“Listen, first. I’ll put her on. I called you because you know me and you know and love Akemi. This ain’t no joke. We need you to do this. It’s not a trick or a game or nothing. It’s more of an emergency.”
“Please put her on the phone,” the cousin insisted. I knocked on Umma’s door and asked her to hand Akemi the telephone.
As I listened to Akemi speaking fluently in Japanese, I couldn’t tell either way. She spoke so softly. As I watched her, I could not detect anger or fear or anything in her tone of voice. I returned to the living room and picked up the phone to listen in. There were three voices now all speaking Japanese, Akemi’s, the cousin’s, and the uncle’s.
I pictured myself in my imagination, standing at the door of the uncle’s house holding Akemi’s hand. When the uncle opens the door and sees the bruises, he draws his sword, the real deal one like Sensei’s, and chops off my fucking head. I don’t move. I let him. I deserve it. If it were my sister standing there at my house with some guy who failed to protect her, I would do the same.
Then I heard the click. I put the phone down worried.
Then the phone rang again and I picked it up. It was the cousin again.
“Midnight, I put Uncle on the three-way. He believes that Akemi and I are here at my house together. It’s fine as long as he doesn’t happen to speak to my parents before tomorrow. If this thing backfires I am so dead. I did this for Akemi’s sake. But she promised me she wouldn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“I won’t,” I promised. “My mother and sister are here too. I have some respect, you know,” I reminded her.
“Bring her to her uncle’s house in Queens in the morning at 11:00 A.M. No one will be home, because they will all be in Chinatown at the store by that time. I’ll leave my house early and meet you two there. I’ll take care of the rest.” Now she sounded confident.
“Thank you. Don’t worry. Call back if you have to,” I told her.
Umma had Akemi lying down on her bed. She had prepared a solution in a silver dish, and was dabbing it onto Akemi’s eye. Then she placed the ice bag she prepared over her eye. Naja watched intently. Akemi seemed relaxed and somehow to enjoy the attention and affection. I understood. Umma had that effect. As I stood in the doorway looking in, Umma said to me in Arabic, “She’ll be okay in time.” I took it as a cue for me to leave. I went to my room.
An hour later, I looked out my door. Naja was washing Akemi’s hair in the kitchen sink. She had her bottles of Umma’s female potions, rose water and lavender and tangerine. She seemed to be thinking of Akemi as one of her dolls. I could tell by her expression that she was having the time of her life.
Umma was smooth at working her magic. Now the white linen dress was soaking in the bathtub in some type of cleaning solution. I didn’t think anything could remove those dark-brown stains. Meanwhile, Umma was speed-sewing. I’ve seen her do it before during some important rush job.
Akemi ended up sitting on a huge pillow on the floor, freshly showered and wearing one of Umma’s beautiful robes. Her hair was still moist. She had her arms wrapped around her legs, her long hair covering the blackened eye, the other eye peeking out. She still looked beautiful to me. Some scars and bruises are erotic if you could just look at them and block out how they got there. Plus she had ten perfectly shaped unblemished creamy toes.
I walked near her and went into my jeans pocket. I sat down and placed the small diamond ring onto one of her pretty toes. I raised up.
Umma looked up from her work, caught me staring at Akemi, and smiled. She said, “This is how you got into this trouble in the first place.” I thought to myself, she’s right. Luckily for me, her and Naja are home, or there would be some more trouble to get into.
Akemi walked straight back to my room. My door was left wide open. I stood in the doorway so Umma could see I was not doing anything she wouldn’t approve of.
Akemi looked around. She put her hand on my bed and ran it across the length of it. She bent over and smelled my sheets.
She stopped and checked out my book collection. She pulled open my drawers and flipped through my T-shirts. She took one out and smelled then caressed it and said, “Akemi’s.”
She saw my Ninjitsu gear folded on my desk. She assumed a fighting stance and smiled. I felt like a fraud and was embarrassed after what happened tonight.
