Steve Cash - The Meq

I looked at it. It was very familiar. There was nothing written on the side facing up and I turned it over. In the middle, scratched in black ink, was a single letter. “Z.”

I ripped it open and read it by the light of the single candle.

Z, my only Z, please get this! I am afraid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who else to tell. I have seen the evil one, the one that killed Georgia and Mrs. Bennings. I saw him in the French Pavilion at the World’s Fair. And he saw me!! I had my baby with me, Z, and he gave me a look that was like a knife in the chest. I am so frightened. I know he will do something, I can feel it, but what? And when? I can’t bear this with my baby around, Z. I am more afraid for her than me. Please, Z, I don’t know what you can do, but you are the only one who understands. The only one. I pray this gets to you.

C.

I looked up and glared at the chief eunuch. “When did you get this?”

He looked over at the small man, as if to confirm it, and said, “The day before yesterday.”

At that moment, the door to the large room opened and in the darkness we could hear the rustle of robes followed by a sharp command in Chinese. Li Lien-ying and the small man stood frozen in their slippers.

Shuffling toward us with tiny steps and gradually becoming visible was an old woman dressed in a priceless robe of yellow, orange, and purple. Embroidered with seed pearls and coral, it was covered with ideograms and images of bats and dragons. A girl about my size, with a translucent scarf over her head for a veil, accompanied the old woman and held her arm gently. It was Tz’u-hsi herself, the Empress Dowager of China.

She stopped not three feet in front of me. Behind me, Li Lien-ying said, “Good evening, madam.”

She stared at me, up and down, as if I were an exotic animal. “It was,” she said, “until We were informed of certain proceedings. We would think that We would be informed when such a special guest is in Our midst.”

She tried to smile at me, but the right side of her face sagged and her eye and cheek began to twitch violently. She turned away from me and barked, “Why does this ‘magic child’ come to Us?”

Li Lien-ying answered, “He seeks one of his own kind, madam.”

Still hiding her face from me, Tz’u-hsi said, “And who would that be?”

“Opari,” I said.

“Silence!” Li Lien-ying yelled.

Tz’u-hsi raised her hand and said, “There is no need for that.” Then she reached over and lifted the scarf from the girl’s head and revealed her face. She was Meq. She had green eyes. She was somehow familiar. “This is Opari,” Tz’u-hsi said. “Tell her what you seek.”

I looked down at the letter I was still holding in my hand. Suddenly all I could think was “I may be too late. I’ve got to get there.” Then, I thought I heard a bird crashing against the lattice windows, somewhere in the darkness. It was loud and I looked all around me, but no one else seemed to hear. I looked at the girl who was staring back at me, expressionless. There was something about her, something in the eyes. Then it made sense.

“You’re the ‘Pearl,’ aren’t you?” I asked her. She took a slight step back. “But your real name is Zuriaa, isn’t it? You’re Ray’s sister!”

The girl’s eyes opened wide and her pupils rolled up and disappeared in the back of her head. She fainted and fell at Tz’u-hsi’s feet.

Li Lien-ying let out a piercing cat scream and Tz’u-hsi shouted into the darkness, “Seize him!” Hidden doors that looked like windows opened on all sides and government soldiers with rifles and long-robed eunuchs with swords started toward me. I reached into my pocket as slowly and casually as I could. I felt the Stone in my palm, cold and solid. I turned first to Li Lien-ying, whom I knew would have a weapon. He was pulling a long stiletto out of his brocaded sleeve and I raised my fist with the Stone in it. In a droning cadence that was loud enough to fill the room, I said, “Hear ye! Hear ye now, Giza! All stop now!”

I looked in Li Lien-ying’s eyes, and where they had been burning into me a moment ago, there was now a softness, a dullness, staring back. He dropped the stiletto and I started backing away, looking around me and trying to find the door and still chanting, “ Lo geltitu, lo geltitu. You will forget. You will go like lambs now. Ahaztu, Giza!”

The soldiers dropped their rifles and stopped in their tracks. The eunuchs let their swords fall. Tz’u-hsi was kneeling over the girl and seemed somehow unaffected. She watched me turn and walk through the dreaming soldiers, more in wonder than fear.

I hurried out of the door and into the courtyard, stopping for a moment to locate the large hall of the eunuchs. Every building looked the same. I was lost. I started to pick any path, any direction, then I dropped Carolina’s letter and bent to pick it up. Before I could, I heard the Whisper.

It was soft but strong, like incense or perfume. It had texture. It had fingers and stroked my hair and touched my eyes. I breathed it. It filled my heart and mind with mist and musk. It spoke no word. It said no name, but it was speaking to me, as it always had, as it always would.

I looked up and from behind a life-size statue of some forgotten emperor she stepped out in a plain blue silk robe. She was my height and looked about twelve years old. Her hair was black and cut straight at the shoulders. Her eyes were dark and set wide over high, round cheekbones. Her nose was short and round at the tip. Her eyebrows were as black as her hair and thick. She wore no earrings, but her robe had an open neck and I could see a necklace with the Stones attached, sparkling in the lamplight. I could see the vein in her neck throbbing and I could feel her heart beating from where I stood. I could see her lips, her beautiful lips, tremble.

I knew two things instantly. I knew she was Opari and I knew she was my Ameq.

I heard men shouting somewhere and saw more lights coming on. I heard a deep ringing bell from another courtyard, an alarm of some kind. I knew there was no time. Not here. Not now. I picked up the letter and glanced at her just once more. She moved her lips and mouthed one word. “Beloved.”

I turned and ran, climbing over rock gardens and under bridges like Geaxi, racing through halls as fast as Ray. I was lost, but kept running until I found a gate that was still open with several foreign diplomats and their wives straggling through. I lost myself among them and, once outside, lost myself on the streets of Peking.

One day later, I was in Tientsin, and two days later, I was on board a ship bound for San Francisco. I had spoken to no one. I could only keep thinking, “I may be too late. I’ve got to get there.” And then another thought occurred to me. I was already hundreds of miles from Opari, from my Ameq, and I had only met her the day before yesterday.

Wheel and deal. Do you want a hit? Wheel and deal. It is a game. It is a ride we sometimes take with fate as our companion, strolling through a carnival of circumstance and fortune. It is return. It is a circle spiked with fear and spoked with dream and spun with love and will. It is a cycle. It is completion. It is the motion of our birth and death, our sweet crop of secret corn, sown in light and harvested in darkness. It is a song, it is a refrain. You know how it goes and comes again. It is a wheel. Take a spin. Spin the real. It is your turn.

The tramp steamer Cartagena took five weeks to cross the world’s largest ocean. I had no luggage except what I had on me, which was my passport, the Stone, and a few British banknotes and Chinese coins. I had lied to get on and I would lie to get off. An innocent-looking child with half a lifetime of experience and a good story can slip through many locked gates and still be left alone. I talked only to the captain and spent all my time obsessed with the moment a beautiful girl had walked out from behind an ancient statue and looked into my eyes.