I said, “
I have no explanation for what I did next. Maybe in some way I wanted to help Carolina leave, or maybe I wanted to keep her from leaving. I don’t know or care. I do know I have never regretted it. I turned Carolina on her side and lay down next to her with my arms wrapped around hers. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. She had told me not to grieve, yet that, too, was impossible. Instead, I talked to her. I held her close and simply talked to her, as if we were on a plane or a train, or just kicking leaves in Forest Park. I held her close to me and talked until every last degree of warmth had left her body and she was far, far away.
I only said a few words when I finally entered the kitchen. Star and Jack, Caine and Antoinette, were expecting what I had to tell them. Antoinette said a prayer in French and Jack called an ambulance. I held Star’s hand while the tears ran down her cheeks and each of us sat in silence, remembering the most amazing woman any of us had ever known.
Because of the numerous local organizations and charities to which Carolina had contributed throughout her long life in St. Louis, Jack, Star, and Caine held a small service at First Unitarian Church, only a few blocks from Carolina’s house. Many representatives of those organizations attended; however, there were no close friends. Carolina had outlived them all.
At sunset on May 1, 1974, inside the “Honeycircle” and next to Baju’s sundial, we buried the urn containing Carolina’s ashes. Antoinette said another prayer in French, while Jack and Caine and I shoveled the dirt. Star sang a beautiful and simple lullaby, one that Carolina said she had sung to Star as a baby. Jack smoothed out the surface and said his own prayer. “I love you, Mama. Be at peace now.”
Jack and I stayed up late that night, talking and drinking coffee in the kitchen. It was well after midnight when we finally said good night and I walked upstairs and went to bed. The big house felt empty without Carolina’s presence. I lay in bed and thought about her until I eventually drifted off and fell into a deep sleep.
The dream begins with me on the pitching mound in old Sportsman’s Park. It is midday and the sky is a clear bright blue. The grandstands are empty except for my mama and papa, who are sitting twenty rows up, directly behind home plate. I have Mama’s glove on one hand and Papa’s baseball in the other. There are no other players on the field and no one is at bat. Somewhere in the distance a dog is barking. A figure walks up out of the dugout and steps onto the field. It is the Umpire. He is dressed completely in black. Even his chest protector and mask are black. He starts toward me and I walk to meet him. He is only an inch or two taller than I am. He stops. He reaches up and slowly removes his mask, then runs his other hand through his strawberry blond hair and smiles. He is a she. The Umpire is Carolina. She is about twelve years old and the freckles spread across her cheeks and the tiny flecks in both her blue-gray eyes sparkle like gold dust. She takes hold of my hand. “Come with me,” she says. “I have found something for you.”
She leads me down the steps of the dugout and into a tunnel that narrows, then widens and changes into an underground passage through a cave lit by torches burning animal fat. The stone walls are cold to the touch and I can see my breath. Carolina seems unaffected by the drop in temperature. We pass by a long panel of spectacular paintings in black charcoal and red and yellow ochre, depicting herds of mammoths, reindeer, rhinoceroses, aurochs, and horses. We turn left, then right. “Where are we going?” I ask. “Shhh,” she says, and walks through the ashes of a still-burning campfire in the passage, scattering coals and sparks all around. I am right behind her. We come to a set of brass double doors. She pushes her way through and we are standing in a massive empty space with marble floors and a great vaulted ceiling. I recognize it. We are in the Grand Hall of Union Station. Carolina points to something shining and spinning in the middle of the huge room. It is a carousel, but instead of painted ponies going up and down, I see all the markings on the sphere from Portugal. I hear strange music and look to my left. In the shadows, Scott Joplin is playing ragtime on a calliope. He waves at me.
Carolina leads me closer to the carousel. It is lit from within and seems to glow. The markings are life-size, as tall as I am. They are floating in something, spinning and bobbing up and down. The something is neither here nor there. It has no appearance whatsoever, no top, no bottom, yet it floats, it moves, it supports the markings. It is the “water” of Time. Carolina squeezes my hand and we walk through the “water” into and onto the carousel and step around the markings while they spin round and round, up and down, and the calliope is playing its endless, jangling melody in perfect time with the bouncing, circling, floating markings. And I know I know how to navigate; how to shepherd; how to listen, learn, teach, dream, and travel my way through. They are each one as common and familiar and known to me as the toys in a child’s bath. I think back to the first Meq phrase I found inside the cave in the Sahara Desert. The phrase was in the form of a cross or an X with the word “is” as an axis. It read: “Where Time is under Water — Where Water is under Time.” And now I am there. Carolina lets go of my hand and kisses me on the lips. I taste honey and rose water. She turns and walks in the direction of Scott Joplin and the calliope, then vanishes into the shadows. In my heart and mind, I hear an echo. It is Carolina. She says, “Farewell, Z … my only Z.”
I awoke to the sounds of a cardinal and her chirping hungry chicks nesting in the big tree outside my window. The sun was just rising. My first thought was of a milk barn in East Germany and what was inside. My second thought was, “How fast can I get there?” That same morning I told Jack my intentions and he said he would take me himself. He said he needed to get away from St. Louis, and he could check on the
Before we parted, I said to Jack, “Tell Sailor I may have found it.”
“And he’ll know what that means?”
“He’ll know.”
A light rain was falling when Hans Mannheim turned into the long driveway of the farm and finally brought the big Mercedes to a stop. I leaped out the door. I had called ahead, and standing under a wide umbrella, Opari and Ray were there to greet me. The Fleur-du-Mal was nowhere in sight. I ducked under the umbrella.
Ray said, “Are you all right, Z? You look kinda odd.”
I gave Opari an embrace and told Ray I was fine. I also said I had the worst of news and the best of news. Briefly, I told them about Carolina’s passing and the burying of her ashes next to Baju’s sundial. Both of them were saddened, especially Ray, who had known Carolina well, and he promised to give a toast in her honor after dinner. Then I told them I had experienced a special and unique dream unlike any other. I asked Ray, “Where is he, where is the Fleur-du-Mal?”
“He’s in the milk barn,” Ray answered. “He’s always in the milk barn.”
I kissed Opari and ran out from under the umbrella. “Follow me.”
Without knocking, I opened the door of the milk barn. The Fleur-du-Mal turned his head and looked up as I entered, with Opari and Ray close behind. He was sitting at his desk near the cylinders and spheres. There were stacks of books and charts around him, and to his right stood a large, portable chalkboard filled with theories, notations, and scribbles. “Ah,
“Yes … I have,” I said, ignoring him and walking over to the spheres. All the lights were turned on. I watched as each sphere turned in a slow rotation on top of its gleaming steel cylinder. In my mind, I saw the image of the carousel, lit from within and turning. Carved exquisitely in granite, the familiar markings floated by. “You were right,” I said, glancing at the Fleur-du-Mal and reaching out to gently touch the sphere from Portugal. “They truly are ‘Dreamstones.’ ”
Twenty minutes later I had “read” every marking on the sphere. It was as simple and clear as if I were reading an invitation to a party, which, in a way, I was. In its “dream language,” the message carved on the sphere began with the salutation “Welcome, Traveler.”
7. Bidaitari (Traveler)
