Moments later I checked my watch, still set on New York Eastern Standard time. Back in Brooklyn it was 2:00 a.m. I cleaned up my area, content, and headed to the back to rinse my containers.
Returning, I met Yuka walking up the aisle. We both stopped at my seat. As I packed the clean containers back into the shopping bag and pushed it back into the overhead compartment, Yuka made me an offer.
“Let me keep the music that you let me listen to before. You can choose one of these.” I sat down, not feeling right about standing over her in such a closed-in area. She pulled up my tray from its side pocket, which made me have to straighten up my posture. She laid down a piece of paper shaped like a bird. “It’s a paper crane, you know, origami. It’s good luck. Yuki made it.” I just looked at it. It was crafted well but I didn’t feel no connection to it. She put a card down. “It’s a Japanese phone card. It’s mine, but you’ll need it,” she said, so sure that she had me open. My nonresponse made her put down her next item. It was a red patch with two black swords clashing in midair. I liked it. “It’s from our dojo,” she said, knowing it was worth more than the other choices she was offering. I figured it probably belonged to one of them girls, or was supposed to be worn on their jacket sleeve or uniform.
“You must really like my music,” I said. She ignored my statement and tried to flip it on me.
“You like it. I can tell,” she said, then pointed at the patch. “When you like something, it shows just a little bit on your face,” she said holding up her two fingers once again, for “a little bit.”
“Oh yeah? No one ever said that,” I told her swiftly.
“Maybe they were not looking closely,” she said, and held her hand out for my music. “Take this one.” I slid her the cassette Bangs had given me the other night. It was Frankie Beverly and Maze, a joint called “Before I Let Go,” “Sweet Thing” by Chaka Khan, and a bunch of slow cuts I didn’t want or need to feel.
As she put it in her pocket, an older lady appeared and stood behind her in the aisle. Just one look, the older lady gave her, and no words. Yuka turned, bowed to the older woman, and then rushed up the aisle back to her seat. The lady turned and followed her and stood by her seat once she reached it. If she was scolding Yuka, it was a silent scolding, because I could not hear a word or see her attitude in her gestures or body language. She must be their chaperone, I thought. Somehow, whatever adult is assigned to chaperone teenagers always falls asleep before us, or is absent at the exact moment that something they are supposed to be preventing is going down. Or maybe she was seated up in business class or first class even, as her girls were packed like sardines in coach.
* * *
In the morning the cabin lights were on full blast and it was too bright. I thought the sunlight was forcing me to squint, but it wasn’t. The stink of pork hung in the stagnant air as passengers sucked down two one-inch-cubed squares of egg and one undercooked-looking slice of ham.
I looked to my left toward the window as the passenger across the aisle at the window seat began lifting his window cover. It was actually nighttime all over again, although my watch set on American time read 6:00 a.m.
“We are one hour away from Narita Airport. The time in Tokyo is now six p.m. Your flight attendant will be coming through the cabin collecting your trays and accepting trash. We would appreciate your cooperation in keeping the aisles clear. We will be landing at seven p.m. Tokyo time. Please accept and complete your landing cards and customs documents. Your flight attendants will be distributing them throughout the cabin.”
My tray was still up but my patch was gone. I smiled at the thought that I had been hustled by Yuka, played out before I even touched down on their soil. I leaned over, thinking maybe I dropped it beneath my seat. When I raised my tray and leaned forward to look, I was more than surprised to see the patch sewn onto my jeans on my left leg.
I pulled at it, thinking, Nah, that’s impossible. But the patch didn’t fall off or peel off into the palm of my hand either. It was stitched on crudely, not expertly, but attached. I sat up, put my right hand on my head instinctively and held it there. I imagined Yuka sitting in the aisle late at night next to my seat, sewing the patch on so secretly that even I could not feel or detect it. I felt a cross between being a dupe and being snagged off guard.
* * *
The landing form required me to write in the address where I would be staying in Japan. I was also asked to report exactly how much money I was carrying. They asked if I’d ever been convicted of a crime. I answered thankfully, No! The paperwork warned that I must always be in possession of my passport as I traveled throughout their country. I printed in the address for Shinjuku Uchi my hostel, located in Shinjuku, Tokyo. I filled out all the custom forms and pressed them inside my passport. I placed the items in my inside pocket and unfastened my seat belt and stepped to the bathroom. When I returned to my seat, there was a folded piece of paper on my chair. I removed the paper and read it. It was an address with Yuka’s full name on top, as well as a telephone number. I pushed it in my pocket and sat down. I wondered about their whole crew, their ages and all. I was sure they were teens. A couple of them might have even been a couple of years older than me. I was also sure that they could never guess my age either. Mostly everyone thought I was older than I am. I didn’t correct them either.
“Fasten your seat belts for landing.” All standing passengers slowly returned to their seats, pushed their belongings back into the overheads, lifted their window covers, raised their seats, and fastened their seat belts. I can’t front, my face was calm and regular but now I was hyped up like crazy and completely awake.
