The Meq (39 page)

“Who is he?” I asked.

“I call him Snake Eyes, but PoPo knows his real name and has always warned me of him. PoPo says the man also knows of the Meq, and would like to steal the Ancient Pearl. He is an evil man, a trader in flesh and murder, and he smells.”

That’s when something dawned on me. Ray had said he thought he knew the man, the “Chinaman” he called him. “Snake Eyes”—“Razor Eyes.” It had to be. “Is the man a Chinese-looking man?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Do you know him?”

“I might,” I said, thinking back to that long-ago day when Baju had been murdered, and the man who had done it—“Razor Eyes.”

That night and most of the following day we stayed in a cave that Emme said PoPo had shown her when she was a girl. It would be a good place, she explained, for us to rest and clean ourselves before the end of our journey. She left the wheelchair on the donkey and carried me in her arms. The entrance to the cave was almost invisible, even from a short distance away, and had not been altered in any manner, except for a few symbols carved in the stone. Farther in, I saw the outline or imprint of hands on the walls. Tiny hands, the hands of children, hands like mine. Emme said there were other caves in the area with similar carvings and drawings, but this was the only one with a hot mineral spring. Twenty yards from the entrance was a natural cavity in the rock floor where the spring formed a pool. Emme lowered me into the steaming, mineral-rich water, then lit several candles that were hidden in niches and crevices around the pool. The effect was immediate and I felt better in five minutes than I’d felt in five weeks.

“The best surprises are the simplest pleasures,” Emme said, climbing in next to me.

I glanced over at her. “Whitman?”

“No,” she said, laughing and splashing water in my face. “Me.”

We both laughed and that was the moment I chose to ask her where and when she had learned to speak English. Her expression changed instantly and she looked away from me, staying silent for a full minute. Then she turned back and said, “It is a little complicated.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I am used to that.”

For the next hour I heard the most improbable and unlikely story I could imagine—a story of shipwreck, slavery, love, betrayal, and heartbreak, involving her mother, Libe (now dead), a desert warlord named El Heiba, and her father, a black American engineer who called himself Ithaca. Someday I will retell it in its entirety, but the essence is that Emme and her grandfather learned to speak and read English from her father and three books he left behind—two books of elementary grammar and a copy of
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman. When she finished, it was evident that her father’s appearance and disappearance was an unseen driving force in her life. I asked her if he was still alive and she hesitated, staring into the water, then said simply, “I do not know.”

The following day we rested, bathed, ate, and did very little else. Emme said we would stir up less commotion by arriving after dark. We waited for sunset, then left the cave for the last few miles of our journey. The air was almost cool as we descended the cliff. It turned pitch-black quickly and even though I couldn’t hear any sounds of wildlife, I knew we were in a vast and wild place. Overhead, a river of stars burned in silence.

We arrived at the edge of her village and were met by several children who seemed to be waiting for us. They ranged in age from about six to twelve, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. They were smiling and giggling. Emme said they had seen her care for many strange orphans in nature, but never a white child. When they saw her help me off the donkey and into the wheelchair, their speech became more animated. Emme had to quiet them and eventually scold them, waving her arms and making them scatter back into a maze of dwellings.

She wheeled me in through what I took to be the back door of a structure that was very simple and unusual at the same time. It was two-storied, perfectly square, and made out of mud bricks. It was small, maybe twenty by twenty feet around. The roof was banded straw or reeds in a pyramid shape and seemed to top the dwelling like a hat. Close by, there were other structures, some in the shape of cylinders, but it was too dark to tell who or what they housed.

She showed me the place I would be sleeping, a simple pallet that she raised with mud bricks to a level where she could easily get me in and out of the wheelchair. Once our belongings were inside, I stacked my two small suitcases against the wall and rested Ray’s bowler on top. I knew that inside one of the suitcases I had Mama’s glove wrapped in Star’s scarf. Under my shirt and around my waist, I still wore my money belt full of shiny American double eagles. I suddenly felt lucky. I was alive and conscious, and even though I was barely mobile somewhere in the most remote part of the world, I knew I had all I needed, the reason and the means to heal and keep going. It was stacked right there in a small pile against the wall.

