Steve Cash - The Meq

Opari and Sailor had reacted instinctively. I’m not sure at the time if they knew what they were doing or if it was going to succeed. But it did and it made me think of the loss of the last true gift my papa had given me — the Stone — and I remembered the one who had taken it.

“Zuriaa,” I shouted. “Does Opari know about the gems that Cheng stole from the Stones of Geaxi and me?”

“What?” Opari turned and asked.

“And that Baju was shot and killed by Cheng?”

“What?” Opari and Sailor said in unison.

“And do you know, Zuriaa, that Cheng stole the Stone from me in Senegal?. The same place he probably sold Ray to a German, like a slave.”

“What?” Zuriaa shouted from her horse.

She whirled in one motion and threw the gems that she kept in her pocket into the air in the direction of Opari and the doorway. She spurred her horse and raced by Cheng, stabbing him in the heart as she passed. I never saw her reach for the stiletto, but it hung and dangled from Cheng’s chest before he and the knife fell together and the knife was dislodged, along with something else that rolled out from under him like an ugly black egg — the Stone.

Opari bent down to pick up the gems. I watched Zuriaa disappear up the rise and back through the ruins, then I walked out to where Cheng lay dead and picked up the Stone. I tossed it to Sailor, who had to hold one hand up against the rising sun to catch it. Opari watched the black thing fly through the air and couldn’t believe it.

“These things occur,” Sailor shouted to me.

“Are you going to be saying that now, I mean, from now on?” I asked.

“Many times,” he said. “Many times.”

Then we all heard a strange sound that was growing louder by the second, coming in from the open sea toward the lagoon. A sound that made no sense to me, the sound of engines whining at full throttle over water.

Sailor said, “Look.”

I looked and what I saw came out of a dream, but was real. My dreams could never have been that rich. I saw two biplanes outfitted as seaplanes with wooden skids hanging underneath, the kind I had seen a photograph of in the desert. They were at a height of no more than two hundred feet over the water, approaching and descending.

Sailor said, “Come on.”

I grabbed all the packs and Opari helped Star and the baby. We followed Sailor out to the end of the walkway where the two seaplanes were landing in the lagoon. The big engines roared and the two planes fishtailed in the water as they slowed down and got their bearings. Then they pulled up one behind the other alongside the walkway.

When I tried to see the pilot of the leading plane, at first there seemed to be no one in the cockpit, then someone small leaped out and onto the walkway. She had short dark hair under a leather cap, which she yanked off with one hand. With the other hand, she removed her scarf and goggles. It was Geaxi.

“Hello, young Zezen,” she said. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“Well, these things occur, Geaxi,” I said. “Where did you learn to fly?”

“Canada, actually,” she said without hesitation. “But tell me, why are you here? Sailor said it would only be himself and possibly Opari.”

“He was right,” I said. “Only he had the wrong Opari in mind.”

“What?” Geaxi asked.

“Never mind,” Sailor interrupted.

Geaxi pulled her beret out of a vest and set it on her head, looking around for someone until she found her.

“You must be Opari,” she said and they exchanged a long look loaded with information.

“Yes, I am Opari.”

“You have been missing.”

“Yes, but no longer.”

Opari took my hand in hers and held it against her chest, near to where her heart beat underneath.

Geaxi looked at us both and smiled. “I see,” she said, “but that still does not explain—”

“Never mind,” Sailor said. “We will have time for this later. Time is not our problem. I need to know if we have too much weight for the planes to take off.”

“That should not be a problem,” Geaxi said, “but I will ask Willie.”

She waved over the second pilot. He was a tall man, about thirty years old with a boyish face. He wore a British uniform, but everything was slightly unbuttoned or fitted him oddly. He had sandy hair and, except for a broken nose, a handsome face. He seemed completely at ease with Geaxi and was not startled to see other Meq around. There was something vaguely familiar about him.

As he came close, Geaxi started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I have just remembered something,” Geaxi said, and with a deep bow and a wave of her arm, she introduced him. “Willie Croft, I would like you to meet my good friend, the Buddha, also known as Zianno Zezen.”

Then the name and the face came together and rang a bell. He was the kid outside the train in China, the one Geaxi told I was the Buddha and he had believed it. The recognition was simultaneous and the tall man dropped his face, almost embarrassed.

“Hello, Zianno,” he said.

“Hello, Willie, but you can call me Z.”

“Well, then, hello, Z.”

“We’ve got a weak and wounded mother and a newborn baby, Willie. Will it be too rough for them?”

“No, I shouldn’t think so, just a bit long is all.”

“Good. How did you hook up with Geaxi?”

“Well, it’s a long story,” he said. “Would you want to hear it now?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Do we have too much weight?” Sailor asked.

“No,” Willie said. “We’ll make it.”

“Where are we going?” I asked Sailor.

“Tripoli, then Alexandria and on to England by ship, if it’s safe.”

Geaxi took off her beret and slipped her leather cap back on. She fastened her goggles and wrapped her scarf around her neck. “Who flies with me?” she asked.

Opari sat in the other plane behind Willie Croft, keeping Star and her baby warm and calm. I looked at her once as we took off and every other minute after we were in the air. The two planes stayed close and climbed to almost a thousand feet. Geaxi seemed born to fly and handled the experimental plane with ease. For a moment, I thought about Ray and how much he would have loved to be with us. In my heart, I resolved to find him and free him. We headed south, hugging the coastline, then east into and under the sun as it rose in the sky.

Eventually, we flew over a strip of white sand that was scattered with the ruins of an old city. Broken stones and columns littered the area. The only structure I could identify was the remains of a Roman amphitheater. In the center, standing alone, was a small figure who looked up as we flew over. Even from a thousand feet, I could see the green ribbon and the white teeth.

“What is that place?” I yelled at Sailor. We were sitting close, but the noise of the engine and the wind made it difficult to hear.

“Sabratha,” Sailor yelled back. “The Fleur-du-Mal was born there.”

I leaned forward and tapped Geaxi on the shoulder, pointing down at the ruins and the figure standing among them. Geaxi recognized him and couldn’t resist circling and waggling her wings. After one full circle, the figure knew who it was above him and what it meant. It was the first time I had seen his brilliant teeth bared in a grimace and not a smile.

We flew on toward Tripoli and I forgot about the Fleur-du-Mal within minutes. Flying does that. The Mediterranean seemed as blue as Sailor’s star sapphire and the sky was bright and light. I looked over at Opari in the other plane and she was staring back, silently mouthing the first word she had ever spoken to me. “beloved.”

I turned to Sailor and yelled, “By the way, do you know what day it is?”