by Steve Cash
“What? Oh, yes, of course.” My voice was dry and raspy, and I cleared my throat. “Thank you, Koki, thank you.” He nodded once and bowed modestly, then started to leave again. He was nearly out of sight before I said, “Koki, wait!” He stopped instantly and turned to face me, still smiling. “Please,” I said, “please … don’t go. I mean, have a seat, I’d like to … to … I have a question for you.”
He walked back toward me slowly. His smile faded and he seemed hesitant, even fearful. He wouldn’t come any closer than ten feet. I motioned for him to take a seat in one of the chairs, but he ignored the gesture and kept his distance. I saw his face twitch once and his hands began to tremble slightly. My own trembling had ceased. “Do not be afraid, Koki,” I said. “I would never hurt you. Do you understand?”
At least thirty seconds of silence passed and his eyes never left mine. Finally, in a soft and barely audible voice, he said, “Yes, mister.”
I sat down in the leather chair and asked him again to take a seat. Shaking his head back and forth, he refused and stayed where he was. I picked up the cup of tea with both hands and blew on it, then took a sip. He never blinked and never looked away. “Do you know what has happened, Koki?” He made no response. “Up there,” I said, pointing at the ceiling. “Outside … to the south … in Nagasaki … do you know what has just happened?”
He seemed confused and looked up. “Nagasaki?” he asked. He was blinking rapidly now.
“Yes. Do you have family in Nagasaki?” The question confused him even more and he glanced back over his shoulder, then looked up again. I tried another question. “Do you know what happened in Hiroshima three days ago?”
“Hiroshima?”
“Yes, Hiroshima. Do you know about the bomb, the atomic bomb?”
Koki stammered and muttered something to himself, but never answered. Instead, he began rocking from side to side in a rhythmic motion and turned his head toward the wall. He moved back and forth in perfect time, and seemed to be staring at something, or into something, or possibly nothing. I thought I heard him humming deep inside—a last chant or lost prayer.
Before I could ask him anything else, a voice behind me said, “I am afraid Koki is not aware of current events, Zezen.” It was the Fleur-du-Mal and I had not heard him approach. Walking into view, he was wearing an elegant silk kimono, cut to his specifications. His hair had been pulled back and tied with his familiar green ribbon and he was once again wearing his ruby earrings. He sat down casually in a chair opposite mine. He let a slow grin spread across his face, then continued. “Let us say, Koki does not get out much.”
I ignored the comment and looked back at Koki. He was deep inside his trance. “Where is he staring?” I asked.
“Most certainly at Goya,” the Fleur-du-Mal answered. “Koki has been fascinated with Goya for years.”
I followed Koki’s gaze toward the stone wall. Five paintings hung in a row—three by Pablo Picasso from his classical style of the twenties, and two by an artist unfamiliar to me. I walked over to get a closer view of the paintings. The artist’s name was Candido Portinari and his style had the influence of Picasso, but definitely not Francisco de Goya. Nor were there any Goya paintings, drawings, or prints anywhere on the wall. There were only the five paintings and one unusual object attached to the wall with iron clamps—a human skull. I glanced at Koki. His hands shook and he rocked back and forth and his eyes never left the skull. I turned to the Fleur-du-Mal. “I see no Goya painting.”
“Not ‘painting,’ Zezen. Goya. Koki is staring at the skull of Francisco de Goya.” The Fleur-du-Mal paused, grinning, then added matter-of-factly, “In 1899, during an exhumation in Bordeaux, it seems to have gone missing. At the time, and at the very least, I thought Goya’s head might serve as an interesting conversation piece.” He paused again and looked at Koki. “Alas, it has not.”
Before I could make a response, or even form one, the Fleur-du-Mal spoke firmly to Koki in Japanese, repeating the same phrase three times, which included one word in English—“chess.” Seconds later, Koki came out of his trance and calmly walked out of the room without a word. The Fleur-du-Mal’s voice and words had been a key that unlocked something in Koki’s mind, almost as simple as coming out of a deep hypnotic state with three claps of a magician’s hands, and very similar to the way all Giza respond to the Stones.
