The Remembering

were quiet. “Soon,” he said.

At six o’clock, we watched the local news on television, but they only expected cloudy skies and the possibility of rain in the forecast. Afterward, we played cards for a while, then watched I’ve Got a Secret on TV and waited. Antoinette and Georgie said good night and slipped off to bed. Eight o’clock and nine o’clock came and passed. On the ten o’clock news, they continued to predict cloudy skies and the possibility of rain. Maybe Ray missed it this time, I thought. Following the news, Carolina retired, thanking Ray again and saying, “Wake me if necessary.” Ray, Nova, and I stayed in the living room, watching TV. Eventually, Nova fell asleep on the couch and I fell asleep in my chair. Only Ray remained awake, turning off the television and sitting by the window, staring into darkness.

At 1:50 A.M., the same time as Buddy Holly’s plane crash, Ray tapped my shoulder and woke me. “It’s here,” was all he said.

I blinked and stood up immediately. Outside, I could hear the wind roaring through the trees, and hailstones were hitting the windows. Just then, a tree limb cracked like a rifle shot in the front yard, waking Nova up. Thirty seconds later, Antoinette ran into the room with Georgie in her arms and a frightened look on her face. Carolina wasn’t far behind, coming down the stairs in her nightgown and robe. “To the basement,” she said, “everyone to the basement. Quickly.”

One by one, we followed Carolina downstairs. We huddled together and waited. In ten minutes, everything was over. We walked back up into the kitchen. I got a flashlight and Ray and I opened the door and looked out. A light rain was falling, but the sky was quiet and the storm had passed. Tree branches and scattered debris covered the yard and driveway. We walked around the house to see if anything was broken or missing, then wandered into the “Honeycircle.” In the beam of the flashlight we saw something that only a tornado can create. Impaled on the point of the bronze gnomon of Baju’s Roman sundial was a street sign from the intersection of Manchester Road and Woodlawn. I looked at Ray and we shook our heads in disbelief at the power of such a storm. We both knew Manchester Road and Woodlawn was at least ten miles away to the southwest.

I looked up at the sky and whispered, “I’m glad Willie and Star are safe … but I think it’s us who got lucky.”

Ray was still staring at the street sign. “Ain’t that the truth,” he mumbled.

It wasn’t until the morning newscast that we found out the extent of the damage in St. Louis County and the city of St. Louis. The storm path had missed us by less than a mile. The Channel 2 TV tower had been blown down, and many power and phone lines were down. There was heavy damage around Grand and Page, and entire apartment buildings had collapsed in several places, the worst being in the vicinity of Boyle and Olive. That was Gaslight Square and it was exactly where Mitch and Mercy lived.

All morning long we tried to reach them by telephone. We never got through and they never called. Willie and Star did call, and so did Caine from Austin and Jack from Washington. We assured them we were all right. Around noon, Antoinette drove Nova, Ray, and me near the neighborhood of Gaslight Square, but there was too much chaos to find anything out. Firemen and police had closed off several streets, including the area surrounding Boyle and Olive. We waited the rest of the day in Carolina’s kitchen, hearing nothing. As the sun was setting, Willie and Star finally arrived home safely only to learn that Mitch and Mercy were missing. The local evening newscast estimated twenty-one people had been killed and more than three hundred injured, and the search through the debris of collapsed buildings continued. Carolina called every hospital in St. Louis looking for them and came up empty. No one said it aloud, but we feared the worst. Then, early the next morning, Carolina received a telephone call from the police. Mitchell Ithaca Coates, age sixty-six, and Mercy Marie Whitney, age fifty-six, had been found dead, buried in the rubble and debris of their apartment building. The news was more than sad. It took the wind out of us. Carolina had known Mitch since he was twelve years old, as I had, and every one of us had been in love with the good and beautiful Mercy.

