by Steve Cash
Then she looked directly at me. It was a sudden, instinctive movement and seemed to surprise her more than me. I stared back. Her eyes were chocolate brown and lighter than her skin, which was smooth and unmarked, except for three raised horizontal lines on each temple. There was a single silver pearl piercing her left nostril. She opened her mouth slightly and whispered a word to herself, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. I heard it easily. “Meq,” she said.
That was the last thing I expected. I took a step toward her and her expression changed from surprise to terror. She raised one arm and pointed somewhere behind me, then bolted for the hotel. I turned in time to catch sight of Ray in the middle of a duck-and-run. Two sailors, surrounded by several others, and all of them in foreign uniforms and wide-brim flat hats, were trying to strike and grab him from behind, but he was much too fast and disappeared into the crowd before they could touch him. All the sailors held what looked to be shortened oars and were gripping them like baseball bats. Just then I felt a sharp pain in my lower back that knocked all the breath out of me. I knew I’d been hit with one of the oars. My knees were buckling, the colors of the crowd swirled, then another blow sent me forward and down. As I was falling, I saw Ray’s bowler hat tumbling down the steps and I reached for it, somehow catching it in a last grasp. I could hear him yelling in the distance, “Come on, Z! Move!”
Sprawled on the steps and barely conscious, I tried to rise and run toward his voice. I couldn’t. My legs would not respond. I had no pain anywhere, except where I’d been struck, and yet I couldn’t move anything below my waist. Seconds passed, then minutes, and I tried not to panic. Dazed and facedown on the steps, I could only breathe and listen. The sailors gathered around me, shouting at the crowd and each other. They were speaking and yelling in German. Through the legs of one of them I saw the split sack of peanuts spilled in the alley. The women and the baby were gone. I tried again to turn and rise, but the effort was useless. Another voice, a high-pitched male voice with a strange accent, broke through all the others.
“Du hast ihn gelahmt, idiot! Ich kann kein ein benutzen hat gelahmt!”
I fought to concentrate and remember the little German I’d learned with Solomon. The voice had said, “You’ve crippled him, you idiot! I can’t use a cripple!”
I panicked. That meant they, whoever “they” were, wanted me and weren’t going to be careful about it. I reached for my pocket and the Stone, then felt the sole of a boot clamp down on my elbow and wrist, pinning my arm to the step.
I lay still and waited. With my face buried against the step, I couldn’t see who was above me. The boot moved, then raised and kicked me in the legs. I never felt it. The kicker bent down and whispered in my ear. It was the same man who had screamed at the sailors, but to me he spoke slurred English with a Chinese accent. “Not this time, not this time,” he repeated, then pulled the Stone out of my pocket, thrusting it down in front of my face to let me know he had it. Before I could ask who he was, he stood up and began speaking German again to someone behind him. I understood enough of the conversation to know they spoke of “contracts” and “damaged goods” and the necessity to decide whether to take me “as is” or do something here and now, something quick and final before the police or anyone else arrived.
I had no legs, no Stone, and I was out of options.
“I think I’d leave him be,” a voice said suddenly from in front of me. I glanced up and it was Ray. He gave me a wink, then walked past me toward the others and spoke calmly, as if he’d been there all along. “I think I would, if I were you, leave him alone right here where he is . . . and take me. He ain’t no good to you now—not this way.” He paused and I heard him walk up behind me, then move me around, shoving and kicking me, just enough to get his point across. “Once one of us is broken . . . especially like this,” Ray said, “well, he just don’t come back. You might as well take me and let him lie here. If you take him, he’ll be nothin’ but trouble for you.” Ray paused again, then added, “I’m tellin’ you the truth and you know I am, don’t you? You do and you know you do.” He kept rambling on as if he was stalling for time. Then it hit me. That’s exactly what he was doing. He could have stayed somewhere in the crowd, invisible and uncatchable. Instead, he had walked out into the open, putting himself in grave danger and staging some kind of crazy game, trying to buy time. I figured there must be help on the way, but where was it?
“Seize him!” someone shouted in German. Ray almost let them take him, then wriggled free and pretended to fall, landing next to me on the steps, where he could see my eyes.
“Who are these guys, Z?” Ray whispered.
“I don’t know. What are you doing back here?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that,” he said, as if he had all the time in the world. “I think I might know one of them—the Chinaman—I just can’t remember where or when.” Two sailors reached for his arms and he slipped out easily. “Listen up and listen fast,” he said. “I talked to that black girl, the one who delivered the kid. If we don’t make it out of here together, then just do what she says. You’re messed up, Z. She can help you heal.”
“What? Who is she?”
“I don’t know.” Two more sailors joined in trying to hold and secure Ray. He went on talking while he was letting himself be taken. “Just don’t worry about me and don’t worry about her. Find Star, Z. Do that first.” He paused, then winked one of his green eyes and said, “Some Christmas, huh? Damn.”
