Century #4: Dragon of Seas by Pierdomenico Baccalario Page A

straight at the woman in blue pajamas. “So, par … don … me.”
    She nods and repeats, with greater emphasis, “Pardon me!”
    Then, with an inquiring tone, “Pardon me?”
    Finally, she closes the phrase book. The woman smiles. Her husband smiles.
    The chess players smile.
    Did they understand?
Linda Melodia wonders. She gets up, grabs the woman’s clothes, pulls them down and folds them properly.

S HENG IS DREAMING .
    And it’s the same dream as always.
    He’s in the jungle with the other kids, a jungle that’s silent, noiseless. A jungle they cross through almost running, as if being chased. Beyond the tropical vegetation is the sea. Sheng and the others dive in, swim over to a tiny island covered with seaweed. They see a woman waiting for them on the beach. Her face is covered by a cloak, a veil hiding her features. And she wears a close-fitting gown with all the animals of the world printed on it. This time, the woman’s hands are empty and she raises them to bless Sheng’s friends, who slowly pass before her: first Harvey, then Elettra, then Mistral. Sheng tries to get out of the water, but he can’t: it’s like he’s being crushed, trapped by the weight of the sea. When the others have passed by, the woman turns toward him. And … and Sheng wakes up with a start.
    He’s in his room, in his house, the walls so thin he can hear his father snoring in the next room and his mother bustling around downstairs in the kitchen. If Sheng listens carefully, he can hear her feet shuffling across the floor.
    He rolls over in bed, restless. The computer monitor on the table in the corner is a pale rectangle the color of ghosts. Their laundry is hung out to dry on dark clotheslines strung across the courtyard. TV antennas stick up from the rooftops of the old neighborhood’s squat houses like a modern, flowerless rose garden.
    Sheng buries his head under the pillow. He thinks back on the dream. On what it might mean. Slowly, he starts to sweat.
    He gets out of bed, crosses the narrow hallway that leads to the bathroom and goes down to the kitchen, still half-asleep.
    “What time is it?”
    His mother motions for him to lower his voice: his father is still sleeping.
    “Six in the morning.”
    A layer of dew covers the pavestones in the courtyard. Outside the rectangular windows, the alley is already bustling with people, with bicycles, with strange goods carried on people’s shoulders or on old motor scooters.
    “Sheng, are you sure you feel all right?” his mother asks, serving him a bowl of dark bancha tea directly from the pot. Then she surprises him by resting a dish with two mooncakes in the center of the table.
    She smiles.
    “I’m practicing for the Chung-Ch’iu Chieh festival,” she whispers.
    The Mid-Autumn festival. When fruit and treats are laid out on the home altars for visitors to enjoy.
    He picks up one of the cakes between his fingers. It’s firm, heavy. Looks good.
    “Sugar, sesame seeds, walnuts, lotus seeds, eggs, ham, flowerpetals, plus … my secret ingredient,” his mother says, running down the list as if she was reading from a cookbook.
    Sheng takes a bite. Not bad. But with his second bite he tastes something strange in the filling, something vaguely pungent.
    “Mpff … what exactly … did you use … as your secret ingredient?”
    “Oh, who remembers? I improvised a little!”
    With the fourth bite, the cake becomes a pasty glob that sticks there on the middle of his tongue. It won’t come out and it won’t go down. Sheng tries to loosen it with a sip of bancha tea and after a few failed attempts he finally manages to swallow it.
    “Well? How is it?” his mother asks, still whispering.
    Sheng stares at the other mooncake on the dish, terrified. “Not bad,” he lies, stashing the uneaten half of the first one in his pajama pocket.
    As he drinks his tea, he mentally goes over the day ahead of him and breaks into a sweat. He hasn’t heard from Harvey and he