Midnight and the Meaning of Love

  Akemi’s young sensuous eyes had seen so much. I knew her feelings and her experiences being born and raised in Japan as a Japanese girl and living and believing it, was an incredible story that only she herself could ever tell precisely and properly, and in her own soft voice and manner. Perhaps she would never tell it opting to put it into a series of detailed drawings instead.

  I knew my wife’s heart well. She was standing there on the boat as it rocked on the deep waters still sorting out her love and anger for the only father she had ever known, Naoko Nakamura. I knew that she was surrounded by new faces of blood relatives who love her, yet despite it all, she still loved Naoko. Meanwhile, her eyes were surveying and capturing the image and perhaps even the soul of her true blood father, Jung OH. As I watched my first love, first wife’s emotions churning, I knew I would be here in Busan for days longer than I had ever planned.

  * * *

  A couple days later Chiasa and Akemi had made their peace. Perhaps Akemi felt connected to her now because of the way that Chiasa took the time to explain so well the missing pieces of Akemi’s life. Maybe it was because Chiasa held her hand and stayed by her side and slept in her bed beside her. Maybe it was because Chiasa and Akemi shared a common native language. Or because Chiasa was doing what Josna might’ve done if she were here. Or maybe it was because Akemi could now see what I already saw in Chiasa.

  When Akemi asked to go and stay with Sun Eun and her grandmother for the remaining days before our flight back to the United States, I knew that was her gift to Chiasa. She would allow the inevitable to happen, while surrounding herself with her grandmother’s and aunt’s love.

  Chapter 26

  WINGS OF FIRE

  “For the next three days think only of Chiasa,” Chiasa said. “Can you do that for me?”

  “It’s Ramadan, you and I have to think of Allah.”

  “Okay, after sunset can you think only of me, as my wedding gift?”

  “That’s easy.”

  “Is it?” she asked.

  “I think about you all the time anyway, and I did from when we first met.”

  “You did?”

  “When I saw you asleep on the plane, I thought to myself, She is like a blue diamond.”

  Chiasa was smiling. “A blue diamond,” she repeated softly.

  “Yeah, if someone ran up on a blue diamond, they’d stare at it for a while. Then somehow, even if their eyes moved away for a second, they would look right back at it again and again.”

  “Is it just about how I look?” she asked me.

  “Nah, but that’s a part of it, no doubt. If I looked over in that plane seat and saw a female who couldn’t fit in the chair, with a face of a monster and feet like a kangaroo, I doubt we’d be standing here together like this.”

  She laughed at my joke and then said, “But what if she was a really nice girl?” We both laughed.

  She had to know that I loved her mind and the way she expressed her thoughts. She had to know that I loved her courage, her heart and her soul.

  “I liked that you were so pretty but that it seemed like you had no idea that you were.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, thinking. “In Japan, people don’t treat me as though I’m pretty or special in any way. At least, not in a good way,” she said.

  “That’s good. I like that. They made it better for me. When I take you back to Brooklyn, there won’t be a cloth that could cover and conceal you enough to hide your beauty from the hood niggas. Maybe I’ll get you one of those joints from Afghanistan,” I said with a serious face, but I was joking.

  “You mean …,” she said slowly.

  “Yeah, like dat. It goes over your entire body and there is a small screen for you to see out and for no one to see in.” I gestured.

  “You don’t scare me, Ryoshi.” She smiled. “I love my zukin. If I can wear the face garment of a ninja, I can wear an abaya or hijab easily.”

  “Who taught you those words?” I asked her, smiling.

  “The woman in the mosque who helped me learn how to wrap my hair said the proper name for the head covering was hijab. I liked the sound of that word, so I remembered it. My father showed me once how women in Afghanistan dress. He said I should never be like them,” she said softly.

  “Are you like them now?” I asked her.

  “Even back then, I thought those women were beautiful and special. I didn’t say it to Daddy.” She paused. “My father means well.”

  “We’re not talking about him. We are thinking only of Chiasa,” I reminded her.

