She was watching the rainbow. I turned to look and the colors were actually dancing in an arc over the sea. I turned back and Opari was staring at me, asking me what this meant with her eyes. I couldn’t answer. I knew this was the tricky moment, the one where the heart and mind awaken and discover themselves alone and together in one soul. What they decide is never certain and in Star’s case I could only guess what she would see and what she would remember. I took another step toward her. She was out of the rain and standing partially in darkness. Slowly, her eyes looked down at me and I could see the same blue-gray with flecks of gold as in Carolina’s eyes. A smile appeared, then a look of recognition and acceptance. Her freckles danced on her face with her smile. Softly, in slightly accented English, she said, “We ride the Fierce Whale, ZeeZee.”
Just then, Willie came lurching down the stairs that led up to the captain’s quarters. His shirt was drenched and his red hair was matted flat against his forehead. Before he could speak I said, “What day is this, Willie? What’s the date?” I wanted to think of it as a new birthday for her, a new beginning.
“What? That’s odd,” Willie said. “The date is precisely what I ran down to tell you. Turns out it’s become rather significant.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“November 11, 1918. An armistice has been declared in Europe. The ‘war to end all wars’ has ended.”
I looked at Opari and then Star. Their expressions were as blank as mine must have been. I had forgotten there even was a “war to end all wars.” I continued to stand there, happy, empty, somehow unimpressed by the end of a world war. Then Sailor and Geaxi made a sudden appearance from their cabins inside. They squeezed by Star and stood next to Opari.
“You are standing in the rain, young Zezen,” Geaxi said.
“Yes — yes, I am,” I said.
Willie laughed to himself and scrambled back up the stairs, leaning down to catch a last glimpse of Star. From inside her cabin, Star’s baby awoke and cried out for breakfast. Opari and Star both turned to leave and answer his call. Geaxi followed and Sailor and I were left staring at each other. I hadn’t moved an inch. The rain had slackened, but I was still soaking wet.
“Are you all right, Zianno?” he asked without a trace of irony.
“Yes,” I said, then added, “quite.” I felt a smile just beginning at the corners of my mouth.
“I sent word to St. Louis,” he said, pausing for a response, then going on. “I told them you had done it, you had found Star and we were on our way to England.”
“Good,” I said.
He turned to go back inside and waited for me. It took a moment, but I finally moved and came in out of the rain. As he opened the door to the cabins, Sailor nodded toward the sky behind us and winked.
In a whisper he said, “You conjured a beautiful rainbow, Zianno.”
“Thank you,” I said, walking in behind him and grinning like an idiot. Return. I had to laugh at the word and its meaning. It should feel like completion, game over, the end. But it always — always feels like beginning.
The news of the end of the Great War instantly changed the mood of every man in the crew and even changed the course of the
The days became mild and sunny and we made good time. In the evenings, Willie insisted we share our meals in the captain’s quarters, though the captain himself was never present. We sat in a tight circle and Willie always, at the last possible second, managed to sit next to Star and her baby, whose name I learned that first evening after the Armistice was Caine. Caine Abel Croft. I found out Willie had a hand in that too. Geaxi held the baby as we ate that night and during the meal told me the story. She agreed that Willie must truly be in love because she had never known him to act so impulsively and get everything wrong while doing it.
In Alexandria, Geaxi said that while we had been in the oval room he had taken Star directly to Sailor’s contact, who escorted them all to a British doctor the man said would look after Star and the baby and then look the other way. Star still spoke no English and Willie was nervous about leaving her alone, but he had another man to see about passports and identities for Opari and me. The plan was for all of us to be of the same family when we reached England. Star was now the fair peach among the basket of cherries. He had no idea what to do about her or the baby until he returned to the doctor’s and was asked his son’s name for the birth certificate. Willie looked at Star who seemed to understand and she whispered, “Kahin al-Jisil.” Willie misunderstood her, but he did not want to hesitate, and he anglicized what he heard, writing down “Caine Abel,” and then adding “Croft” without blinking, making him a father and husband on the spot. The doctor never mentioned the baby’s dark eyes and tufts of dark curly hair, nor did Willie. The rest of Star’s papers were filled in accordingly and she left for England, on paper at least, as Mrs. Willie Croft.
Geaxi said the ironic fact was that “Kahin” really did mean “Cain” in old Berber. It was one of the few biblical names that crossed into the Sahara. She doubted, however, that Willie or Star would ever care, but Daphne, Willie’s mother, would definitely want an explanation for Star’s third name — Croft — and the Mrs. in front of it.
I remember laughing along with Geaxi about Willie and thinking how wonderful it was and how close we were to returning Star to Carolina and Nicholas. They had waited long enough. Whatever had gone before and whatever lay ahead would be worth it. Their daughter was coming home and their grandson with her. Names, false or otherwise, would make no difference. Nothing would make a difference.
Three nights later, we rounded the big rock at Gibraltar and turned north by northwest into the Atlantic. Opari and I again stood by the railing in the stern. She wore her shawl with the unusual and exotic designs. It was well past midnight and cold. The temperature had dropped considerably since we’d left the Mediterranean. I tried to urge her back inside, but she wanted to stay out.
“I feel like a stranger,” she said.
I held her close and told her, “That’s impossible. We’re together now.”
“No,” she said, “I mean a stranger to this ocean. I have not seen it or breathed its air in twenty-eight hundred years.”
“Is that all?” I asked. “It seems like only yesterday.”
She groaned at my sad attempt at humor, but continued to hold me close. She took my hand and put it to her lips, then held it against her cheek. The Atlantic rolled and swelled around us.
“Will it be a good life from now on, Zianno?”
“We’ll make it so.”
“Then breathe, my love. breathe.”
I did and the air itself seemed to taste and smell of rebirth and new life. What neither of us knew was that at that very moment the air throughout the world was carrying something else — a killer — a deadly microscopic guest that traveled everywhere at once from who knows where, finding humans as hosts, hosts who rarely survived the visit. It still had no name, but it would have one soon, and it affected all of us, Giza and Meq, forever. It was later nicknamed “the Spanish Lady.” I pray that she never visits again. Unfortunately, I am afraid she will. Beware if she does. Most warnings are fiction, jokes, or bluffs. This one is not — beware of “the Spanish Lady.”
We arrived in the busy port of Southampton by midafternoon and had to wait until the next day to find a berth. Troop ships by the dozen were returning and all had the right of way. Most of the men I saw disembarking were jubilant and singing or wailing to loved ones waiting ashore, but others had a distant, vacant gaze in their eyes, as if “return” was no longer a word with any meaning.
Willie handled our pass through customs and immigration with great efficiency, considering the chaos around us. In the past, Sailor and Geaxi might have entered on their own in secret, in disguise, or both. The trust Sailor had in this new “network” of Giza and Meq was a mystery to me, especially since there were four of us together carrying the Stones. Then I thought of Solomon himself, and even Owen Bramley. They had both proved their willingness to help the Meq many times over. This new situation was only an extension of that trust. If Sailor had harbored any mistrust of Willie, or thought he couldn’t manage the situation, we wouldn’t have been there.
Our papers declared Sailor, Geaxi, Opari, and I were all of one family. With our dark hair and eyes, and our slightly exotic dress, we passed easily as a French family orphaned by the war and being taken in by the Crofts.