Just then we heard several whistles and shouts coming from the top of the steps. The high-pitched voice barked out a command and the sailors all turned at once, fleeing back into the crowd, toward the docks, and dragging Ray with them. He was smiling, then he yelled back at me, “And try and learn a little somethin’ about the weather, would you? You’re gonna need it.”
Once again, maybe because I was Meq, or maybe because I had a friend like Ray Ytuarte, I knew instinctively that somehow I would see him again, and he knew the same. He had sacrificed himself for me. He knew that if one of us hadn’t been captured, then they most probably would have hunted one or both of us down—and that would not bring Star back. If he went with them, then it would be over and the search for Star could begin. I didn’t have a clue why Ray was being kidnapped, or who his kidnappers were, but I had no doubt whatsoever they would have their hands full.
The whistles and shouts and commotion from the top of the steps became several men running past me, all waving their arms and brandishing kitchen knives and rolling pins and meat cleavers. They ran into what was left of the Christmas parade, shouting and threatening everyone and everything, yet going no farther than the street in front of the hotel. They were certainly not the police, as I’d assumed. They looked more like an entire kitchen staff gone mad, which was close to the truth. The young black girl Ray had spoken of appeared just then from above. She knelt down next to me on the step. In English, she asked, “Are you all right?”
I nodded and grunted, “I can’t walk.”
“We will fix that,” she said, then added, ‘’ ‘I sing the body electric.’ ” I looked up at her. She smiled and said, “Walt Whitman—the great American poet,” then stood up and shouted over to the men still waving their kitchenware at the unknown assailants. The German sailors were long gone. She spoke in a local language and French, mixing the two as she went along. When she finished, the men all stopped what they were doing immediately and trudged back up the steps toward the hotel. Most of them seemed slightly disappointed they had not engaged the enemy.
“Friends of mine,” she said. “All of them work for the hotel, the kitchen staff. They were there and they came to help. Good friends each one.” Suddenly she dropped her smile. “Your friend—the other one—was he taken?”
“Yes,” I answered, and left it at that. I had too many questions for this woman, but this was not the place to ask. I was paralyzed from a severe blow to the spinal cord and I had no idea how long it would take to heal, if at a
ll. I had to find shelter and find it quickly. There were still a few hours of daylight left and I wanted to be as far away as possible by nightfall. Ray had told me to trust her and I trusted Ray completely. The decision came instantly. “Can you get me out of here?” I asked. “Can you take me somewhere safe?”
“I will take you to PoPo, to our home, and . . .” She paused and straightened up, tapping her finger on her lips and turning in a slow circle. “And I will take you in a wheelchair.” She almost laughed, then started up the steps. “Give me a moment,” she said, “I must borrow something from the hotel with the help of one of my friends. Do not move. I will not be long.” She stopped and covered her mouth with both hands, then dropped them slowly. “I am sorry. That was in bad taste, was it not?”
“Just hurry,” I said. Then with a smile, “Please.”
Less than fifteen minutes later she returned with one of her friends from the kitchen staff. She was pushing a crude wheelchair and he was carrying my luggage along with Ray’s.
“What about the sailor from the Atalanta?” I asked. “Did he have any questions?”
“I never saw him,” she said. “My friend, Bakel, retrieved all of your belongings. Should I inquire?”
“No. Let’s go on . . . let’s leave now.” She helped me into the chair, arranging my legs and strapping me in. She was quick and efficient. “What is your name?” I asked quietly.
Without looking me in the eye or slowing down, she said, “Emme . . . Emme Ya Ambala.” I told her my name was Zianno, but she could call me Z. When she was satisfied I was secure, she glanced up and, in a curious mix of question and statement, said, “And you are American.”
“Yes,” I said, “and you speak English—better than most Americans.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. Truly.”
She laughed out loud. “ ‘Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?’ ” Then she looked over at Bakel and said something in the local dialect. We set out around the corner and down a narrow street at a rapid pace. Emme was pushing the wheelchair and Bakel was trailing, carrying our luggage. After a few blocks and several changes in direction, we finally slowed down. I turned as far as I could in the chair and caught her eye.
“Walt Whitman,” she said, never hesitating. “The great—”
“American poet,” I finished.
“That is correct,” she said, then laughed again.