  “Aunt Tasha said something like what you said a moment ago.”

  “Here we go, what did the infamous Aunt Tasha say now?” I played.

  “She said that I wouldn’t survive a second in Harlem without the street hustlers eating me up.” Chiasa was looking into me, for my reaction.

  “Hmm … that might be the first thing Aunt Tasha said that was true,” I joked.

  “That’s not the only thing, Ryoshi! Aunt Tasha is so good,” Chiasa defended and pleaded.

  “What does Aunt Tasha know about some street hustlers?” I asked.

  “She lives on Strivers’ Row!” Chiasa said, as though that should tell me something.

  “Strivers’ Row?” I repeated.

  “In Harlem! You know it, don’t you?”

  “Nah,” I said truthfully.

  “What kind of New Yorker wouldn’t know Strivers’ Row? Aunt Tasha talks about the history of it all the time.”

  “So when you visit Aunt Tasha, what happens?” I asked. My chest felt tight.

  “What do you mean, what happens? Nothing! She just loves, loves, loves me. She has four sons and no daughter. She’s my father’s sister! So, she treats me as her daughter.”

  “What happens about the street hustlers who she said would eat you if they saw you?” I pushed.

  “I don’t get to visit Aunt Tasha often. When I do, I can’t stay there for long. I always have a really busy schedule with martial arts, ninja camp, tutors, school, and work …” she said.

  “What about when you do visit Aunt Tasha?”

  “Oh, that can’t happen. That’s why she never lets me out. She keeps me in the house with her and we have our own world in there. When we go out, she takes me to really cool places and teaches me things. She never lets me sit on the stoop, like you New Yorkers call it,” Chiasa explained.

  “I like Aunt Tasha,” I told her. “Am I gonna have to beat down all four of her sons?” I tested.

  Chiasa laughed. “I already thought of that,” Chiasa quick like lightning said. “Aunt Tasha is a church lady and she is gonna absolutely flip or faint or both when she sees the changes in me and listens to my new words and thoughts and beliefs. But I decided, once they all see how serious I am, and how I am studying the Quran first before taking a shahada and how much I love you, really really a lot, they will accept you and me and respect our way.”

  I looked at my woman, my wife, so beautiful all the way through the skin and flesh and bone and into her soul.

  “How come you never kissed me?” she asked softly. Her mood changing.

  I smiled. “You really want to know?”

  “Hai!” she said.

  “I knew that if I started kissing you, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I might even lose my mind while I’m inside of you. So when I do kiss you, I gotta take you someplace where it’s good and safe and alright for me to lose my mind and to give you my whole self. ’Cause you’re Chiasa, a whole woman, not a half, right?” I said quoting her. Her eyes widened, then melted.

  “Besides, a smart man has to think carefully before he touches you. You’re a little dangerous.” I teased her.

  “Dangerous?” She asked.

  “Yeah you like to play with knives and your father plays with guns. A man has to ask himself, ‘Is Chiasa worth my life?’ Then a man might decide that some other girl is much easier to deal with.”

  “But you’re not that kind of man, Ryoshi.” She s
aid swiftly and at the same time seemed to just be realizing that I was actually saying that she is worth my life and any confrontation that loving her might bring to me.

  “My father, that night when he saw my ring and the gold bangles that you placed on my wrist, he just stared. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Later that night he called my grandfather. They had a long talk. Grandfather told my father that he had already known that the ‘tall, dark, and handsome boy’ had ‘captured Chiasa’s heart.’ Grandfather assured daddy that ‘the boy has a fearless soul and would take our Chiasa away.’”

  “Your father told you about his conversation with your grandfather?” I asked Chiasa.

  “No, my grandfather told me about their conversation. I called him right after he and daddy talked. Daddy left out and I called grandfather.” Quick and clever Chiasa admitted.

  “Early the next morning, my father called my mother. I knew what that meant.” She said in a serious but soft tone.

  “What did it mean?” I followed.

