Steve Cash - The Meq

“Yes,” he yelled back. “It is your birthday.”

He was trying to put on his goggles and having trouble with it. He finally tossed them over the side and let the wind hit him full face.

“That can’t be true,” I said. Then I looked over at him and whether he was laughing or crying from the wind, I couldn’t tell, but his eyes were full of tears.

“It is not true,” he said. “It just sounded good.”

Then we both started laughing and he added, “I have no idea what day it is.”

Think of it like the two miners who were trapped and realized, once the dust had settled, there was no hope of escape. After countless confessions and a thousand tales of pointless regret, they decided instead to tell each other jokes until the very end. just to see who got the last laugh. The two miners were never found, but the others, the saved ones, remembered the echoes of that laughter for the rest of their lives. They all agreed it was the most genuine and contagious laughter they had ever heard.

We stopped five times on our flight to Alexandria — three times for fuel and twice for Opari to look after Star and the baby. Opari said the bullet wound was healing and the loss of blood was a concern, but both mother and son were doing well under the circumstances.

“Son?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, then looked at me strangely. “Did you not know?”

“No!”

She laughed out loud and shook her head, then kissed me while she was still laughing. It was a rich, full laugh — not a giggle — and I laughed with her. I couldn’t help it even though I was the source of the joke. She was beautiful. Her dark eyes sparkled and danced. Her mouth opened and I almost wanted to count her teeth, they were so white and perfectly shaped. The sound of her laugh was free and spontaneous and I was jealous of all the others before me who had heard it. Much later, Opari would tell me it was the first time she had laughed in over a thousand years.

Sailor took charge as I expected and I was grateful for it. He had a plan, which he and Geaxi had already set in motion, and he merely fitted Star, the baby, and me into it. It was unclear what he had in mind, but Sailor was the one who made sure Star got immediate medical attention after we arrived, not Opari or Geaxi. He told Willie Croft where to take her in Alexandria and even held the baby while she was helped onto a stretcher. Star could have made the trip under her own steam, but Sailor insisted on taking every precaution. I had never known him to put the welfare of the Giza before that of the Meq. It seemed very unusual, and even more strange, it seemed genuine.

As he was handing the baby back to Star, the baby’s hands found Sailor’s single braid behind his ear, pulling Sailor’s head down and finally grasping in his little palm the piece of lapis lazuli that hung from the bottom of the braid. Without hesitating, Sailor untied the lapis lazuli and Star was carried away with the baby still holding the gem tight in his tiny hands. Star looked back at Sailor and smiled. Sailor waved. I had never seen him wave before to anyone, anywhere. I had no idea how long he had worn the lapis lazuli. I knew it meant something unique to him, and yet he had given it away in a moment to the child of a Giza, a complete stranger. While he was waving, I noticed that even Geaxi seemed to look twice. Perhaps it was because he had finally found Opari and their differences had been settled. Or it could have had something to do with his questions about Eder, Nova, and their relationship with Carolina. Whatever his reasons, the change was a dramatic surprise to everyone. As for me, I was so happy I was useless.

We had made our final landing a few miles west of Alexandria in a makeshift safe harbor, completely isolated and obviously not part of a British base. A man in uniform, which he wore as casually as Willie, helped tie the two planes to a dock covered with a tin roof and palm fronds on top of that. The man seemed as unconcerned about being around the Meq as did Willie. It was sunset. The air was cool and the light was golden.

Everything seemed slightly surreal. The landscape was barren and the point at which it met the sea was unremarkable, but I felt as if we had landed in paradise. As long as Opari was there, I was sure of it. I watched her as if she was in slow motion. I watched her help Star and the baby out of the plane, the way no movement was wasted and no touch in a place of pain or discomfort to Star. After Sailor took charge and Star and the baby had left with Willie and the other man, I watched her gather our things and help Geaxi with the planes. I watched her hands. I watched the way she knelt and stood up, the way she turned and smiled. I watched everything. Opari — my Ameq. I thought of Unai and Usoa and wondered how they could have waited so many centuries to cross in the Zeharkatu. As I watched Opari, I could not conceive of it. Now that she was with me, that we were free and together, the Itxaron — the Wait — seemed absurd and unnecessary. Opari was a rich and complex woman living in a girl’s body. I thought I knew everything about living in a boy’s body, but I was learning something by the moment that neither Papa nor Sailor nor anyone else had ever had a chance to tell me about being Meq, being male, and being in love. It was a feeling as old as time, but brand-new to me.

“She has become more than a ghost, no?”

I turned as if I’d been caught stealing. It was Sailor. He had been watching me watch Opari. His “ghost eye” actually winked at me.

Embarrassed at first, I relaxed, remembering his own connection with Opari. “Yes,” I said, then stammered, “she is. she has. ”

“Her sister was equally as lovely,” he said. He turned and watched Opari himself, and for a brief moment, I knew he was seeing Deza, then he turned back to me. His “ghost eye” narrowed and focused. He twirled the star sapphire on his finger and spoke in a low monotone. “You will, you must, become accustomed to this feeling, Zianno. There is so much still to be done. I will tell you more later, but remember, you are Meq, you are the Stone of Dreams. We will need you. You must dredge your dreams, conscious and unconscious, good and bad. In the muck of an ancient nightmare, you may find a diamond. In the bright blue of an imagined summer day, there may be a hornet you ignored. It would be your mistake to miss either through lack of curiosity.”

“What about Opari?” I asked. “Have you spoken to her?”

“No, but she must do the same. She must stay the same. She is the Stone of Blood. I am certain she thought of this before. before she found us.”

“Aha!” I said. “So you finally admit someone found you and not the other way around.”

Sailor laughed once, but that was his only response.

Darkness came quickly and a breeze picked up. It was warm compared to the night air in the deep desert, but still cool and it blew the salt air in from the Mediterranean. Geaxi led us to a low stone building with a newly rebuilt roof and most of one wall missing. She said the British had used a nearby site for target practice two years earlier. A stray shell had caught the side of the building. I was amazed at the size of the hole and couldn’t imagine the weapon that had produced it. Geaxi circled the one large room inside, lighting kerosene lamps along the way. There were only two windows at the top of one wall and none of the lamps was beneath them. There seemed to be no electricity and no running water. Several straw mats covered the floor and a few personal items lay around two of them. Another was off by itself, clean and sparse, with two blankets neatly folded on top and two black ballet slippers at one end. By looking at it, there was no way to tell if the occupant had been there a day, a year, or ten years. I smiled to myself at the almost invisible address of Geaxi. I turned to speak to her, but she and Opari were busy preparing a kind of nursery for Star and her baby. I found Sailor instead.