The Remembering (6 page)

“Why do you hesitate, Z?” she asked. “We must make haste.”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head once and tossing Goya to her. I scrambled up and over the gate. In another minute, the
shiro
was out of sight and we were on our way out of the hills and down to Nagasaki.

We ran, walked, and ran some more. I had no certain destination in mind, but unconsciously I was heading toward the railway and Urakami Station. Even in the hills, we passed many people, some with nothing, some with their meager belongings piled on a wagon or cart. Whether young or old, man or woman, their faces and expressions were devoid of all feeling and life. None of them paid any attention to us. We were invisible to them. They were living and walking, yet their eyes were dead. I kept thinking of Opari to keep from thinking about Sailor and Sak. I could not imagine the kind of unspeakable mass destruction and death these pitiful people had witnessed. I knew many were also dying from radiation as they walked, and for those who lived on and survived, even into old age, life would never be the same.

At one point, we paused to rest in a small open-air shrine by the side of the road. We sat on one of two stone benches inside. Below us, the morning fog blanketing Nagasaki and the Urakami Valley began to slowly burn off and dissipate.

Susheela the Ninth turned to me. “Who is this one you think of repeatedly, Z?”

Her question startled me. “What? How did you know what I was thinking? I never said a word.”

“It was unnecessary. Your heart and mind were shouting.”

I stared at her with brand-new wonder and respect. As far as I knew, this was an “ability” no other Meq had ever possessed. “Is it mental telepathy? Is that what you did?”

“Not quite; however, it is an ancient trait common to my tribe. Another form of communication, if you will—older, simpler. The trait has been a great aid in my survival.”

I looked long into the emerald green eyes of Susheela the Ninth, once again amazed at how little I truly knew or understood about the Meq. I cleared my throat and said, “Opari. Her name is Opari … she is my Ameq.”

“I see.” She paused and glanced away, then smiled to herself. “Opari,” she said slowly, one syllable at a time. “A beautiful name. I believe it means
gift
in the Basque tongue. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Opari now? I do not suspect she is near.”

“No, she’s nowhere near, and I give thanks for that. As far as I know, before the bomb, she was still somewhere in China.”

Susheela the Ninth dropped her smile. “Bomb? To what bomb are you referring?”

I looked out over the thinning fog. Spreading out below us, the Urakami Valley or what was left of it was gradually becoming visible, and it was worse than I imagined. “He didn’t tell you? The Fleur-du-Mal didn’t tell you what happened five days ago in Nagasaki?”

“No. Xanti never speaks of the Japanese war. He only speaks of Mahler, and painting, and the Sixth Stone, of course. Now, what do you mean, Z—‘before the bomb’?”

The fog had almost cleared. From our angle in the hills, it now appeared that all of Nagasaki had been annihilated, leaving nothing but a sprawling black scar, a dead zone of vast proportions. “Look there, Sheela,” I said, “look down there and try to conceive of a bomb causing that devastation in a split second, a single bomb with the power of a thousand suns. Eight days ago, the Americans dropped the first one over Hiroshima. Five days ago, they dropped another one on Nagasaki.” A few moments passed. “I knew someone … someone who was in Nagasaki.”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“You know? How could you possibly know that?”

“Never mind,” she said. “What do they call this bomb?”

“An atom bomb … they call it the atom bomb.”

She gazed out and down at the nightmare of Nagasaki in the distance, then rose to her feet without changing expression. “Take us down there, Z.”

For the next forty-five minutes, Susheela the Ninth and I did not speak, not to each other or to anyone else. Nor will I speak of it now. I will not desecrate the countless missing souls of that place, or the burned and broken bodies and vacant stares of the survivors. We walked among and through a true hell on earth. Without realizing it, I dropped Goya’s skull somewhere along the way. Even if I tried, there are no adequate words for what we saw, and it must never happen again.

Incredibly, the Urakami Station was open and trains were running. No plant, tree, or structure anywhere near the station had survived. I looked up and the giant statue of Shofukuji was gone forever. The stench of death was ever present all the way to the entrance. Suddenly, in my mind I had a “vision” of the Fleur-du-Mal. He was sitting in his kitchen with Koki, polishing various pieces of ancient copper kitchenware and listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and he was grinning. His perfect white teeth sparkled. I blinked several times, then cleared my eyes and continued walking. Not twenty feet away, the bloated carcass of a dead horse was the last thing I saw as we entered the station.

Once we were inside, Susheela the Ninth seemed to slow down and lag behind. I thought nothing of it and walked ahead five or six paces, then just as suddenly as the “vision” had come, I felt an extremely strong presence jolt my mind and body like a live current. The presence was Meq and very familiar. I never thought I would feel his presence again, or see him again, but this one had surprised and amazed me many times over. I turned the corner and there he was. He stood with arms crossed, leaning casually against the tiled wall, waiting. He wore a cone-shaped straw hat pulled down low on his forehead. When I approached, he pushed the hat up slowly and shook his head from side to side, as if he were slightly annoyed with me. It was Sailor.

“You are late,” he said.

“I am?”

“Yes—we must hurry. The train to Kobe and Osaka leaves in less than five minutes.”

Susheela the Ninth walked up silently beside me. Even though she was a black girl in black pajamas, people passing by paid no attention to her or to us. Nagasaki was too grim and surreal for us to be noticed. I gazed into Sailor’s eyes. He had never looked so good, and his “ghost eye,” which ever since the death of his Ameq, Deza, had been a gray, swirling cloud was now absolutely clear. “I thought you were—”

“Dead?” he finished.

“Yes. How in the world—”

“I will explain later,” he said, then glanced at Susheela the Ninth for the first time. “Now we must move, and move quickly.”

“Sak?” I asked.

