“But that’s different than stealing, right?” I ribbed her.
“Definitely. All is fair in love and war. You heard that before, right? It’s an English saying,” she said.
“Who said it? Aunt Tasha?” I asked her, as we walked down the iron stairs.
She laughed. “No, not Aunt Tasha! Maybe it was Shakespeare or something I read in school. Whatever, when I first heard it, I thought to myself, that sounds true. A real warrior would do anything when he’s at war. And a real lover will do anything when he’s in love. Right? Besides, according to Yuka’s philosophy, I should blame my African American side for stealing the document. Then what I said about the Japanese people not stealing would still be true.” I listened and thought to myself, Chiasa is clever.
“What does the paper say?” I asked. “From the courier service.”
“Oh this?” she said casually. “This is the exact address where they are sending those two sculptures. It’s in Hokkaido.”
I was grateful to Allah, but instinctively I hugged Chiasa. Her body stiffened a bit and she dropped her head shyly. I realized and released her.
“I must’ve done something good?” she asked. “So you shouldn’t dock my pay for going to Osaka earlier today …” She joked, dodged, and distracted.
“Could you imagine us just roaming around the entire Hidaka Mountains?” She laughed. “We would be two thousand meters in the air, stopping hikers and climbers and asking if they had seen a girl in really expensive, really high heels, walking up this way. Now that would have been crazy!” She laughed and loosened up our serious mission.
We were out, going straight to Josna’s cottage.
* * *
“Don’t even think about leaving me on watch out here. We both know that no one is home and no one is coming. Nakamura-san has used up all of his soldiers. Let’s count,” Chiasa said, pulling each of her gloved fingers. “He has men flying out with him to Singapore. He had security that seized Akemi from the doctor. He has men who picked up Josna separate from the ones who dealt with Akemi.” She clapped her gloved hands together. “That’s it. There is no one left. Of course he could have others. But I’m thinking his most trusted guys are surrounding him, his daughter, and Josna, and he’s running out of time. Believe me, you got him scrambling by being here first in Tokyo, then in Kyoto,” she said like a military strategist.
“I pay attention,” she said solemnly. Her big gray eyes and long black lashes were more pronounced through her zukin.
How could Chiasa know that it was not because I feared being captured by security while entering the Nakamura estate that I wanted her to stand outside and wait? It was because I had decided that I would not allow anything bad to happen to her. If anything went wrong, it should happen to me instead. Akemi is my wife, my family. I am the one who should run all the risks gladly. As I turned to walk away, leaving her behind, she followed eagerly.
Josna’s cottage revealed the influences and maybe reasons for her loyalty to Nakamura. It was a lovely, tiny place behind a secured wall, accessed from a side entrance behind a locked iron gate. In front of the cottage door there was a stone fountain pouring water continuously. The sound of the water was very calming for our tense circumstances. Surrounded by plants, flowers, and trees, some growing on the bricks and wrapped around the house, it was like a small slice of paradise. We entered. The entire inside of Josna’s home was soft and warm and feminine. There was no area designated as a work space, no clay or tools or plastic or incomplete art. Her bed was round and her sheets and spreads were too. Each item seemed hand-crafted and high-quality. She had many framed family photos and hung a beautiful carpet on one wall instead of laying it across her floor.
We breezed through in search of her back door. Outside her cottage was a courtyard. She flew a Nepali and a Japanese flag on a shortened flagpole. The ground had tiny lights that led all the way to her best friend’s wing of a separate building on the Nakamura estate. Hurriedly we entered Akemi’s code, and automatically the door opened. Chiasa removed her shoes and I did the same.
“I think I’m falling in love with her too,” Chiasa said softly. Her expression was funny to me, but when I looked at her face, it revealed nothing but awe. The building, shaped like a crescent moon, was topped with a stained-glass ceiling! Moonbeams poured light through the colors of the glass and gave me the feeling that I was walking not on the ground but up in the sky, close to the stars. The weight of the glass, the design of the glass, and the incredible, unusual curved cut of the glass were a magnificent architectural accomplishment. As Chiasa and I stood still, staring upward, I was imagining an assembly of mathematicians and engineers and architects gathered in a circle, along with Josna’s father, calculating the angles, the geometry, and the algebra, to avoid making one incorrect move that could result in the entire crescent-shaped ceiling crashing down.
