I was surprised, but not dumbfounded, and the answer came to me immediately. I didn’t even have to think about it. I looked in his green eyes and said, “I believe in—”
“Chess, mister!”
The Fleur-du-Mal and I turned in one motion. It was Koki and he was holding a chessboard with all the chess pieces aligned on top in their proper positions. The chessboard was made of mahogany and the pieces were carved from jade and ivory. The whole set looked ancient and valuable. Koki’s glasses were sliding down his nose and there was a trickle of drool running out the corner of his mouth. He seemed excited.
“Put the chess set down on the table, Koki,” the Fleur-du-Mal said gently. “We shall play later. I promise.” He led Koki’s eyes over to me. “M. Zezen and I are going to play first,” he said, smiling, then looked back to Koki. “Bring me sake, Koki. Hot sake — make sure the temperature is correct. We shall play chess after that. Now go,” he said, waving his hand toward the recesses of the huge room. He waited for Koki to exit, then turned and glanced at the chess set. “India,” he said, looking back at me. “The set came from Vishakhapatnam. I saw you admiring the craftsmanship. It was a … gift from someone.”
“A gift from whom?”
The Fleur-du-Mal either didn’t like the question or didn’t want to answer. He frowned and nodded toward the table. He cleared his throat and said, “Shall we play?”
“All right,” I said. He asked which set of pieces I preferred and I chose the jade. As he swiveled the board to position the jade pieces in front of me, I said, “By the way, my answer is Opari.”
“Your answer? What do you mean?”
“My answer to the question, ‘In what do you believe?’ My answer is Opari.”
The Fleur-du-Mal never said a word and made his opening move, P to K3.
We played several games throughout the afternoon, or what I assumed to be the afternoon. Three stories underground, it was already becoming difficult to judge the passage of time. In each game, the Fleur-du-Mal played quickly, moving pieces in a reckless disregard of strategy. He would surrender his queen early, then his rooks and bishops, almost everything. He seemed to be interested in one thing — the endgame. Only when his king was down to two or three allies would he begin to pay attention. Then he would methodically take the offensive and eventually spring his trap and checkmate me, no matter how many pieces I had left. I couldn’t beat him. The Fleur-du-Mal won every game.
He also talked incessantly while he played. Even as he was losing piece after piece, he asked question after question, the first of which was, “Aside from you, mon petit, and poor Sailor, how many survived the avalanche at Askenfada?” I told him the truth. I said Rune Balle had been killed. All the Meq had survived. “What a shame,” the Fleur-du-Mal said with a snide smile, but his words didn’t ring true. His true reaction had been relief. He had been relieved to hear that the Meq survived. Though it was gone as fast as it had appeared, I had seen it in his eyes and I had never seen it there before.
Later, as I was rearranging the board after yet another loss, he asked if I still carried “that odd little rock.” I glanced up to see if he was being facetious, but he seemed genuinely curious. I continued to sort the pieces and answered, “Of course.”
“Would you mind if I examined it briefly?”
I usually would have said no without hesitation; however, under the circumstances, I saw no reason to refuse. I knew the Stone of Dreams had no effect on the Fleur-du-Mal and we weren’t going anywhere for some time. I reached in my pocket and felt the cold surface of the Stone in my palm. I pulled it out and tossed it across the table. The Fleur-du-Mal caught it with one hand, then looked over at me and smiled. “Merci,” he said. He stood and began pacing the room, turning the ancient, egg-shaped black rock round and round in his fingers, observing every tiny striation from every possible angle. Finally, he came to a stop and looked at me. “The Stone of Dreams, no?”
I said nothing, but nodded my head once.
He continued walking, then halted again abruptly. He had his back to me and he was facing the wall. “Pray tell, Zezen,” he said over his shoulder, “what do you suppose is the true nature and purpose of these ugly, ridiculous rocks?”
“I—”
He spun around before I could answer and tossed me the Stone, laughing. “You do not know! Do not even attempt an answer.” He glanced away from me, toward the wall in the direction of Goya’s skull. “No one knows the answer … no one.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out at the Remembering.”
“The Remembering?” he said, then laughed out loud several times. “That is even more ridiculous, Zezen. None of you have ever had the slightest clue in determining its location. The Egongela is as unknown to the Meq as it ever was. Your time is dwindling, and after what we witnessed this morning, the Stones and the Remembering are now insignificant and obsolete. Even Sailor would have realized this fact, Zezen. You must scrape the scabs from your eyes and see this world for what it is. There is no viable future for the Meq … not in this world, and not without the Sixth Stone. Sailor knew this … Sailor alone among you knew this to be true.
“The Meq are doomed for several obvious and gradual declines, Zezen, including the absence of large numbers of Meq offspring, and the total absence of twins and multiple births. I am certain no one has mentioned this, have they? And I would, if I were a betting man, make a hefty wager that Sailor, Trumoi-Meq, or any of the rest of them, including my uncle, has ever mentioned the psychotic rage and jealousy that can appear in the Meq after they have crossed in the Zeharkatu. No, I bet not, these are facts the Meq do not want to face.” His green eyes darkened. “Yet I have witnessed this fact in my own life, in my own father and mother.”
I had never heard him say anything about his family before and I seized the opportunity. “Zeru-Meq told us you … you killed your father when you were only twenty-two months old. He said he came into your house and saw your father standing over your mother, who was already dead on the floor. Then he said you killed your father, using telekinesis and a kitchen knife.”
The Fleur-du-Mal smiled. “I am afraid my uncle suffers from limited vision.” He walked in even, slow paces toward one of the Portinari paintings hanging on the wall. He stopped, paused, straightened the frame a fraction of an inch, then turned and asked, “What makes you think I did not kill them both?”
The question stunned me. I listened but didn’t respond. I slipped the Stone back into my pocket, then finished arranging the pieces to begin a new game. “What did Susheela the Ninth tell you about the Sixth Stone?” I asked. “I know you seek it.”
His green eyes flared and he unconsciously reached for something inside his kimono. It was his stiletto and simply touching it seemed to relax him. He walked calmly to his chair and sat down slowly. He surveyed the chessboard and turned it around, so that the ivory pieces were in front of me. He said, “The black witch is … was … of no help whatsoever.” Then the Fleur-du-Mal looked up at me and almost whispered, “Your move, mon petit.”
After a few more games, I had to quit. I was exhausted. I kept seeing the flash of the atomic bomb over and over in my mind, and I couldn’t concentrate or listen to the Fleur-du-Mal another minute. He talked incessantly about the Meq, the Giza, the nature and flaws of war, the landscape of North Africa, the temples and people of southern India (particularly the women), and the futility of all vendettas, including his own against my grandfather, Aitor, and Carolina and her family. The way he spoke wasn’t quite regret, but it was as close as the Fleur-du-Mal could get. He told me he would miss Sailor infinitely more than he ever would Zuriaa. He said her insanity had spiraled out of control while in Japan. And during our last game, he even recited a poem, which he claimed was a Provençal Meq song from pre-Roman times. The song went like this: