Time Dancers

Ages.

The Baroness showed Ray to his quarters deep within the complex. Ray said there were so many buildings, most with additions and additions to the additions, it felt more like its own village than a family home. The master bedroom of his suite was covered in three-hundred-year-old rugs from Isfahan and even older Venetian tapestries hanging on the walls and over an enormous fireplace with a mantel well above Ray’s head. The Baroness asked him to stay for the funeral and Ray accepted. She was alone now in the great home. Her mother-in-law had suffered a stroke during the war, as had the last Baroness, the Baron’s own wife of fifty years. She died without ever knowing his fate and Matilde guessed it had been the same for the Baron. Ray told her the Baron always referred to his wife as a living person. That was comforting news to the Baroness Matilde. She then asked Ray to stay for as long as he liked, for the duration of the war if he wished. Ray told her it might be a good idea to “sit out the squabble,” as he referred to waiting for World War I to end. She also hinted that she had a special place to show him, saying it was the source of the Baron’s mad quest.

Ray stayed in Salzburg with the Baroness for almost a year, becoming her closest friend and acquiring in the process his newfound interest in Mozart and modern painting. At war’s end, he decided to return to the city of his birth, Veracruz. The Baroness understood and they said their farewells in Salzburg at the train station. Ray then headed for Switzerland to pick up the gold the Baron had insisted on paying him. After a brief stop in Munich, where he met and talked with a character named Hess that Ray described as “a real piece of work,” he found the bank and the gold waiting for him in Zurich. He traveled south to Marseille and boarded a ship sailing for Panama. From Panama, he made his way to Mexico and eventually St. Louis, in order to “save my ass,” as he reminded me.

Ray stopped his tale and looked out the window. The train was slowing down and the sun was just rising in the east. We were approaching the outskirts of Cleveland. Ray smiled to himself and reached into his vest, pulling out a packet of photographs and staring down at them.

“Well?” I asked. “Did she ever show you the special place?”

“That’s the part you ain’t gonna believe, Z. But I want you to look at something first. The Baroness let me take some photographs before I left.”

“Photographs of what?”

“Paintings—portraits painted by Vermeer and Botticelli.”

“Are they rare?”

“Yeah, you could say that, only I think the word ‘rare’ ain’t nearly enough. These are portraits of the same girl.” Ray stopped talking and looked at me for a reaction, then he said, “Vermeer lived almost two centuries later than Botticelli.”

“Then…how is that possible?”

“You mean I’ve gotta explain it to you, Z? You can’t figure that out?”

“She’s Meq?”

“You got it.” Ray handed me the photographs. “Look at her, Z. The Baroness told me her name is Susheela the Ninth. She’s Meq, all right, but she ain’t Egipurdiko or Egizahar.”

The photographs were sharp and clear, but they were not in color. Ray described the colors for me, mentioning especially the green of the girl’s eyes in the portrait by Vermeer. “If you’ve ever seen Vermeer’s blues, then you’ll know what I mean,” Ray said. “Her eyes are the greenest damn green I’ve ever looked on, Z.”

I studied the portraits closely, amazed and bewildered by what I saw. The girl was Meq without a doubt; her individual features, specifically her lips, were even similar to Opari’s. However, there was one very obvious and unexplainable difference, a difference unlike any other difference between us. The Meq girl in both portraits was black.

“So the Baron was telling the truth,” I said. “She was real.”

“She sure was, and is, as far as anybody knows.”

Just then, our train changed tracks for the approach into the rail yard. The jolt woke Mitch and he leaned out of his sleeping berth, trying to see out the window. “Where are we, Z?”

“Cleveland,” I answered. “New York by tonight.”

Ray winked and said, “There’s something else I want you to see, Z, but let’s wait until we’re on our way to Spain, what do you say?”

I gave the photographs one last glance, then handed them back to him. “Those portraits are nothing short of amazing, Ray.”

Ray winked again. “Ain’t life grand, Z? You never know, do you?”

New York City is not a city for the faint of heart. It is the biggest, toughest, meanest city in America, and arguably the greatest. Anything and everything has or will happen in New York. Until you have experienced for yourself the size, sounds, smells, the pace of life, you cannot imagine how overwhelming it can be. As we were pulling into Pennsylvania Station, Ray said it best: “I love this place, but it can kick your ass.”

It was well past working hours on a working day, yet there were still thousands of people coming and going through the huge terminal. Arrosa was there to greet us, however, and helped with the transfer of Unai and Usoa from Pennsylvania Station to our ship, the Iona. I saw a trace of sadness in her eyes, but she was efficient and the whole process took less than an hour. Ray was also a little sad. After I had introduced him to Arrosa, he immediately asked about Nova. Neither she nor Geaxi were present and the disappointment was evident on his face and in his eyes. Arrosa informed him that both of them were in Ithaca, New York, having left only two days earlier.

“Ithaca? What’s in Ithaca?” I asked.

“You will have to ask Nova, senor. I only have the names of the men she was to meet—Theodore and Leopold Wharton. Geaxi accompanied her and also gave no explanation.” Arrosa paused, then added, “I am thinking she might have seen something, senor, in a dream or vision. She was not herself.”

Ray and I exchanged puzzled glances. I knew Geaxi had gone for one reason—to watch over Nova—but I had no idea what Nova might have seen. Her visions were powerful, private enigmas that came without warning.

Suddenly Mitch spoke out. “My daddy, if he’s still alive, might be livin’ in Ithaca. On my way back to St. Louis, I could spend a little time there, find out what’s goin’ on with Nova, and maybe pay him a visit. I never have before and this is as good a time as any.”

“What?” I asked, completely surprised. “I have never heard you even mention him.”

“It never came up, Z. Where do you think I got my middle name? My mama wanted me to never forget where he was from, so she gave me the name Ithaca.” He paused. “I might have a sister somewhere, too.”

I didn’t know what to say. None of this was expected. I looked at Ray and he grinned, then adjusted his bowler and said, “Let’s get somethin’ to eat, what do you say?”

“Good idea,” Mitch said.

“This way,” Arrosa said to all of us, adjusting her own black beret. Minutes later we were in a taxi, weaving our way down Fifth Avenue to Arrosa’s loft apartment, three blocks from Washington Square in Greenwich Village. We were due to set sail for Barcelona in twenty-four hours. That is a blink of the eye in New York City. I had hoped for the chance of seeing a ball game at the Polo Grounds, but that would have to wait for another time. Soon, I told myself. Soon.

The next day passed even quicker than I imagined and Mitch saw us off in the evening, looking resplendent in a black tuxedo and white silk scarf. He had an appointment later to meet a man in Harlem about investing in a nightclub, saying, “I can’t resist it, Z. This town is poppin’.” I told him I would cable him as soon as we reached Barcelona. I also wondered why no one was there to say farewell to Arrosa and I asked if any of her friends knew she was leaving. She answered, “No, and this is not a problem, senor. I knew this might happen. It is better this way.”

The Iona eased her way into a crowded and busy New York harbor, then steamed out to open seas. By midnight she had set a course east and south, bound for the Canary Islands, our only scheduled port of call before Barcelona.

I turned to Ray just before we said good night. “Any strange weather ahead, Weatherman?”

Ray grinned. “Nothin’ I can see, Z.”

There were few women on board the Iona. Most of the crew were Greek and spoke a dialect none of us had heard before. However, I needed no translation to understand what they meant