Steve Cash - The Remembering

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!

I swung open the door. Koki was smiling and rocking back and forth. He held a candle in one hand and a bowl of steaming rice in the other. His brown eyes were huge and watery behind his glasses, and he was looking directly at me. I let a moment pass, then said the words evenly, one by one, “Take me to the black girl, Koki. Now.”

Koki nodded his head up and down. “Yes, hello. Yes,” he said without hesitation. I waited for him to say something else, or turn and move. He didn’t. Then I realized he had no idea what to do with the rice. His “routine” had not yet been completed. I reached for the bowl and set it down inside my room. “Thank you, Koki,” I said. “Now, take me to the black girl.”

We started toward the back of the great room, Koki leading the way and staying close to the wall. His candle was the only light in the room and as he shuffled past Goya’s head, I glanced at it and stopped. Koki walked on a pace or two before I said, “Wait, Koki.” Then, for some unknown reason, I reached out and dislodged the skull from the iron clamps and put it under my arm. “Keep going, Koki,” I said. He was staring wide-eyed at the skull and moaning. “It is all right, Koki, it is all right,” I repeated. “Keep going.”