The Meq (17 page)

Baju rose to speak. I could not get over how much he reminded me of Papa, especially under starlight.

“You look at me and think of Yaldi, no?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “How did you know?”

“I did not know for sure, but it is good, because your papa would have told you this himself, someday.

“In a little over a hundred years from now, there will be a time, an occurrence, that is sacred and unique to the Meq. It is the reason your mama and papa crossed in the Zeharkatu when they did, so that you could be born in preparation for it. It is the same reason Eder and myself crossed and were blessed with Nova. We know of it through legend and story, but also through Sailor’s family and the Stone of Memory. It is even mentioned in fragments on a stone in the Pyrenees called the Idol of Mikeldi. The language is a transitional language between Meq and old Basque, but the name is the same. It is called the Gogorati, the Remembering.”

He paused and looked at the others, not sure how to continue.

“What is the Remembering?” I asked.

Geaxi rose from her squatting position and said, “We do not know. We only know that all five sets of Stones are to be together at a certain place and time. The place is called Egongela, or the Living Room. We also know it is a cave somewhere in the Pyrenees. The time is the time during the Bitxileiho, or the Strange Window. We know when that is and Baju will tell you what it is later. The important thing, nay, the imperative thing, is that we find Opari. Without her, we cannot know, we will never know . . .”

“The truth,” Sailor finished.

He had circled behind me and stood opposite Geaxi. Baju and Eder stood together in front of me and slightly to the side. We almost formed the shape of a five-pointed star with one point missing. The configuration did not go unnoticed by Sailor. He said, “We must find her, Zianno. Geaxi is right. It is imperative. The Gogorati will come and go and we must be there with the five Stones or we may never know who and what we are.

“I will tell you that before I met Solomon and came to you, Geaxi and I were in the Far East on the trail of Opari. Through various and disparate contacts, we learned that someone of her ‘description’ was living outside Shanghai with another one like herself called the ‘Pearl.’ They were protected by a secret cadre sent from the Empress Dowager, or the ‘Old Buddha,’ as she is called by her enemies. But, as you heard Geaxi tell me earlier, she has vanished.

“And now that you know her story and ours, have you indeed . . . ‘seen’ her?”

“I don’t know where she is,” I said, “but if I could get close enough, and I don’t know why, she will not sense my presence, at least not in her usual way. I could find her then.”

“Then we shall go back to the Far East,” Sailor said. “And pick up her trail.”

I wasn’t sure I believed what I’d just said, not completely. I felt lost in what I’d heard, lost and small, like a grain of dust in a great wind, one star blurred by the Milky Way and Time itself. But I also felt a sense of family, blood, and connection to my own history that I had never felt before. They were Meq and now, finally, so was I.

I looked at Eder and suddenly thought of Nova. “Where is your daughter?” I asked.

She laughed and took my hand again. “We only have to find Ray to find Nova,” she said. “I am afraid my daughter is literally physically attached to Ray.”

We came down from the clearing and back to the cabin to discover just that. Ray and Nova were on the floor playing a game that mainly involved Nova sitting on Ray’s bowler hat and pulling on various parts of his face while giggling to herself.

Ray looked up at me in obvious pain and joy. “Damn, Z, where you been?”

We rested that night in Eder and Baju’s cabin and returned in the morning to Kepa’s camp. He welcomed us as if we’d never been gone and all that day and night the festivities continued. There was accordion music and dancing and roasted lamb and games of competition among the Basque like stone-lifting and wood-chopping. Old men played a card game called Mus and Ray played pelota, or handball, with the children.

Kepa introduced me to everyone I hadn’t yet met and gave me a long diatribe about each of their faults and virtues. I even taught a few, including Pello, the basic rules of baseball and we had a makeshift game in the center of camp. It was a good day, a full day, and though everyone was happy enjoying a day of play, I saw Sailor only once, and that was at sunset walking toward the stream with his head down and Geaxi’s arm gently folded in his. I found Eder and asked if he was all right.

“Sailor is fine,” she said. “As fine as he will ever be.” She watched the two of them walk down the slope, disappearing into the pines. “Geaxi is good for him. She knows his darkness.”

“Is it because of Deza still?”

