The Remembering

to speak. I think she wore them to bed that night, much to Katsuo’s amusement. He told Sailor he hadn’t seen her smile in over a year.

At last, the long and complicated day was coming to an end. I felt bone-tired and longed for sleep. I still had questions, but my curiosity was outweighed by my fatigue. As Sailor and I were stretching out on our tatami mats, Susheela the Ninth, without any inhibitions, began removing her black pajamas and putting on the clean pair given to her by Ikuko. Instinctively, I averted my eyes. Sailor saw me look away and asked, “What is the matter, Zianno? Have you never seen a girl naked? After all, she is only in the body of a child.”

Before I could respond, Susheela the Ninth laughed and said, “A very old child, I might add.”

I was embarrassed and tried to cover it up with a question. “Exactly how old are you, Sheela?”

“ ‘Sheela’?” Sailor interjected. “You address her as ‘Sheela’?”

“Yes. I was told to do so.”

“That is correct,” she said, buttoning her pajama top and sitting down cross-legged on her mat. “I informed Z he should call me by my childhood name, and so should you … Umla-Meq.” Sailor nodded once, but said nothing and Sheela turned to me. “I am older than the earrings, much older.”

“The earrings?” I asked.

“Yes, the earrings I gave to Ikuko. They were presented to me three thousand two hundred eighty-eight years ago in Amarna by a handmaiden of Queen Nefertiti. By that year, I had experienced one thousand seven hundred eighteen birthdays, including my first eleven. This year, in your month of October, I will have my next.”

At first, I was dumbfounded and blinked rapidly several times, trying to calculate the numbers in my mind. “That would mean you are going to be …”

With no trace of wonder or emotion, Susheela the Ninth said, “I will be five thousand and six years old on the day you Americans call ‘Halloween.’ ”

I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t even conceive of a life that long, particularly without the aid of the Stones. Sailor said calmly, “Trumoi-Meq and Zeru-Meq would be impressed.”

“Would they?” she asked, looking directly at Sailor. Her voice had a slight edge of irony and melancholy. “It has not been easy, Umla-Meq … and it has been lonely.”

I thought of Mama and Papa and their endless journeys, and I realized their travels and travails were nothing compared to what Susheela the Ninth must have seen and done in order to survive so long. I now had many more questions for her; however, I was simply too tired to ask them. Outside, a light rain began to fall. Sailor turned off the single lamp in the room and we all lay down on our mats to wait for sleep. For some reason, I recalled a poem Zeru-Meq had carved into a tree years earlier when we were searching for him in China. It was titled “The Quiet Rain” and went like this:

In the back of our lives, steady and soft, a rain falls.
We sleep through it, then wake at the sound of a distant train.
Just in time to hear the quiet rain.
Behind that, deep in darkness,
The grinding crickets.

When I awoke in the morning I was alone in the room. After rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I found Sailor standing in the kitchen brewing tea. Katsuo, Ikuko, and Susheela the Ninth were not in the house.

Sailor had his back to me, but felt my presence. “I have a plan,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said quickly. “Not yet. I want you to tell me what happened in Nagasaki. How did you survive, and what about Zuriaa?”

Sailor sighed and poured tea for both of us, then turned to face me. “Very well, Zianno, though I have already told you it was sheer luck. Sit down and I shall give you the facts.” I sat down and Sailor stirred his tea before beginning. “By the evening of August 8, after leaving you and Shutratek that morning, Sak and I had found the Fleur-du-Mal’s shiro with little difficulty. The old castle was tucked away in a crowded neighborhood along the Nakashima River, not far from the harbor. The building itself was somewhat dilapidated and seemed abandoned. However, I knew this could be a ruse; the Fleur-du-Mal has used such deceptions in the past. Sak and I decided to wait and observe the castle through the night. No one entered or exited, nor did we see any signs of life within. By mid-morning of August 9, just as we were about to seek a way inside, Zuriaa suddenly appeared at the gate, paused a moment to look in every direction, and began walking briskly to the north. Sak turned to me and said, “I will follow her.” There was no forethought or plan, Zianno. I could have said the same thing to him. I told Sak I would stay at the shiro and discover what was inside. I watched him walk away, keeping his distance behind Zuriaa. I never saw either of them again. Twenty-five minutes later, the bomb exploded.”

“Where were you?”

“Three stories below ground. I assumed an earthquake had occurred. The entire structure shook violently. Within seconds my only exit had been blocked completely by fallen stone and I was left in total darkness in a subterranean dungeon. The dropping of an atomic bomb never crossed my mind.” Sailor paused and took several sips of tea.

“What did you do next?” I asked.

“Once my eyes had adjusted as best they could, I explored the large space of the room. Even in darkness, it became apparent Zuriaa, or someone, had been living in these quarters. Eventually I located matches and an oil lamp. In the dim light, I saw countless sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, and maps strewn throughout the room. I expected another tremor at any moment and carefully examined the walls and ceiling of the structure itself. The shiro was old, indeed, but well constructed and I felt relatively safe. I then decided to investigate the various artifacts and wait for the earth to settle. Also, I knew instinctively Susheela the Ninth, or ‘Sheela’ as you call her, was nowhere to be found, although I did feel the residue of her presence.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“This is difficult to explain. It is a phenomenon and I am still struggling with it.” Sailor poured more tea for himself, took another sip, and continued. “Approximately two days later I emerged from the dungeon of the shiro only to be confronted by the total annihilation of everything around me. It was then I realized there had been no earthquake and something much more destructive and demonic had occurred — an atomic bomb.”

“But how did you escape? I thought you said your exit was entirely blocked with fallen stone.”

“Yes … it was,” he said, then glanced at the pot of tea on the table in front of us. Without warning, the pot rose by itself into the air and sort of danced in a circle, then settled down gently on the table.

I looked at Sailor. I said nothing, but understood immediately. Sailor smiled faintly, rubbing his star sapphire with his thumb. The mystical and astonishing power of telekinesis! “Have I never told you how I came to wear this ring, Zianno?” Sailor asked, slipping the brilliant blue star sapphire from his finger and holding it to the light, staring, admiring the six separate shafts of color that shot in all directions from its heart.

I had always wondered and never asked. “No,” I said. “You have not.”

“It was a gift,” Sailor whispered. “The last one … from Deza.”

Just then I heard voices coming into the house. Susheela the Ninth was thanking Katsuo for showing her the family’s theater and teaching her about Bunraku and its history. Sailor and I only had a few more moments alone. Quickly I asked him what he did once he was above ground. He said he ran out of the city as fast as Geaxi, following the Urakami River northward. For the next forty-eight hours he wandered the countryside, dazed from what he had seen in Nagasaki.

Katsuo and Ikuko were entering the kitchen, followed closely by Susheela the Ninth. Ikuko was laughing and talking and wearing her new earrings, which were older than Japan. In a whisper, I asked Sailor, “How did you know we were going to be at Urakami Station?”

Sailor leaned forward in his chair. His “ghost eye” was clear and focused. “I received instructions and directions,” he whispered back.

“Instructions? From where … from whom?”