Zuriaa.
She yelled something at Opari in Chinese. I had no idea what she was saying, but I could tell she was offended at Opari’s presence, as if Opari had no business being there. Opari remained calm and told her to speak in English.
“English?” Zuriaa shouted.
“Yes.”
“Why English?” she asked again and dropped her voice slightly, leaning forward in her saddle and finding me standing behind Opari.
“You,” she said, staring at me blankly.
Opari took a step forward. “You lied to me, Zuriaa.”
“No, I did not.”
“Yes, you said you would leave alone this business. this selling of the children.”
Zuriaa paused a moment, then she spat out the words, “I was made to do it.”
“By whom?”
“You know the one, the only one who would.”
“The Fleur-du-Mal?”
Opari stood a moment in silence, then turned and glanced at me. “Why does he want this child, Zuriaa?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I do not know.”
I stepped forward next to Opari in the doorway. “But I do,” I said, “and you can tell him this will not happen.”
“I. I cannot do that,” she stammered. She had trouble speaking to me, then I realized she thought I must be the only one who knew who she really was.
“You will tell him that,” I said. And you will tell him who told you to tell him that.”
“Where is he, Zuriaa?” Opari asked. “Where is the Fleur-du-Mal now?”
Zuriaa glanced at Cheng, who was having trouble staying in the saddle, then together they spurred their horses to make a charge at the doorway. In the same instant their heels struck the horses, Opari and Sailor reached for the Stone that each wore around their necks, and held them out, tight in their fists, at arm’s length toward the horses. The horses snorted and stumbled, refusing to go forward, as if they sensed a cliff and a chasm and had the good sense to go no farther.
Opari and Sailor had reacted instinctively. I’m not sure at the time if they knew what they were doing or if it was going to succeed. But it did and it made me think of the loss of the last true gift my papa had given me — the Stone — and I remembered the one who had taken it.
“Zuriaa,” I shouted. “Does Opari know about the gems that Cheng stole from the Stones of Geaxi and me?”
“What?” Opari turned and asked.
“And that Baju was shot and killed by Cheng?”
“What?” Opari and Sailor said in unison.
“And do you know, Zuriaa, that Cheng stole the Stone from me in Senegal?. The same place he probably sold Ray to a German, like a slave.”
“What?” Zuriaa shouted from her horse.
She whirled in one motion and threw the gems that she kept in her pocket into the air in the direction of Opari and the doorway. She spurred her horse and raced by Cheng, stabbing him in the heart as she passed. I never saw her reach for the stiletto, but it hung and dangled from Cheng’s chest before he and the knife fell together and the knife was dislodged, along with something else that rolled out from under him like an ugly black egg — the Stone.
Opari bent down to pick up the gems. I watched Zuriaa disappear up the rise and back through the ruins, then I walked out to where Cheng lay dead and picked up the Stone. I tossed it to Sailor, who had to hold one hand up against the rising sun to catch it. Opari watched the black thing fly through the air and couldn’t believe it.
“These things occur,” Sailor shouted to me.
“Are you going to be saying that now, I mean, from now on?” I asked.
“Many times,” he said. “Many times.”
Then we all heard a strange sound that was growing louder by the second, coming in from the open sea toward the lagoon. A sound that made no sense to me, the sound of engines whining at full throttle over water.
Sailor said, “Look.”
I looked and what I saw came out of a dream, but was real. My dreams could never have been that rich. I saw two biplanes outfitted as seaplanes with wooden skids hanging underneath, the kind I had seen a photograph of in the desert. They were at a height of no more than two hundred feet over the water, approaching and descending.
Sailor said, “Come on.”
I grabbed all the packs and Opari helped Star and the baby. We followed Sailor out to the end of the walkway where the two seaplanes were landing in the lagoon. The big engines roared and the two planes fishtailed in the water as they slowed down and got their bearings. Then they pulled up one behind the other alongside the walkway.
When I tried to see the pilot of the leading plane, at first there seemed to be no one in the cockpit, then someone small leaped out and onto the walkway. She had short dark hair under a leather cap, which she yanked off with one hand. With the other hand, she removed her scarf and goggles. It was Geaxi.
“Hello, young Zezen,” she said. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“Well, these things occur, Geaxi,” I said. “Where did you learn to fly?”
“Canada, actually,” she said without hesitation. “But tell me, why are you here? Sailor said it would only be himself and possibly Opari.”
“He was right,” I said. “Only he had the wrong Opari in mind.”
“What?” Geaxi asked.
“Never mind,” Sailor interrupted.
Geaxi pulled her beret out of a vest and set it on her head, looking around for someone until she found her.
“You must be Opari,” she said and they exchanged a long look loaded with information.
“Yes, I am Opari.”
“You have been missing.”
“Yes, but no longer.”
Opari took my hand in hers and held it against her chest, near to where her heart beat underneath.
Geaxi looked at us both and smiled. “I see,” she said, “but that still does not explain—”
“Never mind,” Sailor said. “We will have time for this later. Time is not our problem. I need to know if we have too much weight for the planes to take off.”
“That should not be a problem,” Geaxi said, “but I will ask Willie.”
She waved over the second pilot. He was a tall man, about thirty years old with a boyish face. He wore a British uniform, but everything was slightly unbuttoned or fitted him oddly. He had sandy hair and, except for a broken nose, a handsome face. He seemed completely at ease with Geaxi and was not startled to see other Meq around. There was something vaguely familiar about him.
As he came close, Geaxi started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“I have just remembered something,” Geaxi said, and with a deep bow and a wave of her arm, she introduced him. “Willie Croft, I would like you to meet my good friend, the Buddha, also known as Zianno Zezen.”
Then the name and the face came together and rang a bell. He was the kid outside the train in China, the one Geaxi told I was the Buddha and he had believed it. The recognition was simultaneous and the tall man dropped his face, almost embarrassed.