“Yes. Did you know that he was not born with his ‘ghost eye’? It became cloudy when he saw Deza murdered and dismembered in front of him. He says that Deza is in his eye now. She is the ‘ghost’ of his vision. But Geaxi is the quickest and brightest among us. She knows when to comfort him and when to leave him be.”

“Does Geaxi still do the Itxaron?”

“Yes. A long time now.”

“Has she never met her Ameq?”

“No, and she will never speak of it. She and Sailor have different demons, but the same will and perseverance to survive. She is the Stone of Will and he is the Stone of Memory. Those two things together keep hope alive.”

As Eder was speaking, I caught sight of the one person I hadn’t met, the one person present who was neither Meq nor Basque—Owen Bramley. He was just leaving a group of men gathered around a corral admiring horses and saddles. I excused myself from Eder and walked over to him. He saw me approaching and stopped to face me. He was a good foot and a half taller, but I could see in his eyes that he considered me no less than equal. He nodded to me without speaking.

I spoke first. “My name is Zianno Zezen.”

“And mine, Owen Bramley,” he said, holding his hand out.

We shook hands. He had a strong grip and his shirtsleeves were rolled up above his elbows. He was freckled, a thousand times more than Carolina, from fingertip to forehead.

“Solomon told me you were ‘his man,’ ” I said.

“That sounds like Solomon. You are either ‘his’ man or you are someone else’s.”

“He also said you were Scottish.”

He laughed out loud. “I am Scottish, at least my parents are, but I’m from Chicago. I think Solomon likes to call me Scottish, as if it were a curse, because I know how much he spends and I tell him when it’s too much.”

“Now
that
sounds like Solomon,” I said.

He laughed again and I wondered what he knew about me, about us. He seemed at ease, so I asked.

“What did Solomon tell you about myself and the others?”

“He said to treat you as I would him—with respect—and to keep an open mind and enjoy myself.”

“Did he give you any special instructions?”

“No, only to make sure you and Sailor have anything you need, anytime, anyplace. And if I can, prevent any . . . accidents.” He took his glasses off and cleaned them with the front of his shirt. “You’re probably wondering why Solomon would trust me with this,” he said.

“Well, yes, I was.”

He chuckled to himself and said, “I don’t know, really. Based on our first meeting years ago, I would think he might trust me least of all.”

“What happened?”

He waved his arm, dismissing the thought, and said, “It is a long story, but just let me say, it was Solomon who saved my life and I am forever grateful to him. If it is only trust he asks of me, then he shall have it without question or doubt.”

“I know that feeling,” I said, meaning every word and missing the old man as I said it. In the distance, I could hear a Basque woman singing a beautiful ballad accompanied by a guitar and accordion.

“Sailor says we must leave this place soon,” he said, “and we may have a long journey ahead of us.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“I will miss these people and this place, even though I have only just arrived.”

I looked around at the joy of life and sense of place that was everywhere in Kepa’s camp. “And so will I,” I said.

We spent the next two weeks at Kepa’s camp making plans to leave. Owen Bramley left early to secure our train and steamship schedules in Boise, where we would rendezvous later. It was decided that Sailor would go by himself with one of Kepa’s sons to San Francisco and then on to Shanghai. Geaxi, Ray, Baju, and myself would go north through British Columbia to Vancouver with Owen Bramley, Pello, and one of his brothers, Joseba, as “chaperones.” It would be easier for Ray and me to have identity papers made in Canada and Sailor said Baju had advised him there was something in Vancouver I must experience as an Egizahar Meq. He said it would be good for Ray to know of it as well, since many Egipurdiko do not even know it exists. He wouldn’t elaborate except to say the time and place were right and we must take advantage. It was absolutely essential that I go “to it and through it.” Whatever it was, Geaxi was not that excited about it, saying, “Once is enough,” but she agreed it was essential and “since it no longer affected Baju, we were safe.” Baju himself was mostly silent, saying only “we must be on the ship in Vancouver by the morning of August 9.”

When we left Kepa’s camp, everyone gave their long thanks and embraces to Kepa and his wife, Miren. Kepa told me Pello was the youngest and the best and that was why he was sending him with Joseba. He leaned into my ear whispering and asking, “Did you take your telescope?” I whispered, “Of course, it will always be with me as your tattoo is with you.”

