Midnight and the Meaning of Love

  * * *

  “Call me in the morning,” I said, after walking Chiasa downstairs in front of the hotel. I hailed a cab. It pulled over.

  “I want to spend time alone with Akemi, to make friends,” Chiasa said as I opened the back door for her. “Maybe I can come by early tomorrow,” she said, leaning her face out the window.

  I knew from experiencing Chiasa during our search for my wife that she was great at making friends and winning over hearts. Chiasa has a purity in her smile and a gentleness in her talk that soothes and brings out the best in people despite her soul of fire and brave heart.

  “Akemi won’t be here tomorrow. She has to go with her grandmother. How about you?” I asked her.

  “I’m good until about four. Then I’ll have to get ready for the banquet. And will you still come at seven to meet Daddy?” she asked, as though something in me might’ve changed.

  “Definitely, seven sharp,” I said. She smiled.

  “Meet me at the mosque tomorrow at ten a.m.,” I told her as she was looking up at me with those long lashes and pretty eyes.

  She seemed unsure. But she said, “Okay, ten a.m. the mosque, and seven p.m. the Shilla.”

  I tapped the top of the cab and said, “The Shilla.” His meter was already running. He pulled off.

  Chapter 22

  STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

  Umma told me to take my Armani suit with me. I should’ve listened to her, as usual. But I was fresh dressed and more than chilling for the thriller at the Shilla. I was feeling good, extremely calm and peaceful. Meeting the general at his five-star hotel, squeezed in between his last pressing appointment and his banquet of dignitaries, was just a formality for me. I had already married his daughter Chiasa, the sixteen-year-old pretty puma of the legal marrying age. I had affixed Umma’s signature on my documents, with her permission, of course.

  Chiasa was swirling with emotions, her entire body pulsating like a heartbeat as she eagerly became my second wife. We wed at the mosque in Itaewon under the supervision of Imam Jabril Park and the witnesses he organized on short notice. As far as I was concerned, the general had already given his permission when he and I shook hands at the military property where he had abducted and held me, in Busan.

  “Word is bond.” That’s what I believe and that’s what my father and grandfather believe as well. The documents were for the authorities. The ceremony was for the faith. The spiritual permission was all I was truly concerned about. If it was right in Allah’s eyes, then it was right for me, period.

  Chiasa and my heart were probably married before all of that or perhaps before any words were exchanged between us. Maybe it was when I first saw her sleeping on the plane, or maybe it was much later when it came to me, a thought deposited into my mind: Chiasa, a gift from Allah.

  I had not gone into her. I would. When our feelings were at their highest height and we were free to express them, just she and I, I would go in. I was excited to give her the deepest feeling that could be given to a woman probably other than childbirth, which I am sure is completely different. I was honored to be the first and only man to break through the skin that separated her from everyone else and brought her closest to me.

  “We’ll tell Daddy together, but wait for me to wink,” she said, speaking of our marriage. “Please promise.”

  She probably didn’t know that I felt so high from having her and Akemi as my own that I would’ve agreed to almost anything inside of those seconds when she made the request.

  There was a long line of limos gliding up the long path to the Shilla, and Benzes and Lexuses and of course Hyundais. The trees were crowded on both sides, like a huge audience gathered for a holiday parade. Slowly my driver eased past the traditional Korean buildings and beneath the arches that lined the winding road. Each arch was made from intricately designed and painted wood. Turquoise was the dominant color. The tops were curled on the edges, the wicked way old-style Asian roofs were uniquely crafted.

  When we reached the Hermès shop, I paid the driver and got out. The ride for the next seventy feet to reach the hotel door could take a half hour or more with all the vehicles waiting. I could walk up in less than a minute.

  Through the revolving door and into an elegant lobby that was a festival of lights, my eyes were moving rapidly, taking it all in. The Korean designers had the eyes for the fine lighting. Everywhere I had gone in Korea so far was expertly lit, not with typical lamps or bulky bulbs.

  At the Shilla the lights were a series of crystals carefully draped and dangling on an eighteen-foot wire slimmer than kite string. Each delicate crystal glistened from the high ceilings down. Each string hung at different lengths and on different angles.

