Midnight and the Meaning of Love

  “Fine,” he responded with one word only.

  “See you next time, Saachi,” Naja said.

  “Good night,” I said.

  I purposely wanted to appear to be calm and pleasant in this “thought battle” that I was having with the Japanese men in my wife’s family. There was no reason to tip him off that I was headed over to take back what was mine. Inside I was boiling once again. I could tell from this uncle’s posture that they thought they had won. It was as though they believed that they lived in the first world and I was stuck in the third or fourth or fifth world, that somehow I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to cross the Pacific Ocean beyond Alaska and over the Siberian mountains to get my wife. In a short time, they would discover that they were wrong.

  “What did Saachi say to you?” I asked Naja.

  “First she asked me what I was doing over here. Then she showed me this string that she had in her pocket and how she could twist it into a bunch of different shapes. Then she asked me if I missed Akemi and if we had heard from her.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “What could I tell her? I don’t know anything,” Naja said with her arms raised halfway and palms facing up.

  “Are you sure you didn’t say anything extra?” I checked.

  “I just told her that I do miss Akemi and that I am sure she will come back real soon.” Then Naja shifted her eyes away from me.

  “And?” I pushed.

  “And what?” she said softly but understanding the intensity in me. “Saachi said that Akemi is never coming back.”

  The words of my seven-years-young sister hit me in the chest like powerful kicks.

  “But I told Saachi that she really doesn’t know that for sure,” Naja said confidently.

  “And?” I continued.

  “Saachi said that her father told her that Akemi’s father saved Akemi from ruining her life.”

  My jaw tightened. I stood still on the busy block holding my sister’s hand, thinking.

  “That’s it, that’s all Saachi said. Oh, wait a minute, I left one thing out. Earlier, she told me that her real name is Sachiko but that she lets people she likes call her Saachi for short. She said Sachiko means ‘happiness.’ But the mean thing she told me about you ruining Akemi’s life, she said that last. Then you came outside.”

  Chapter 10

  DOJO

  “Me and Chris dipped into our funds and bought you a wedding present. We could’ve got you something before, if you would have let us know you was getting married,” Ameer said.

  We were in the dojo locker room suiting up in our dogis—me, Ameer, and Chris, my two best friends. They were weeks late with their gift, but it was cool. Truth is, I wasn’t expecting anything at all.

  “So, since the money came from our car fund, that means that I paid for a third of my wedding gift?” I said, kidding them about the money that we all three had saved up over our seven-year friendship.

  “True, true.” Chris smiled. “But, brother, that’s not the point!” Chris added.

  “So where is it?” I asked, standing with my arms extended doubtfully.

  “It’s at Ameer’s place,” Chris said.

  I turned toward Ameer and asked him, “Is this gift something that you used first? ’Cause if you already used it, you can keep it. Y’all know I don’t like leftovers!” I slammed my locker shut, laughing.

  “That’s cold,” Ameer answered. “Maybe I should use it first.”

  We hit the floor, taking up our positions.

  Naja shrank herself into a corner beneath the large, antique gray metal fan, reading the new book I had just bought her.

  During the second dojo hour, Sensei called out for sparring. Although he always chose random partners, he tried to avoid putting me, Chris, and Ameer up against one another. He put me against a muscular heavyweight instead, an old dude, about twenty-nine or so.

  It wasn’t a conscious choice for me to place the face of Akemi’s rude-ass uncle over the face of my sparring partner. Akemi is never coming back. I kept hearing that one sentence. I must have heard it too much or too loud in my mind. I landed a blow to my opponent that shifted his jaw and cracked his nose. It was only his slow stream of blood running from his nose, over his lips, and onto his teeth that brought my mind back into focus and into the dojo.

  “My bad, man,” I said. Sensei stood staring. It didn’t move me. We are warriors and some blood gotta spill sometimes. This time was not the first time someone caught a bad one in our ninjutsu dojo.

