by Steve Cash
Koki smiled. “Yes, hello,” he said softly, then he said it again.
“Koki can destroy a grandmaster in the same fashion,” the Fleur-du-Mal said. “I have seen him do it on several occasions. I cannot beat him. I never have. He is the best chess player I have ever played and I have played around the world for two millennia.” The Fleur-du-Mal was standing between Koki and Goya’s skull on the wall, probably to keep him from being distracted. “Naohiro Nishi, my Koki,” he said, “has a very rare and curious madness. I have never seen it in the Meq; however, I have seen it appear in the Giza for centuries in various forms. I believe the current term for it among the Giza is ‘autism.’ It is a generalized and convenient term, just as they are using the absurd word ‘schizophrenia’ for a thousand different, beautiful, and unusual states of mind. They have little imagination and they have learned less about madness. Nevertheless, Koki is incapable of living in open society on his own. His uncanny ability to play chess better than anyone in the world has no meaning or significance to him. Koki merely likes to play, but no more than he likes to smoke cigarettes. They are equally important activities and routines.” The Fleur-du-Mal paused. He watched Koki trying to wipe his nose with the handkerchief. Using his hand had proved more efficient. “Come, Zezen. Follow me and we shall eat, although I apologize in advance for the lack of variety. The war has made it somewhat difficult to serve proper fare.” He waited for me to stand, then headed for the other end of the room and a long dining table barely visible in the shadows. “Koki! Bring the fish soup from the kitchen, with steamed rice and those tiny eels we had yesterday.” Halfway across the room, the Fleur-du-Mal smiled at me. His teeth were dazzling white. “You will love the eels,” he said.
I’m not sure how a day like August 9, 1945, is supposed to end. For me, it finally ended on a single bed in a small room with stone walls and no windows, my “apartment,” according to the Fleur-du-Mal. Lying in the dark with my eyes wide open, I tried imagining that in St. Louis the day had ended quietly, just another sultry night among many others in a long summer, perfect for a slow walk in Forest Park or a baseball game at Sportsman’s Park. I wondered how the Cardinals were doing in the pennant race, and I wondered about Jack and Star and Caine and Willie, and especially Carolina. I thought about her age and suddenly realized she was now seventy-five years old. Impossible, I thought. I wondered about Opari over and over, then thought of Ray and Nova, Geaxi and Mowsel, Zeru-Meq, everyone and anyone … anyone but Sailor. I could not think of Sailor without seeing the white flash again, and the horrific cloud that followed and filled the sky. I knew if anyone had survived in Nagasaki, for them, August 9 would never end. I let my mind go. My thoughts formed and dissolved at random, reeling and rebounding through time, people, and places. Eventually, I drifted off and fell into a dream. It was a dream of immense power, and as puzzling as a lone footprint on a deserted island, which is exactly where it began.
I stood barefoot in the sand. I didn’t feel the sun on my back, but I knew it was behind me. I turned to face the sea and saw two dolphins rising out of the blue water in a graceful arc and falling back with barely a splash. A fat, yellow sun sat low on the horizon; however, I had no sense of sunrise or sunset. I held Papa’s baseball in one hand and wore Mama’s glove on the other. I knew the Stone of Dreams was still intact and stitched inside the baseball, and Mama’s glove looked exactly the same as it had in 1881, yet I felt no sense of paradox. In fact, I felt no sense of anything. I was myself then and I was myself now, but not quite; I was not living, or I was reliving—no, no … I was about to live. I was certain of it. I looked down and focused on a single child’s footprint in the sand. It was nearly my size, only slightly wider with fatter toes. I was perplexed. The imprint was made too far from where the beach met the underbrush for there not to be another. How did it get there, and why only one? How was it possible? I looked down at Papa’s baseball in my hand and something or someone compelled me to look up the slope of the beach toward the dense green tangle of jungle and the jagged peaks and cliffs above and beyond. Suddenly I knew what I was supposed to do. My purpose was to deliver the Stone of Dreams to someone who was waiting for me. Without thinking I shouted, “Opari!” A second later the sky began to darken. I looked back toward the sea just in time to catch the low-contrast bands of light and dark racing across the water. In front of the sun, the moon was gliding silently and gracefully into place. It was the Bitxileiho—the Strange Window. I turned and ran up the slope, and as I ran I also realized this was the end of the Itxaron. The Wait was over and there would be a “crossing” like no other, but for whom? I kept running and running. Then came totality and utter darkness. “Opari,” I whispered, and woke up. The dream, in reality, probably lasted only a few seconds, but I spent the rest of the night lying on my single bed, motionless and staring up at nothing.