Jack came back on the first flight out of Washington, and Caine drove home from Austin. According to wishes stated in both their wills, Mitch and Mercy were cremated. We held our own service in Carolina’s home, and instead of a preacher’s words, Jack rounded up a few local jazz musicians, all of whom knew Mitch well, and they played some of his favorite tunes while everybody shared drinks, good food, and memories of Mitch and Mercy. All day long, I kept seeing the same image in my mind. It was Mitch as a twelve-year-old shoeshine boy in Union Station, snapping his shine rag with a loud clap, a big grin, and a wink of the eye. “Hey, Z, man,” he’d say, “where you goin’?” I never had an answer for him, but he never stopped asking.

Long after everyone had either left or gone to bed, Jack, Ray, and I were still awake, sitting in the kitchen, talking and drinking the last of the coffee. Jack said he would take care of all the legal work concerning Mitch, Mercy, and their property. Ray pointed over to two brass urns sitting on a table near the door. They contained the ashes of Mitch and Mercy. “What are you gonna do with them?” he asked. Jack paused and the three of us stared at the urns.

Before Jack could answer, I said, “Paris.”

Ray looked at me. “What do you mean, ‘Paris’?”

“We’re going to take their ashes to Paris and get on a boat and let them go, into the wind and over the water of the Seine, the heart of Paris. There’s only one place where their ashes should be — the place where they fell in love.”

Jack and Ray nodded in silent approval. We kept staring at the urns for another ten minutes, then turned out the lights and went to bed.

Instead of insisting that I stay, this time Carolina was urging me to leave. Once she heard my idea, she applauded it and suggested it should be carried out sooner rather than later. Jack made all the necessary arrangements and within two days, Jack, Ray, Nova, and I said our farewells, flew to New York, changed planes, and flew nonstop to Paris. On the flight over, I thought about the future. I didn’t know when I’d return to St. Louis. The sphere had to be found and it had to be read.

In Paris, Jack leased an available peniche, or barge turned houseboat, for ten days. It was located on the Canal St. Martin and suited our purposes perfectly. Shortly after sunrise on the second day, with Jack as pilot, we made our way slowly out of the canal and scattered the ashes of Mitch and Mercy into the dark waters of the Seine. It was a quiet and solemn act and Jack ended it with a quiet sentence and prayer. He said simply, “God bless both of you, forever.”

That afternoon I telephoned Opari in Montreux and told her where we were and why. The following day Opari, Sheela, and Sailor boarded a train and joined us in Paris. Just seeing Opari again lifted my spirits immediately. Sailor knew that Mitch and I had been close, and he gave me his condolences and sympathy, something rare for Sailor.

The peniche Jack had leased could accommodate up to a dozen people, so there was plenty of room, and living on the river and canals of a large and vibrant city like Paris suited all of us. At the end of the ten-day lease, Jack decided the barge would make an excellent base of operations and we agreed. He made a generous offer to buy it, which was accepted, and we became the new “river rats” of Paris. The name of our barge was the Giselle and in no time Opari, Nova, and Sheela had transformed her tiny galley into a floating gourmet’s kitchen.

Jack’s cover for remaining in Paris for an extended length of time was a series of articles published in the American magazine Sports Illustrated. Each article was written about different events in the upcoming 1960 Olympics in Rome. However, his real work was helping us search for any trace of Valery and the Beekeeper. For this, he used Cardinal’s European network of agents and contacts. On several occasions during the summer and fall we thought we had a lead, but none of them ever became anything we could use.

Time passed. Sailor and I kept in touch with Mowsel and the others in San Sebastian, but mainly we stayed in Paris. We settled into a life living on the river. Every season was intensified and stood alone, and yet every season followed one into the other in a graceful, seamless parade. There is, without a doubt, something timeless about living on the river.

Finally, in the spring of 1963, an odd set of circumstances combined to create a breakthrough, although we didn’t know it at the time. It came not from Cardinal’s network, but from Ray and Opari and a conversation they observed quite by accident. Three years earlier Ray had discovered a new passion, photography, when he accompanied Jack to the 1960 Olympics and returned with stunning pictures he had taken of the sprinter Wilma Rudolph and Cassius Clay, winner of the light-heavyweight gold medal. He gradually acquired more and more