  Later, outside the dojo, me, Ameer, and Chris conspired in the warm night weather.

  “What’s up for tonight?” I asked them.

  “Nothing, man. You brought your kid sister. I wanted you to come through the East tonight,” Ameer said, referring to East New York.

  “Word? Chris, you headed to the East?” I asked.

  “Punishment, remember? I’m still on punishment.” As we all laughed, Chris’s father, Reverend Broadman rolled up, pushing the Caddy, and snatched Chris up.

  “How ’bout tomorrow night? I can come through after ball practice but it’ll be late,” I told Ameer.

  “Nah, then come through in the afternoon after I get back from school, ’round four thirty. It’ll be safer for you then.” Ameer glanced down at my father’s watch, then smiled. “You know how the East—”

  “Yeah, you know me.” I gave him a pound. “I’ll check you tomorrow,” I said as I walked away.

  “I wouldn’t want none of them boys around my way to steal your wedding gift from you, especially after you paid for it and I used it first!” Ameer said with a laugh. He got that one off on me.

  “Later,” I told him, and grabbed my sister’s hand and kept moving.

  “Is it wrong if I think that your friend is handsome?” Naja asked me, as we rode on the train and after being unusually silent the whole time.

  “What do you mean?” I said, shocked, and having nothing else to say.

  “You know like he gives a girl a special feeling when she looks at him, Ameer does,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t look at him then! That’s why the Quran teaches us to lower our gaze. When you see boys, don’t stare at them. Don’t talk to them. Don’t let them look into your eyes and you don’t look into theirs either. Don’t do anything,” I scolded her, feeling off guard.

  “It’s only the first time I felt that,” she said softly. “And I don’t see boys or stare at them either. I go to an all-girls school, remember? Maybe I only noticed him because you brought me here again. Sorry,” she apologized.

  “I’m sorry too.” I hugged my sister with one arm. “I won’t bring you there no more, and you let your first time feeling be your last time feeling, until …”

  “Until when?” she asked.

  “Until it’s time for you to marry.”

  “Who knows when that is?” she said below her breath.

  Chapter 11

  LOCK & KEYS

  The yard light flashed on and Mustapha opened the fence at 10:00 p.m. on the dot. He greeted me first, then shifted his greeting to Naja.

  “Hey, are you sleepy?” he asked her in English. But Naja wouldn’t lift her head to allow her eyes to look at him or even toward him. I guess she was taking my scolding to heart and to the extreme. But I thought it was good that she knew I was serious. I thought it was even better that she was already making an effort.

  “Hi. Nope, I’m not sleepy yet but I’m about to be,” Naja said, still staring down at either her own two feet or the Ghazzali’s grass.

  “Come on in,” he welcomed us.

  “It’s my friend the prime minister,” Mr. Ghazzali said with a serious tone yet a genuine smile. I felt bad about greeting his warmth with suspicion, but somehow, suspicion had become a significant part of me. His playful tone and the name that he had dubbed me, “the prime minister,” was not a compliment to me. My father had been the top adviser to the true prime minister of the Sudan. I secretly wondered if Mr
. Ghazzali had known that all along or if maybe he only recently figured it out.

  When my father would come home to the comfort of our Sudanese estate, El Beit Rahim, that he built, he was sometimes filled from head to toe with dilemmas. On some nights, I didn’t even need the children’s books that he often gifted to me. My father would sit at my side in my bedroom and tell me stories that he pulled from the depths of his mind and core of his heart. Instead of talking serious politics with me, a young boy at that time, he would give his higher-ups, and subordinates animal titles, revealing their characters and actions woven into a simple tale. He would tell me the story of one general, starring “the vulture,” who invited and dined on death. One of his cabinet members he described as an elephant who no one could help but notice because of his size. An elephant who took up more than his share of space, made incredible piles of poop, ate up everything, but did nothing else. I would laugh at my father’s tales and then ask him, “What animal are you, Father?” My father would think first, then break out in a broad smile, each of his sparkling white teeth set perfectly in his mouth. “I am the camel. I can go for long months without water, although I prefer to drink every day. I can store food and eat it on a day when there is nothing else and everyone else’s food is gone. I can carry many men on my back through the desert to an oasis that I know for certain is there. Yet the men usually give up before we reach there, and I am left alone and saddled with their luggage.”