  “Well, the two of them never speak to one another, sadly. If they do speak on occasions it’s usually to blame one another concerning who was responsible for something Chiasa had done. ‘That happened on your watch,’ sometimes my father would say to okasan. Or, my mom would blame daddy for, ‘Not seeing your daughter as often as you should, then spoiling her terribly when you do.’ ” Chiasa gave a quick nervous laugh.

  “So whose fault is it?” I asked Chiasa. “Me and you, whose to blame that we are together?” I asked her.

  “It’s not a fault. It’s fate and it’s a fact.” She said solidly.

  “I’d like to thank your mother. I want to meet her and thank her.” I said calmly.

  “For what?!” Chiasa said pushing me playfully.

  “First I want to thank her because she brought you into the world. I want to thank her for forcing you to do ballet.”

  “Ballet!” Chiasa raised her voice.

  “Of course, ballet made your legs so pretty.” I said calmly. She lowered her eyes.

  “I want to thank her for your eyes and those long lashes, for your small waist, and for her not knowing how to comb you hair.” I said. Chiasa fell over with laughter.

  “Seriously, your hair is wild and you’re wild. But you’re pure and I like all of it.”

  We sailed in a hired yacht cruiser with two white sails and one wide wicked red sail in between, to an almost-deserted island called Somaemuldo. “The Lady in Red,” was the name of the pretty vessel. It wasn’t expensive. It was a short trip across the South Sea from Haeundae Beach in Busan. Korea has hundreds of tiny islands. I knew they must all have something unique going on. There had to be something attracting and pulling people to them. Whenever I went running on the beach, I saw the boats flowing back and forth.

  I had asked a fisherman on the pier, “Where can I take my girl to make her love me more?”

  He smiled. “Sarang?” he said, meaning, “Love?” Then he pointed out over the waters.

  “Somaemuldo.”

  That same morning, I negotiated a small fee with a captain whose yacht I always saw docked more than moving. Eagerly, he agreed to take us over. He welcomed us nicely, made us comfortable, and promised to return for us at the agreed-upon time, three and a half days later.

  “How come places are more beautiful when humans haven’t rearranged them?” Chiasa asked me. We were both staring at the reddest jagged-edged rocks, the bluest sky, the greenest grass, and into the forest as we climbed out of the transparent waters swarming with colorful sea life.

  “Come on, we have to find a hotel,” I told her.

  “We don’t have a reservation?” she asked.

  “No, everything that happens here will be whatever you and me make happen,” I said.

  “So fucking cool,” she said.

  “Hotel,” a little Korean lady said, shaking her head back and forth to say no, and placing her hands across one another to say “none.”

  “Sarang?” she said. She was asking if Chiasa and I were in love. Chiasa held out her hands, showing the woman her wedding ring and bangles.

  “Honeymoon,” Chiasa said with a soft pride. The lady smiled; she had a tanned face, a black afro, and tilted teeth. She touched Chiasa’s hand, then held it to lead the way. Chiasa looked back at me and said, “See, I’m already making friends.”

  In a bungalow in the woods was where we laid our luggage, surrounded by forest and the sound of the sea. It was not a hotel or condo or motel or rental. It was the home of the woman who waited by the waters for the boats to come in, hoping she could make a few won if she could convince someone to stay.

  There was no bed and no kitchen. The cooking area was an outdoor oven and grill. There was no bathroom; the toilet was a short walk to an outdoor structure. The shower was also on the side of the bungalow in the yard. The yard was not a real yard. It was the forest.

  “We can leave and go somewhere else. I’m sure they have a hotel somewhere,” I told my wife.

  “This is perfect,” Chiasa said. I paid the woman her full asking fee. She bowed using only her head, more than a few times, which sent Chiasa into bowing.

  The woman pointed out the pillows, blankets, and mosquito nets, pots and pans, hot plate for indoors, rice cooker, and chopsticks. She led us outside and showed us the water well and the showerhead, the woodpile and the toolshed, and the lanterns to light up the yard at night. Then she immediately made herself disappear.

