seat. Koki will be out shortly with tea. You look as though you need it,
“What did you do for his family?”
The Fleur-du-Mal stared at me with piercing green eyes and I noticed that not only was his hair longer and hanging loose, but he was also missing his ruby earrings. “If you must know, nearly eighty-five years ago, I saved them all from certain death. Now, that is quite enough said on the subject.”
I sat down carefully on one of the leather chairs and watched him. He moved gracefully, lighting screened lanterns on the wall and various candles strewn about the enormous room. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I had never known the Fleur-du-Mal to save anyone except himself from anything.
“Did you realize, Zezen,” he said from the far end of the room, “this entire space was once used exclusively as a torture chamber and prison?”
I waited a moment. I glanced over at the locked, reinforced door. “And now it isn’t?” I replied with the greatest irony I could muster.
He laughed and then disappeared somewhere in the shadows, saying, “I must change into something more comfortable. Relax,
I remained motionless for several moments and closed my eyes. I tried to relax, but my mind kept returning to the white light of the atomic bomb and the rising, ugly, swirling, black cloud over Nagasaki. It was death on a scale that was unimaginable. Suddenly I began to tremble and shake, first in my hands and fingers, then all over my body. I opened my eyes wide and attempted to stand. My legs wobbled and buckled and I sat back down. Images of Sailor being burned and blown apart turned over and over in my mind. I couldn’t make them stop. I heard myself moaning, “No, no, no, no.” I stood up again and forced my legs to move, walking in a tight circle. I stared down at the pattern in the Persian rug beneath my feet. Every part of the beautiful woven design seemed to move and change shape, turning into flaming dragons and demons, all with their tongues out and eyes bulging from their sockets. And they were screaming, screaming and howling with laughter. I put my hands over my ears to make them stop, yet they only got louder and louder. Then I felt someone touch my shoulder. “Mister, hello, mister,” a voice said. I opened my eyes and saw Koki’s smiling face. He was pointing toward a small cup filled with steaming liquid, sitting on an end table next to the leather chair. “Tea,” he said, then added, “Hello.”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” My voice was dry and raspy, and I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Koki, thank you.” He nodded once and bowed modestly, then started to leave again. He was nearly out of sight before I said, “Koki, wait!” He stopped instantly and turned to face me, still smiling. “Please,” I said, “please … don’t go. I mean, have a seat, I’d like to … to … I have a question for you.”
He walked back toward me slowly. His smile faded and he seemed hesitant, even fearful. He wouldn’t come any closer than ten feet. I motioned for him to take a seat in one of the chairs, but he ignored the gesture and kept his distance. I saw his face twitch once and his hands began to tremble slightly. My own trembling had ceased. “Do not be afraid, Koki,” I said. “I would never hurt you. Do you understand?”
At least thirty seconds of silence passed and his eyes never left mine. Finally, in a soft and barely audible voice, he said, “Yes, mister.”
I sat down in the leather chair and asked him again to take a seat. Shaking his head back and forth, he refused and stayed where he was. I picked up the cup of tea with both hands and blew on it, then took a sip. He never blinked and never looked away. “Do you know what has happened, Koki?” He made no response. “Up there,” I said, pointing at the ceiling. “Outside … to the south … in Nagasaki … do you know what has just happened?”
He seemed confused and looked up. “Nagasaki?” he asked. He was blinking rapidly now.
“Yes. Do you have family in Nagasaki?” The question confused him even more and he glanced back over his shoulder, then looked up again. I tried another question. “Do you know what happened in Hiroshima three days ago?”
“Hiroshima?”
“Yes, Hiroshima. Do you know about the bomb, the atomic bomb?”
Koki stammered and muttered something to himself, but never answered. Instead, he began rocking from side to side in a rhythmic motion and turned his head toward the wall. He moved back and forth in perfect time, and seemed to be staring at something, or into something, or possibly nothing. I thought I heard him humming deep inside — a last chant or lost prayer.
Before I could ask him anything else, a voice behind me said, “I am afraid Koki is not aware of current events, Zezen.” It was the Fleur-du-Mal and I had not heard him approach. Walking into view, he was wearing an elegant silk kimono, cut to his specifications. His hair had been pulled back and tied with his familiar green ribbon and he was once again wearing his ruby earrings. He sat down casually in a chair opposite mine. He let a slow grin spread across his face, then continued. “Let us say, Koki does not get out much.”
I ignored the comment and looked back at Koki. He was deep inside his trance. “Where is he staring?” I asked.
“Most certainly at Goya,” the Fleur-du-Mal answered. “Koki has been fascinated with Goya for years.”
I followed Koki’s gaze toward the stone wall. Five paintings hung in a row — three by Pablo Picasso from his classical style of the twenties, and two by an artist unfamiliar to me. I walked over to get a closer view of the paintings. The artist’s name was Candido Portinari and his style had the influence of Picasso, but definitely not Francisco de Goya. Nor were there any Goya paintings, drawings, or prints anywhere on the wall. There were only the five paintings and one unusual object attached to the wall with iron clamps — a human skull. I glanced at Koki. His hands shook and he rocked back and forth and his eyes never left the skull. I turned to the Fleur-du-Mal. “I see no Goya painting.”
“Not ‘painting,’ Zezen. Goya. Koki is staring at the skull of Francisco de Goya.” The Fleur-du-Mal paused, grinning, then added matter-of-factly, “In 1899, during an exhumation in Bordeaux, it seems to have gone missing. At the time, and at the very least, I thought Goya’s head might serve as an interesting conversation piece.” He paused again and looked at Koki. “Alas, it has not.”
Before I could make a response, or even form one, the Fleur-du-Mal spoke firmly to Koki in Japanese, repeating the same phrase three times, which included one word in English—“chess.” Seconds later, Koki came out of his trance and calmly walked out of the room without a word. The Fleur-du-Mal’s voice and words had been a key that unlocked something in Koki’s mind, almost as simple as coming out of a deep hypnotic state with three claps of a magician’s hands, and very similar to the way all Giza respond to the Stones.
Once Koki was out of sight, the Fleur-du-Mal said, “He is an idiot … an idiot savant … but an idiot nonetheless.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will explain later. I believe it was the atomic bomb you most wanted explained to you, was it not, Zezen?”
“Well … yes.” I hesitated, thinking again of Sailor and Sak — all of them. “What is it?”
The Fleur-du-Mal laughed to himself. “Ironically, or perhaps not, it was Koki’s brother, Tsuneo, who
To my surprise, the Fleur-du-Mal was an excellent teacher. As he elaborated the fundamentals behind the physics of what we’d witnessed over Nagasaki, all of it theory until now, he made certain I clearly understood each principle before he continued. He mentioned Albert Einstein several times and I was reminded of New Year’s Eve, 1918, high on a ridge at Caitlin’s Ruby — the last time I saw old Tillman Fadle and the first time I heard Einstein’s name. Looking up at the night sky, he told Geaxi and me that Einstein was after “what gets through the cracks.”
Geaxi asked, “You mean the light?”
Tillman Fadle answered, “I mean that what turns
In half an hour the Fleur-du-Mal had explained everything and I was left speechless, wondering at what the Americans had done, technologically and morally. The consequences were staggering. It was now a brand-new world, a world led by a species capable of wiping out all living things in the blink of an eye. He finished speaking and leaned forward in his chair. He put his hands on his knees, as if to rise, then paused and glanced at me. For a moment he seemed to be thinking the same horrifying thoughts as me. He smiled faintly, then walked over to the skull of Goya and stared at it with his arms folded and his legs spread. Goya stared back with empty eyes. Over his