Sailor shook his head back and forth once.

“But—”

“I am somewhat like the cockroach, Zianno. I shall survive, regardless of the circumstances.”

My mouth dropped open. “You know the
Cockroach?
”

Sailor gave me a quizzical look, then shook his head and led the three of us away toward the trains, talking about a merchant in Osaka as he walked. He reached for Susheela the Ninth’s hand and she gave it to him without hesitation. Somehow, I knew he had been expecting her. As we were buying our tickets, Sailor turned to me and whispered, “No, I do not know the
Cockroach
. The only cockroach with which I am familiar is an insect, and to the best of my knowledge, unable to speak.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Do you happen to know a cockroach that speaks, Zianno?”

I smiled, following him through the turnstile. I thought of Koki still deep inside the
shiro
in the hills above Nagasaki, probably smoking a cigarette or playing another game of chess, wiping his chin and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. By now, I was sure Koki had completely forgotten Susheela the Ninth and me and what he had done for us. Whether or not the Fleur-du-Mal had allowed it to happen became moot and meaningless. Sailor stopped and waited for an explanation. I walked by Sailor and whispered, “Yes. Yes, I do know a cockroach that speaks,” then added, “he is a good friend of mine … and the best chess player in the world.”

Luck, like beauty to the eye, is truly in the mind of the believer. Consider the tale of the Basque shepherd who one morning left to tend his flock. By midday, while crossing one of the highest and most treacherous passes, a sudden blizzard blinded them for hours. When the storm passed, the shepherd found a lamb stranded on a precarious ledge. As he crept out to save the lamb, he dislodged a hawk’s nest hidden in the cliff. The angry mother hawk flew at the shepherd and plucked out his right eye with one sweep of her talons. The shepherd lost his balance and grabbed for the lamb, dragging them both over the ledge. They dropped nearly twenty feet to another ledge and rolled over as they landed, crushing the shepherd’s left leg and making it useless. He cried out in agony, but miraculously crawled off the ledge with the lamb. Using his walking stick for a crutch, he was able to gather the rest of his flock and make his way out of the pass and down to the meadow near his home. He later lost his leg and wore an eye patch for the rest of his life. Whenever asked to recount that horrific day, the shepherd would always smile and gladly tell his tale, ending with the words, “It was the luckiest day of my life.” Then with a quick wink of his one good eye, “After all, my friend … it could have been night.”

T
he train was crowded and chaotic. Sailor led the way, followed by Susheela the Ninth, then me. We slipped through and around each person like sleight-of-hand magicians, barely touching anyone or even being seen until we’d already passed. Sailor and Susheela the Ninth were ancient masters of the trick, and I was getting better. Inside the train the air was stifling, even though every window was wide open. We squeezed into a narrow seat at the rear of our compartment, along with an old woman carrying a pumpkin in her lap. The pumpkin was wrapped in a ragged blanket, and she had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. She saw the face and hands of Susheela the Ninth and asked Sailor in Japanese if the great bomb had turned the girl’s skin black. Sailor waited a moment, then told her, yes, it was true, the bomb had done it. The answer satisfied the old woman and seemed to confirm something in her mind. She glanced once more at Susheela the Ninth, then looked away from us for the rest of the time she was on the train.

I turned to Sailor. He anticipated my question and answered before I said a word. He spoke in English, but low so only I could hear. “Luck,” he whispered. “In a word, Zianno, it was simply luck that I survived. I was in the right place at the right time, while Sak was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The circumstances could have easily been reversed. But now is not the right time or place to tell you everything. Later, Zianno, later.”

Our train headed north and east, changing routes and making several detours. Just minutes before noon, we made yet another unscheduled stop in a small station near Kurashiki. As the train came to a halt, Sailor and I leaned our heads out the window. The station was filled with people, but they weren’t waiting for the train. Every single person on the platform or inside the station was gathered around the loudspeakers. Many had their heads bowed in reverence. Then the Japanese national anthem, “Kimi Ga Yo,” began playing through the loudspeakers. When it came to a close, an announcer said the next speaker would be the Emperor of Japan. Sailor turned his head and gave me a quick look of disbelief. We both knew this had never happened before. The voice was thin and high-pitched.
“To our good and loyal subjects,”
the Emperor began.
“After pondering deeply the general trends of the world, and the actual conditions in our Empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.”
At the end of the speech, it became evident Japan had surrendered unconditionally. In twenty-six hundred years, Japan had never surrendered to anyone or any country. No one in the crowd or on the train shouted or cried out with joy. Many were confused from the courtly language, some were praying, but most were sad and in tears, including the old woman next to us. She stared down at her pumpkin and held it even tighter. I only had one thought—World War II was over.

Sailor looked at me, whispering between his teeth, “We must leave these islands!”

I whispered back, “What about the Fleur-du-Mal? In case you didn’t know, he’s still alive and well.”

“The Fleur-du-Mal is no longer relevant,” Sailor said, exchanging subtle glances with Susheela the Ninth. He had not yet addressed her by name and she had barely spoken. “We have everything we want from him,” Sailor added. “The Fleur-du-Mal has become obsolete, Zianno.”

I didn’t respond, but I didn’t agree. The Fleur-du-Mal had lied to me about Susheela the Ninth and her existence. He could have also been lying about everything else, including the “futility of vendettas.” And though the Fleur-du-Mal may or may not be relevant, I knew he would never be obsolete. In a few minutes our train began to pull slowly out of the small station and continue on to Osaka. I watched the fields and tiny farms pass in silence. The Japanese countryside was beautiful. It was the middle of August and the grasses and trees were deep green. I let my mind drift away from war and the Fleur-du-Mal and thought about St. Louis and Forest Park … and Opari.