  We organized and settled.

  Exploring, I followed Chiasa through the woods, I knew she didn’t like snakes. I didn’t tell her, but when we first arrived, on the walk over, I spotted one. It was medium length and green and blended in like a leaf.

  When we left the forest and faced a field of camellia flowers, Chiasa bolted. She started running at top speed. I chased her. She was quick and swerving to out maneuver and out distance me. I picked up my speed. I wanted to catch her and I didn’t want to catch her. She was burning off some energy that she probably had bottled up from being unusually still over her past days visiting Korea. I was getting closer to her heels and was excited by her ways.

  I caught her, snatched her back by her waist and tossed her into the flowers. She laid there breathing hard. I stood over her.

  “There are snakes in the grass,” was all I said. She jumped right up and chased me back to the bungalow, talking the whole time she was running about how she’s not afraid of snakes.

  “I feel free,” she said. We were back inside our bungalow. “There is no one, just Chiasa and her husband.”

  I sat on the floor, dry and laid out from our run. I watched her sort through her clothes that were folded inside her duffel. She chose a short dress, grabbed the soap and a washcloth, and left.

  From the bungalow window, I watched her unwrap her scarf and unravel her two pretty braids and shake her hair into a wild, thick, and long mane. With her hands crisscrossed, she tucked her pretty fingers below her tee and eased it over her head and tossed it to the side.

  She unclipped her bra from the front, and her breasts, the size of mangoes, seemed to leap out. They were firm and soft, nicely shaped and golden with deep-dark-brown nipples. Her waist was small and tight. Her shoulders were the most beautiful I had ever seen. They were slim and toned and cut and feminine and outlined perfectly from years of arching back and firing off her bows.

  Her pants were open now, and with both hands she peeled them away from her hips. They dropped down to her ankles; She bent over to step out of them one leg at a time. Her panties were tiny, stretched over her smooth and round backside. The delicate lace stitching was slipping and began hiding in the crease of those soft cheeks. She didn’t see me watching her from the bungalow window, the same as she didn’t see me that first time in the mosque. Yet she sees everything, “perfect vision.” She turned on the shower water.

  I spun her around. She was all wet. She cleaned the water from her face like a swimmer coming up for air. I pulled
the lace and rolled her panties over her hips and yanked them down to her ankles. She lifted one pretty foot and then the other. I tossed them. I looked up at her and into her eyes. They were flooded with a mixture of love, curiosity, and desire.

  “Ryoshi,” she said when I stood facing her at full length and thickness. I pushed her back against the bungalow, held one hand on her waist and the other on the back of her neck. My joint was now pressed against her thigh. I leaned in closer. Her lips parted and her breath escaped. I slid in and tongued her gently. The inside of her mouth was warm. Her tongue wasn’t in a rhythm with mine at first, so I slowed mine and maneuvered hers until it flowed and felt right. Then I could feel her body relaxing. Her mouth started moving with a hunger. We sucked one another’s tongues. When I pulled back some, she moved forward and her tongue was bringing me back inside her. I could feel her mangoes pressed against my bare chest. I sucked her neck. Her breathing picked up and aroused me more. The warm water continued showering over our bare bodies.

  “Oh my God, Ryoshi,” she whispered in my ear. I slid my hand down the center of her body and paused at a pile of black bush. I just stroked the outside lightly, separating hairs to get to touch the opening. She began breathing faster. I could feel the fire from within her rising and heating up her skin. Gently I pushed my finger in but only slightly. I stroked her clitoris and she screamed out loud.

  I stepped back and looked at her. She covered both her eyes with her pretty hands. She held them there and suddenly squeezed her pretty thighs together.

  “Oh my God, that feels so good,” she said dramatically, as though she could not believe it was happening to her. I turned off the shower. I moved in close to Chiasa and squatted down, petted her pussy, and her thighs relaxed again. I parted the hairs and divided her pussy lips and sucked on her clitoris.