  As I stood still admiring it all, I was mixed in a crowd of tuxedos and fine wear. Women were in elegant gowns as well as sleek dresses and skirts of every length from pussy to ankles. In a small opening, I saw Chiasa staring down at me from the balcony. They were waiting for the elevator, I guessed. I was standing exactly at the agreed location. I wasn’t worried about locating the general or him locating me. I was the lone black face in a sea of Asian faces. When he arrived, he would be the second black man in a sea of Asian faces.

  As one set of elevator doors opened, he came easing out, a muscular and massive man. He was wearing a well-tailored suit, not a uniform adorned with medals. Even that day that he’d sat on the side of his desk, not behind it, beside six hand grenades, he was not wearing a military uniform. He shook hands as he moved forward through the crowd. He would stop and exchange a few words with various people who sought his attention. His smile was swift and unnatural but seemed very useful to him. Chiasa was shielded behind him.

  “Daddy, here is …” Chiasa introduced us excitedly yet softly. In his presence she was like a little girl. She was dressed how American men dress their daughters, in a sleeveless chiffon cocktail dress that delivered the contour of her body and featured her golden skin, full breasts, tiny waist, and long legs. She was the opposite of how she’d been at the mosque today. I wanted to take off my jacket and throw it over her head. I didn’t. I told myself to be easy. This was her last concession to him, I was sure.

  “Baby, go to my room and get my silver cuff links. I want to change these,” he interrupted her introduction. She looked at him, knowing she was being sent away for a calculated reason. Who shifts from wearing gold to wearing silver and not the other way around? I thought to myself.

  “Daddy,” she gave a one-word protest.

  “It’s okay. I’ll have a man-to-man talk with him,” he told her. I didn’t say one word, just watched her make her way through the crowd, saw her finger press the elevator button, saw a small crowd exit the elevator and her walk inside just as the doors began to close. Before it shut completely, her eyes locked into mine.

  “Son,” the general called me. Or maybe he was not a general. Maybe that was just a code name, a cover for something else that he was doing. I took his use of the word son as his acknowledgment of Chiasa’s and my relationship. I believed that it would be the only acknowledgment from a man like him, who probably specialized in not acknowledging things.

  “It’s amazing, the power of a party, isn’t it?” he began again. I didn’t react. I didn’t plan on doing too much talking. I showed up for Chiasa, my wife.

  Just then, an immaculately dressed Korean man stepped up to where the general and I were standing. Quickly the general greeted him and they exchanged a few words, all spoken in Korean. I noted that I had now heard the general speak Japanese, Korean, and English of course. I suspected that this was just the small portion of himself that I had been allowed to see, hear, and know.

  “Throw a big party where people get to pull up in their limousines and show off their tuxes, shoes, and cuff links, and the slimiest scum come crawling out of their holes voluntarily. They walk right up in the plain view of their enemy. It works every time. It always has, as far back as the days of Napoleon and even before his time.” The general’s eyes
kept moving around the room, never landing on me. Yet he was talking to me strangely.

  “That’s the thing about a formula, son. If it works one good time, you keep it. Don’t change even one ingredient. The party is a formula. It works everywhere on the globe—north, south, east, and west. Only the menus and the venues and costumes change. But that’s not a change in the formula. It’s a change in the bait,” he said.

  “You and I are both here at this party, sir.” I was reminding him and questioning him at the same time: did he consider the two of us to be men who had swallowed the bait? Or maybe he was only referring to me as the sucker.

  He laughed. “Always remember, son, the party throwers and the party goers are two separate sets of people. One set is the power. The other set is the meal.” Then I knew, he was one of the party throwers. He waved at another set of men across the room. It was a one-hand wave.

  I thought about Chiasa. What was taking her so long? Or did she plan to stay away to allow her father and me to “get to know one another”?

  “What if your opponent didn’t show up to your party? What then?” I asked him. I was intrigued by how he was not discussing anything personal about what had transpired between him and me and his daughter. Since he was not asking any questions, I assumed he either did not know anything about our new marriage or he knew everything and realized that because of the deal he made, he had no control over us.