Born in the land of the pyramids that have never been deciphered or duplicated, despite being raided, I shook myself out of awe.
“Come on, this way …” I bumped Chiasa, and as we walked, the light-blue-tinted walls to my left created an underwater feeling. I could not locate a light switch or device anywhere, which led me to believe that the whole wing went on natural light. When the sun shimmered brightly, the wing would light up. When the moonlight ruled the sky, its pieces of blue and white or yellow or purple light would make it nighttime in Akemi’s wing of the estate as well.
Her bed was a swing shaped like a clamshell.
“She really lives in a glass house,” Chiasa said, still a prisoner of amazement. In Akemi’s bedroom, the ceiling was stained glass and the walls were made of thick clear glass behind which two huge yellow and orange sea turtles swam freely. It was designed as though she wanted to live in the infinite sky and on the ocean floor all at once.
“So fucking cool,” Chiasa said, her face pressed against the glass, watching the sea turtles maneuver. I found a closet and went inside. It was the size of a small New York boutique stuffed and packed with everything exquisite. Dresses on cloth hangers and boxes piled high in size order and footwear displayed on a foot-high platform. Exotic sandals, high- and low-top Nikes, pretty-colored petite Pumas, necessary Adidas and shoes and boots galore from Gucci to Prada to some exclusive Japanese line. A hat collection of crocheted winter ski caps, and Kangols and berets and a few fitteds. There were leather and suede belts, jeans, shirts, and leather jackets and ski coats. Wow, what the fuck had I gotten myself into?
In another room at the rear, the walls were white. Yet everywhere on the white walls were drawings done in charcoal, pencil, and colored markers. It was like a New York graffiti haven, but better because the artwork was intricate, passionate, and seemed so personal. Where other kids may have been punished for writing on the walls, Akemi was permitted and probably praised. The light from the stained-glass ceilings made the still drawings on the walls appear as though they were moving, like an emotional and complicated animation film.
It was at the tip of the crescent moon where I found the marble mantel that held the solid gold urn with Akemi’s mother’s ashes. I reminded myself that I didn’t have the luxury of time on my side. I wouldn’t be able to pause and process the meaning of all of this. I already knew that Muslim burials are not like this, are not cremations. At the same time I know that Muslims respect life whether it is present or deceased. When a Muslim passes away, his body is treated carefully and respectfully. It is washed and shrouded, prayed for and prepared and placed into the earth in a particular way, an Islamic way. I whispered an Islamic prayer over the urn. It is my way and the only way for me. I placed it between my palms and walked out the full length of the crescent, hoping to find no one else but Chiasa along the way.
Chapter 12
THE SKY
We boarded a 6:00 a.m. flight from Osaka International Airport to Sapporo, Hokkaido. I needed rest, but my mind refused to let go. First there was the strategizing. Having to place my mind inside Nakamura’s mind and antic
ipate and then intercept his moves had been difficult. Certain thoughts that had occurred to me while reading Never Surrender and Peculiar People, the book on Japanese culture, stood out in my mind prominently. Then there were the comments of each person I had spoken to. Piecing the history and culture together with Nakamura’s profile and bits and pieces of what Akemi’s acquaintances and closest friends had revealed knowingly and unknowingly was complex.
I was realizing and learning the hard way that thinking is a strenuous activity. The same way I could achieve three hundred push-ups, one hundred pull-ups, and an infinite number of sit-ups, thinking took up time, and a massive amount of mental energy. The same way exercising uses muscles and burns fat, thinking is hard work that burned up brain cells and hopefully resulted in eliminating burdens and bringing victory.
