“Can I come through?” I asked calmly, before sweeping aside the high-quality, heavy curtain.
“Come, I’m in the water closet,” Josna said without hesitation. I expected to enter a kitchen area. Of course I knew that it might also be her bedroom. The Muslim in me knew that I should stay out. The man in me wanted to rush in before she could rearrange anything. I wanted to check to see if there were any traces of another man in her and Akemi’s art studio. If there were beer bottles or cigar or cigarette butts, or even a man’s house shoes or robe, a jacket, briefcase, or coat, or anything that might cause me to distrust Josna or my wife. It would be bad, but better for me to know than to be played like a puppet.
I pulled back the curtain. The scent of eucalyptus rushed up my nostrils. It was a clean, fresh, welcoming, and soothing scent. When I entered and let the velvet curtain drop behind me, I could feel the difference in the atmosphere. As the sun shone through each of the four-foot-wide stained-glass windows, it cast a kaleidoscope of colors onto the pink satin bedspread and sheets and piles of pillows. Purple curtain, pink bedding, and every variation of purple pouring through. I was beginning to form a picture in my mind.
The floors were made from bamboo, which gave the room a peaceful, clean feeling. Her queen-sized mattress was raised up a foot from the floor and mounted across a wooden frame seated on six sturdy wooden feet, nicely carved. There was no back board and her entire bed was surrounded by a light-colored lace net. I was unsure whether the net was there to stop mosquitos and pests or to seduce men with the exotic lure of its intricate stitching.
Josna was standing with her back toward me facing a strange statue. It was a man with four arms who some sculptor had caught in the midst of a wicked dance move. In one of his four hands, he held a flame of fire. She lit some incense as she stood there. She was more silent than she had been before. I thought maybe she was in some unusual ritual. We Muslims do not believe in religious symbols or idols or worshipping anything or anyone other than Allah.
I took the opportunity to search with only my eyes. There were no men’s cologne bottles or men’s robes or shoes or an ashtray containing cigarettes or cigar butts, no men’s clothes draped over a chair. Nor were both sides of the bed turned down or the blankets or the sheets ruffled or disturbed. There were no condoms or ripped condom plastics or photos of a man or men at her bedside on either of the two short end tables. There were no men’s hats or weights or even a piece of sports equipment.
In fact, there was only what was completely familiar in a feminine place. Perfumes, sweet scents, fresh-cut flowers, calming colors, silk, satin and lace, velvet, and a pile of pretty panties in a wicker basket at the foot of her bed.
“This is my room. Come sit down,” Josna said, as she spread the lace net open and sat on her bed. I opted to remain standing.
“Sometimes Akemi sleeps in here, but mostly if we do an overnight, she sleeps in her hammock upstairs. You probably already know though, she prefers the swing. She has one in her bedroom here in Kyoto. She likes to rock herself to sleep.”
I didn’t respond either way. I had swung my wife back and forth without a swing and rocked her until she moaned, cried, and slept. Akemi, so excited and relieved once, she even peed.
“Akemi’s bedroom is like another world. Before you leave Japan, you have to see it. Look at it one time. You’ll never forget,” she said, speaking slowly as if she was imagining it. “That’s how we met, Akemi and I. Mr. Nakamura commissioned my father to make the ceiling for Akemi’s bedroom.”
“The ceiling?” I repeated.
“Yes, my father designs stained-glass windows like these two here, but these are really nothing compared to what he has done in temples and churches and buildings and even restaurants.”
“Just these two are dope enough,” I said staring at them.
“Huh?” she asked.
“I said your windows right here are no joke. But how do you see outside?” I asked.
“There is not much to see outside on this street. You must have noticed. This was just a great location because my college is three minutes away. My father gifted me these two windows and they’re best when the sun is pouring through in a million colors, like now. Akemi prefers when the rainwater from Japan’s famous typhoons are beating against the glass. She says it looks like the colors are leaking one onto the other.”