She picked up one of my dojo flyers, looked it over, and put it down. Then she picked it back up, and said, “Akemi’s.”
Soon she was sitting on my floor rummaging through my closet. I waved her to come out of there. She pulled out one of my sneaker boxes instead and opened it.
Her face switched when she saw one of my guns lying on top of the tissue paper inside the box. She held the box in one hand staring down at it. Then she stared at me. I stared back at her. She put the box back.
She opened the leather fold that held my custom-made kunei knives. I shook my head no, to signal her to put them down. She pulled one out, examined the art and design of the kunei handle. She kissed the blade of the knife, probably admired the special craftsmanship. She slid it back into the individual slot and closed the leather fold.
When she looked at me I could not see or feel any worry inside of her. Strangely all I could see and feel coming from her was a deeper love.
She breezed by me smelling like sweetness, holding one of my T-shirts, my dojo flyer, and a couple of other things in her hands.
She put her items down on the table in the living room, then joined Naja on the floor, helping her to put together one of her five-hundred-piece puzzles. They both fell asleep on the pillow.
Umma did not sleep. She sewed and guarded. When she was finished sewing, she moved Akemi into her room, and Naja into hers. She slept in the living room, separating me from my temptation.
In the early morning Umma and I made Fajr prayer together. I asked Allah for forgiveness for what I allowed to happen to Akemi. I wondered if my kissing and sucking on her, before the two of us were properly bound in marriage, contributed to this situation going all wrong. I thought about it. Then my mind let go of it. There was no way for me to rearrange what was already done.
The smell of Umma’s breakfast cooking roused Akemi. She looked out of Umma’s bedroom door with her bright smile like a sneaky cat.
Her right eye seemed even worse. It was half-black, half-green with a blob of blood floating in the white of her eye. I felt bad. I didn’t know what the day would bring.
Umma said, “That’s the way it heals. It gets worse before it gets better. Soon it will be gone altogether.”
We enjoyed breakfast, the four of us. Akemi’s fingertips were covered with spices, pickled peppers, and onions. She enjoyed the fish and yogurt, and ate cheese and hot bread. When I told her we should be leaving, she was sucking on a slice of green mango. She wasn’t moving. She seemed like she wanted to stay.
Umma had Akemi looking fine in a newly made wine-colored chiffon minidress, the stylish kind she observed that Akemi liked to wear. It was a soft, elegant material that Umma had kept for a long time to use for herself. She cut and stitched it perfectly for Akemi’s petite yet shapely body. The compromise was the matching pants, which were precisely tailored and went nice with the wedged heels and the pale pink ribbons that Akemi wore out yesterday.
Umma threw her heart into that beautiful outfit, even though it was too dressy for this casual day. From knowing my mother, I knew she saw it as a small means of apologizing on behalf of her son and his family.
She embraced Akemi and Naja did too. She handed Akemi one of her shopping bags, which Akemi immediately stuffed with more items she collected from our place.
As we left out, Umma surprisingly pulled her pair of black Gucci sunglasses out of her silk robe pocket. These were her nice ones, which she wore long ago, when we were in Egypt. She placed them over Akemi’s eyes, kissed her cheek, and we left.
We rode down the elevator with the drizzle of project churchgoers. It was early enough in th
e morning that last night’s partygoers were still all locked inside of their apartments.
We taxied to her house in Queens.
“She does not look hurt.” Her cousin stood up from the curb where she sat waiting for us to arrive. They spoke some. Then Akemi removed her glasses. The cousin gasped then covered her mouth with one hand. She looked at me suspiciously. However, the peaceful and happy look on Akemi’s face contradicted whatever her cousin was thinking.
Akemi walked on by and used her key to open the front door. I turned to leave. Akemi said, “Please,” and waved me in. The cousin looked nervous. Akemi said something brief to her. “She says she has something to give you,” the cousin said.
We all stepped out of our shoes, which we left in the foyer, and into the darkened living room area.
Inside they used the telephone and called their uncle. They both spoke to him.