  At seven years young, I didn’t know the word metaphor. Now, as a teenaged young man, I understood exactly what my father meant.

  When I asked my father which animal our Umma is, he stood up, standing six-foot-eight, and walked a few steps in circles. “Umma,” he said, “cannot be described as any animal. She is the sun. No matter where I am traveling in the world, I can feel her warmth and heat. If I look into the sky, she is there radiant and shining. She can never be mistaken for anyone else. When she walks away for even a short time, I can’t wait for her return. If she were never to return, nothing else would matter.”

  My father silenced me with his words that night as my mind gripped their meaning. A tear did come to my childish eyes. “You must not cry,” my father cautioned me. “It is our job to keep the tears from Umma’s eyes. It is every man’s and every son’s job to bring happiness to mothers and wives and sisters.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Ghazzali,” I greeted him.

  “I know you will want to get right down to business. You and I can step into my office. Maybe your sister can sit with my oldest daughter, Basima.” Mr. Ghazzali called upstairs for Basima to come down. Sudana appeared instead.

  “Basima is still at Fordham U. She said she will be there studying for her final exams,” Sudana told her father. Mr. Ghazzali seemed disturbed for some seconds and then pulled himself out of the mood. Sudana took Naja with her.

  “My sister and I have to meet Umma at her job at midnight,” I told him, so he would be mindful of my time. It was already 10:15.

  In his office I paid out the $650 for rent and $500 for him to deduct his fees for his transportation services. As he dropped the keys into a small envelope and pushed the envelope across the desk to me, he said, “Here is the key for the separate entrance, and another key for the extra night lock that we place on the fence. Since Umma and Naja will be escorted each night, she probably won’t have any use for the night lock.”

  “Let me write out the address for Umma’s job and—,” I began saying.

  “I’ll drive you there tonight so that I can be sure about the location and route. And then you will feel more comfortable also.”

  After a pause, I agreed. “Can I take a look at your basement apartment before we leave?” I asked.

  “Sure, for the next thirty days, it’s your basement apartment, starting”—he glanced at his modest Timex with the black leather band—“right now!” He smiled. I looked at the keys inside the small envelope, realizing that his welcoming us into his home was an act of trust even though I was paying the rent.

  Downstairs I checked the place, each window and door and room. I opened every closet, cabinet, and drawer. “Sudana cleaned up very well for your Umma,” he said. “Actually, the place was cleaned up all the while. I have never rented it to anyone else. I have only had a few nephews and nieces stay here—you know, family.”

  My eyes went to the only door leading to the outside. My mind was focused on that instead of Ghazzali’s words. I knew that I would install a dead bolt slide lock. I had no way of knowing exactly how many people had copies of Mr. Ghazzali’s keys, even if they were his family members. But at least when Umma and Naja were here inside the place, they could use the dead bolt to prevent anyone from outside from entering while they were home. Looking at the wall and the door molding, I knew it would take my handheld drill, either that or a locksmith. I told myself that Ghazzali would understand. I saw how he already had solid steel bars blocking all five of the tiny rectangular basement-level windows. Even if an intruder broke the glass out of those windows, there was no way to fit a body, no matter how skinny, between the steel bars.

  My mind shifted again. The apartment was already furnished, decently clean but by no means spectacular. It was good enough, though, for me to begin thinking, Why should my mother and sister ever return to the Brooklyn projects ever again? With a whole month’s rent paid out to Mr. Ghazzali, I could leave here and go get my wife. Once I returned, I’d pack up our Brooklyn apartment by myself. I’d hire a moving company to transfer the stuff from the Brooklyn apartment to our new house in Far Rockaway, then scoop up Naja and Umma from here and take them directly to our new home. Umma, Akemi, and Naja could decorate our new home however they wanted to and never again have to step their feet there, or be bothered with the Brooklyn projects.