I became conscious also that thinking occurs on various levels. There are some thoughts that are too heavy, some thoughts that torture, some thoughts that make the soul shake. My mind maneuvered to shift thoughts into positions that were bearable for me. When packing a grocery bag, you wouldn’t put the soft and perishable items on the bottom and the heavy packaged items on the top; I used the same method when storing my thoughts. The heavy, burdensome, torturous, and unbearable thoughts I pushed below and beneath all others. It had to be this way. If I kept my heaviest thoughts on top and directly in my mind’s eye, something would crack.
Separate from the strategizing was the financial matter. I was experiencing firsthand a rich opponent who could burn out a rival simply by making the battle so expensive that he couldn’t afford to continue the fight. I was more mindful now of my paper. My money stack was still heavy but was slowly dwindling under the weight of Japanese prices, which were five times the average American price and fifteen times the average Sudanese cost of things. And I was learning that some items in Japan that I paid five times more for gave me four times less. I wanted to organize my receipts, but Chiasa’s face was lying against my stomach now. If I began moving, I would awaken her. So I collated rough numbers in my mind.
I had paid out $275 American to the Hyatt, which amounted to $75 per night. It was a discounted rate because Chiasa held a Red Cross membership card. Then there were the room taxes and her bike rental. I paid $300 American for Chiasa’s round-trip Tokyo to Kyoto Shinkansen train ticket. I paid about $125 total in taxi fees. I paid $1,000 American total for two round-trip Osaka/Hokkaido plane tickets. The binoculars with the other supplies came to about $500. Daily food expenses for us totaled about $200, and Chiasa’s fee was rounded at 30,000 yen. I calculated in my head, down $3,000 in one week. There was $7,000 remaining and whatever jewels I carted with me strictly for an extreme and strapped situation.
Of course I knew that I was into an extra week with Chiasa’s services. She would issue a new charge. That money I was paying her was minor compared to the mental cost that her presence extracted from me. But then again, her presence had also spared me a lot of confusion, grief, and vulnerability. She had sped up my mission as though I had previously been riding on a donkey and she pulled up in her Porsche or Lamborghini or fuck it, in her jet flashing her pilot’s license.
As the plane descended, the mountains came into view. In the midst of spring some of the tops were still capped in snow. I was relieved that we were arriving safely at 8:30 a.m., a half an hour before business officially opened in Japan. By announcing to Himawari that I would leave Kyoto that same night and return to New York the following morning, I believed I had burned my trail. To be certain that I had burned it, Chiasa and I left separately from the Hyatt and took separate cabs to Kyoto station. If anybody had been lurking, creeping and watching, like the game-faced Japanese seemed to tend to do, they would have been convinced of my departure. I had to assume that Himawari and her six invisibles would run about talking me up. If she ended up speaking with Shota or anyone from the Nakamura family or estate, she would explain that I had bowed out and gone back to Brooklyn. That’s what I wanted her to say. By actually leaving Kyoto late at night by cab, riding to nearby Osaka, and boarding the first flight to Hokkaido and arriving before the opening of business, I knew Nakamura, or whoever in his employ he had assigned to keep track of my whereabouts, would be baffled about my movements. I would land in Hokkaido without raising any suspicions. I wanted Nakamura to feel content that his nefarious plans were still working. In fact nefarious was a word I had learned while I was reading about him. The author referred to Nakamura this way. I circled the word and looked it up. The more I considered the moves he’d been making against me and my wife and our marriage, the more I agreed that the adjective nefarious fit him nicely.
We sat in the corner on the floor at the airport with our belongings and our Hokkaido map unfolded and pulled all the way open. As we both checked out the fine lines, paths and trails, and symbols of the map, Chiasa said, “I’ve only been to Hokkaido once. It was winter and it was impossibly beautiful and difficult.” I thought “impossibly beautiful” was a strange description, so I repeated it. She looked up from our map and said excitedly, “Yes! There was almost fifteen feet of snow up here. I could’ve stood on top of my own head and stretched and still wouldn’t be as tall as the snow pile. My father loved it. He drove me up and down those hills speeding on a superfast snowmobile. It was so much fun, I wished it would be winter all the time and instead of cars, everyone would have traveled that way. Of course my mother just kept warning about avalanches and how we would both be buried alive.”
