a liaison between the mandarins and the foreign investors, wanted me out — poof! — for good. I knew zis, but ignored it.
“Li was working as a laborer on the docks and quays of the Whangpoo River. I did not know him personally, but I knew others like him; workers who were also members of some damn crazy sect who thought they were White Lotus rebels reincarnated. They were violently opposed to the ‘Old Buddha,’ the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi, and all her mandarins and their compradors.
“One night, I am walking from ship to office and Cheng sends four men to take me out. Li, who was there by chance, he told me later, sees them pull out knives and clubs and steps in. Like lightning, he cracks all four of their skulls in seconds. I thank the man, try to pay him reward, but he won’t accept; he has some crazy fool belief that once you save a man’s life you are responsible for his safety until he dies; and if you don’t do zis, you will succumb to a nine-headed, soul-swallowing dragon. He is a crazy man, but as you can see, still to zis day, is concerned for my safety, even though, I am sure, he would love to see me croak and die so he can get on with his life.”
Solomon raised his glass to Li once more in silence. I looked around the table and most of the food was eaten. Ray had one leg slung over the arm of his chair and a toothpick in his mouth; he looked fat and happy. Sailor sat back in his chair holding his champagne glass on his knee. The ring on his forefinger danced in the candlelight. Carolina sat enraptured with Solomon and his life and had barely touched her meal.
“So, you and Li left Shanghai then?” I asked.
“Yes, it was a good time for leaving. For both of us. We went to Macao and I liquidated everything from there.
“I stayed in Macao another seven years, living quietly, and still making investments, only they were investments of a more high risk and, how should I say. independent nature.” He bent over and lit a cigar on one of the candles. Leaning back, turning toward Sailor and exhaling, he said, “Six months ago. we meet.”
“But how?” I asked. “How did you find him?”
Solomon leaned forward again and cupped his hands around his mouth. In a false whisper, he said, “I do not think I found
Sailor laughed and, pointing his glass toward Solomon, said, “No, no, my friend. If you remember, it was you who walked up to me.”
“You were too easily found,” Solomon said.
They both laughed and Carolina, who was sitting up cross-legged in her chair, said, “How did you meet?”
Sailor spoke. “As I remember, it was outside the Pomegranate, a Taoist refuge and restaurant, in the center of Macao. I was there waiting for someone. There was a fierce sun overhead. I was sweating and, despite the heat, felt something warm bearing down on me through the crowd. I looked among the faces and saw Solomon staring at me. I stared back. He walked straight toward me without hesitation and asked, ‘Is your name Sailor?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you know the family Zezen?’ ‘Yes,’ I said again, and he said, ‘There is one looking for you.’ We went inside the restaurant and shared tea. He told me of Zianno and this place, St. Louis. He said he felt like a ghost, but wished to return. I told him he was no ghost and that he should return. He agreed it was time and offered to take me with him and, alas, here I am.”
Just then, not a second apart, Ray laughed and there was a loud knock at the door. Solomon and Li rose to answer the door; the rest of us looked at Ray. He hadn’t said a word all night.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I guess it ain’t really funny,” he said, rolling his bowler hat around in his hands. “It’s just that this used to be a big world. That’s all.”
Solomon opened the door wide to allow four men to roll into the room a slightly damaged, but still sound, upright piano — Georgia’s piano. We moved couches and chairs out of the way and Solomon had it positioned in an appropriate and honored place in the room.
Carolina walked over to him as the men were leaving and placed two fingers on his lips. Then she pulled a chair up to the piano and sat down. She bent over, spreading her arms and laying her cheek on the keys.
I watched her, but let her alone. She was fine. She didn’t need help, just healing.
Solomon suggested we call it an evening and we all agreed. Li began snuffing the candles and we exchanged good nights. Solomon walked Carolina to her room. As I was passing Sailor on the way to mine, I said to him, “I had a new kind of dream this afternoon.”
He smiled his shy smile and said, “You shall have many.”
An hour later, I was awakened by music. From a sound sleep, I gradually became conscious of a melody, a simple five-note melody, being played over and over on a piano. I stood up and walked toward the sound. It was coming from the big parlor, from Georgia’s piano. In the faint light, I saw Sailor and Carolina also leaving their rooms and walking toward the piano. We got there at about the same time and the melody went away.
“You heard it too,” I said, looking first at Sailor, then Carolina.
Carolina started trembling. “That was Georgia, Z. It didn’t just sound like her, that was her.”
Sailor and I held her arms and helped her into the chair she’d pulled up earlier. She tensed slightly, then relaxed. “It’s warm,” she said.
I looked at Sailor and he smiled. “There are ghosts all around us, Carolina,” he said. “Some we chase, some we embrace.” Then he looked up at me and said, “It was her touch. ”
“It is common,” I said.
7. ARTZAIN (SHEPHERD)
During the late spring and early summer, before the real heat and humidity arrive, there is no better or more beautiful place to be than St. Louis. To the east, with the rising sun, the wide Mississippi seems even wider and more majestic in its slow roll around the city. By midday, in the heart of the city, there is the sweet scent of Forest Park. Baseball, music, laughter, and commerce of all kinds surrounds you. To the west, at sunset, the Meramec River curls below the limestone hills and cliffs like a lazy, blue ribbon. It is a place of converging waters, highways, and railroads; a place easy and exciting to live in, but during that time between seasons, difficult to leave. And yet, by the end of the second week in June 1896, that’s just what I was doing.
After the big feast, and for the next few weeks, we made a sort of home out of the Statler Hotel. We came and went like some extravagant and eccentric family on vacation. Solomon and Carolina went shopping everywhere, with Solomon tipping heavily from a wad of bills that Li carried. We all went bicycling in Forest Park many times and ate lunches on the veranda of the Cottage Restaurant. I insisted that we see a baseball game and we watched the up and coming Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies. As the game went on, I explained it to Sailor and he was fascinated, especially with the fact that the game had no time limit. Ray took us to a “private” club that sponsored