Ray had a harder time leaving than the rest of us. Nova wouldn’t let him go. She was laughing and pulling on his nose and shirt. Finally, he gave her his bowler hat and she let go and he jumped in the wagon. Still laughing, she threw sunflower seeds at him as we were pulling out. He caught nearly every one of them. The last image I saw of Kepa’s camp was Eder and Nova waving, and Eder and Baju exchanging a look I had seen before only on the faces of Mama and Papa.

In Boise, we met Owen Bramley and went over our plans, times, and routes to meet finally in Shanghai. Sailor’s train left first and even though he was alone, except for Kepa’s son, I knew he would be safe. He had traveled this way for longer than any train or road that carried him had even existed. Only the sea was older. He gave Baju an extended embrace and stepped onto the train without a backward glance. Now that I knew about Deza, everything Sailor did seemed to have something else attached to it. I glanced at Geaxi and instead of watching Sailor depart, she was watching me. I walked over to her and said what I was thinking.

“He pays a price for his memories, doesn’t he?”

She paused a moment and said, “No more than every breath.”

A short time later, we boarded our own train and headed north. We crossed the border into Canada, stopping briefly at a small station with a single agent and no customs. Owen Bramley took care of the paperwork and we were on our way. We passed through a wild and beautiful town in southern British Columbia called Kelowna. Huddled between mountain ranges in a valley made from receding glaciers, it was a paradise of the north with peach trees full and ripe all around. Geaxi was napping, but I woke her up as we passed through and it was the only time she smiled during the whole trip.

On the afternoon of August 8, 1896, we arrived in Vancouver under a steady rain. An hour later, the sky was clear and the sun was shining. We were told this was a daily occurrence. Ray, the “Weatherman,” said he would be too busy to live here. Baju looked worried and said he hoped it would be clear in the morning.

We went directly to the docks and the ship on which Owen Bramley had booked passage, the
Lotus,
a steamer registered in Singapore and owned by Bourdes, the same firm that had employed Antoine Boutrain all those years before. Baju made sure our cabins were on the starboard side, facing east. Pello and Joseba stayed close the whole time, watching every face, but staying slightly out of sight themselves. I knew they were nervous and I knew why. Vancouver was a rough place.

Still in the midst of the Klondike gold rush and already known as an international port, Vancouver was a new town, a frontier town with all the cardsharps, punks and thieves, whorehouses, saloons, and backstabbing that goes with it. You felt free in such a town, but not necessarily safe. And with Geaxi and me both in the same place, and after what we had sensed in the Denver train station, there was cause for concern. I admired Pello. He showed patience and calm, but kept a steady and keen alertness amid the chaos. I was sure he’d never been in a place like Vancouver.

We ate in a little saloon on Water Street near Carrall on the edge of the Burrard Inlet. It was called Gassy Jack’s. Someone was playing a loud, out-of-tune piano the whole time we were there. The place was filled with men and women of all kinds from all ends of the earth. It was one place where a group like ours was nothing unusual.

Owen Bramley ordered for everyone, but it didn’t make any difference, since a huge piece of salmon and a bucket of beans were the only things on the menu. During the meal, I changed places at the table and sat next to Baju. I had to know more about the next day.

“Tell me what will happen tomorrow,” I said.

He stopped eating and looked around the table. No one else could hear us over the general racket and discordant notes of the piano. “I will tell you more and we will talk again afterward, but I will tell you this”—he paused and wiped his mouth with a hand towel—“the sun will rise and appear tomorrow and then disappear.”

I looked at him as if it could not be that simple. “You mean an eclipse?”

“Yes, an eclipse. A total eclipse of the sun will occur here tomorrow. But to us it is more than that. To the Meq, it is the time of the Bitxileiho, the Strange Window.

“For reasons we have never known, or have known and forgotten, during an eclipse of the sun, there is a strange”—he paused again and took a drink from a large mug, then went on—“thing that we, the Meq, experience. It is similar to what happens to the Giza when the Stones are used on them, only for us it is more difficult; a deeper place; a wider gap. But it is necessary to know this place, because it is there that you cross with your Ameq in the Zeharkatu. To the Meq, the Bitxileiho is as strange and common and magic and sacred as a drink of water.”