She exhaled, slid out of her heels and approached me in the living room where I now stood listening to Chiasa’s phone call. Her black eyeliner, drawn on nicely, highlighted her sensual eyes. I hugged her and held her close in my embrace. Umma smiled. She had been smiling a lot lately, and a few times even laughed aloud out of nowhere, refusing to explain herself. My wives did not know why she did, but everyone loves smiles and laughter, so they let it pass. Besides, there was no common spoken language between my Umma and my wives. Umma only spoke Arabic and a few functional English words and sentences. Akemi could not speak in Arabic or English, but she also knew a handful of functional English words. She spoke Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai. Chiasa could speak fluently, comfortably, and confidently in English, Japanese, and French. So my first and second wife shared only one common spoken language. I could speak fluent Arabic, and of course English. I knew a few functional words, phrases, and sentences in Japanese and Korean only because of my love for both wives. Love makes me learn.
I knew why Umma smiled and even why she laughed. She takes me seriously and believes in marriage as a requirement and the only relationship that can be shared between a male and a female that involves sex, babies, and family. At the same time, she thought there was some comedy in watching my wives and me, all teen years young, yet very global. She loved seeing me grow as a man as I attempted to balance two wives, which wasn’t easy. Loving them both was easy, but balancing was a separate matter. Umma and my feelings were connected. She knew what I knew. I could not be in two separate places at one time, but I wanted to be. Umma would watch as I worked out the best and right thing to do in each situation. Don’t move too far from the front door. Don’t follow Chiasa because I am curious as to what her father is saying now. Don’t allow Chiasa to make Akemi and me late to her business meeting. Don’t cause Akemi to feel that she is not my first priority. Don’t leave Chiasa behind when we were all going out together. Don’t forget Naja will be home soon and at the bus stop near our home, where at least one of us is supposed to be standing even before the bus pulls up and lets her off. To be a son, husband, and brother and the only male in our household was more than a maneuver. A man could not pull it off, work hard, and also maintain peace and pleasure in his household if his love was not deep and genuine. The effort alone requires that.
“Aafi lai,” Chiasa said—“forgive me” in Arabic—to Umma, using one of the ten Arabic words that Naja had taught her for good manners. Then to Akemi she turned and said, “Sumimasen,” a Japanese apology. The two wives began speaking to one another in hurried hushed tones in Japanese. I did not interfere in their talk or question Chiasa directly in the presence of Umma or Akemi. I had learned how to handle these domestic situations. My wives had just recently made an agreement. Akemi told Chiasa not to translate between the first wife and her husband. Therefore, when Akemi had anything to convey to me, she would do it the same way she and I had always done it, through our eyes, facial gestures, and body language. Sometimes she would do it through her art, using a random sketch to get her point across, or by her putting my Japanese-to-English flash cards together to form an English sentence that expressed her meaning. Sometimes she would get frustrated and speak fluent Japanese to me, which I could not translate or understand. I could only react to her tones and my intuition. The truth was I loved my relationship with Akemi and the unusual way that we communicated with one another. It made me love her from the start, and that love only increased day by day. Making love to Akemi was like the conversations she and I never had, since we don’t share a common spoken language. Making love to one another was one of the languages that both of us performed well, craved, understood, and felt deeply.
I opened the front door so both my wives would catch the message and walk out behind me. They did.
* * *
Very late that night, I entered our house. While removing my Nikes, I noticed that the aroma of the dinner we’d had earlier, which was prepared by Akemi on her night to cook, was wafted away by the purifying scent of eucalyptus that drifted from beneath Umma’s upstairs bedroom door. Quietly I eased out of the shoulder straps of my North Face backpack, unzipped it, and lifted out two heavy bags of coins, which I had collected from one of my three vending machine locations, the only ones I had not sold off wholesale. I pulled out the money belt that I never wore around my waist, using it as padding in my knapsack instead to keep the coins from shifting around and jingling. My money belt was tightly stacked with dirty one-dollar bills. Wish they were hundreds, I thought to myself. In time . . . I reassured myself.