Emme helped me onto the pallet and straightened my legs.

“Emme,” I said, “I am more than grateful.”

“It is nothing,” she said. “It is I who am grateful because tomorrow PoPo will come to see you. I doubt he ever thought he would see one of the Magic Children again.”

“Again? What exactly does that mean?”

“I think PoPo should answer that,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

There are horseflies in West Africa—big ones. Wherever man and his animals go, wherever their food, their shelters, their droppings are, the horsefly is their companion.

I awoke to one crawling on the curve of my ear. I jerked my head involuntarily and it buzzed away. I was lying on my side staring at a drab brick wall. Behind me, over my shoulder, I heard someone stifle a laugh. I turned my head and saw him sitting on his haunches not three feet away, staring back at me. I assumed it was PoPo. He was an ancient black man with a narrow face and enormous ears. His eyes were large and watery, but very much alive and intense. He wore a strange four-cornered hat with flaps hanging over his huge ears. He almost laughed again, then held a monocle in front of his face. It had a hairline crack in the glass and was attached to the end of a stick, which he held regally. He leaned forward, and behind the monocle, his left eye looked twice as big as his right. Then he set the monocle down and spoke.

“Sometimes I am awake all night,” he said directly to me, not waiting for introductions, “and cannot sleep because I am consumed by the number of lies I have told in my life—lies that got me into trouble, lies that got me out. Lies that came and went as easily as slurred speech and lies that stayed and decayed like rotten teeth. It was lies that followed me and lies that led me on.”

He slapped his palms together, so quick and sharp I jumped, then opened his hands and from between them the dead horsefly dropped on the dirt floor. He winked at me and spat at the horsefly, missing it and making a small wet circle in the dirt next to it.

“There we are,” he said.

Then, for reasons I have never understood nor have they ever been explained to me, I stood up on my own two legs. They were wobbly, tingling, and not yet capable of running, but definitely awake and healing. I looked over at the old man.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Nothing. I did nothing,” he said. “Your body awoke with your mind, that is all. It is common.”

I thought of Sailor and his explanation for ghosts. I never quite believed him and I was certain the old man was being more than modest. Whatever the explanation, it felt like a miracle to have my legs back and I took a few tentative steps. The old man watched me as if he were watching a dream come alive. Standing by a stone hearth, Emme was watching too, only she was watching her grandfather as much as me. I was what he had told her about all her life. I was the lie made true. I turned to PoPo.

“My name is Zianno Zezen,” I said, then hesitated, but only for a moment. “My name is Zianno Zezen, Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Vardules, protectors of the Stone of Dreams . . . please, call me Z.”

This time he could not contain his laughter. He rolled on his side and called to Emme. His hat tumbled to the floor and she came to his aid, but merely to rub his bald head affectionately. She looked over at me and smiled. “Do not be offended,” she said, “he is only overjoyed.”

She helped him onto the pallet that was my bed. He wiped his watery eyes and asked Emme for his monocle, then he composed himself and crossed his legs under him as if he were about to begin meditation. His posture was extraordinary for such an old man.

“Are you a young one or an old one?” he asked.

“A young one,” I said, not at all sure where this was going. “What do I call you? Your granddaughter has given you two names.”

“Call me PoPo. I would be insulted if you did not.”

“But your formal name is Obongelli? Is that right?”

“Yes. Obongelli Ambala. I am also Hogon, which is ‘the oldest.’ I have many names and I answer to them all, but I prefer PoPo. Po means ‘smallest seed’ in our language, so I am the smallest of the smallest seeds. I prefer it that way.”

He seemed to be searching my eyes as he spoke. I reached down and retrieved his hat and handed it to him. “How do you know of us?” I asked.

He put his hat back in place, then decided against it and set it down. “I have always known of you. Unfortunately, I have only seen one of you once before, when I was a child myself, and it was only for an instant.” He leaned forward and searched my eyes again. “I am sorry,” he said, “my eyesight is weak and I wanted to see if your eyes were green.”

“Why is that?”

“Because his were.”

I felt a chill as sharp and sudden as a knife blade on my neck. “Did he also wear his hair tied back with a green ribbon?”

