from seein’ you on the train, but I couldn’t resist the temptation when I passed by the shoeshine stand. I mean, shoeshinin’ was my life!”
“I know that, Mitch,” Carolina said. I looked up at her. She was laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s all right.” She stepped forward and put her arms around Star and Jack, who continued blushing and trying to hide under his cap. “Let’s go home,” she said.
We crammed our luggage and ourselves inside the cars, slipping and sliding in the dark and the snow, which had lessened, but was still falling. After leaving the traffic of Union Station and Market Street, the trip to Carolina’s house became a magical homecoming, with our own laughter and Mitch’s singing filling up the silence of the snowy streets.
“How long is this snow supposed to last?” I asked Owen Bramley, just as we pulled into the long drive leading up and under the brick arch of the big house. Every window glowed from the inside. I thought of a lighthouse, seen from the sea at night, after a strange and difficult journey. Only one word came to mind —“welcome.”
“They say until the day after tomorrow,” Owen said, “but who really knows?”
2. Pinpilipauxa (Butterfly)
A week later the snowstorm was already a distant memory and had been replaced by an early spring breeze, coming from the southwest and filling the bare trees with a promise of new life and new beginnings. The aftermath of the Great War, followed by the Spanish Flu, had hit St. Louis hard, with thousands of local young men lost in Europe and no one knows how many, young and old, men and women, lost to influenza at home. It seemed the whole city wanted to forget the pain and loss, and forget quickly. Our odd little family was no exception.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this change in attitude took place upon our arrival at Carolina’s that first snowy night. We all gathered in the kitchen after unloading our luggage in the oversized living room. Owen Bramley was going to sort out who was staying in which room and save Carolina the trouble of having to deal with it. As we entered the kitchen, I noticed a familiar figure standing by the stove, though her figure was slightly fuller and her hair was now entirely gray. She turned and stared at each one of us as we sat around the long table in the center of the room. She was Ciela—premium cook and the last of Carolina’s “working girls” still living in the house. She had an anxious look on her face and held a large wooden spoon in her hand. When she caught sight of Star entering the kitchen, laughing about something with Nova, Ciela did the same as Owen and Mitch had done, only she almost fainted. She dropped the spoon to the floor and backed up against the stove, putting her hand to her mouth and stifling her own exclamation, “Madre de Dios, Madre de Dios,” which she couldn’t stop repeating. Carolina would tell me later that for all these years, Ciela had continued to feel responsible for Star’s abduction and disappearance. She kept the guilt bottled up inside, exclusively her own, a cross that God had given her to bear. In one split second it all fell away, and it was nearly too much for her.
“Ciela, please, sit down, get your breath, relax.” It was Owen and he helped her into one of the chairs around the table.
“Madre de Dios,” she mumbled again, staring at Star. “A miracle, a miracle,” she said in English. Star walked over and knelt down next to her, taking Ciela’s hand and holding it. Then the tears came and Star embraced her, letting her release fifteen years of blame and shame.
Another good and necessary change occurred three days later when we buried Eder and Nicholas in the “Honeycircle.” The snow had melted away quickly and Carolina wanted to have the ceremony as soon as possible. On the day after we arrived, during a long walk together through Forest Park, she had told Jack the sad news about his father, whom he had not seen in five years. Jack took it as best he could, she said, and only mentioned a single regret—that he never got to say good-bye. She told him she felt the same way and to compensate for it, they were going to put Nicholas to rest, along with Eder, in the “Honeycircle,” a place more sacred to them than any cemetery. Jack liked the idea and even asked Carolina if he could help, which he did, clearing the space and digging the graves with Owen, Willie, and me.
After our work was done and the coffins were in the ground, Carolina mouthed a silent prayer over the grave of Nicholas, and Nova stared up at the sky above where her mother lay, then walked over and kissed something standing in the center of the “Honeycircle.” I had seen the object once before, far to the west of St. Louis, in a meadow high in the hills above Kepa’s camp. It had been her father’s most prized possession. It was Baju Gastelu’s ancient Roman sundial.
Carolina, Jack, and Nova all felt a sense of completion after the informal ceremony. I could see it in their faces. It was a solemn occasion, but there was not a trace of melancholy or remorse. They had each said good-bye in the best way they knew how, and the ones they had loved were still close to them, underground in the private garden of their own backyard.
Late that same night, I asked Nova how the sundial had come to be in the “Honeycircle.” She was in one of the upstairs bathrooms and the door was open. She stood in front of the mirror by the sink, washing the heavy eye makeup from her face. Her eyes were clear, but she looked surprised at the question, as if everyone knew about the sundial. I reminded her that Ray Ytuarte and I left on our long search for Star the day after she arrived, in the summer of 1904. There was no sundial in the “Honeycircle” at that time. Then, suddenly, I remembered a particular moment when Ray and I were leaving. I remembered seeing two large wooden crates, stacked together under the stone arch in the driveway. When I asked if they were his, he’d said enigmatically, “Don’t ask.” It had to be the sundial. Nova confirmed my theory. Eder had insisted that they bring the sundial from Kepa’s camp and Owen Bramley and Ray were responsible for the dismantling, crating, and shipping.
Then Nova did something rare for her. Nova continued to be a great mystery to me. With her Egyptian-style cosmetics and mascara, eccentric dress and manner, she often seemed to be in her own world, or at least her own version of it. But just then, she looked honest, innocent, vulnerable. She turned and held both my hands, glaring at me with her dark eyes. “What about Ray?” she asked, then in a kind of whisper, “Do you think about him like I do, Z? Do you think about him at all?”
I paused and drew in a deep breath. She had touched a nerve, though I didn’t want to admit it. I knew where his bowler hat was—just inside my closet—but I still had no idea where Ray was. “I think about him every day, Nova. Every single day.”
“So do I,” she said, turning back to the mirror and wiping away a tear, pretending it was mascara.
A few days later an early spring breeze came, bringing with it the wonderful, eternal feeling of renewal and the desire to forget and start again. We all welcomed it and it was good, but for Nova and me, there would still be one thought, one person, one question that both of us knew we would never forget.
Opari had not met anyone like Mitch Coates in all her long life. “There was one man, an Indian prince in Vishakhapatnam, he reminds me of in some ways,” she said, “but Mitch has, how do you say, a ‘joie de vivre’ that is all his own.”
“That is exactly how you say it,” I told her. “And I agree, except for one man you never met—Solomon J. Birnbaum.”
“Yes, Carolina has said the same.”
We were in the bedroom Owen had assigned to us, on the second floor at the far end of the hall. His own unusual bedroom and living quarters were behind the door directly across from ours. It was late Saturday morning, the first day of April. “What was the prince’s name?” I asked, curious because at that point in time, Opari seldom mentioned her incredible history or anyone in it.
“I do not recall the exact name, though I remember several seconds were required to pronounce his complete and formal name and title. I referred to him as ‘Skylark.’ He was an heir to great wealth and possessed