Once Koki was out of sight, the Fleur-du-Mal said, “He is an idiot … an idiot savant … but an idiot nonetheless.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will explain later. I believe it was the atomic bomb you most wanted explained to you, was it not, Zezen?”
“Well … yes.” I hesitated, thinking again of Sailor and Sak—all of them. “What is it?”
The Fleur-du-Mal laughed to himself. “Ironically, or perhaps not, it was Koki’s brother, Tsuneo, who explained the fundamentals of a nuclear explosion to me, in the fall of 1940, shortly after he returned from his studies in Germany.” He waited for a response, but I said nothing. “All right then, mon petit … let us begin with the atom itself.”
To my surprise, the Fleur-du-Mal was an excellent teacher. As he elaborated the fundamentals behind the physics of what we’d witnessed over Nagasaki, all of it theory until now, he made certain I clearly understood each principle before he continued. He mentioned Albert Einstein several times and I was reminded of New Year’s Eve, 1918, high on a ridge at Caitlin’s Ruby—the last time I saw old Tillman Fadle and the first time I heard Einstein’s name. Looking up at the night sky, he told Geaxi and me that Einstein was after “what gets through the cracks.”
Geaxi asked, “You mean the light?”
Tillman Fadle answered, “I mean that what turns on the light.”
In half an hour the Fleur-du-Mal had explained everything and I was left speechless, wondering at what the Americans had done, technologically and morally. The consequences were staggering. It was now a brand-new world, a world led by a species capable of wiping out all living things in the blink of an eye. He finished speaking and leaned forward in his chair. He put his hands on his knees, as if to rise, then paused and glanced at me. For a moment he seemed to be thinking the same horrifying thoughts as me. He smiled faintly, then walked over to the skull of Goya and stared at it with his arms folded and his legs spread. Goya stared back with empty eyes. Over his shoulder the Fleur-du-Mal said, “There are only three questions worth asking, mon petit. Who are we? Why are we here? And how shall we conduct ourselves?” I said nothing. He walked a few more paces to his right and stopped in front of the two Portinari paintings. A full minute passed in silence, then I heard him talking and mumbling under his breath. I could only understand a few words. He said, “… irrelevant now … tired of it … juste mon genie … juste mon genie.” Suddenly he turned on his heels and stared at me. He was smiling and his ruby earrings reflected the light of the wall lamp just over his shoulder. “In what do you believe, Zezen?”
“In what do I believe?”
The Fleur-du-Mal rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Do you not understand the question? And, please, do not insult me by answering ‘the Meq’ or something equally obsequious.”
I was surprised, but not dumbfounded, and the answer came to me immediately. I didn’t even have to think about it. I looked in his green eyes and said, “I believe in—”
“Chess, mister!”
The Fleur-du-Mal and I turned in one motion. It was Koki and he was holding a chessboard with all the chess pieces aligned on top in their proper positions. The chessboard was made of mahogany and the pieces were carved from jade and ivory. The whole set looked ancient and valuable. Koki’s glasses were sliding down his nose and there was a trickle of drool running out the corner of his mouth. He seemed excited.
“Put the chess set down on the table, Koki,” the Fleur-du-Mal said gently. “We shall play later. I promise.” He led Koki’s eyes over to me. “M. Zezen and I are going to play first,” he said, smiling, then looked back
to Koki. “Bring me sake, Koki. Hot sake—make sure the temperature is correct. We shall play chess after that. Now go,” he said, waving his hand toward the recesses of the huge room. He waited for Koki to exit, then turned and glanced at the chess set. “India,” he said, looking back at me. “The set came from Vishakhapatnam. I saw you admiring the craftsmanship. It was a … gift from someone.”
“A gift from whom?”
The Fleur-du-Mal either didn’t like the question or didn’t want to answer. He frowned and nodded toward the table. He cleared his throat and said, “Shall we play?”
“All right,” I said. He asked which set of pieces I preferred and I chose the jade. As he swiveled the board to position the jade pieces in front of me, I said, “By the way, my answer is Opari.”
“Your answer? What do you mean?”
“My answer to the question, ‘In what do you believe?’ My answer is Opari.”