I pictured my wife lying down beside Josna on that bed, behind the net, the two of them watching the rain race down the glass.
“Mr. Nakamura summoned Babaji from Nepal with his special order. Babaji says that four-year-old Akemi described exactly what she wanted. It seemed as if she was fascinated with the sky. She only wanted the glass to have colors that she could see in the sky. She even drew the design of the sky, saying that it was how the sky looked on her favorite day.”
I listened while keeping my eyes moving around the room on all the trinkets and objects instead of on Josna, who was now holding her legs up and leaning her face on her knees, her bare toes and polished nails burrowing into the satin as she spoke. I was also recalling that in Akemi’s mother’s poem, there was a line like that. “My first love was the sky.” Then I wondered if it was Akemi or her mother who was in love with the sky, or perhaps both of them? Then I nixed that thought and decided it was Akemi who was in love with the sky, and her mother had written these lines while thinking of her only daughter.
“When Mr. Nakamura learned that Babaji had four children—”
“Babaji?” I interrupted.
“That’s ‘father’ in Hindi, sorry,” she clarified. “Babaji in this case is my father. Back then, when Mr. Nakamura realized that Babaji had four children and one of them was a six-year-old girl, he asked my father to bring me along with him once he began the work of designing and installing their stained-glass ceiling. Mr. Nakamura said that Akemi was his only child and that she would enjoy the company.
‘I couldn’t do that,’ Babaji, I mean my father replied to Mr. Nakamura. Then, the way Babaji tells the story, Mr. Nakamura told him something that I have heard Mr. Nakamura say at least fifty times over the past twelve years. ‘There is nothing that can’t be done.’
“And here I am! Mr. Nakamura sponsored our entire family in Japan. My father went through the awesome process of redrawing the design, matching and merging all the colors, and cutting the glass in odd shapes to make them exactly like what Akemi remembered clearly. Then there was the cooking of the glass at incredible temperatures. After the long process of creating the perfect glass picture, my father even supervised the careful installation of the stained-glass ceiling into Akemi’s bedroom. When everything was completed, almost two years later, the rest of my family returned to Nepal. Akemi and I were like sisters by then. My father allowed me to remain. After all, Mr. Nakamura’s job heightened my father’s professional profile in so many ways. So I practically grew up here in Kyoto.”
“Don’t you miss your family?” I asked her.
“My parents now have a total of ten children. I’m number four. Of course I miss every one of them, but Mr. Nakamura sends me home for every holiday. Once he even sent Akemi along with me.”
Instinctively, I checked my watch.
“I know …” was all Josna said after observing me checking the time. “She should’ve definitely come by now.”
“Can you hear if someone is at the door when you’re all the way back here?” I asked her.
She pointed to a metal rack in the corner where the two walls intersected. It appeared to be a traffic light with three bulbs, one lime green, one yellow, one red.
“Akemi has the key,” she said. “Besides, if anyone comes through our front door, the lime light will come on right up there. If someone comes through the side door, the yellow light will come on. If someone comes through the back, well obviously the red light will come on.” She clapped her hands together once, proud of her little light system. I thought it was clever.
“You see, sometimes I am listening to m
usic and would not be able to hear my doorbell. Other times I have my pieces in the kiln in that oven you saw out there. It can be quite noisy. Or if I’m at the potter’s wheel or whatever. It works well for Akemi too because once she begins drawing and painting and all that she does, who can reach her there in that world? So she also pays attention to the lights.”
My eyes landed on her weird statue and burning incense that had become sticks of leaning ash.
“It’s Lord Shiva,” Josna said. I didn’t acknowledge her idol. She noticed my feeling. “I know that you are Muslim,” Josna said suddenly. “And Hindus and Muslims have a long history of war and a lot of blood spilled between them. But I am a Hindu girl from Nepal and you are Muslim man from the Sudan. Akemi is my best friend. Akemi loves you, so I love you too, dosti,” she said, clapping her pretty, unpainted hands together lightly as if to say the subject was closed.