I stashed the earnings in the utility closet just for the remainder of the night. Before dawn I would bury half, and after dawn I would bank the other half. That was my method.
Washing off the grime of the streets, the filth of the money, and the soot of the subway in our first-floor half-bathroom, I was preparing myself for a late-night prayer. Cleaning my face, ears, neck, forearms, and calves, I finished by cleaning my feet. It occurred to me to ask Chiasa if she wanted to join me in the prayer. She was the only one in our house whose bedroom was on the first floor. Besides, I adore her.
I knocked; no answer. She must be asleep. I should have turned and headed straight to the living room to make the prayer alone as I had first intended, but other thoughts streamed in and invaded my right mind. I turned her knob, following my curiosity instead. She wasn’t in her bed or even in her room. Yet the spring warmth was rushing through her opened window. I had told her when we first moved in not to leave it open or unlocked, even if she was only up chilling in Umma or Akemi or Naja’s bedroom. I’d offered her an air conditioner, but she preferred a fan. Now her window was open, her fan was spinning, and she was gone.
As soon as I reached up to shut and lock it, I saw her outside, seated on the railing of our backyard deck. In the black night, at 1 a.m., she was reading a book with a small book light illuminating the words. I stepped out of her window, my feet landing on the deck. I reminded myself that it was just eleven more days until the decorative iron security window guards were installed, preventing any intruder from going in and out of her bedroom window with the ease that she and I had both done.
She smiled. I smiled. She clicked off her little book light and tossed her book, titled Seven Pillars, onto a small low outdoor table, which was situated next to where she sat up high. At times she liked speaking to me in the dark, I remembered. After we were first married she was shy about revealing certain feelings. Sometimes she would cover her face with her hand and say, “Don’t look at me.” Sometimes she would look away when I smiled at her. In the dark she would feel confident to speak and express her rawest emotions.
“I came to get you for the night prayer,” I said. I was moving my mind back in a right direction.
“You don’t need a reason,” she said softly, and jumped over the railing and down into the grass. I walked over and looked. She was turning the metal knob to our garden water hose and rinsing her mouth, splashing her face, dousing her ears and nose.
“C’mon,” she said excitedly as she rolled up each pant leg and used the hose to wash her calves and feet. She handed the hose over to me as she pulled out a long scarf that she had woven into her belt loops. She fanned out the wrinkles and quickly wrapped it into hijab, covering her hair, neck, and shoulders.
“I’m ready,” she said. She’s smart and swift. I never have to waste words with her. I rewashed using the hose. Felt I had to because since washing moments ago, my mind had wandered off where it should not have been focused at prayer time. The cold water cooled me down and set it right.
We made salat, she standing behind me, beneath the night sky and summer stars in our Queens backyard. Praying out of doors, and in the garden in Sudan, was something my father and I and our family and friends often did.
Many moments later, our prayers completed, Chiasa walked away towards the incomplete wall instead of back towards our house. I just watched her. Suddenly she stopped, turned facing
me, and asked, “Could you go stand over there near the deck?” I didn’t know what she was up to, but her hypnotic silver-gray eyes were sparkling in the moonlight. I did as she asked. She gestured with her hand and said, “Bend a little, please.” The second I reached the squatting position like a wide receiver before the quarterback snapped the football, she ran towards me at top speed, jumped with both feet, and landed on my back, standing. She leaped from my back onto the rail of the deck and was then balancing herself like a tightrope walker as she walked the length of the railing, laughing lightly and covering her mouth to muffle her joy. Coming up the four short steps to walk beside her in case she caught a splinter or fell left or right, my smile broke out naturally, just thinking about her while asking myself the question, What will she do next?