The Fleur-du-Mal never said a word and made his opening move, P to K3.
We played several games throughout the afternoon, or what I assumed to be the afternoon. Three stories underground, it was already becoming difficult to judge the passage of time. In each game, the Fleur-du-Mal played quickly, moving pieces in a reckless disregard of strategy. He would surrender his queen early, then his rooks and bishops, almost everything. He seemed to be interested in one thing—the endgame. Only when his king was down to two or three allies would he begin to pay attention. Then he would methodically take the offensive and eventually spring his trap and checkmate me, no matter how many pieces I had left. I couldn’t beat him. The Fleur-du-Mal won every game.
He also talked incessantly while he played. Even as he was losing piece after piece, he asked question after question, the first of which was, “Aside from you, mon petit, and poor Sailor, how many survived the avalanche at Askenfada?” I told him the truth. I said Rune Balle had been killed. All the Meq had survived. “What a shame,” the Fleur-du-Mal said with a snide smile, but his words didn’t ring true. His true reaction had been relief. He had been relieved to hear that the Meq survived. Though it was gone as fast as it had appeared, I had seen it in his eyes and I had never seen it there before.
Later, as I was rearranging the board after yet another loss, he asked if I still carried “that odd little rock.” I glanced up to see if he was being facetious, but he seemed genuinely curious. I continued to sort the pieces and answered, “Of course.”
“Would you mind if I examined it briefly?”
I usually would have said no without hesitation; however, under the circumstances, I saw no reason to refuse. I knew the Stone of Dreams had no effect on the Fleur-du-Mal and we weren’t going anywhere for some time. I reached in my pocket and felt the cold surface of the Stone in my palm. I pulled it out and tossed it across the table. The Fleur-du-Mal caught it with one hand, then looked over at me and smiled. “Merci,” he said. He stood and began pacing the room, turning the ancient, egg-shaped black rock round and round in his fingers, observing every tiny striation from every possible angle. Finally, he came to a stop and looked at me. “The Stone of Dreams, no?”
I said nothing, but nodded my head once.
He continued walking, then halted again abruptly. He had his back to me and he was facing the wall. “Pray tell, Zezen,” he said over his shoulder, “what do you suppose is the true nature and purpose of these ugly, ridiculous rocks?”
“I—”
He spun around before I could answer and tossed me the Stone, laughing. “You do not know! Do not even attempt an answer.” He glanced away from me, toward the wall in the direction of Goya’s skull. “No one knows the answer … no one.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out at the Remembering.”
“The Remembering?” he said, then laughed out loud several times. “That is even more ridiculous, Zezen. None of you have ever had the slightest clue in determining its location. The Egongela is as unknown to the Meq as it ever was. Your time is dwindling, and after what we witnessed this morning, the Stones and the Remembering are now insignificant and obsolete. Even Sailor would have realized this fact, Zezen. You must scrape the scabs from your eyes and see this world for what it is. There is no viable future for the Meq … not in this world, and not without the Sixth Stone. Sailor knew this … Sailor alone among you knew this to be true.
“The Meq are doomed for several obvious and gradual declines, Zezen, including the absence of large numbers of Meq offspring, and the total absence of twins and multiple births. I am certain no one has mentioned this, have they? And I would, if I were a betting man, make a hefty wager that Sailor, Trumoi-Meq, or any of the rest of them, including my uncle, has ever mentioned the psychotic rage and jealousy that can appear in the Meq after they have crossed in the Zeharkatu. No, I bet not, these are facts the Meq do not want to face.” His green eyes darkened. “Yet I have witnessed this fact in my own life, in my own father and mother.”
I had never heard him say anything about his family before and I seized the opportunity. “Zeru-Meq told us you … you killed your father when you were only twenty-two months old. He said he came into your house and saw your father standing over your mother, who was already dead on the floor. Then he said you killed your father, using telekinesis and a kitchen knife.”
The Fleur-du-Mal smiled. “I am afraid my uncle suffers from limited vision.” He walked in even, slow paces toward one of the Portinari paintings hanging on the wall. He stopped, paused, straightened the frame a fraction of an inch, then turned and asked, “What makes you think I did not kill them both?”