The two of us spoke little the rest of the day and Bakel never spoke at all. By sunset, Saint-Louis was far behind and we had trekked almost five miles upstream on the Senegal River. We stopped for the night in the first settlement where it was possible to get riverboat passage to Kayes. Emme said we could transfer there to the one and only railroad connecting Kayes to Koulikoro on the Niger River. Where we were going from there remained a mystery. The day had been the longest I could remember. I’d lost my best friend, I’d lost the Stone, I’d lost the use of my legs, and at the end of this longest day, I was lost in Africa, completely at the mercy of a young black woman who wore a silver pearl in her nose and quoted Walt Whitman. I still had no idea why she was doing what she was doing, or how she knew I was Meq. Then I thought of Star and how lost and helpless she must feel. After that, the damp mat I was sleeping on seemed like a featherbed. I closed my eyes and waited for a dream, any dream, and let the long day go.
The next morning came too soon. Emme shook me awake and told me we had to leave right away. She handed me a flat biscuit and a bowl of something that resembled oatmeal, and I gobbled it up as if it were a gourmet meal. As I ate, I stared at the wheelchair and wondered how this would ever work. Bakel had already arranged for our things to be transferred to the riverboat, and once there, handed his duties over to another man named Masaka. While we were waiting to board, I asked Emme if she needed money for our trip, for Bakel, for Masaka, for anything. She said, “No, no, no,” brushing off the idea with a wave of her hand.
“You have many friends,” I said. “Is it like this for you everywhere in Africa?”
She laughed and pointed to the three raised horizontal lines on each of her temples. “It is because of these,” she said. “These signify to others that I am a granddaughter of a wise man, a holy man. For that reason Bakel and the others wish to help. By doing so, they believe it will enhance their own lives.”
“Is it true? Are they better off for it?”
“I think so,” she said, “but only because of Obongelli. He has true powers.”
“Who is Obongelli?”
“My grandfather. He is also called PoPo. He is the one I take you to see. He may be able to heal you. I know he will be overjoyed to see you.”
“That explains why everyone is helping you,” I said, “but why are you helping me?”
“Because of this,” she answered, changing her expression and pointing to the silver pearl in her nose. “It is Meq. It is from one of your Starstones.”
“What? How in the world do you know about that?” I involuntarily reached down for the Stone in my pocket, then remembered it was gone.
Emme smiled and said, “I will let PoPo tell you about this truth. It is only right, and he should be the one.” She pushed me and the wheelchair on board the riverboat, which was badly in need of repair, then leaned over my shoulder saying, “Now we go home and you must tell me all about America on the way.”
“Where is home?” I asked.
“Dogon land,” she said, “deep in the Federation of West Africa.”
“Is that anywhere near Mali?”
“Yes, more or less. We live south of the Niger River and north of the Volta River, on the edge of the Dolo Valley.”
Without explaining or mentioning Star or the Fleur-du-Mal, I managed a faint smile built on faint hope, and said, “Good.”
For the next two and a half weeks, we traveled in a generally eastward direction, leaving the green world and humid climate of western Senegal for a landscape that occasionally reminded me of Kepa’s camp in America—dry, reddish brown, and remote. Masaka stayed with us until we reached Koulikoro, where he told Emme he must return to his family. As far as I know, he never once inquired about who I was or why she was caring for me. From there, we took another boat ride north and east, downstream on the Niger River, until we disembarked and began our journey overland. Emme procured two donkeys for the trip, securing me, our luggage, and the wheelchair to one of them, while she led the way on the other. The donkeys were thin and old, but they served us well, and three weeks later we were nearing Dogon land.
Emme and I talked often along the way about Africa and her life there. She was opposed to the French presence in her homeland, but she was also obsessed with a Frenchman, a doctor she referred to as A. B. or Antoine. It was obvious she was in love with him, although she never expressed it openly. He was the reason she had been in Saint-Louis. She had wanted to apologize to him. “For what?” I asked. “For not believing in something,” she said. “Not believing in what?” I asked her. “In him,” she answered quietly.
My own obsessions I kept to myself. I thought about Ray almost every day and worried about Star every night. I wondered why I wasn’t healing and constantly had to tell myself that I would, that my Meq blood would eventually find the source of the injury and renew all damaged nerves and tissue. That’s what I told myself, but as each day passed and my legs remained paralyzed, I wondered more and more if it was still true.
The mystery of who had attacked Ray and me, and why, had plagued me since we’d left Saint-Louis. Since I had never seen who it was, I could only make wild guesses, and none of them made any sense. I only knew that the man in charge, the man who had stolen the Stone, knew me and knew what I was carrying. Emme and I rarely spoke of the attack. Then, only a day before we entered her village, she said something that triggered a connection, or at least the possibility of one. We were halfway down a sandstone cliff overlooking a dry and desolate valley. The ridge of sandstone ran five miles on e
ither side of us. The sun was setting and everything had the look of either the first or last place on earth. She was talking about her grandfather and how my presence, my existence, would vindicate him and his long-standing story about the Magic Children, a tale she had heard since early childhood, a tale she never quite believed until the day she saw me, Ray, and the man behind us.
“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.