Narita Airport was very bright, clean, and well organized. While riding the belt that moved hundreds of passengers forward as they stood still, I took note of the colorful photography. Among the advertisements were huge pictures of cherry blossom trees, various flowers, and even animals. It was as though they wanted us to feel outdoors while being indoors. When I looked out through the huge windows and onto their tarmac, I saw several huge aircraft lined up from countries spanning the world. I watched as the luggage from arriving passengers was moved by conveyor onto luggage trucks and driven away to their terminals. The geography book I had read about Japan in the Open Mind Bookstore described it as a “small island.” As several uniformed workers in jumpsuits moved around the tarmac, and the active airport extended as far as I could see in each direction, I thought to myself that this place looked huge, profitable, and powerful. On our way to customs, through wide corridors that seemed empty except for the hundreds of passengers from our flight, I reached an intersecting corridor. A whole new flood of people joined in, and that made about seven hundred of us moving toward the customs area. Signs positioned above the flow of the people, printed in every language, broke up the huge crowd and ordered us to different locations. Japanese citizens returning home to Japan went one way and all other passengers went the other according to the signs that applied to them.
When my group arrived at the designated location, we were met by about fifteen floor guides, Japanese men and women in identical, spotless, and well-pressed uniforms, men in blue pants, white business shirts, and jackets, and women in jackets, white blouses, and skirts, with silk scarves around their necks. Most of the women had their hair pulled back and expertly wrapped, folded, and pinned into an array of styles without a strand escaping. I noticed how they all held their hands interlocked in front of themselves, instead of casually at their sides. Their stance seemed trained and uniform.
Red ropes directed all our movements, and from time to time the guides used their hands to gesture without words, which I found interesting. They were all wearing white, sparkling clean gloves.
The line advanced quietly and slowly. I thought about pulling out my pocket dictionary and practicing vocabulary words while I waited. I took a few steps forward, stopped, and took a quick look back. To my surprise, I saw the girl they said was named Chiasa on the line a few spaces back. I was
perplexed now. She held an American passport in her hand. But wasn’t she part of a Japanese Girls’ kendo team just returning from a competition in America? I didn’t want to stare, even though I was curious. I turned back toward the front, facing the single-file line that went on around a maze of ropes and barriers.
Five minutes later I looked back again. Immediately I saw she was looking my way. We both shifted our eyes away from one another. One of the floor guides appeared on the opposite side of the rope where I was standing. I thought he was going to say something to me. Instead he went to the man standing behind me, apparently a father with his wife and their two children. The floor guide held up the landing card as if to ask, Where is it? The husband turned to his wife and she turned to her son. The floor guide pointed the four of them off the line and over to the desks where there were more cards available for completion. Now Chiasa was standing directly behind me. I thought to myself, She feels like a gift from Allah, although I didn’t really know the reason.
Then I imagined if Akemi and I had a daughter, she would look like Chiasa. And what would our son look like? I wanted him to be black-skinned like me, although it would be okay if he weren’t. But as I pictured my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, myself, and then my son, I wanted us all to be similar in complexion, size, thought, and action.
“Sumimasen, move up,” someone said softly. I stepped forward and looked back. When we were facing each other, we both asked one another at the same time, “Are you American?” Then we both smiled at the coincidence and we both answered simultaneously, “No!” Then we both looked at each other’s hand—her left, my right—and we were both holding blue American passports with the eagle emblazoned in gold. Neither of us bothered to explain.
“Nice patch,” she said, staring down at my pant leg. “Is it just fashion or did you fight for it?” Her arms were now folded in front of her, and she was still holding on to her documents.
“I didn’t fight for it. But I can fight,” I answered her with a serious look.
“What’s your weapon?”
“I don’t advertise it,” I told her. “But I know yours is the sword,” I added, to let her know that this was not my first time seeing her. Her eyes widened a bit. I could see how her long lashes could shield anyone from seeing directly into her silver-gray eyes.
“I saw you sleeping on the plane,” I revealed.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” she said with a completely straight face. “I was practicing.”
“Practicing what?” I asked.
“I was practicing making people feel sure that I was sleeping,” she said.
I paused. I thought our conversation was feeling strange. She was a young female traveling alone and I was a young man doing the same. I just turned my attention back to the front of the line, moved a few steps up, and waited.
“When people think that someone is asleep, they say things that they wouldn’t say when the person is awake.” She broke our silence, leaning in a bit to speak to me from behind.
“I get it” was all I said.
“Are you in the military?” she asked.
“No,” I responded, thinking to myself, Maybe she is. She started this conversation asking me if I could fight and about my choice of weapons and now if I was in an army.
“That’s good.” She smiled. I wanted to know what her smile was about.
“Are you in the military?” I asked her, but I wasn’t serious.
“No, but my father is,” she said.
That straightened me. I knew the difference between a girl who has a father and a girl who does not. And I was sure now that since she mentioned her father, he would be standing somewhere near the luggage arrival waiting for his beautiful daughter to arrive back into his care.
“He is a decorated marksman. He could kill you from a long distance,” she said calmly, as though this were casual, everyday information. I figured she wanted me to know that she is protected the way daughters who have fathers are protected. I got it.