The question stunned me. I listened but didn’t respond. I slipped the Stone back into my pocket, then finished arranging the pieces to begin a new game. “What did Susheela the Ninth tell you about the Sixth Stone?” I asked. “I know you seek it.”
His green eyes flared and he unconsciously reached for something inside his kimono. It was his stiletto and simply touching it seemed to relax him. He walked calmly to his chair and sat down slowly. He surveyed the chessboard and turned it around, so that the ivory pieces were in front of me. He said, “The black witch is … was … of no help whatsoever.” Then the Fleur-du-Mal looked up at me and almost whispered, “Your move, mon petit.”
After a few more games, I had to quit. I was exhausted. I kept seeing the flash of the atomic bomb over and over in my mind, and I couldn’t concentrate or listen to the Fleur-du-Mal another minute. He talked incessantly about the Meq, the Giza, the nature and flaws of war, the landscape of North Africa, the temples and people of southern India (particularly the women), and the futility of all vendettas, including his own against my grandfather, Aitor, and Carolina and her family. The way he spoke wasn’t quite regret, but it was as close as the Fleur-du-Mal could get. He told me he would miss Sailor infinitely more than he ever would Zuriaa. He said her insanity had spiraled out of control while in Japan. And during our last game, he even recited a poem, which he claimed was a Provençal Meq song from pre-Roman times. The song went like this:
Not age nor death
not war nor wealth
shall ever be enough
for me to be reconciled
with what lives safe inside
and yet is wild
what is and was
and yet still is—the child.
As soon as I was checkmated, I said, “I’m finished. I’m hungry and I need some rest.”
To my surprise, the Fleur-du-Mal agreed. “Yes, you are right, Zezen. We need food and we need rest. The Japanese will be surrendering within days. They must, they now have no choice, and I … we … must be ready to leave. Nagasaki and Japan itself, pour moi, will no longer serve as, shall we say, a port in the storm.” He paused, then stood and faced the far end of the cavernous room. “Koki!” he said loudly and firmly.
Before Koki arrived, I asked, “What is an ‘idiot savant?’ ”
“Ah, yes,” he said, and looked down at the chessboard. “But perhaps, Zezen, you should see for yourself. Please stay w
here you are.”
Koki walked toward us mumbling. I think he was saying, “Hello, yes” over and over, as if he were rehearsing the lines. He had a funny little gait, sort of side to side. He reminded me of a Japanese Charlie Chaplin. His glasses sat on the end of his nose and they were nearly fogged over. He was carrying a fresh pot of tea on a bamboo tray and the spout was directly under his chin, sending steam up to his glasses. He took extra care setting the tray down, then wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand and nudged his glasses back in place. He could barely see, but he picked up the pot and leaned over to refill my cup.
“I’ll do that, Koki. Thank you, anyway,” I said, taking the pot from him carefully.
“Koki,” the Fleur-du-Mal said with a grin, “would you like to play chess now?”
Koki nodded his head without expression. He was rocking gently back and forth. “Yes, hello,” he said. A new trickle ran from his nose and he wiped it again with his hand.
The Fleur-du-Mal reached into his kimono and withdrew a blue, embroidered handkerchief, which he handed to Koki. “Sit here,” he said, giving Koki his seat in front of the jade pieces. “M. Zezen will be your opponent.” Koki sat down and stared at the board. He glanced at me once and I smiled. He smiled back, exposing his stained teeth. “Your move, Zezen,” the Fleur-du-Mal said, “and play as fast as you are able—Koki only plays at one speed.”
I was puzzled, but I made the common opening, P to Q4. That was the last move I made with any comfort or assurance. Koki played so well and so fast, I never knew what hit me. I could barely keep up. He had me checkmated easily in no time at all.
“Play again,” the Fleur-du-Mal said, “and try harder.”
We played again and it was worse. Koki had my king trapped in five moves. He was brilliant. I’d never seen the combination of moves and strategy he used, and he played with lightning speed. “I give up,” I said. “You are an amazing, wonderful player, Koki. I can’t beat you.”