I glanced back at Mitch. I had not yet explained where we were going or why. I had simply grabbed him and said, “Follow me.”
Captain Antoine Boutrain stood next to her. His hair was streaked with silver and his face was beginning to show the weathering from years at sea, but other than that, he looked well and healthy. Emme smiled broadly and reached for his hand as we approached. She stared up at me in silence, then we embraced for several moments. As we separated, she said, “I knew we would see each other again. I am thankful it has finally come to pass, Zianno Zezen.”
“I agree, Emme. And there is something you need to see. Mitch,” I said over my shoulder, “show this woman the picture inside your jacket.”
“What?” he asked.
“Just do it. Let her see the picture.”
Mitch gave Emme the photograph of his father and she looked at me, then studied the picture. For a full minute she said nothing, then she spoke. “I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”
Behind me, Mitch said, “That’s Walt Whitman, man.”
Emme glanced at Mitch. “Why, yes it is.”
“I think you should meet someone,” I told her. “Someone you never knew existed.” I pulled Mitch toward me. “Mitch,” I said, “this woman is from Mali in West Africa. She is the granddaughter of a Dogon shaman and holy man. She speaks perfect American English, which she learned from her father a few years before you were born. He was a black engineer from the United States…from Ithaca, New York.”
Mitch gazed at me in disbelief as the truth came to him. “Emme?” he said, stunned.
Emme looked at Mitch, then to me with a baffled expression.
“Emme Ya Ambala,” I said, “I would like to introduce you to your half brother, Mitchell Ithaca Coates of St. Louis, Missouri.” I looked at Mitch standing with Mercy. “Mitch, my friend, this is definitely your lucky day.”
Emme glanced down at her father smiling in the photograph, then back to Mitch’s face. She smiled and Mitch smiled back. All three had the same smile. “Is he still…?”
“Alive?” Mitch asked.
“Yes.”
Mitch said nothing, then shook his head slowly back and forth. Mercy had her arm wrapped in his and she seemed to hold him a little tighter. Antoine Boutrain placed his hand on Emme’s shoulder. Emme nodded and started to speak, but never got the chance. Without warning, two photographers rushed right through us, one of them almost clipping Mercy with his camera as he ran. Charles Lindbergh had decided to leave early and every photographer in the hallway was scrambling for a shot.
Geaxi said, “I shall be back shortly,” and headed directly into the crowd. For some reason, I felt compelled to follow. “We won’t be long,” I said, and sprinted to catch up.
Geaxi moved as smooth as a pickpocket, slipping by and around and squeezing through the onlookers, reporters, photographers, city officials, and security people. Still, we could get no closer than fifteen feet from where Lindbergh would make his exit. The crowd pushed and pressed together and we had to think of some way to get a better view. Geaxi said it was not necessary that we get any nearer, only that she be able to see him clearly.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
Geaxi adjusted her beret and we both fought to keep our place. “Do you still carry those gold coins, those double eagles?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s a habit now. I have two in my pocket.”
“Give them to me.”
I handed her the double eagles and she turned and spoke in French to two reporters pushing against us from the back. In ten seconds, a deal had been struck. Geaxi gave one of the men one of the coins, then turned and said, “Follow me, young Zezen, and hop on.” The first reporter bent down enough to let Geaxi straddle his shoulders, then stood up. “Excellent view!” Geaxi said. The second reporter kneeled and I climbed on, the same as I had when I first rode on my papa’s shoulders to watch a baseball game, fifty-two years earlier. The man stood at the exact moment Lindbergh appeared in the hallway, surrounded by dignitaries and security. They helped him through the mass of reporters and photographers. Lindbergh walked quickly. The crowd kept shouting his name from all directions. He looked like a boy to me—a tall, shy boy caught in the middle of something he never imagined. He tried to thank the people as he passed, but there were too many. Shouts, praises, and questions from reporters filled the hallway and drowned everything else out.
I glanced at Geaxi. She was smiling. Lindbergh was thirty feet away now, almost out of sight. Geaxi closed her eyes, then opened her mouth and used “the Voice.” Without making a sound, she whispered, “Alegeratu! Congratulations, Slim. Good luck.”
Lindbergh stopped abruptly and turned, looking back over the crowd. The people around him urged him on and kept him moving, but he glanced back twice before disappearing down the stairs and out of sight.
I looked at Geaxi. “Can you do that whenever you want?”
She grinned. “Yes,” she said. “However, until now I was not aware of it.” She tapped the reporter on the shoulder to let her down. I did the same. Geaxi gave the men the other double eagle and shook their hands, thanking them in medieval French. They seemed confused, but pleased about the money, and left speaking rapidly back and forth. Once they were gone, she said, “Tomorrow, young Zezen, we begin our search for Rune Balle.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say ‘tonight.’ ”
“You are attempting to be humorous, no?”
“Sí, un poco,” I said. Inside the huge hall, the show went on in high spirits. A duet was singing Me and My Shadow. “It has been a long day, Geaxi. That was the best I could do.”
A month to the day passed and no sign of Rune Balle’s presence in Paris could be found, even though Captain B, or Antoine as he preferred to be called, had his extensive underground network combing every district in the city. Geaxi, Nova, and I usually went with him when he would rendezvous with informants. They all wondered if he had suddenly adopted grandchildren, but Antoine ignored their comments. Mitch and Mercy stayed with Emme while we made our rounds. Mitch and Emme had long discussions, sharing their separate memories of their father. By the end of the month, Mitch began talking about opening a club in Paris with Josephine as a partner. He even said he was going to learn to speak French. I reminded him that they didn’t play baseball in Paris and Mitch solved the problem by saying he would come home in the summers. Mercy and Emme became close friends and Mercy helped her with all the household chores. Emme was going to have her baby at any time and Mercy promised to stay with her through the ordeal. Antoine seemed nervous about becoming a father, but his happiness was self-evident. Emme never complained about anything and couldn’t wait to be a mother. Her eyes would dance and sparkle with delight at the thought of it. One night while we were sitting at the kitchen table, I told her I wished PoPo could be there with us. She rubbed her swollen belly and said, “Oh, but he is, Zianno, he is.”
On June 27, Geaxi and I were having lunch at a café in Montparnasse. Antoine and Nova had gone to see a stained-glass artist who lived a few blocks away and had once known Rune Balle.
“Before Nova returns, there is something we must discuss,” Geaxi said.
“What is it?”
“It is time for Nova to experience the Bitxileiho, the Strange Window. There is to be a total solar eclipse not far from Caitlin’s Ruby in two days. The path of the eclipse crosses Wales and northern England. I shall take Nova, but you should stay here to continue our search for Balle. If all goes well, we will be back in Paris by the first of August.”