The next day began with two sharp knocks on my door, followed by a small voice, “Rice, mister.” I sat up and lit the candle next to my bed, then slipped on my shoes and walked the short distance over to the door. It wasn’t locked because there was no lock. The only doors with locks were the “front” door and the one leading off the great room to the Fleur-du-Mal’s private chambers. I swung the door open and immediately smelled tobacco. Koki’s smiling face was staring back at me. “Good morning, Koki,” I said. The big room was silent and dim behind him. “It is morning, isn’t it?” Koki looked at me, saying nothing, rocking side to side and smiling. He was holding a bowl of steamed rice topped with a few slivers of carrot and mushroom. My question seemed to have no effect. Suddenly he shoved the bowl at me, almost hitting me in the chest. I grabbed the bowl with both hands just before he let go of it. “Hello, mister,” he said, and walked away repeating “hello” over and over. “Koki—wait!” I said, but it was no use. He never turned around. I watched him walking with his odd little gait and realized why Koki probably wouldn’t and couldn’t turn around. Turning around, reacting, was not in the plan, the pattern … the practiced routine. Responding to me would have meant change, an extremely difficult and frightening complication in Koki’s world.
I left the door open and ate the rice and vegetables sitting on my bed, staring through the open doorway into the darkness of the great room. The rice was good, under the circumstances, but it wasn’t enough. I had my appetite back and the rice only made me think of more and better food in a better place. I thought of St. Louis and Carolina and Jack and Star and Caine … in her kitchen … sunlight streaming through the open windows … Ciela is cooking, laughing … the Cardinals are on the radio … Opari is holding my hand … all of us … laughing … her eyes are dancing, laughing … Opari … Opari. In the next moment I had my first thought of escape. I would not wait to find out what the Fleur-du-Mal had in mind. I knew I had to get out of the shiro. I only had to find the means.
The rest of the second day went much the same as the first, as did the third and fourth days. Electricity to the hills in the vicinity of the shiro had not been restored since the bomb dropped. Three stories below ground level, my time was spent keeping the wall lamps lit in the great room, listening to the Fleur-du-Mal continue to expound on everything from consciousness itself to the habits and habitat of the red-cowled cardinal. Often, and without explanation, he would retire to his chambers for hours at a time, then reappear just as suddenly. He constantly dispensed warnings, opinions, and proclamations about the Meq. Some of them were absurd, but all were fascinating and revealing, even confessional. He did most of the talking while Koki and I listened. And we played chess. Over and over and always with the same results—the Fleur-du-Mal beat me and Koki beat both of us.
Without a radio, I had no idea if the Japanese had surrendered or not. If the Fleur-du-Mal had any access to current events, he never mentioned it. For me, the great room became more claustrophobic by the hour. I missed the sunlight and longed to breathe fresh air. The Fleur-du-Mal, however, seemed in no hurry to leave. He was enjoying himself. Every day he wore a differen
t, exquisitely embroidered kimono. He was gracious and generous, a perfect host. He even offered me a complete set of clothes, which I needed badly. They were his own and had never been worn. Smiling, he said, “You might as well take them. They are out-of-date, American, and of marginal taste and quality … precisely your style, I should think, mon petit.” I smiled back and welcomed them, and they fit perfectly. Then, on the fifth day, everything changed quickly, beginning with the simplest event. It was only for a brief period and it was late in the day, but it made all the difference.
Koki and I were in the middle of yet another game of chess. The Fleur-du-Mal was not with us. He had been locked inside his chambers for at least two hours. The game was going the same as all the others. Koki would lean forward in his chair, make his move quickly, then sit back and start rocking, never saying a word and staring down at the chessboard. Occasionally, he would drool out the corner of his mouth, then wipe his chin and adjust his big eyeglasses all in one motion. We were entering the endgame and I only had six pieces still on the board, none of them my queen. Koki had trapped and captured her within his first ten moves. My king was doomed again and I knew it. Just as I started to move, all of the half-dozen hand-wrought Belgian lamps scattered throughout the great room began flickering with light. They were each electric and in seconds the flicker became a solid flood of light. The shiro finally had electricity. Koki expressed no emotion and showed no awareness of the change, or it simply didn’t matter to him. He continued rocking and staring at the chessboard, waiting for me to move.
Then I heard the music. The sound was faint, very faint, and scratchy like a phonograph record. I focused my hyper-hearing and located the source. It was coming from deep within or behind the stone walls, somewhere between the Fleur-du-Mal’s private chambers and Koki’s small apartment.
“Koki,” I said, “Koki, do you hear the music?”
Before he knew what he was doing, Koki raised his head and smiled. I could see every one of his stained teeth and even smell his breath from across the table. “Yes, mister,” Koki said. “She likes the music, hello.” A second later he realized what he had done and it scared him. His smile dropped instantly. He bent his head down and resumed his frozen stare at the chessboard, rocking back and forth and moaning slightly.
“Who is ‘she,’ Koki?” I asked. “You said ‘she.’ Who is ‘she’?” I asked again, but I knew I wasn’t going to get any more responses. Koki had retreated completely into himself and the chessboard.
Somehow, I had to find a way to gain Koki’s conscious awareness of me without frightening him away. I had to become real in his world, not he in mine. As I thought about the problem, I listened closely to the music. I hadn’t heard it in years, but I knew the piece. It was one of Solomon’s favorite symphonies—Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, the work Mahler himself originally titled Aus dem Leben eines Einsamen, “from the life of a lonely-one.” I thought back to the many times in Carolina’s home when Solomon would play the symphony on the phonograph while we were reading or doing other things, such as playing chess. And then it hit me! There might be a unique way to break through to Koki’s world. It was a long shot, but I remembered something Solomon had shown me one rainy day when we were listening to Mahler and I was beating him soundly in a game of chess. I had him down to six pieces. Solomon slowly surveyed his remaining pieces, laughed to himself, and then proceeded to checkmate me in six lightning-quick, seemingly irrational moves. I asked him how he had done it and he said Emanual Lasker, the great German champion, had shown him a series of moves, an endgame progression that he called the “Davidsstern,” or Star of David. Solomon said the progression would only work in a particular situation and it would probably only work one time against a grandmaster because a grandmaster would never forget the progression once he had seen it. I looked down at the positions of my six remaining pieces on the chessboard. I was in luck. Each piece was in the exact position Solomon’s had been. Six crazy, unlikely moves later, I glanced up at Koki. I cleared my throat and said the magic word—“Checkmate.”
Koki stopped rocking. He was drooling and his eyeglasses had slipped down his nose, but he didn’t wipe his chin or push up his glasses. He only stared at the chessboard. He showed no emotion or expression on his face or in his eyes. He didn’t even blink. He just stared down blankly, as if he had simply come to the end of a long sentence and there was nothing left to read. The Fleur-du-Mal had told me that ever since Koki was a boy, since he first learned the rules of the game, he had never been checkmated. Somewhere behind the stone wall, Mahler’s symphony began the second movement. Koki raised his head and looked directly into my eyes. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t afraid.
“Hello, Koki,” I said. “My name is Z.”
Koki was about to reply when all the electric lamps in the great room went dark and behind the stone wall the music stopped playing. Electricity to the shiro had been cut again. We still had light in the great room, but very little. I looked around and only two candles were burning in the wall lamps. Ten seconds later the door to the Fleur-du-Mal’s private chambers burst open and the Fleur-du-Mal stormed into the great room. Mumbling and cursing in French, he walked over to a long table against the wall and found a box of candles. Methodically he proceeded to light every wall lamp in the room. Then he walked over to where Koki was sitting and stood behind him, stroking his hair gently from behind. “Tu me peles le jone,” he said in a low, bitter voice. Koki stiffened in his chair. The Fleur-du-Mal leaned in closer to Koki’s ear and said something in Japanese, then added, “Tea, Koki. Now.”
