“Speaking of Zeru-Meq, I thought he liked to arrive earlier than expected. Where is he?”
“I said he may arrive early, it has been one of his patterns, but nothing about Zeru-Meq is expected or predictable, my love. Zeru-Meq is his own umpire.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, groaning slightly. “I remember China.”
June 8 passed uneventfully and without a word or sign from Zeru-Meq. No one expressed concern. On June 13, the Browns played the Yankees in a doubleheader. Ray and I decided to go, even though we rarely attended Browns’ games. Both of us were anxious to see the second-year center fielder for the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio. Jack was covering the doubleheader for the
That night, long after dinner, Opari, Ray, and I walked the short distance to Carolina’s “Honeycircle” to have a quiet conversation about Nova. While we talked, Ray was catching lightning bugs and then letting them go. Opari stood by Baju’s sundial and I was sitting on the grass next to her. At one point, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow moving silently into the opening of the “Honeycircle.” I turned my head slowly. In the darkness, I could see the dark figure of a boy, standing with his legs spread wide and his hands on his hips. I panicked at first, remembering the Fleur-du-Mal’s figure standing over me in almost the exact same place the night he slashed every tendon in my knees and shoulders. I jumped to my feet and faced him. There was just enough moonlight to see he was wearing boots laced to the knees and some sort of gem on one hand because it sparkled in the faint light. He started toward me and I knew he wasn’t the Fleur-du-Mal.
“Zeru-Meq?” I asked.
The boy took another step. “I should think not,” he said, and kept walking until we could all see his face easily.
Opari laughed and said, “Hello, Sailor.”
Sailor tossed a baseball he was holding to me. When I caught it, he asked, “Did you see the catch, Zianno?”
I didn’t understand until I glanced at the ball. It was an authentic Major League baseball. “That was you today, the kid in the center field bleachers?”
Sailor didn’t answer, but asked if I was aware of the fact that the stitching on a baseball was remarkably similar to an ancient design for infinity. Then he asked, “Did you find the ‘List’?”
“Yes,” I said. “What about—”
Sailor cut me off. “I will explain later, Zianno.”
“But the letter from Zeru-Meq?”
“A necessary ruse,” Sailor said, glancing over at Baju’s Roman sundial. He stood in silence for a few moments admiring the ancient timepiece before he spoke. “Last week, on the eighth of June, in the Pacific and on the coast of Peru, there was a Bitxileiho. Totality exceeded seven minutes. The last time this occurred was over eight hundred years ago.” He paused. “Baju and I were there,” he said, then looked away quickly. He offered his arm to Opari and she smiled, folding her arm in his. “Shall we go inside?” Sailor asked, and started walking toward the big house before Ray or I could move.
“Damn,” Ray said.
“I suppose that means yes,” Sailor said over his shoulder.
I was surprised Sailor didn’t ask to see the “List” the moment we stepped inside. Instead, he suggested tea in the kitchen. Geaxi and Mowsel had gone for a walk in Forest Park. Nova was washing dishes and Jack was sitting at the table writing a letter to Carolina and Star. The popular song “My Funny Valentine” was playing on the radio in the next room. Sailor greeted Jack warmly, then walked over to Nova and embraced her. “How is my niece?” he asked quietly. I had never heard Sailor address Nova as “niece” and he seemed to be acutely aware of her recent fragile state of mind. Nova assured him she was fine. Jack left to turn the radio off and the rest of us took our seats around the table. Except for his boots, Sailor was dressed like any other kid in America. He even had a floppy, snap-brimmed cap exactly like the caddies at the golf course in Forest Park. He said he wanted to hear everything that had happened to Pello and his tribe in Spain. He knew there had been many deaths, but he wanted to know the extent. Opari prepared the tea while I tried to relate some of what Geaxi had told us about the bombing of Guernica. Sailor listened without moving. His “ghost eye” glazed and clouded and swirled. He was horrified. I hadn’t yet told him of Mowsel’s blindness when the kitchen door burst open and in walked Mowsel himself, followed by Geaxi.
Mowsel almost bumped the table. He stopped short and felt his way to an empty chair. He was mumbling something about glass greenhouses and light. Geaxi saw Sailor instantly and stood still in the doorway. Sailor watched Mowsel without saying a word. Then Mowsel suddenly fell silent and turned his head toward Sailor, but his eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling. He grinned and said, “Do I smell the sea or is that merely the scent of an old mariner?”
Sailor made no response. He glanced once at Geaxi, who said nothing. He moved his chair closer to Mowsel and held his hand up in front of Mowsel’s face. Mowsel continued to stare at the ceiling. Sailor leaned even closer. “How long have you been blind, old friend?”
Without hesitation, Mowsel answered, “Since Guernica.”
Sailor paused. “Do you think it is permanent?”
Mowsel dropped his grin and angled his head in the opposite direction. He seemed to be remembering something, maybe Guernica. “It is possible,” he said.
Sailor looked up to see if Jack was in the room. He wasn’t. Sailor’s jaw was set tight with anger and he twirled the blue sapphire on his forefinger round and round. I hadn’t seen him that way since northern Africa when he told me about the Greeks who traded and sold the bones of the Meq who had been slaughtered in Phoenician temples. Sailor turned to me. “These Giza…” he said bitterly, “they will kill us yet.”
Opari leaned forward and laid her hands on the table. “We cannot change the Giza, Umla-Meq.”
“No, we cannot, but the Giza are changing everything else!”
Opari waited for Sailor to look at her. When he did, she pressed one hand against her chest, over her heart and over the Stone of Blood hanging from a leather necklace beneath her blouse. “We will survive, Sailor. We are Meq…we must.”
Mowsel reached out and found Sailor’s face with his right hand. He gave him a gentle slap on the cheek and grinned. “Do not worry, Umla-Meq, I am well, and Opari is correct—we must survive.”
Sailor started to respond just as Jack entered the kitchen. Jack looked at me and said, “I thought you might want to use Georgia’s room, so I opened the safe.”
Sailor glanced over at me. “The ‘List’?”
“Yes.”
He stood and motioned for me to lead the way. “Shall we, then?”
As we left the kitchen, Mowsel fell in behind Geaxi, never touching her and matching her step for step without running into anything. Sailor watched his longtime friend with admiration and affection. I even saw the hint of a smile cross his lips.
With all of us in Georgia’s room at once, it quickly became close and crowded. Sailor stood by the Tiffany lamp and read Antoine Boutrain’s letter without reaction or expression, except for a single nod of his head, as if confirming something. When he was finished, Geaxi asked him bluntly, “What is this about, Sailor?”
Jack had left as we entered and there were only Meq in the tiny room. I realized for the second time in my life, all five Stones had gathered in the same place. The last time had not gone well.
“Zianno,” Sailor said. “Do you recall our final conversation in Norway? I told you the Fleur-du-Mal now had a significant weakness because we knew something he did not.”
“That there is no Sixth Stone?”
“Precisely, and I said we could exploit his obsession.”
“Yes.”