“Dosti?” I asked.
“Ha!” she said, meaning yes. I was learning.
“Dosti means ‘friendship,’” she explained.
“In the Hindi language?” I checked.
“Ha! Hindi language.” She smiled. “But in any language, this is the meaning of friendship. Yes?” she asked. I agreed with her. “So it is only right for me to love you too,” Josna said matter-of-factly, agreeing with herself.
I didn’t think I could describe in details and words or in feelings the adventures of my life to anyone, male or female. But each day was moving me into a space where I had never stood before. As a youth, I kept on top of knowing when and if I grew taller or was running faster than before or becoming more accurate at hoops, or the current count on my push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats. But growing in my thoughts and understanding and feelings as a man was becoming harder to track and even harder to explain. When I turned to ease myself out of this intimate setting and warming mood, I walked instead to her clothing closet, where the sliding doors were already half-opened. I rifled through her belongings. Finally, I found something long and light yet concealing and tossed it at her. It landed on her lap.
“Since you know that I am Muslim, put some more clothes on and come out.” She looked at me, lowered her eyes, and didn’t say nothing.
As I exited, I saw for the first time the metal dragon swooping down from her bedroom ceiling. Its body was made curiously from metal forks and spoons and its angry face was made more pronounced by two bulging red rubies for eyes.
She emerged into the rectangle wearing her beautiful long dress, a Nepali version of the Sudanese thobe, I imagined. Now she was completely covered except for her bare feet. I wondered why some women could not know that this is better. Her other clothes just raised a fire in a man, an untamed feeling and wild thoughts attack that are completely physical and not about love. These images and thoughts misled many men and could also slip into disrespect at best or, at worst, violence. For a woman to cover was more respectful and calming. It was better that she be mysterious, a subtle suggestion, rather than a desperate scream. Of course the Islamic hijab and niqab did much more. It is a protective covering and an announcement from a woman that she doesn’t want to be viewed wrongly, misunderstood, harassed, or even approached without respectful purpose.
“Listen,” I told Josna. “I gotta go. I’ll be back tonight. Is that al-right with you?”
She smiled. “Mi casa es su casa,” she said, using Spanish.
Every New Yorker knew what that meant, so I did too.
“Here, write down Akemi’s home address here in Kyoto and write down her telephone number.” I pulled out my notepad. She wrote in it.
“May I use your phone?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she agreed. I called the number she had written down and given me for Akemi. I knew now that I had to double- and triple-check each person dealing with my wife, friend or no friend.
The phone rang four times before a voice mail come on. When I heard my wife’s sweet voice offering Japanese greetings over the recording, I purposely said nothing. I wouldn’t leave any message that might alarm any listener or cause Akemi and me to be traced or trailed. I didn’t want to do anything to trigger Nakamura before his trip. I wanted him to leave Japan. With him out of our way, Akemi and I would find each other and be gone from here. I hung up certain I had been given the correct info this time around. It gave me more reason to trust Josna.
“What exactly did Akemi say to you about what she plans to do now?”
“She plans to escape with you. But she has to do something first. It has to do with her mother. She wants to tell you about it. She wants you to know. But her father is really tough, really smart, and really rich. He plans to keep Akemi here in Japan. He is using the matter of her mother to force her to obey him.”
“Her mother?” I questioned.
“I know you’re thinking that since her mother has already passed away many years ago, what could be happening with her now? But her death almost destroyed Akemi. And the anniversary of her mother’s death just passed. It was on May third, the same day as her debut and big art show at the MOMA in New York.”
I recalled the early morning of May 3. My wife was more emotional on that day than usual. She clung to me even though we were outside. She was looking into my eyes with a lingering look of longing, even though we had been together every day and night leading up to that morning. I gave her a strong hug around her feminine frame. I squeezed her so hard that I lifted her off her feet. The moment I released her, she began holding hands with Umma in the middle of Rockefeller Center. I was remembering that it was before most of the shops had even opened for the day.