  “When you are a superpower, it doesn’t matter if one of our enemies doesn’t show. Enough of them will and we also make some allies by laying out the bait. If we are searching for anyone, no matter who he is, no matter how stubborn or smart, and even if he is the one guy in the world who doesn’t like to party, we’ll still find him. That kind of enemy is simply delaying his capture. He’s eating up the military budget. He just doesn’t realize that there actually is no ‘military budget.’ No matter how much we spend, there will always be more where that came from. Even the smallest countries spend on the military when they don’t have even one grain of rice or one bean for their own people. War is endless.” He smiled and finally turned toward me.

  “So you see, I picked the right industry.” He was looking me straight in my eyes.

  “Look at these assholes!” he said, suddenly shifting his stance and angle. I shifted also. Through the doors moved a line of Asian men all uniformly dressed in black suits and white dress shirts and hard black shoes. It seemed like they were forming a blockade. They were definitely blocking some of the hotel entrances.

  “Can you read faces, son?” he asked me. “I always know a man is a fool when he says, ‘They all look the same.’ A superior military man has to be able to read faces swiftly. I’m standing here on this side of the world tonight. I’ll be standing in the midst of another party on the other side of the world tomorrow night. Wherever I am, I have to be able to read the faces. One slipup, I could lose my life.”

  His words were moving me now. I was watching the lineup at the entrance.

  “Those are some Japanese crashing the party. Sometimes even when you don’t invite a certain enemy they show up. Look at their faces and check the differences between them and the Koreans and the Chinese and the Vietnamese … To a civilian, there is no difference. To the trained eye, it’s obvious. The Japanese always want to form a line. It’s an obsessive-compulsive disorder. They’ll bow all the way down to the floor,” he said, pointing out exactly what both of us were seeing: fifteen men in a row bowing simultaneously with great precision.

  “They always reveal their rank,” the general said, as one more Japanese man came through the door, obviously the same man the others were all bowing down to. I looked at him, and then I looked at the man coming up immediately behind him. It was Naoko Nakamura.

  I stood still. Why should I move? Then I checked the face of the man standing guard in front of Naoko, and it was Makoto. His eyes scanned the room rapidly, like a trained chief of security. When his gaze landed on me, his look shifted from a simple security check and head count to a knowing glare. Less than one second later, his eyeball had been shot out of its socket and his blood was splattering on his clean white dress shirt. The crowded reception area moved like a wave. Teams of security began revealing themselves and scrambling about. The people didn’t scream or shout. It was a low murmur and curious facial expressions.

  “Don’t move, son. Stand right there. You are in the best seat in the house,” he said, but we were standing. “Even though thousands of African-American military gave their lives to secure a free South Korea, if you are in the room among them and something goes wrong you will be the first accused. So stand still. We have over two hundred witnesses to the fact that we had nothing to do with this mess.”

  As everyone else entered into a state of confusion and Nakamura was rushed out the door, and thirteen of his fifteen-man security team followed behind him, while one picked up Makoto and the other, his eyeball, and wrapped it in a handkerchief, I knew.

  Maintenance appeared before the ambulance to clean up the blood. One of them picked up the rock that I knew had to be Chiasa’s and put it in his pocket as the police arrived at the hotel entrance too late to stop the destruction of the evidence of the crime scene. An argument broke out between the police and the hotel manager, who suddenly appeared in defense of his cleanup crew. An announcement was made that the banquet hall doors were opened and all guests should move inside.

  “Come with me,” the general said. I followed him into the banquet hall. Chiasa was seated inside, quick like lightning. Pretty as a puma, she was calm and smiling and her hands were steady.

  “Take great care with my daughter, or I’ll find you and kill you. It won’t be a war game but the real thing,” the general said. Those were his last words to me after the banquet and before we parted.

  Chapter 23

  IDENTITY

  We left Seoul, South Korea with Akemi’s grandmother riding in the car on Thursday, the day after Chiasa shot Makoto in the eye—the second time she had shot him, by the way. We were four people together, yet we were strangers to one another, all outsiders, all foreigners.