“I think you’re telling me indirectly that you don’t know your way around out here,” I called her out, while moving her to focus on our situation at hand.
She smiled. “I speak Japanese, and also, that’s why we have a map!” she said eagerly. “What I can tell you is that this place is the opposite of Tokyo. Here in Hokkaido there’s a small population of people spread over a huge amount of land. Of course Tokyo is a small area of land crunched with a gazillion people.” She paused and suddenly turned serious, looking more closely at the map.
“The exact address of Akemi’s grandmother’s house doesn’t really show up on the map. But we know it’s in the area of the Hidaka Mountains. At least that’s what Jo said. But then again she and Akemi have never been there before either.”
“Write the address out in English for me, the one from the mailing label,” I told her, and handed over my pocket notebook. She wrote first in kanji, then in English. She then spoke out the kanji meanings for Hidaka Mountains. “Sun, High, Mountain, Pulse.” And, the name of the place where the sculptures were being delivered was “Serenity Fields.” The name made me more curious.
I looked closely at the map. Although it was in Japanese, I could measure the distances between towns and cities and parks and mountain ranges and so on. “It looks like a long trip. We’ll be traveling the entire day,” I told her, looking up from the map. “We should’ve flown into Asahikawa Airport, instead of Sapporo,” I pointed out to Chiasa. “It’s closer to the Hidaka Mountains, and at least there is a town there. The way this map reads, from here in Sapporo, we’ll be on a crazy long trek to reach Hidaka. And as we approach the mountains from this side, there’re no cities or towns after this point.” I showed her exactly where the route veered off into mostly wilderness. She checked it out.
“My fault, I just got my hands on the map of Hokkaido when we got here,” she said softly. Then she cheered up instantly and proudly announced, “Japanese people will help us as we go along, you’ll see. We tend to be polite in this way.”
Chiasa excused herself, grabbed hold of her backpack, and went to the ladies’ room. I remained keeping watch over the rest of our stuff and studying the map. When I looked up, she was wearing her high school uniform, the hiked-up mini, tight blouse that lay tightly across her full breasts, bare legs, socks, and penny loafers.
“I know you don’t like me to wear this uniform, but, like I said, all over Japan a high school girl in a uniform can get anything she wants. Think of this as my business suit
or costume,” she said. I wouldn’t look at her purposely.
“My sensei taught me that a ninja has to ‘subvert her ego,’ ” Chiasa tried to persuade me.
“Subvert her ego,” I repeated.
“Yes, according to Sensei, long-ago ninjas disguised themselves as poor farmers. Or a male ninja might have had to disguise himself as a local woman or a female ninja might disguise herself as a man.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, and listened halfway.
“And if you are really handsome and well dressed and a cool-ass superskilled ninja with killer instincts, you might think you’re too much to put on a lowly humble costume or to play dumb and stupid or deaf and mute. But if your desire for victory outweighs your ego or just the proud way that you view yourself, then you can do whatever it takes,” she said solemnly.
She was accurate about one thing. I could never view myself dressed as a woman. Nor could I respect any man who modeled himself after a woman for any reason. For me, man is man, woman is woman, both created from Allah equally but with different purposes and parts and appearances and roles in life. I could on second thought rock a clever costume, something strategic and even inexpensive but definitely made for a man.
Our ride from the airport was ninety minutes long with stops along the way. I caught some sleep; in fact, I slept through the entire journey. The problem was Chiasa did also. Deep in a dream that instantly evaporated, I heard a voice repeating itself. We lifted our own heads to find a four-and-a-half-foot-short bus driver standing over us. He spoke in Japanese. I didn’t need a translation. The bus was empty and it was easy to deduce that this was the last stop on his route.
Chiasa jumped up, just missing the metal rack above her, and bowed her head from her inside seat. She began a conversation with him. She opened the map. He said something, which I couldn’t understand, then bowed his head and turned to go back down the aisle to his position.