The way up the mountain took most of the rest of the day. At one point, it was so steep that the path led up nearly perpendicular rock faces in which steps had been hand-cut and iron chains were set in rock to provide handholds.
Finally, we emerged on the North Peak, which was really a knife-edged ridge with a few temple buildings and a monastery perched on top. The ridge was so narrow that the path had to pass through the buildings, with no room on either side. From the ridge I took my first full view of the plain below, the mountains of Shansi in the background and the great Yellow River flowing in between. All around were daggerlike pinnacles and rock walls, the whole scene continually changing through the dance of sunlight and drifting mist.
Walking slowly, we started toward the monastery. We passed a monk sitting on his haunches and painting an elaborate rendering of a Chinese character on a scroll. I asked Geaxi what the character meant and she said “shou,” or longevity. I was nervous with energy. I wondered inside what Zeru-Meq might be like.
The monastery itself was a simple stone structure with a steeply angled tile roof. Two twisted and gnarled pine trees somehow clung to the ridge beside it and hung suspended over a three-thousand-foot chasm. There was no one inside except a boy about our size sitting by an altar. He had his back turned to us, but we all knew he was not Zeru-Meq. We walked through an open door at the other end and there, sitting cross-legged on a rounded boulder against a background of clouds and mist, were five Taoist priests. They wore full-length blue-black robes and small four-cornered caps set back high on their foreheads. They each held a fly whisk in their hands. Their expressions were indifferent, but the one in the middle motioned for us to approach, as if he had been expecting us.
Sailor stepped forward and spoke to him in Chinese. He introduced himself and told him it was an honor to visit the mountain and thanked him for receiving us. The priest said it was indeed their honor to receive pilgrims who had come so far and then they spoke of the monastery and Sailor asked about the boy we had seen inside. The priest said the boy had been sent there from Shanghai by his parents for the benefit of his health. Just then, I saw the boy appear out of the corner of my eye and take a seat behind and to the side of the priests. Sailor went on to ask the middle priest if he knew of another boy, one that looked like us, with the name Zeru-Meq. The priest shook his head, but at the mention of the name, for just an instant, I saw the boy smile. Sailor thanked them all again and we turned to leave, bowing first to show respect. As we walked back through the monastery, I glanced at Geaxi to see if she had seen what I had. She nodded.
Once we were out of sight and sound of the monastery and were about to make our descent, the boy appeared again. Geaxi spoke to him. He said he knew the one we asked about and that Zeru-Meq had taught him to play cards and even written a poem while he was there, carving it in a pine tree. He took us to the tree and there it was, recently carved and in Chinese. Geaxi translated. It said, “Time is only fire and spark knocked off flint. Let’s play.”
Sailor asked the boy when Zeru-Meq had been there and the boy said we had just missed him. He had been there the day before yesterday. I was confused. The five priests had told us they had no knowledge of him. Sailor looked at Geaxi and then at me. “I was afraid of this,” he said.
And so it was. We set out on a trail that followed whispers, rumors, intimations, and outright lies. We eventually made pilgrimages to all of the eight remaining sacred mountains in China. We were delayed for weeks and months at a time by floods, mudslides, tornadoes, and snowstorms. We were forced to make detours again and again by washed-out bridges, transportation strikes, misinformation, and the overall chaos of a changing and disintegrating empire. I often thought of the old inscription on the stone anchor post I’d found on the Yangtze and how true it was — it is nothing to disappear in China.
Sailor asked me regularly if my dreams had revealed anything: a name, a place, or direction. But my dreams were as chaotic as the country we were in. Once, I dreamed Mama and Papa and I were staying in the Statler Hotel in St. Louis and we went to a baseball game in a rickshaw. The grandstands were full of screaming fans, but there were no players on the field. I turned and asked Mama what all the cheering was for and she said, “Watch. Just wait and watch, Z. It’s a good game!” When I looked back to the field, the bases were being swept away by torrential rain. It was raining everywhere, but we stayed completely dry. I watched and watched until I woke up.
Our search for Zeru-Meq became an endless cycle of discovery and disappointment, almost always ending with the revelation that he had been there the day before yesterday.
For three and a half years we ate simply, traveled lightly, and crisscrossed China in our hunt for the enigmatic Zeru-Meq. We went as far west as the isolated fishing village of Shigu, where the Yangtze makes an impossible hairpin turn from south to north within a few hundred yards. And we went as far east and south as the island-city of Macao, where we could finally take off our Buddhist robes and blend in with Macao’s large Portuguese population. And everywhere, at every temple, village, monastery, shipping dock, and gambling house we found only a trace, a poem, a riddle, or an odd anecdote concerning the missing Zeru-Meq. I was tired of tracking him. It seemed pointless, hopeless, and fatigue overtook perseverance more than once. Then something wonderful happened.
It was May 5, 1900. My birthday had come and gone the day before and would have passed unnoticed except that Sailor had mentioned it and reminded me that each one counted. “The Meq must count birthdays,” he said, “the way bankers count money or else we will own nothing of ourselves.”
We had recently left the town of Ch’u Fu, where Confucius had lived and was buried, and traveled north to T’ai An, which lies below T’ai Shan, another sacred Taoist mountain in the province of Shantung. The roads were heavy with traffic and there was generally more chaos than usual. We had heard rumors of revolution and violence throughout the province and that the Germans had taken control of Kiachow peninsula. We were taking tea at a monastery outside T’ai An and the monks were telling us what a dangerous future there was in store for China and the monasteries if the foreign devils came inland. I had learned enough Chinese to understand what was being said, but I was drifting and paying no attention. Half a mile from where I was sitting, a train had stopped on the tracks at a small crossroads. It was not a regular stop, and as I watched, I could see several men working on the wheel of the car just behind the engine. There was nothing unusual about that. But then I noticed, on the other side of the train and rising above it, one by one, Chinese kites. I had seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of kites in China, but these I had only seen in one other place. Kepa’s camp.
I got up without a word and started walking toward the train as if I was being reeled in by an invisible line. As I got closer, I could hear the voices of children laughing and shouting, some in Chinese and some in English. I knelt down and easily crawled under the train. On the other side, in the middle of an open field and twenty or so children, stood Owen Bramley patiently assembling his kites and helping the children to fly them.
I watched for a moment and then started toward him. He saw my bright red and gold robe immediately, but the hat must have fooled him. He turned back to his kites, then paused and slowly turned around again, staring at me and adjusting his glasses. He gave the kite he was holding to a boy about my size and walked to meet me.
“My God,” he said. “She was right. She said I would find you when I least expected it.”