“I have to do something,” she said. “If you don’t want to allow me into your dojo . . . I have to use the whole yard. I’ll be out here late night with my sword.” She was now gesturing as though she was holding her sword in her hand and using it to charge her rival.
Chiasa knows my heart. She knew I would never bring her into a dojo filled with men, even though she is an expert martial artist and trained ninjutsu fighter. She knew why. Still she had used the art of invisibility to follow me there one evening in her sunglasses and modest disguise. She almost had me blinded until we both ended up paused in a crowd of walkers, gathered on the corner waiting for a green light. Some old woman was crossing at the speed of an infant just learning his first few steps. She dropped one of her two bags and her grapefruits began rolling out. Everyone kept moving except the old lady and my second wife. Not a native New Yorker, she was the only one who eagerly grabbed up the grapefruits and helped the elder, who was still standing in the middle of the street when the green switched to red. Holding the elder’s hand, she patiently walked her across, signaling drivers, who still honked and swerved around them. I watched her carefully and waited on the other side.
“Busted,” I said to her when she reached safely, after she sent the senior on her way.
“That’s not fair!” she said, startled because she was so focused on the woman she did not know her cover was blown.
“How was your day and how was your night? Tell me everything,” Chiasa now said, jumping down from the railing and seating herself in her window. She wanted details. I wanted her.
“Everything is smooth,” I said.
“So fucking cool,” she said under her breath, not resisting or confronting me for ignoring her question. I sat on the floor of the deck, my back leaning against the railing, looking up at her.
“Your phone call?” I asked.
“Oh, Daddy,” she said in almost a whisper. “He wants . . .” I was calm and cool in my demeanor, but anxiously waiting to hear what her father wants now.
“Two things,” she said. “Daddy wants me to instead of doing the pilot’s license program like I planned, which takes much less than a year, he wants me to get a bachelor of science degree in Aeronautical Science, which takes four years. He’s convinced that I can earn it in three years since I completed four years of high school in three years. Daddy says the degree will give me much better business options.” She paused and looked at me.
“And you?” I asked her.
“I just want to fly,” she said, extending her arms like the wings of a small jet soaring through the sky. Since the day I met her, sixteen-year-young Chiasa had always made it clear that she planned to become a pilot. When I arrived in Japan, it was just weeks before she was set to begin her flight school training. We fell in love, married, and moved. Now she had spent all day today in the New York Public Library collecting information on flight schools here, so she could compare programs and schools, then select the best one and register and pursue the license here.
“And the second thing?” I asked her.
“I mentioned it before,” she said softly. “We’ve all been so busy . . . But Daddy insists that I go to Harlem this weekend for dinner with Aunt Tasha.”
We sat quietly for some time, her in the window, seated, facing out towards the backyard, me still leaning on the railing, facing her. I pulled off my T-shirt. I didn’t have to call her over to me. I wanted to touch her. She wanted to be touched. She stepped down from her window seat and sat between my legs, her back leaning against my chest. She removed her hijab, her hair brushing against my skin. I touched her up gently, stroking her hair, touching her face and neck and easing my hand lightly over her breasts while her blouse was still on. She caught fever, and turned and began kissing my bare chest with her thick, pretty lips. I touched her chin lightly and her lips parted. Kissing her gently with my lips only at first, I could feel her body warming and her heart beginning to race.
I didn’t know what exactly her father was pushing his daughter to do or to be for him. I do know that Chiasa is my wife and I’m about to go in her. If there is not a baby already in her womb, I’m about to give her one.
* * *
A malt-colored Jaguar with a deep chocolate-brown leather interior, the customized license plates said DR. TASHA. The vehicle matched the private brownstone she lived in.
“You didn’t tell me your aunt is a doctor,” I said to Chiasa.
“She’s a psychiatrist,” Chiasa answered, casually.
My eyes surveyed the impressive four-story fortress. It was the only home on the Harlem block that featured an American flag flying high on the rooftop. It was clean, untattered, properly mounted, and tilted on an iron flagpole.