“We got away with it,” her cousin said to me after hanging up the phone. Next the cousin called her house to say good morning to her parents, who were sleeping late on their day off.
“Yes, Akemi and I are at Uncle’s house now. Akemi wanted to complete some artwork. We’ll be here but don’t call back. You know we won’t be able to hear the telephone in Akemi’s studio. Talk to you later.”
She took a deep breath. “See what you two have turned me into?” she asked me.
I was grateful to the cousin, but I didn’t trust her. She was working too many angles all at once. My mind raced ahead.
I kept getting the feeling that this might be the last day I would see Akemi because of everything that went down. I did not know what to do to change things for the better. I was already standing in another man’s house without his knowledge or permission. I knew I was wrong. Yet I was still doing it.
“Please,” Akemi said. I followed her. She opened a closed door and descended the metal staircase. I looked back at the cousin. I went down. The cousin was still standing at the top of the stairs.
Fourteen steps down and we became part of a separate world. I stood in a large room with a wall of water. There were three ordinary walls but the fourth was made of glass. Behind the wall was hundreds of gallons of water, home to two astounding blue octopuses. On the bottom were purple, blue, and orange rocks on which sat some beautiful seashells of every color, shading, and blending, along with some coral. Against the glass there were starfish of all shapes and sizes and colors. I imagined it was like standing on the floor of the ocean, but being able to breathe normally. It was a beautiful sight and the collage of colors cast from the lighting of the life-sized tank was calming.
Across from the wall of water was a unique circular kitchen table. It had a metal frame with chunks of colored glass as the tabletop. It looked like an unfinished stained-glass project.
There was a small, rectangular, orange-tinted window that let in a slight ray of colored light from outdoors. She had three new mismatched small-sized sneakers sitting on her windowsill. On a closer look, I realized she was using them all as flowerpots. She had soil where the heel would usually rest, and was growing peppermint leaves inside of them.
She was still wearing her sunglasses, but moved around in the colored dark with familiarity. She pulled a small chain and a Tiffany lamp lit up the kitchen area. “Go,” she said, inviting me to sit down.
In the chair I stretched out my legs, admiring the bleached wood floors. The craftsman had done a perfect job of laying it down and bringing out the natural grain of the wood with just a light coat of shellac. My grandfather did amazing woodwork too, I remembered.
She broke off a peppermint stalk, sprinkled it with some water, and placed two leaves in each of three ceramic teacups. She poured bottled water into a small black cast-iron tea kettle. She turned the fire on and placed the kettle on top.
She gestured to say, “one minute,” then disappeared through another door.
Her cousin, now sitting at the top of the stairs, reminded me that she was still there.
“Akemi’s father had this basement designed for her, months before she arrived in the United States. Everything you see is what she wanted,” the cousin stated.
I looked around the wide and long open space. There were no walls to separate the kitchen from the living room or bedroom area. In fact, I did not see a bed at all.
Instead I saw a swing. An indoor swing? I had to get up and check it out. The swing seat was made of the same metal as her table frame and staircase. It was sturdy and wide enough to sit, stand, or lay down on. The chains that held it up were heavy metal links. The whole thing was bolted into the cement ceiling. I yanked the chains a bit to see how strong they really were.
I guess since I moved out of my chair, her cousin came walking downstairs.
“She creates on that thing,” her cousin said. “She sits there with her eyes closed, and swings back and forth sometimes for a long time. That’s where she comes up with all those crazy ideas for her artwork and everything else. Then she goes over to that table and draws whatever she saw in her mind.”
The cousin pointed out the adjustable tabletop desk, which was slanted upwards. It was a drawing table where there was a large sketch pad, markers, pencils and small tools, little erasers, protractors, and rulers.
Above the table in the cased-in rectangular windows was her book collection: a few Asian history books, Japanese novels, and the rest mostly manga series.
“Where are her paintings?” I asked the cousin.