  “So deep in thought. Do you need anything else?” Mr. Ghazzali had interrupted right on time.

  “We should get moving now.”

  Naja slept in the back of Mr. Ghazzali’s taxi. When we arrived, I jumped out to get Umma and let her know we were taking the cab.

  After late-night greetings given very respectfully by Mr. Ghazzali to Umma, we drove mostly in silence except for the brief interruptions of the taxi’s two-way radio. I watched Mr. Ghazzali as he kept his eyes on the road and drove us to our Brooklyn block. No other legitimate taxi would take us to our address, especially at this late hour, without hiking up the price and adding a string of complaints about danger.

  Chapter 12

  PASSPORT

  Wednesday, May 7th, 1986

  Umma and I were second and third on line at the passport office. We were standing behind a panicked Pakistani American who was headed home to meet his bride-to-be, who had been carefully chosen for him by his parents. He seemed to have to tell me about it as we waited for all the workers to arrive and windows to open up. I was stuck there half listening. I’d rather him tell me than tell Umma. I think it was Umma, though, who inspired him and made him feel comfortable confiding in us. I’m certain she was something familiar wrapped in her colorful thobe from head to toe and delicate as a tropical flower. She had accompanied me just in case the authorities here required any sudden additional and random signatures. We were prepared. Now she stood in silent anticipation, her slim fingers wearing faded but fascinating henna designs as she clutched a manila folder containing our neatly organized official papers and identification. Umma was also completing passport forms for herself and Naja. She had decided that even though she and Naja would not receive their passports until six weeks later, it was best for our little family to all have the same official documents.

  Arriving early definitely paid off. Everything was signed and stamped in less than two hours. “You can pick up your passport anytime on Friday. Bring your identification and the receipt from your payment,” the tired older woman buried behind her bifocals said. I wondered how she could be so exhausted when her work day had just started.

  “Alhamdulillah,” Umma said thankfully. “This was
much quicker than how things are done at government offices in our Sudan. I’m surprised, really.” I knew that her gratefulness was genuine. It was rare to hear Umma compliment any aspect of living in America. Outside I looked up at the sky and I saw the sun lurking behind the clouds. I took it as a promise that things would improve.

  It was a warm spring morning and Umma wore a cream-colored dress underneath her thobe that swirled gently around her ankles and revealed only her cream leather heeled sandals. “I’m going to dress victoriously,” she had said early this morning after dawn prayer. “I’m going to dress as though we have already won all of our battles. I won’t let one person darken our day.” I felt good walking down the street with her. I believed that her presence alone caused good things to happen. Her subtle and sweet scent seemed to encourage a friendly response from strangers, who began greeting us for no apparent reason. Attendants in the shops we entered were unusually helpful.

  In the Armani shop on Fifty-Second and Park Avenue, Umma watched intently as the attendant helped me into a new suit jacket that she insisted I try. “Tall, dark, and handsome,” the woman assisting me said, and looked at Umma, who had no idea what she was saying because she was speaking English. My Umma only speaks Arabic. But the woman was smiling as she was suiting me up, so Umma returned her smile, confident that her colorful thobe was working its charm.

  Finally Umma chose her favorite suit. “When you meet Akemi’s father for the first time, inshallah, be sure to wear this exact suit. The suit does not make you into the man that you already are. But it does distinguish you for the shallow men, who will judge you this way. This suit makes you stand out!” Umma said, gesturing her approval with her talking hands. “Akemi’s father needs to know and understand that you are also someone’s child and that you are loved and cherished with a culture, faith, and business, and that you are not lacking in any way.” She continued in passionate Arabic, caught up not just in the return of her daughter-in-law, but in pleasing and convincing Akemi’s father.