Peeping a front and two side entrances, one on the east, the other on the west side of the building, I was figuring there was probably one in the rear as well. In my tradition, a man should approach the front door of the neighbor’s house and greet the men of the house first. These were relatives I’d gained through marriage. So, I knew there would be serious differences in our culture. However, I planned to give them the gifts that my Umma and wives prepared, and that I carried in a shopping bag, and after greetings and gifts, I’d be laid-back and easy. She is already my wife, so this is not about gaining their approval. Yet, since Chiasa cares so much about Aunt Tasha, who she had been mentioning since the second day we met, I wanted our first meeting to go well, and for my wife to be content and at peace about it.
“She will probably be down in her office,” Chiasa said. “That’s the side door on the left.” We walked around the building. Chiasa’s fingers grazed mine and she folded them into my hand. I held her warmly. Our feelings were magnetic. Chiasa rang the bell with her left hand and leaned back into my body as we waited. Maybe she knew or maybe she didn’t how her touches, even the lightest or most innocent ones, heated me up so crazy. She must not. Why would she want to get my mood moving in that direction as we stood underneath an arched and secluded deep brown brick entryway, alone? I kissed her neck on impulse. She looked up at me, smiling her beautiful smile. I kissed her lips. The door opened. We straightened up, but neither of us dropped hands.
“Don’t allow me to interrupt,” Aunt Tasha said, smiling widely. “I’ve been watching anyway and I see it very clearly. It’s really quite powerful.”
“Hi, Aunt Tasha!” Chiasa had an excited outburst. She jumped up and hugged her aunt with her left arm and remained holding hands with me with her right.
“Girl, let go of him for one second and embrace me.” Chiasa, instead of letting go instantly, looked over and up to me. We stared at one another for some seconds. She pulled my hand, still in hers, and placed both our hands in Aunt Tasha’s hand.
“My husband,” Chiasa said. Aunt Tasha laughed heartily. It was a laughter laced with love.
“Husband, come in,” she said, releasing our hands. I stepped forward and walked in first, Chiasa following behind me. I set the gifts down.
Her office was warm, walls painted in warm colors, a cranberry red in the first room we entered into and I could see a cantaloupe-colored room to the left and a sea-blue green room to the right. The feeling was intimate somehow and calming. Her deg
rees were mounted on the wall, all four of them. Each was set in an expensive frame, and on each frame there was a small spotlight that made the glass glisten and the black calligraphy of the degree stand out. Tasha Samantha Brown had an undergraduate degree from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale University; Tasha Samantha Moody, a degree in Medicine from Yeshiva University and one in Forensic Psychiatry from University of California at Los Angeles. I did a double take, rereading the wording of each degree again. It seemed unheard of. She was a doctor and a lawyer, a “super fox,” I thought to myself, a fox and an owl.
She married after becoming an attorney, either during medical school or right before her forensics degree. I noted her name change. American women drop the last name of either their mother or father and replace it with the last name of their husband. So now I knew her husband’s last name is Moody.
A brighter light suddenly switched on, and I turned towards it. The aunt was standing there looking at me. “Are you going to meet me formally?” Aunt Tasha asked me.
“Excuse me, I was meeting you by your degrees.” I smiled.
“A million-dollar smile,” she said. Then she turned towards Chiasa. “That’s how you got stuck. You were trapped right there in his smile. Weren’t you?”
“Aunt Tasha!” Chiasa shouted joyfully.
“I’m serious,” Aunt Tasha said. “When your father told me that our Chiasa, the beautiful, young, trilingual, brilliant, talented, huge-hearted . . . sixteen-year-old,” Aunt Tasha’s voice grew louder, emphasizing sixteen-year-old, “got married! Oh my God, I thought he must be jesting. But now I see it. Step over here please, young man. Stand beneath this light,” she ordered me. I took two side steps, feeling like an interrogated character in a Russian spy novel I had recently read.