Steve Cash - The Meq

We went directly to the docks and the ship on which Owen Bramley had booked passage, the Lotus, a steamer registered in Singapore and owned by Bourdes, the same firm that had employed Antoine Boutrain all those years before. Baju made sure our cabins were on the starboard side, facing east. Pello and Joseba stayed close the whole time, watching every face, but staying slightly out of sight themselves. I knew they were nervous and I knew why. Vancouver was a rough place.

Still in the midst of the Klondike gold rush and already known as an international port, Vancouver was a new town, a frontier town with all the cardsharps, punks and thieves, whorehouses, saloons, and backstabbing that goes with it. You felt free in such a town, but not necessarily safe. And with Geaxi and me both in the same place, and after what we had sensed in the Denver train station, there was cause for concern. I admired Pello. He showed patience and calm, but kept a steady and keen alertness amid the chaos. I was sure he’d never been in a place like Vancouver.

We ate in a little saloon on Water Street near Carrall on the edge of the Burrard Inlet. It was called Gassy Jack’s. Someone was playing a loud, out-of-tune piano the whole time we were there. The place was filled with men and women of all kinds from all ends of the earth. It was one place where a group like ours was nothing unusual.

Owen Bramley ordered for everyone, but it didn’t make any difference, since a huge piece of salmon and a bucket of beans were the only things on the menu. During the meal, I changed places at the table and sat next to Baju. I had to know more about the next day.

“Tell me what will happen tomorrow,” I said.

He stopped eating and looked around the table. No one else could hear us over the general racket and discordant notes of the piano. “I will tell you more and we will talk again afterward, but I will tell you this”—he paused and wiped his mouth with a hand towel—“the sun will rise and appear tomorrow and then disappear.”

I looked at him as if it could not be that simple. “You mean an eclipse?”

“Yes, an eclipse. A total eclipse of the sun will occur here tomorrow. But to us it is more than that. To the Meq, it is the time of the Bitxileiho, the Strange Window.

“For reasons we have never known, or have known and forgotten, during an eclipse of the sun, there is a strange”—he paused again and took a drink from a large mug, then went on—“thing that we, the Meq, experience. It is similar to what happens to the Giza when the Stones are used on them, only for us it is more difficult; a deeper place; a wider gap. But it is necessary to know this place, because it is there that you cross with your Ameq in the Zeharkatu. To the Meq, the Bitxileiho is as strange and common and magic and sacred as a drink of water.”

“Will I feel—”

He cut me off and said, “We will talk of your feelings afterward, Zianno. It will be the same for you as all others, yet uniquely your own. Since Eder and I have crossed, I will not be affected. This is also not understood, but I am like the Giza now, and Pello, Joseba, and I will be there while you, Geaxi, and Ray are. somewhere else. This is all I have to say now — afterward, afterward we will talk.”

Geaxi got up suddenly to go to the ladies’ room and was escorted by Pello and Joseba through the rowdy crowd. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ray ahead of her, but I turned and saw him still in his seat scooping up the last of his beans with a piece of bread.

On her return, I noticed Geaxi looked extremely pale and I asked if she was all right. She could only point to her stomach and say “the food.” Ray looked at her with an expression of bewilderment.

Owen Bramley paid the bill and we walked the short distance back to the ship. There was a low fog hovering over the whole town and out on the Burrard Inlet. I walked alongside Geaxi. I was nervous, uncomfortable, and I didn’t know what to say or what not to say. She looked over at me.

“Do not worry, young Zezen. I know that you are anxious, but Sailor is right — it is time for you to gaze in the Window.”

Back on the Lotus, it was a quiet night with only a few passengers outside their cabins. Baju said to get a good night’s sleep and rise early. It would happen in the morning just after the sun crested the mountains to the east.

I mostly lay on my bunk wide awake with thoughts tumbling one into the other. I did drift off once and dreamed I was playing catch with Papa in a bright green field with the sun high in the sky above us. I was wearing Mama’s glove. Papa was tossing the baseball to me, higher and farther each time until once he tossed it so high I lost it in the sun and turned my head, afraid it would hit me. It did hit, but it hit the ground, splitting open and spilling out the Stones. The gems sparkled in the sunlight. I tried to yell to Papa. I tried to yell “I broke it, Papa, I broke it!” But I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t even speak. Then Mama was talking to me. She was saying something over and over, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the Stones and the gems sparkling in the light.

“Wake up! Wake up, Zianno!” It was Geaxi. “It is almost time.”

I dressed quickly and met her at the railing on the deck, not twenty feet from my door. Baju was there with Ray. He said he wanted us close to our cabins. It was light, but there was no sun yet and a fog still clung around the ship.

I looked up and down the deck on the starboard side. I saw Pello standing out of sight under some stairs to my right. To my left, Joseba was walking casually beside the railing. Past Joseba were the only other passengers on deck, a group of men setting up tripods, cameras, charts, and graphs, all speaking at once in a rapid and excited French. Baju said they were members of some obscure French astronomy society. Owen Bramley was nowhere in sight.

Then it began. First, the sun rose above the horizon of the mountains and the fog gradually burned off. The air was cool, the sky became clear. Baju lined up three deck chairs behind us. “You may have to sit down,” he said. “You will notice nothing at first, but during totality you will not be able to move.”

We were in an eerie half-light. The moon was sliding into place. I looked out across the water and there were low-contrast bands of light and dark racing over the seascape. The amateur French astronomers began to cheer and whistle at the other end of the deck. I glanced quickly at Baju. He was smiling. I looked up and there was only a thin bright crescent of the sun remaining. I was hypnotized by that crescent. The horizon around us was yellowish or orange, the zenith a pale blue. The seconds ticked down — five — four — three — two — one — Incredible! It was the eye of God. A perfect black disk, ringed with bright spiked streamers stretching in all directions. I could see a few red peaks in the ring and a star or two behind this wonder, this window blazing in the surrounding blackness at midmorning.

And half of me fell away. There is no other way to say it. Part of me was open, weightless, nothing there. I could see, but what I saw went on without me. I could feel nothing, move nothing. Why move? There was nothing to move. I was at the other end of a strange telescope, a tiny point, a speck of. what? It was cold and dark, so dark. I wanted to sleep, but I heard a voice, a whisper. It said, “Beloved, wake.” I felt a fluttering of wings. I looked back through the telescope, this window, and saw movement. I saw Geaxi and Ray sitting in chairs and a figure approaching them. Everything was in slow motion, but it still happened quickly.

The figure slipped behind Geaxi and in one practiced motion removed the necklace with the Stones from around her neck. Then he moved behind me and I could feel a tickling sensation as he took my necklace and Stones. I couldn’t move. I felt trapped in a thick, invisible sand. All I could do was watch.