Thankfully, I located a ledge. We both squatted beneath it as the shower thickened. We were shielded but she was probably as concerned as I was about what now would be five remaining miles of slippery rocks over steep cliffs in what had evolved into a downpour.
“When I open my company, I’ll remember to charge more if the mission involves mountains.” She looked at me and smiled. “I’ll make a menu, like the ones you get in an expensive restaurant. It will list every possibility: mountains, murder, avalanche, glaciers, kidnapping, and whatever else.” She laughed lightly. I laughed too. “Since you are my first customer, you got the greatest deal. No one else will get from me what you’re getting. In fact, your mission involves everything on the menu, doesn’t it?” she asked me. I didn’t answer. We just looked at one another.
“My business cards will be so fucking cool,” she continued. “I’m not going to have my name printed on them. They will be made of expensive black paper with just a few tiny silver drawings—an airplane, a boat, a motorcycle, and a truck—and a contact number and a motto,” she said, as though she was making all these creative decisions right then beneath the mountain ledge in the rain.
“What’s the motto?” I asked.
“Fighting!” she said eagerly.
“I think you’re gonna confuse your customers.”
“How?”
“First of all, a potential customer sees a beautiful girl,” I said instinctively. Then I stopped. She was looking directly at me with an emotion in her eyes.
“Nah, I’m saying … when a customer sees a woman, he isn’t going to think of fighting. When he looks at your card and sees an airplane, he’s not gonna put two and two together and know that you’re the pilot. A man is not gonna look at you and connect up these things. So you need a better business card,” I explained, knowing I wasn’t sounding too smooth.
“What will a man think then, when he looks at me?” she asked.
“Here comes the sun. Hopefully the rocks will dry out quickly so we can get moving,” I said.
“Hopefully,” she said softly.
Half an hour later, we were still squatting there waiting.
“Why ‘Chiasa’?” I asked her. I had been curious about her name since I first heard it on the flight from New York. I didn’t ask her sooner because I didn’t want her to start asking me the same kind of questions. Now I felt much more at ease, so I asked.
“It’s a bitter reason,” she said.
“Bitter?” I repeated.
“Yes. I wish my name was given to me for a sweeter purpose,” she said softly. “It was my grandmother who first spoke this name. When my parents were in love and planned to marry, my Japanese grandmother was completely against it. She had a way with words. You could say she was like a mean-ass evil poet.” Chiasa frowned. “Before I was born, she told my parents, ‘Your marriage will never last even one thousand mornings.’ Well, one thousand mornings is about—”
“Two years and two hundred and seventy days,” I interrupted her. “About two and three-quarters years.”
“So Okasan, my mother, decided to name me Chiasa, the kanji meaning ‘one thousand mornings.’ My mom thought she would prove her mother’s words and prediction wrong.”
“And your father agreed on that name?” I asked.
“Chiasa came from my grandmother. Hiyoku came from my grandfather—it’s his last name—and Brown came from my father. That’s his last name …” She spoke proudly and then her voice trailed off, I suspected because in her excited recall she had revealed more to me than she had planned to.
“What’s the meaning of Chiasa Hiyoku?” I asked, still curious.
“One thousand mornings, wings of fire,” she said, as she pretended she was drawing the kanji midair with her finger. “And Brown, of course, is an African-American surname, which we both know has no meaning. Although Aunt Tasha would say that ‘it is a reminder that we were slaves, and it is the name of the motherfuckers who were previously our white owners.’ ”
“Chiasa Hiyoku Brown,” I repeated slowly. “It might have started off bitter, but the name is dope. It fits you well,” I assured her. She smiled. I wondered if her Japanese grandmother was still alive and if so where she was living. I didn’t ask though.
“Me and my grandmother are having hankouki. So we don’t speak to one another. When I see her, I just bow respectfully, that’s it,” she said without seeming regretful. “You saw her, you know,” Chiasa informed me.
“Where?” I asked. “And when?”