“The garage outside was renovated into her art studio. That’s where she is most of the time. She works late at night. She works on her big pieces and everything for the Museum of Modern Art show that she has coming up in the beginning of May.”
I listened to her cousin’s careful descriptions and explanations. I knew she had not turned suddenly friendly, or forgetful of what happened this weekend. I understood what she was attempting to do. She wanted to prove to me how important Akemi was, and how ridiculous and unbelievable a distraction I was in her life. Somehow she thought, if she could convince me, maybe I would just do them all a favor and go away. I got the message. How could I miss it?
How could I provide all of this luxury for Akemi anytime soon? It would take a lot of hard work, big clients, and big commissions.
Akemi returned wearing a tight tee that gathered at her waistline, and a pair of blue capris. Her hair was pulled back, fully displaying her bruises, which I felt was her rebellion and her intention. The sunglasses were off. She began pouring the steaming water into the cups.
Her sound system was wired to fill the entire basement with music, I noticed. I flipped through her album collection. It was vast and varied. The oldest were her John Coltrane collection and Monk and Miles. She had Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Minnie Riperton, Marvin Gaye, and Roberta Flack. She had Carlos Santana, The Sugar Hill Gang, Full Force, and Eric B. & Rakim. I plucked out an old Pat Benatar joint, a singer I only knew by this one single called “Love Is A Battlefield.” I held it up to show her my choice. She smiled. I tried to make myself feel less tense, and more comfortable. I played the record for us.
Immediately, she started moving her body to the beat. It was hot to see that she had some rhythm. She didn’t smile. She just stared into me, into my soul. The music soothed me. Her world aroused me. I danced with her. It was my cool dance, a lean here and there, my head moving some, my feet moving very little, but always on the beat. I wasn’t the pop-locking, bouncing, trembling kind of wild-dancing man. I don’t do no fucking headstands or back spins.
The cousin looked bewildered. The music helped to hide, or even remove, the energy that she let off, which interfered with the perfect energy between Akemi and I. When the needle danced off and the song was through, the cousin seemed glad it was over.
I sat now and watched Akemi pouring the tea. Even that was sexy to me, her hands holding the hot kettle, pouring the hot tea, and even the style of the teacups she selected and the unusual sexy curve of her Asian spoons. She served all of us our tea. They
sipped, the only conversation happening through all of our eyes.
My eyes were saying, “I never meant for you to get hurt.” Akemi’s eyes were saying, “I wish we were alone.” The cousin’s eyes were saying “Give him the gift so he can get out!”
“You know, in Japan, everyone says Akemi is an artistic genius. They write about her talents in the newspapers and even the magazines. Everyone was proud when she left for America to do her art. Everyone is expecting her to do great things. Instead, she does what she wants to do. It would help us if you would just let her go.” The cousin had finally said it.
My face must have revealed my shame and my pain. In Sudan, shame and pride are both too heavy to carry. I was ashamed of letting Akemi get attacked. I was in pain over the thought of losing her.
Akemi jumped in, sensing that something was wrong.
She exchanged words with her cousin. She was still speaking softly, but she was pushing her words out forcefully. I could feel her anger. Both of them stood up.
Akemi pulled her chair around to face me directly. She took her cousin’s chair and faced it away from hers so that the cousin would have her back to Akemi and her face to me. I was just sitting there, checking out what they were doing and how they were doing it, wondering how I got myself all involved in this strange situation.
“What are you two doing?” I asked.
“Akemi has some things to say to you. I will translate,” the cousin said, exasperated.
I felt my heart drop. I felt this was it, her good-bye. Afterwards, it would be like everything unique and special between Akemi and I had never really occurred; something that could never be forgotten, to be forgotten.
Akemi sat down in her chair, so closely facing me that her legs were woven into mine. First my leg, then hers, then mine, then hers. The cousin was on the outside of the two of us. I could see her, but Akemi could not, on purpose.
If anyone could have seen the three of us tightly pressed together in such a small space in such a large apartment, they might have thought we were involved in something bizarre and freaky.