“He has perfect vision and so do I,” she added.
The feel to her was different than anything I ever felt coming off a girl. She didn’t speak with arrogance or conceit or eagerness in her tone. Yet she was softly saying some powerful and proud statements that lay on top of a hidden threat. And she was exotic and pretty as a puma.
I turned forward and didn’t say nothing back to her. Soon she stepped to my side, glanced at the landing card I was holding, and asked, “Are you staying in a hostel?”
“Why? Do you have a recommendation for me?” I asked her, dodging.
“It depends on what you are here to do and see.” She said it like it was a question. She wanted to know what I was in Japan for. I wasn’t about to start spilling my guts on the line, when I was about to meet up with a customs officer. So I didn’t say.
“You’re staying in Shinjuku. That’s one five-second train stop away from me. I stay in Yoyogi with my grandfather.”
She was reading the documents as I held them in my hand. “I told you I have perfect vision. I saw it written on your cards,” she said, answering a question that I never asked her! “Nihongo ga hanase masen?” she asked sweetly, staring at me while one of her eyebrows raised up a bit, anticipating I would fail her test.
But I was already searching my mind. I knew I had a phrase like that written in my study cards. I had a six-second delay before I answered her, “Iie! Nihongo ga hanase masen.” Which means “No, I don’t speak Japanese.” It was the answer to her question. She laughed quietly but still lifted her hand to cover her mouth and muffle her sound. With her hand lifted, I could see her landing card where she had entered her birth date. Now I knew that she was sixteen years old with a birthday coming up in two months, on July 25th.
“You will need a tour guide!” she said. “And you will need a translator.” She raised both eyebrows this time.
“I’ll get one,” I told her. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How many days are you staying here?” she asked, while reaching into her pocketbook, placing her passport and landing cards inside, and then pulling out a small yellow calendar. She opened it up. The pages were worn. She ran her finger across the days of this month of May. She had something written in most of the boxes that represented the thirty-one days.
“A short stay,” I said. “I’m good though. I’m meeting someone in Tokyo.”
With her calendar raised and covering her nose and mouth, only her eyes could be seen. “We should meet for just one afternoon, you and I,” she said.
I was looking right back at her. Before I responded to her bold approach, she said, “Let’s meet up and fight. You said you can fight, right?” She was straight-faced and feminine and soft, but her words were the opposite. Now she was holding one hand behind her back. My natural smile broke out. I was considering how each woman is a different combination of traits, and what a combination this one had. Her voice was soft and slightly raspy, like a girl on the third day of a cold. But the words coming out of her mouth didn’t match her feminine appearance or sultry voice.
“I don’t fight women, not ever,” I told her truthfully. “When I’m next to a woman, the last thing that I’m thinking is that she and I should fight.” She stared for a few seconds and then smiled. But then she became suddenly shy. “Besides, why would I fight a girl who just told me her father is a marksman?” I reminded her.
“My father’s stationed overseas right now. He won’t be back to Japan until the Autumn Festival. That’s …” She counted on her long, slim fingers. She had clean nails, clipped short, and wore no jewelry. “That’s five months from now, but even though he’s not here, if he thought someone had done something bad to me, he’d find him and kill him.”
“If I had a daughter, I would do the same,” I assured her.
“It wouldn’t matter if they hid. My father can find anyone in the world no matter where they run.” I didn’t comment any further. She had a strong love and a spoken loyalty and pride abou
t her father and I thought it was fly.
“You know, you’ve arrived during Golden Week, but you’ve already missed a lot of the events,” she said, switching topics.
“Golden Week, what’s that?” I asked, completely blank about it.
“Golden Week,” she repeated. “It’s the second-largest Japanese holiday. All schools are closed, and many companies are also. It’s called Golden Week, but sometimes it goes on for about ten days to two weeks. Most Japanese spend this holiday with their families. A lot of us travel during this time, as you can see.”
I guess that’s why there were so many sports teams on our flight. Immediately my mind jumped to my wife. Maybe that’s why she had been calling me from Iwa’s house in Tokyo instead of from her own house in Kyoto.
“So, have I arrived at the beginning or the end of Golden Week?” I asked her.
“The end,” she responded.
Umm, I thought. Chiasa had given me useful information in less than five minutes. I was grateful.
“So, the person you are meeting in Tokyo, is it Yuka?” she asked.
“Nah, I just met her on the plane,” I told her.
“Good, because she’s originally from Osaka. I was born in Tokyo and lived there my whole life. I used to deliver pizza on my motorcycle, so I know all the streets and cool places.”
“You drive a motorcycle?”
“Yes, my father bought it for me on my sixteenth birthday. It was an apology gift because I hadn’t seen him for six months. My mother hated it, but I loved it. My mother will only pay for things that she likes me to do. So she pays for my piano lessons and dance classes because she says those things are for ‘good Japanese girls.’ I have to work to pay for the lessons I want and the things I like. I hate playing the piano and dancing ballet, but I do it because it keeps my mother happy.” She shifed her body slightly. Ballet dancing obviously kept her body right, I thought to myself.