Steve Cash - The Meq

PoPo stopped speaking and inhaled slowly. He was an old man and reliving the old memory had surprised him with emotion. I let time pass and glanced at Emme. She nodded gently to assure me that he was fine.

“Why was he at the meeting, PoPo? Can you tell me?”

“The Prophecy,” he said. “The Prophecy and the Lie.” A single tear formed in the corner of one eye and then he smiled. “I have all my life longed for and feared that he would return to hear it from me, just to laugh at its truth, as he has always done in generations past.”

“What is the Prophecy?” I asked. “And what is the Lie?”

“They are one and the same according to my grandfather, each a result of the same event long ago. The one with green eyes came to Mali in the 1300s when Mansa Musa, the king of Mali, returned from his pilgrimage and brought Arab architects and merchants with him. The one with green eyes was among them. Being the only white child anyone in Mali had ever seen, he was treated with a blend of curiosity and respect that enabled him to be granted nearly anything he wished. When he heard of the Dogon and our cosmology, he asked to be taken into Dogon land and introduced to the head priest. This was an odd request for anyone, especially a child, but Mansa Musa approved it and the child, along with Hadim al-Sadi’s ancestors, made his way to Dogon land in the upper Sanga. Two of my ancestors were there to greet them. They went to the mineral cave and others like it where Meq handprints were shown to the ‘little wolf.’ He told the priests that he was Meq, and to prove it, he cut himself and asked for poison to drink. The priests were horrified, but his wounds began to heal in front of them and the poison only made him belch. Then my ancestors made a mistake. They told him about the Starstone.”

PoPo paused and followed me with his gaze. I was still pacing the room. “Go on,” I said.

“It was told that long ago, when there was only Water and the Word and the Meq came to visit, they left a Starstone in one of the mineral caves. When they held the Starstone in their hands, it was said they had power over Nature and were able to make the animals sleep. Only the Meq could do this, so the Starstone was buried in the water, but the gems that adorned it were passed among the elders of the Dogon. The Ancient Pearl is the last remaining gem. The others have been lost in time.

“The one with green eyes wanted to know where the Starstone was buried, but the priests had no real knowledge because the Meq were already ancient lore — an auxiliary myth. The ‘little wolf’ suddenly became furious and bade Hadim al-Sadi take two daughters of the priests into slavery unless the priests led him to the Starstone. The priests pleaded their ignorance and begged for their daughters, but the one with green eyes lost his patience and slit the throats of the daughters in front of the priests. In return, the priests issued a curse on the evil one in the form of a Prophecy. They foretold that he would die like the bastard Nummo in our cosmology — at the hands of twins. They said, ‘You will kill a twin whose other will have a child that will have a child that will kill you.’

“The one with green eyes laughed at them and vowed to return in every future generation of their families to laugh at them and what he called the Lie. If the priests did not appear when he summoned them, Hadim and his descendants would kill their daughters and their daughters’ daughters.

“So, there it is — the Prophecy and the Lie.”

PoPo stopped talking and I nearly stopped breathing. I sat on one of the silk pillows and the pieces to an enigmatic puzzle started falling in place. Incredibly, I realized the Fleur-du-Mal’s madness in abducting Star had its source right where I was. Whether the sixth Stone existed or not, he believed it did, and even more, he believed the Prophecy. All the needless death and suffering came down to simple superstition and pride. When he found out he had murdered the wrong woman and Carolina was Georgia’s twin, he waited for Star to be born and now he was waiting for Star’s child— his own killer. The challenge and irony of confronting and manipulating “fate” had become his obsession. That was why he had not yet summoned PoPo. The joke was missing its punch line. To the Fleur-du-Mal, the Lie was coming true and he would be waiting for it. But where was he? And more urgently, where was Star? And what, if anything, did “Razor Eyes” have to do with it? The questions tumbled one into the other. I looked up and PoPo and Emme were staring at me. I had one more question for PoPo. “Why did your ancestors refer to twins in their Prophecy?”

“Because twins have great significance for the Dogon. The starting point of creation is believed to be in the twin star that revolves around Sirius, the Dog Star. The Dogon have known this as long as they have known of the Meq. My ancestors called on the power in the smallest and heaviest of all the stars for potency in their Prophecy and curse.” He paused and leaned forward on the pallet. He reached out for my hand and I gave it to him. His dark skin was leathery and he held my hand in his as he would a butterfly. “Is this important information to you?” he asked softly.

“Yes, PoPo, it is. You see, that is why I came to Africa — to find the one with green eyes.”

“Ayiiii,” he yelped and started laughing hysterically. He clapped his hands together and turned to Emme. “And what do you think now, my granddaughter?”

“It is a small world, PoPo,” Emme said. “It is a small world.”

“I need more information, PoPo,” I told him, “about both the past and present if I am to do what I need to do. I will need your help.” I paused and looked at Emme, remembering I had no Stone in my pocket and no real understanding of where I was or where to go. “I will need your help too, Emme.”

PoPo glanced at his granddaughter and I could tell he was not sure what her response would be. His big ears seemed to lean toward her and his eyes widened. Her expression gave nothing away, then she smiled and picked up the old man’s strange hat, placing it carefully on his bald head.

“I would be honored,” she said. “We had hoped there was another kind of Meq than the one with green eyes. PoPo has always believed in this. We have been waiting for you.”

For the next several days I walked. I walked with Emme outside the village along ancient trails that were red in color from the decay of rock older than the trails. I wanted to see all the caves where they had found children’s handprints on the walls. The trails were rough and wound through desert scrub and stunted trees. Every day my legs grew stronger and Emme took me to another cave more remote than the last. Some of the caves had handprints spread throughout and some had only two or three in a small circle. Most were made from colored ochre, reds and yellows, and some were outlined in black. A few of the handprints were missing fingers. Emme said the Bambara, a tribe similar to the Dogon in fundamental principles and metaphysics, also had knowledge of such caves and handprints.

“Do they refer to them as Meq?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Only PoPo and I know of the Meq by name.”

I walked with PoPo too. He was the most amazing walker I have ever seen. He always seemed to be walking backward because he never looked ahead and yet never ran into anything. The Dogon had a complex system of division and direction in their village. Everything was laid out in a north — south arrangement that symbolized the human body. Every space was accounted for and had to be traversed with care. Popo made his way laughing and talking, without care and without even looking.

I told PoPo everything I knew about the Fleur-du-Mal and the kidnapping of Star. I saw no reason to hold anything back. I had to find answers and connections. I showed him the old photographs that I still carried in my luggage of “Razor Eyes” from the awful day in Vancouver. PoPo recognized the man, as I’d hoped, though he said he looked much older now and was partially paralyzed in the face. PoPo called him by the single name Cheng, and said the man was well known in the slave trade from Lagos to Timbuktu and beyond. He always bought, never sold, and it was always girls. He sometimes traded with the sons of Hadim al-Sadi — Mulai (the elder), and Jisil (the younger). It was Jisil who had revealed to one of PoPo’s acquaintances that Cheng sought the Ancient Pearl. Jisil had also let it slip that Cheng was merely a buyer for someone else, someone never seen and only referred to as “the girl from Peking.”