The old man’s watery eyes cleared and focused on a single event, probably seven or eight decades earlier. “Yes,” he said, and his eyes widened slightly. “He did indeed wear a green ribbon.”

That proved it. At that moment I knew Usoa’s information and my hunch were correct—the Fleur-du-Mal had been to Mali. There was a connection, or at least there was one in the past. Whether he had come again, I had to find out. I thought starting at the beginning, PoPo’s beginning, would be a good place. “Please tell me about the one with the green ribbon,” I said, “and everything you know about the Meq, PoPo. I need to know what you know.”

Emme walked over with two large silk pillows and a small rug rolled up under her arm. She spread the rug on the dirt floor and gently placed the pillows on top. The rug matched the primitive surroundings, but the silk pillows were hand-embroidered in intricate Arab geometric designs and were obviously not Dogon. She anticipated my question. “My mother obtained them,” she said. “They came from the harem of Hadim al-Sadi. Would you like to sit while PoPo speaks?”

Emme and PoPo waited for me to take my place on the pillow, but I told her no, I would rather use my legs, and I paced the small room while PoPo spoke.

“Many years ago,” he began, “my grandfather took me on a pilgrimage. I say pilgrimage, however, my grandfather never used that word. He merely said there was a meeting he must attend. He sounded more professional than spiritual and referred to the meeting as ‘good business.’ It was a pilgrimage to me because I knew I might get the chance to meet one of the Magic Children. He had just revealed your existence to me a few weeks before. It is one of the oldest secrets of our ‘deep knowledge’—the existence of the Meq. I must tell you now that only two of our people know of this truth at the same time in each generation—an old one and a young one. Usually, they are in the same family, but not always. Families sometimes dwindle to one, then the truth must not only be kept and passed from old to young, but leap across to another family, as one would use faith and trust helping another across a stream. It is never too difficult. The choice is always clear. Emme and I hold this truth now. It is all the lies surrounding this truth that make it worthy of great laughter. Do you agree?”

I laughed and though I had no clue what he meant, I answered, “Yes, of course.” Not since Solomon had I felt so immediately comfortable in a stranger’s presence. “Please . . . go on.”

He made an odd grunting sound and then continued. “We traveled north across the Niger to the tents of Hadim al-Sadi. He was camped outside Walata. As a child, it was the most exotic place I could imagine and I could not wait to arrive. In reality, it was harsh and cruel. The sand swirled constantly and stung the eyes, and the camels smelled worse than goats. My grandfather told me to be silent and not complain. ‘Stay out of harm’s way,’ he said, ‘because someday, PoPo, you will also make this journey.’ He made a vague reference to a pact that had been sealed centuries before between three parties—our ancestors, the ancestors of Hadim al-Sadi, and a single Magic Child. My grandfather called him the ‘little wolf,’ but also told me he had been called other names in other times.

“I wore the Ancient Pearl in my nose, as Emme does now, and my grandfather said the ‘little wolf’ must not see it. I was to stay far away from the meeting and remain there. Of course, as a curious child, I did not obey and followed him secretly to the meeting. Hadim traded in slaves and dealt with many black tribes, so it was not unusual for a black child to be seen around his tent. I wandered among the camels and horses at first, then found a place near the entrance where I became no more than a shadow. I could not see inside, but I could listen. I understood little of their conversation. They spoke in low voices and often in Tuareg, a language I did not yet understand. However, I knew my grandfather’s voice well and after only a few minutes, he said something that was answered by a bitter laugh. It was a child’s laugh and yet it was not. I have never forgotten the sound of it. That was followed by something being kicked over and then the entrance to the tent, a curtain of embroidered silk, was flung back. A child, a white male child, rushed out and then paused a moment. He seemed to sense my presence and turned his head slowly. We were not ten feet apart. He was my height and stared at me eye to eye. He had green eyes. Then he noticed the Ancient Pearl in my nose and he smiled—a white and frightening smile. The moment passed and he was gone. I knew who he was. He was the ‘little wolf’ and he was Meq. As he walked away, I now remember seeing the green ribbon. I can see him disappearing through the sparks of the campfires.”