  The North Korean grandmother was slim but sturdy with a face that had a pronounced bone structure, making her appear serious, like she was, and revealing the struggles and victories that made up the story of her living. Her hair was jet black, soft, and styled with a precise short cut that made her look and feel feminine even with her strong bone structure. She wore expensive gold-rimmed glasses with no tint. Her eyes were dark, big, and observant. When I looked into them I saw softness. There had to be softness inside of her, I thought to myself. After all, she had given birth to Joo Eun, who had given birth to my wife Akemi. Her daughter and her granddaughter were both stunning by anyone’s standard.

  She was a cool older woman who didn’t let on her true feelings about riding in a car with her Japanese-Korean granddaughter Akemi, who she had just met this week, or Akemi’s half-Japanese, half-black co-wife, or her Sudanese husband, me. Halmonee, which means grandmother in Korea, didn’t speak much during the three-and-a-half-hour drive. When she spoke it was only in Korean and there were no gestures or explanations to clarify her to me or Chiasa.

  We reached Busan on Thursday afternoon. For security purposes, Halmonee’s driver/bodyguard checked us into a new hotel before returning to her apartment. It was on the beach where Akemi and I preferred to stay, and which I paid for.

  Chiasa’s face was filled with wonder. She was checking out our temporary home on the water where we would remain, we thought, for a few days.

  I moved all the luggage into our rooms as Chiasa walked off with Akemi, heading toward the water. She was “making friends,” which made me feel good.

  We had two rooms. Chiasa and Akemi decided to stay together and allow me to stay in the second room. I smiled, no problem. I had both keys.

  I took my run on my familiar route down Haeundae Beach right before sunset. My body celebrated the return of the scent and sound of the ocean and
the moist sand beneath my kicks as I moved rapidly, faster than a jogger, slower than a sprinter.

  My water and banana vendor was surprised at my arrival. Then his face switched and he welcomed me back. I made wudu and my prayer on the water before running back through the black sky, on the gold sand with the colorful globs of light leading the way.

  Back in my room, I showered and dressed. I was surprised at the knock on my door. I walked over and opened it. It was Akemi showered and changed. She was all blue, her headscarf and her dress, were both a deep rich blue. The dark colors set off her dark eyes, which were outlined in a heavy black eyeliner. Those eyes looked mischievous and mysterious at the same time.

  “Akemi is ready for dinner,” she said in soft perfect English, which made me smile. I knew Chiasa had taught her that one line. The verb was in the right position. I pulled her inside and into me. I hugged her tightly and kissed her face and then her mouth. Her tongue welcomed me first. Then, she bit me. After a swift sharp pain I could taste some blood in my mouth. I looked at her and she smiled. The look on her face was half guilt, half self-satisfaction. Playfully, I snatched her up and turned her upside down holding both of her ankles. Her scarf fell to the floor and her hair was dangling. She giggled. Then I remembered that I had to be gentle with her. So carefully I laid her down on the floor.

  I sat on the floor beside her. She was lying on her back. “Are you angry, Akemi?” I asked her. She responded in Japanese whispers while staring into my eyes with an intensity and no humor. I laid down beside her, facing her. She turned away from me.

  “No love for Mayonaka?” I asked her in English. She didn’t turn to face me and wouldn’t respond. I began to rub her hair gently and caress the back of her neck. She wouldn’t turn, but I was listening carefully for her breathing to change. I moved my hand beneath her dress and began to caress her body. She must’ve been angry. She still wouldn’t face me, so I tiptoed with my fingers under her panties. I pushed my hand pass her butt and around to her long clitoris and pushed my middle finger inside of her. She was really trying to control herself. However, I knew it felt good to her. I know her body well. Then I decided the only way to get a reaction was for me to make her feel good and to suddenly stop. So I did. I stopped stroking her most sensitive spot and withdrew my finger. I reached around to her breast and felt her nipple. It was hard as a marble. Her body was giving her true emotion away. I put my hand beneath her petite body and turned her toward me. As soon as our faces met, she accepted my tongue into her mouth. Now, we were tonguing passionately. She kept reaching for my hands. I knew she wanted my finger back inside of her. I kept moving them away from her. I would only give her my tongue. She went wild, crawled on top of me, and bit my nose and my ear and my chin. We tussled.