Steve Cash: Time Dancers

“What do you propose, Sailor?” Opari asked.

“Tomorrow,” he said, holding up Captain Antoine Boutrain’s letter between his thumb and forefinger like a winning card in a poker game, “we shall divide the names on the list of five among us and begin our search for each of them and their descendants.”

“This ain’t gonna be easy, Sailor,” Ray said. “Not if what you say about the Japanese bein’ everywhere is right. The word ‘difficult’ won’t be close to what we’ll run into. We’re gonna need some help.”

“He is correct, Sailor,” Geaxi said. She stood and began to pace the “Honeycircle.” Her steps made little or no sound in the grass.

Opari turned to me. “Jack,” she whispered and I knew immediately what she meant.

“Sailor,” I said, “give me a day or so. I think Jack might know someone who can help us.”

“Who is it?” Sailor asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know who it is.”

“Then why should he help us?”

“Owen Bramley knew the man. Owen left Jack a number to call in Washington if we ever truly needed help. When we wanted to leave Cuba together, and quickly, Jack contacted the man and the next day in Florida we were whisked through customs without being asked a single question.”

“And you do not know his name or identity?”

“Jack was only given the name ‘Cardinal’ and a password, ‘sunrise.’”

Sailor looked at Opari, Geaxi, and down at Mowsel. “Do you trust this elkarte, Trumoi-Meq, this association ?”

“No, Umla-Meq, I do not. I believe it is Giza joku —adult games—they play. However, we must respect and trust the judgment of Owen Bramley. This has been proven many times.” Mowsel leaned his head in the opposite direction. “And we have no option, old one. If you think we should make haste in finding these names, Ray is correct, we will require help.”

Sailor looked at me. With no hesitation, he said, “Talk to Jack, Zianno. Find out what he can do, and soon.”

Nearby, within twelve feet but completely invisible in the darkness, Geaxi asked, “Sailor, why do we not pursue the Fleurdu-Mal before finding the castle? Is it not logical?”

A few seconds of silence followed. “We shall need Susheela the Ninth alive, Geaxi,” Sailor said. “We cannot eliminate the Fleur-du-Mal once and for all without her.”

A few more seconds passed. From the dark, Geaxi said, “I see.”

Sailor stepped down from the stone pedestal and took hold of Nova’s hand, pulling her upright and folding her arm in his. He started walking, leading both of them and us toward the opening in the “Honeycircle” and back to the big house. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a cat squeal, followed by a barking dog. “In the morning, Nova,” Sailor said, “I want to walk with you in Forest Park and tell you the story of your father and his wonderful sundial.”

I spoke with Jack the next day and told him our problem. He understood and agreed we should call “Cardinal.” He dialed the number in Washington and someone picked up the receiver after one ring, but said nothing. Jack used the password “sunrise.” Ten seconds later, “Cardinal” was on the line and Jack wasted no time in telling him exactly what we needed and gave him the list of five names. On the spur of the moment, Jack added that we could also use seven diplomatic passports. To everyone’s surprise, and without hesitation or even asking a single question, “Cardinal” said it would all be arranged. A week later, a plain brown package appeared one morning in Carolina’s driveway, lying alongside the Post-Dispatch. Jack opened the package on the kitchen table and spread the contents out. Five separate folders contained long dossiers on each of the five names plus dossiers on their descendants and their current addresses, except for Sangea Hiramura. His dossier contained a single sheet of paper with no information on him and only the names and history of three sons and one daughter, Shutratek, the same woman I spoke with on the train to St. Louis and again at Solomon’s “remembering.” The dossier said Shutratek had returned from the World’s Fair in 1904 and was still living in Hokkaido. Two of the sons had remained in Japan during the Fair. One son eventually moved to Tokyo and the other moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1915, where he disappeared. The fate of the third son, the one who had accompanied Sangea and Shutratek to St. Louis, was unknown. Along with dossiers, the package contained seven brand-new diplomatic passports for seven children from the same family in Brazil. The children looked remarkably like us. Jack laughed once, then dealt the passports out like playing cards to Nova, Ray, Geaxi, Mowsel, Sailor, Opari, and me.

Sailor mumbled under his breath, “I should like to meet this ‘Cardinal’ one day.”

“I think not,” Mowsel said, leaning his head toward Sailor. “Before you meet him, old one, I think we should know more about him than he seems to know about us.”

“Trumoi-Meq is correct,” Opari said.

“Agreed,” Geaxi added.

Sailor glanced once at Mowsel and turned to Jack. “If possible, try to find out who ‘Cardinal’ truly is, Jack.”

Jack said, “I’ll do my best, Sailor.”

All that day and night we discussed the names on the “List” and their dossiers. Sailor informed everyone of my connection to Sangea Hiramura and it was decided that Sailor and I should be the ones to find and track down his descendants. Among the five names, there was one other Japanese name. His descendants were now living in Manila and Nova and Ray would go there. Two of the remaining three names were Chinese, one of them a woman from Nanking and the other a merchant from Hong Kong. Opari chose to investigate the woman, saying the woman herself was not familiar, but the name was well known. Opari said the family had been a powerful and infamous force in the region since the Ming Dynasty. Geaxi and Mowsel chose the other Chinese name, mainly so Geaxi could fly across the Pacific in Pan American Airlines’ flying boat, the China Clipper. The last name on the “List” was American and his descendants now lived in Honolulu. Since there were no more of us to do it, Jack suggested he investigate the American and his family.

“The China Clipper leaves for Hong Kong from San Francisco,” he said. “She makes her first stop in Honolulu.” Jack paused and looked at each of us one by one. “Why not me?”

No one said a word for a moment or two, and it wasn’t me, or Opari, or Geaxi, Ray, Nova, or even Sailor who answered. It was Mowsel. He grinned wide, exposing his gap and tilting his head in Jack’s general direction. “Why not, indeed!” he said.

The Egizahar Meq may be able to use and develop various forms of dealing with time and the passage of time, including the elegant, bewitching, difficult, and conscious/unconscious art of timedancing. Most if not all of these skills and “abilities” involve the illusion of time slowing down. According to Sailor, Mowsel, and Opari, this has always been so. In a similar, but external and practical manner, all Meq possess the ability to mobilize and simply leave—anytime, anywhere, and for whatever length of time is necessary. This is not illusion. The Meq can and must be able to move. Our survival depends upon it.

Jack wasted no time in wiring Carolina and telling her he was closing the big house and going on the road for several weeks, maybe months. He kept his destination vague and said he would stay in touch. Then he informed the Post-Dispatch that he would be unavailable and out of the country until further notification, bought our train tickets, and by the end of June we were leaving Union Station and heading west. In San Francisco, on the Fourth of July, along with the rest of America, we celebrated Ray’s birthday. We spent the whole day taking long taxi rides back and forth across the new and beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.