“Yes, mister. Hello,” Koki said.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Koki glanced once more at me before he rose out of his chair and walked out of the room, wiping his chin and adjusting his glasses as he shuffled away.
The Fleur-du-Mal straightened his kimono and turned to take his seat. I quickly and quietly cleared the chessboard. I didn’t want him to see the final positions of my game with Koki, or know anything about what Koki had partially revealed. I also decided not to mention the Mahler symphony unless the Fleur-du-Mal brought it up. He knew I possessed the ability of hyper-hearing, but perhaps he didn’t know it could extend through stone walls.
Sitting down, he snarled, “Your Americans have complicated my life, Zezen!”
I watched him before I made any reply. As usual, he was being sarcastic, but there was a bitterness and fury in his eyes that reminded me of the Fleur-du-Mal I had always known, not the “gentleman host” he had been recently. And he looked more than angry—he looked dangerous. Slowly I began to reset the chessboard. “I don’t believe I have ever considered them my Americans,” I said.
“You were born there, no?”
“Yes, of course. You know that.”
“Then they are your Americans.” The Fleur-du-Mal paused and crossed his legs, leaning back in his seat. He looked small in the big leather chair. Both of us did. He glanced down at the chessboard.
“Do you want to play a game of chess?” I asked.
“No, mon petit, no games. Today we speak of the Meq!”
And that’s what we did, only there was no “we” in it. The Fleur-du-Mal took off on another harangue about and against the Meq. He started talking and didn’t stop for the next three hours. During that time, Koki brought us tea twice and I got my confirmation that I had broken through to him. On both occasions he glanced at me as he left the room and smiled widely. He had never looked at me before without first being addressed. The second time I winked at him and he smiled even wider, and I knew I was now a part of “Koki’s world.”
Listening to the Fleur-du-Mal, I waited for the right opportunity to confirm something else—the identity of the “she” Koki had inadvertently exposed. I had an idea of her identity, it could only be one person, but somehow I had to confirm the deception without the Fleur-du-Mal being aware of it. After three hours, I finally got my chance. He was ranting on about the Stones and how he believed
they were directly related to consciousness in a specific manner the Meq have either long forgotten or never understood at all.
“This is the ultimate knowledge,” he said, “and the Sixth Stone is this knowledge, Zezen. Mark my words! I tell you the knowledge is there!”
I was looking down at the chessboard. “It is a shame Susheela the Ninth is no longer available,” I said.
“She is useless,” he muttered.
I looked up instantly. “What’s that?”
He only paused for a heartbeat. “I said she was useless, completely useless, of no consequence, unnecessary. She will not be missed.” He paused again and smiled slightly. “Moreover, there are others who may be of assistance.”
“Others? What do you mean, ‘others’?”
He didn’t answer and I didn’t persist. I had what I wanted. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. While he continued his rambling monologue, I let my mind drift and hatched a plan. It also wasn’t much; too obvious, a lot of luck involved, and it all hinged precariously on the unknown reaction of one person—Koki. Still, it was a plan and I was out of options.
The day ended with a simple meal of miso soup and a half-dozen steamed dumplings, during which the Fleur-du-Mal railed once more against the United States, warning of the perverse nature in the power they now possessed. “Even with this power,” he said, “believe me, they would stop at nothing to possess the power of the Stones … and the ones who carry them.” On and on he went, leaping from one thought to the next. Finally, we said good night and I walked into my room alone. In the great room, I heard the Fleur-du-Mal still talking and extinguishing the wall lamps one by one. The last thing I heard him say was, “Process, Zezen, the answer is in the process.”
The night couldn’t pass fast enough for me. I tried not to think ahead, but it was no use. I worried all night about what was wrong with my plan. I was gambling on so many unknown factors. I went through every contingency, and there were many, yet I still didn’t have an answer for the very first problem—the exact words in my first question to Koki. It would make or break the plan. I was already dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when I heard two sharp raps on my door, followed by the familiar, “Rice, mister.” As I was walking to the door, the answer came to me—a question wouldn’t work, it had to be a statement!