“Remember my grandfather’s bicycle shop?” she asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Well, she owns the candy shop next door. It’s so small you could miss it, but I went inside and you waited for me outside the door. She was the old woman in there in that cubicle, surrounded by sweet candy on her left and right and sweets hanging over her head. She’s only seventy and she’s got a hundred wrinkles already. Japanese elders usually keep smooth skin because we eat well. I think her wrinkles got nothing to do with her age. It’s just her wickedness. She doesn’t even have a cash register in her store. But kids come in and buy thirty things and her little wrinkled fingers move swifter than a wizard on her abacus, the same one she’s been using for sixty years.” Chiasa was working herself into an angry memory, so I didn’t add to it.
“Imagine, a witch surrounded by sugar and spice and toys, who’s so bitter and hates kids!”
“Enough,” I said solemnly. She paused. “We should stretch and start climbing again,” I told her.
“Sumimasen, sorry,” she said softly. “But I know you saw her. You put your face to the candy store window and looked in. I saw you,” Chiasa said.
“I did,” I agreed with her. I wanted to end it for Chiasa, since my questions had begun it in the first place. I could feel the pain easing through her words and pores.
As we descended the mountain, the sun descended as well. “We shouldn’t do the fields in the dark,” Chiasa warned.
“Are you afraid of the snakes? If they come, I’ll catch ’em and kill ’em. Don’t worry,” I promised her.
“It’s not a fear. It’s a distrust and dislike. There’s a difference you know, between the three.”
I looked around. There was nothing but nine and a half miles of mountains behind us and a half mile of mountains in front of us. We faced five miles of fields. I stood thinking.
“Don’t think about leaving me,” Chiasa said.
I smiled. “Why, soldier? Are you afraid of the dark?” I asked her.
“No. I have no fear of the dark. Since we are here together and we are comrades, we should either stay together or move together for as long as the strategic circumstances allow. Besides, a good soldier does not place herself in unnecessary danger. There could be a deep well in those fields, open water, a septic area in the dark we wouldn’t detect properly. In this case sunrise is on our side.” She gave me her best military response.
“True, two is better than one,” I confirmed. She relaxed a bit. “And sunrise is more manageable than nightfall in this particular case. Here’s my plan …” I explained it to her.
* * *
On the backside of a blue barn with a slanted roof, Chiasa and I began our meal. The moon was far from full and cast a clear but dim light. What the moon did not do, the stars did. They were scattered beautifully and lit brilliantly like sparklers. I had captured this location in the powerful lens of my binoculars, knowing that somewhere in these fields, there had to be a toolshed, dairy barn, chicken coop, or someplace where we could chill and there would be no threat because the owner’s day’s work had already been completed. We were not beneath any trees or beside any high wall. Out in the distance about a half mile across the field there was a house. Although I had seen it when I first scouted the area, I could not see it anymore. Which meant that they could not see us either, and that was our objective. I didn’t have many choices, but I was convinced that this was the place that would make Chiasa feel most comfor
table, way up high where the snakes would not slither in search of heated holes to slide in.
When we first entered it the dairy barn did not have a scent. Point-blank, it just stunk. Yet it was a shelter for the night. There were some murmurs and mooing and excitement among the four-legged creatures at first, but Chiasa and I climbed to the second level, where the stacks of hay were stored. With our backpacks off, we lay there resting on the hay for a moment in silence, our muscles sore from the extreme hike. I aimed my penlight and surveyed the ceilling, where I did find an opening. I told Chiasa to climb onto my shoulders. I held still, balancing her five-seven frame. With her arms extended upward, she was able to lift the rectangular wooden cutout that led to the roof. The design was simple, nothing extraordinary like the hydraulic sunroof at Akemi’s Roppongi house. Chiasa took the risk without warning, jumped and caught hold of the opening and pulled herself through. I threw her beef and broccolis to her. I tossed my backpack up three times before she caught hold of it. I was laughing some just thinking about how I was going to get up there. About five seconds later I built a makeshift staircase ladder out of six stacks of hay and climbed up.