How was I to know that she was of mixed emotions—love for her husband, love for Umma, and the memory of love and loss of her own mother? Maybe Akemi also felt the weight of not being home in Kyoto where her mother’s body lay—especially on the anniversary. Maybe Akemi felt guilty for choosing to marry and live in New York, seven thousand miles away from the land where her mother must be buried in the soil.
Josna interrupted my thoughts. “Akemi told me that she felt so nervous at the MOMA. Mr. Nakamura was there backstage with her. She said that he served her some tea to calm her. She said that after the tea, she felt drowsy as she made her presentation before the audience but that she pushed and fought to remain upbeat. She remembered the audience applauding her. She remembered posing in her kimono for the press. But as she walked off the stage, she felt faint. When she awakened, she was on a flight in a private jet beside her father, Ichiro, and Makoto.”
Josna’s words painted a clear picture in my mind. In a few thoughtful sentences she had removed much of my confusion.
“Akemi said she cried all the way home and every day afterward until you showed up.”
“Josna, thank you … I gotta go.”
“Here, you must take my phone number.” She wrote it down. “Mr. Nakamura loves Akemi so much, and as I said he’s tough, but please don’t hurt him. Akemi doesn’t agree with what her father’s doing. Yet she still loves him as a daughter. Surely you can understand.”
“Did Akemi ask you to tell me that?”
“No, she didn’t. It’s just that you have a certain look in your eyes.”
I started moving toward the door to leave. Josna followed me into the ceramic-tiled cave.
“Akemi said you would show up, and you did, all the way from New York. I’m impressed. When the two of you return to New York together, do me a favor?” she said softly. I was listening. She was so helpful to me, I was prepared to do her almost any favor. “When you two reach there, close your eyes and count to one hundred. When you open them, I will be right there beside the two of you. Akemi is my best friend. I can’t live without her,” Josna said sincerely.
“When Akemi comes here,” I told her, “or even if she phones you, tell her I said for her to come over to the studio, to stay here, to wait for me. Tell her I said don’t worry about nothing, not money or about her driver or the security or tickets or anything. Tell her to just come. I’ll tak
e care of the rest. Got it?” I stared into Josna.
“Got it,” she agreed.
As I strolled down the strange block past the warehouse and then the factory toward the train station, I watched the sun as it began its final bow of the day. What could Nakamura be thinking? Was it better for his young daughter to be left in the presence of his men in his employ, rather than in the presence of her husband? And what about this Shota, Ichiro, and Makoto? How loyal were they to Nakamura? Would they be willing to give their lives in defense of Nakamura’s plan?
And what of Josna’s suggesting that she would move in with Akemi and me in New York? Why did it appear that I was destined to be surrounded by a handful of extraordinarily beautiful women? In my house full of females, it seemed there would only be them and me and my feet and fist and my guns …
* * *
My mind shifted, like a Rubik’s trying to get back into its original position. Unknowingly, I had jumped on the local and not the express. The ride was long and slow. As the windows darkened, I was working my way back to Chiasa, who I knew would not break her fast without me. Chiasa, my comrade. The meaning I discovered for the word comrade in my dictionary was “one of two or more soldiers bound together by a same or similar mission; one who shares and works together with a close friend toward a mutual goal.”
I thought about Islam, my religion. I believe there is no space for comrades between men and women in Islam. Of course, two or more Muslim men could be comrades. Two or more Muslim women could be comrades with one another. Yet the type of interaction that was taking place in order for Chiasa and me to work together toward a goal—I had not seen any allowance for that in my reading of the Quran. There is no free mixing between men and women in my Islamic culture. Still I had the feeling that although I had no real understanding of it, Allah had provided Chiasa for me.
Sitting on a bicycle in front of the wall leading to the Hyatt, Chiasa was a silhouette. As soon as she saw me climbing upward toward her, she came speeding down toward me.