the process of obtaining the prints and negatives I had requested. They were old, but they were there, they existed. No one heard a word from Sailor or Geaxi, not Owen Bramley, Eder, or Unai and Usoa, who were already preparing to leave for Spain and an end and a beginning that was unlike any other. We entered the year 1906 frustrated, separated, and in some ways helpless. Unai’s toast on New Year’s Eve was apropos:
Ray was a good friend, companion, and the closest thing to a brother I’d ever had. We laughed a lot, enjoyed the same food, and shared a love for music, particularly what was going on in New Orleans. On our rounds, we always caught “Stalebread” Lacoume’s Razzie Dazzie Spasm Band wherever they were playing. Jelly Roll Morton was a regular at Willie’s and he was doing things very similar to what Scott Joplin and Tom Turpin were doing in St. Louis, only his music was looser, more danceable. And at the Economy, a tiny club that seemed never to close, we stood outside and listened to a form of music that affected us deeply. Players from all over the South came through the club and they were all playing the “blues.” I was hypnotized. Each player took a common theme and structure and made it their own, made it unique. And when they played together, the music became timeless in a way Ray and I understood instinctively. Complex in its very simplicity, it was an enigma. Through the music, the players themselves shared a joy and camaraderie, almost a secret, acknowledged with a grin or a common nickname. You could feel this music, almost touch it and taste it, or as Ray said, “This is gonna last, Z.”
It was a guilty pleasure for us, but it did yield information about the Fleur-du-Mal, even if it was always in the past tense. Several people said they’d seen “the kid with the smile,” or “the quiet kid with the green ribbon,” but few could remember when and none had a clue where he lived.
We both loved the music, but Ray also loved the crowds, the noise, the late nights, and the constant ebb and flow of strangers in New Orleans. When the crush of Mardi Gras came, I stayed at Isabelle’s for two weeks. I needed a break and I needed to know anything they might have forgotten to tell me about the Fleur-du-Mal, anything I might have missed. Ray stayed put in the St. Louis Hotel and immersed himself in the smothering chaos of Mardi Gras.
The peace was welcome and so was the time spent with Unai and Usoa. These were the last few days and weeks they would be as they were, as they had been for so long it was difficult to imagine. They had spanned an immense length of time with a conscious, living bridge of denial and survival and were on the brink of burning that bridge with another conscious decision that would both confirm their love and trigger their own mortality. The Zeharkatu. It was perhaps the greatest mystery of the Meq and the one I knew least about. I wasn’t even sure what to ask. When I did bring it up, I was surprised at their reluctance and shyness, as if they were as ignorant as I, but didn’t want it revealed.
“Where will you go?” I blurted out. “What happens next?”
We were sitting in the courtyard in the wicker chairs. It was a beautiful morning near the end of my stay. The sun was shining through the live oaks in warm pools of light and Usoa was pouring each of us a cup of rich chicory coffee. After a moment, Unai leaned forward in his chair, but before he could speak Usoa gently pushed him back and spoke for both of them.
“We follow in the footsteps of your mama and papa,” she said. “In the old way.”
“And how is that?” I asked.
“We were with them when they decided to cross. We will do as they did.”
She paused and looked at Unai, who took her hand in his.
“Go on, please,” I said. “Where were you?”
“We were staying on the island-city of Kilwa, across from Tanganyika on the East African coast. It was 1859. Your mama and papa arrived with the favorable winds from India, trailing a man who had supposedly done business with Opari. Ironically, it was the same man we were watching because we knew he did business with the Fleur-du-Mal. It was ironic because none of us ever found the man, but it was with us that Yaldi and Xamurra made their decision. The man’s name was Hadim al-Sadi and he was the current ‘sultan’ of an old Muslim family of trader-merchants that dealt in anything from gold and porcelain to silk and slaves, as long as it was profitable. Hadim’s family was said to have discovered an ancient trade route, older than the Sahara, that connected East Africa with West Africa through the kingdom of Mali. For centuries, the Fleur-du-Mal has been obsessed with Mali. Why, we have never known. The point is, we thought we had a link between the Fleur-du-Mal and Opari and we were excited. We thought we might find a way into her invisible world.
“But as the months passed and we watched and waited, Yaldi and Xamurra became more abstracted and distant. Their interest waned, and, looking back, it is clear they were at the end of a much greater Wait, the Itxaron, only none of us knew it.
“Then, late in the year, Baju and Eder came through Kilwa from the west on a Portuguese ship. Baju said he was making a survey of the stars in the southern hemisphere and seeking the lost African tribe that worshipped Sirius, the Dog Star. His interests were eclectic and ever-expanding and their visit was a surprise, but not unusual.
“One morning, not unlike this one, we were all sitting on the abandoned walls of the old Gereza fortress, watching the everyday traffic of the harbor, when Baju casually mentioned there would be a Bitxileiho, a total solar eclipse, in Spain the following year. The news was not extraordinary, but for your mama and papa it crystallized every emotion and focused every vague yearning they had experienced for months. They looked at each other for a moment, smiled, then Yaldi announced to everyone that he and Xamurra would sail to Spain and cross in the Zeharkatu the old way, in the Pyrenees. His statement was shocking and grand. No Egizahar had crossed in hundreds of years and no one in our lifetime had crossed in our homeland, in the old way. I remember being a little jealous and greatly puzzled. You see, no one, including your mama and papa, knew what ‘the old way’ meant. When to go? Where to go?
“Finally, Sailor had to be tracked down and asked what to do. It took another two months, but a day before their last opportunity to sail in fair weather, we got word from Sailor. His note said simply, ‘Sail to Biarritz. Trumoi-Meq will find you.’ ”
Usoa paused and took a sip of her coffee. The sunlight streaked her cheek and flashed off the blue diamond in her ear. “And we shall do the same,” she finished.
“Trumoi-Meq?” I asked. “I heard Eder mention his name once, but I assumed she was speaking of someone dead.”
“Quite the contrary, Zianno. He is an old one, perhaps as old as Opari, and the only one who knows the mountains and ‘the old way’ of the Zeharkatu.” She leaned over and placed her other hand on top of Unai’s. “Finally,” she said. “He awaits us.”
“But how. how did you know it was time?”
Unai spoke from deep in the wicker chair. “It is like taking a breath,” he said. “How do the lungs know when they are full? I do not know, but they do,
“What about the Gogorati? The Remembering?”
He shrugged and said, “You have found Opari, no?”
“Yes and no.”
“Well, we now know she exists. And as Baju and Eder, your own mama and papa, and now Usoa and I have discovered, we look forward to our son or daughter being there, fresh and strong and less than a hundred years old. That is our wish, our dream. It is clearer to us now than it ever was imagining ourselves being there. It is best. It is right.”
I stood up and walked to the fountain. Thoughts and images of Mama and Papa, questions and doubts about Opari, history, and mystery were all mixed up and racing in my mind one into the other like brushfires. I could not allow it. I turned and changed the subject.
“What about this place?” I asked. “What happens to Isabelle?”
Usoa looked over at me and laughed slightly. “You will be amazed to learn that he has asked and she has accepted.”
“Who?”
“Captain Woodget,” she said. “He has asked her to marry him and she has accepted, even though in her lucid moments she still considers him socially inferior.”
I laughed along with Usoa and once again promised myself to go and see the old man. “How is he?” I asked.