Chiasa handed me an antiseptic wet napkin sealed in a packet. She cleaned her hands and I cleaned mine. Pouring some water from my canteen into my cleaned palms, I doused my face and cleaned my nose. She sat silently, accustomed by now to my prayer. I bowed down beneath the dimly lit sky. When my prayer was completed, she was there waiting with water.
“Ready, let’s drink together.” She held up her canteen and I held mine as we both drank our first swallows after a long, tough day.
“Did you kill it?” I asked, as I saw her canteen tilted toward her face.
“I was real thirsty,” she said.
“You want some more?” I asked her. “You can get some of mine.”
“No, I had enough. I’m gonna wait ten minutes before I eat anything. I’ll let my stomach settle. I think I’m losing weight on this mission. I crave the water, but somehow as the days pass, I crave less and less food. But I’ve never felt better. Let’s sleep out here,” she added.
“The temperature is gonna drop,” I warned her.
“You have your sleeping bag,” she pointed out, always wanting to let me know she knew what I had and didn’t have and that she watched me closely and was paying attention.
“You’re right. You can use it,” I told her.
“No, you’re the one who has had the least sleep. You sleep first. I’ll give you …” She touched my hand to check my watch. “It’s eight thirty. I’ll give you five hours to rest, until one thirty a.m. You sleep and I’ll watch; at one thirty I’ll sleep and you’ll watch,” Chiasa proposed.
I thought about it. Sleep was weighing down on me. My body was threatening rebellion if my brain wouldn’t agree.
“Aight,” I told her. She pulled my sleeping bag out for me and laid it on the slanted roof. I lay down and she zipped it up. I pulled my hoodie over my head, and lying there, I had my eyes on Chiasa still. She pulled her bow to her front, unzipped her case, and lifted out two arrows. She laid them at her feet. She turned, watching me watching her.
“You can’t even trust me enough to close your eyes, comrade?” she asked softly. “I’ll recite one of Akemi’s poems for you. It was so clever, I memorized it in English. Besides you have no choice but to listen to me now. Your eyes are heavy and even you, Ryoshi, must rest.”
Facing the stars, Chiasa slowly spoke. “Akemi’s father was called to the school for a teacher’s conference after Akemi wrote this poem for her Japanese literature class. It’s titled, “The Japanese.”
We are quiet people,
But our thoughts are very heavy.
Other people are living in the outside world
While we are living inside our own minds.
In our world, for the most part
There is only us, people who live
And look like us and believe and do
The same as us.
Anyone outside of our realm
We call them gaijin meaning foreigner
We are famous for our eyes, our
Art and our orderliness
We are masters and missus of details
No one can invent rules like we do
And no other people are more loyal to the rules they invent
We obey
While others boast, we whisper
While others strut, we bow
We would rather all of us do the same thing wrong
Than be the only one who does something right all alone.
By Akemi Nakamura
“So fucking true,” Chiasa murmured. “Now you know what she was thinking before she left for New York and met Mayonaka,” she said, turning to check if I had fallen into a sleep. I was about to, but not yet.
“Still no trust,” she whispered. “You have a lot to learn, Ryoshi. There are girl soldiers! Female ninjas are called kunoichi, and ninjutsu is the art of invisibility. And tomorrow, I’ll be your invisible soldier. You’ll see,” she said softly.
I slept.
* * *
When I awoke, I could not move. It was a temporary paralysis in a very warm place and a comfortable position. I was stuffed inside a skin casing like a beef sausage. Maybe I wasn’t really awake. Maybe I was bugging. She was fully dressed and tightly zipped into my sleeping bag beside me, our bodies back to back, me facing east and she facing west, asleep on the side of the bag with the zipper. To turn around would be to reveal myself, or at least my physical reaction. So I didn’t. Instead I decided to concentrate on something that would bring my nature down.
Minutes later, I shifted and reached over her, but my weight pressing against her body made her awaken.
“You were right,” she said so softly. “The temperature dropped a lot. Don’t worry though, this is a strategic position. I needed your body heat.” Then she unzipped the bag, and the morning cold air rushed in and all the warm heat escaped as she removed herself. She gathered her few things as I wrapped the sleeping bag and organized my backpack. As she dropped down the hatch through the roof into the hay and moved aside, I handed her my backpack, then did the same.
We were silent with each other. Only the dairy cows spoke. They were discussing the two strangers, their bloated tits, the property owner, and the hired hands. Through the darkness, only their eyes flashed any light. “You better run,” one momma cow said to me. “You’ve got less than ten minutes.” We bolted.
“Ryoshi, wake up,” Chiasa’s soft voice said. “It’s four a.m. We gotta move.”
I looked around. It was only myself zipped into my sleeping bag. I paused, shook myself, ran my hand over my Caesar cut and then my face.
“Shake it off, comrade,” she said. “I gave you eight long hours. You should be brand-new.”
She smiled, her gray eyes flashing in the residue of the moonlight. Pretty as a puma, I thought to myself. Then I laughed at myself for that crazy-ass dream.
Minutes later we were outside the barn. Chiasa was running in place in the morning dark. I had my penlight on the map as I tried to figure out the directions while shrouded in darkness. I checked my compass.
“Okay, I got it. We’ll head this way,” I said. She nodded, her bow bouncing on her back as she jogged in place. “You coming?” I asked her.
“I’m doing two things. I’m sending my vibration through the ground. That’s how the snakes listen. Since I’m warning them, they’ll appreciate it and move out of our path. And I’m raising my body temperature. There’s a real chill out here.”
As we walked, I used only my penlight. Chiasa had a small flashlight, but the glare it cast would’ve been too much. So she kept it in her waist pack. The morning dew splashed wet stains on our Tims as we moved through the grass, both bundled in our hoodies. Chiasa had converted her zukin, which had been a face mask, a curtain, a blanket, and a pillow so far, into a scarf to warm her neck and throat.
“Did you hear that? Listen …,” s
he said.
“That means there’s a road. It’s coming from over there,” I said.
“We can cut across the cornfield,” she suggested. We jogged straight through a mile of organized young cornstalks. Happy to reach the black tar of a road and with the hint of a sun about to rise, we both drank from my water canteen and ate leftover onigiri rice triangles with seaweed wraps and cooked fish flakes inside.
“Let’s break up,” Chiasa said suddenly as we finished up. I looked at her for meaning. “There’s only four miles remaining. It would be better from here on if we pretended not to know one another. After you handle your business, we’ll meet up at sunset. You can introduce me to everyone, since you’re the only one that knows each of us. We can break the fast together, all of us. The sun’s up now. I’m good.” She smiled.
I looked around. I looked up and down the road. There was no one. Whatever vehicle we had heard before was long gone. Her “break up” suggestion was sinking in. Yet I didn’t want to break up and leave her all alone.
Sensing my reluctance, Chiasa said, “Let’s go over our scenario for the sake of planning. There’s Makoto, the security guy who works for Nakamura; Shota, who I know from her diary is like an older brother to Akemi. You say that there’s an Ichiro. I don’t know anything about him.”
My mind flashed back to his face. Ichiro was Akemi’s older cousin who had been sent to get Akemi from me once. I was working the Ghazzalis’ wedding with Umma and our company. Akemi and her young cousin Sachiko, aka Saachi, were there with me. After my work at the wedding finished, as I was putting Umma and Akemi into our car service, Ichiro appeared standing in the dark shade beneath a tree with an unwelcoming glare and stance like he wanted to get at me. I had my hand on my steel but no real-enough reason to use it on him. Akemi wasn’t my wife yet and he and she were blood-related, so I let him take her home to her peeps. Ichiro never spoke one word to me, not a greeting or acknowledgment and definitely not a thank-you for caring for both of his girl cousins and cooperating with his efforts. All the while I told myself, I’ll marry her and then no one will be allowed to take her or call her back, blood or no blood.