It worked out better for me that Josna had no idea that Shota and at least one other man had secretly returned to the property.
“Josna, do you have a driver’s license?” I asked her.
“Ha,” she swiftly confirmed. “But very little driving experience,” she confessed.
“Whose station wagon did I see parked by the big house over there?”
“Hana-san’s. It’s grandmother’s.” She clarified. “And it turns out that big house does have electricity. It’s these old cabins that don’t. Oh, and there’s a working telephone there in the big house also, thank goodness.” She was talking out of a little nervousness, I believed.
“Let’s write a note to Grandmother and to Makoto and Ichiro and Shota, letting them know that just you and Akemi went out to shop and take a look around, and that you’ll both return by sunset,” I told her.
“Ha,” she said swiftly. “But where are we actually going?”
“What’s the name of the nearby hotel that the security fellas are staying in?” I asked.
“Ana Hotel,” she responded.
“What town is that in?”
“They said it’s thirty miles from here in Kushiro.”
“Then I want to go some place different so that Akemi can feel relaxed. How about Asahikawa?” I asked knowing, that it was where the closest airport was located.
“Ha! That’s the airport we flew into,” Josna said happily, and then her eyes switched knowingly. “Akemi doesn’t have her passport.”
“Do you have yours?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said.
“Okay, come inside. You and Akemi change your clothes; we’re going into town,” I told her, as though we were headed out for a leisurely day. I knew I had to go easy with Josna. Akemi is her first priority, but her loyalties are entangled with the whole family, I thought to myself.
As I excused myself to allow Josna to come in and get dressed also, I walked out of hearing distance and spoke to Chiasa by walkie-talkie. As soon as she heard the sound of my voice, she said, “I got it. Give me ten more minutes. Don’t worry about him. We are about to make friends and Sleeping Beauty is hibernating. I’ll meet you in Asahikawa at the biggest hotel by ten. The Grand Hotel,” she said and signed off.
With Josna’s handwritten note nailed to grandmother’s front door and my backpack in the trunk, Akemi’s mother’s urn in her hands, me, Akemi, and Josna left in grandmother’s station wagon at 8:45 a.m. It must’ve been meant to be. The keys had been left in the ignition.
* * *
Nervously, Josna drove like the two old men who had brought Chiasa and me part of the way, doing only about forty-five miles per hour.
On the almost hour-long ride, I heard the story of Akemi’s mother’s ashes. I heard it twice, once in Japanese as my wife spoke it, and once in English as Josna translated. It started off:
“When my mother was dying, she said she felt more powerful than she had been while she was healthy. She said that in living and being greedy for life, there are many more burdens. Preparing to transcend relieves the soul of all its luggage and hefty, hefty secrets.
My mom relayed to me first her true identity. She was never Shiori Nakamura, and pretending to be so had heaped a great pain in her heart. ‘Joo Eun Lee,’ my mom introduced herself to me, her twelve-year-old daughter with whom she had spent virtually every available moment of her life.” Akemi inhaled, her eyes getting glossy, as she continued.
“Second, she told me the lessons of a mother’s love. My mother said she loved me from when I was only an idea in her imagination. She loved me more when I was an egg in her womb. She loved me more when her egg was being fertilized, as she secretly lay in the tall grass surrounding her home, bursting with passion and writhing with pleasure. My mother said she loved me more each day that I became more than an idea, and that this intense love is what led her to do whatever it took to bring me into this world properly, to raise me well and keep me safe. A mother’s love is like this, she said. A mother will sacrifice all that she has for her gift from God, including her freedom, her dignity, her possessions, and even the food from her mouth.” Akemi’s tears formed. I could also see through the rearview that Josna’s eyes were flooded. She tried to look only straight ahead at the road.
“Third, my mother told me that just as she loves me and I love her, she loved her own mother, from whom she was separated at thirteen years old. She described a great canyon in her heart and a deep craving in her soul for her mother’s embrace, her mother’s voice, or even just her mother’s scent. She said that only becoming a mother herself could fill a quarter of the canyon in her heart. She said that now that she was dying, her dream was to have her body handed to her mom, who was living in South Korea but in an unknown place. She requested to be cremated because she forbid her body to be placed into the ground anywhere in Japan, which she said was an indescribably beautiful and charming country whose heart was way too cold. She said she would be cold here, even in death, and that anyplace in Korea would be warm for her. But the best place would be to be placed in the palms of her mother’s hands.
“Four is the number of death on this side of the world. And because my mother was dying and feeling more powerful than ever before, she told me her fourth secret. She said, ‘Akemi, love is better and stronger and more real than all else. Marry the man whom you love, and the man who loves you. If he has only one grain of rice, marry him for love and that will feed you. No one can remain married today because they are not married to the one they love, they are married to their sacrifice, and pretending to love is too damned painful. Love and build, love and work, love and fight. Always love first. Anything placed before love will fail,’ Omahnee1 said.
We rode in silence for a while, the three of us. The weight of Akemi’s words and revelations, which seemed to have never been spoken before also helped Josna to see and understand.
Akemi’s words helped Josna to continue to help us without swinging back and forth between fear, doubt, and resistance.
My mind was still shifting all the jigsaw pieces around and fitting things together. I wondered if Akemi could read between the lines of her mothers “secrets.” Even if she could not understand the implications when she was twelve years young, maybe she could understand them now that she was sixteen and a half. It must be difficult, I thought, to discover that you lived your entire life with an identity that is not true. Akemi, my Japanese wife, was obviously Korean. My math was leading up to that conclusion back when I was reading the Nakamura book on my first trip from Tokyo to Kyoto, and now I was almost one hundred percent certain that it was a Korean man making Akemi’s fifteen-year-old mom sweat and burst with passion, perhaps only days or weeks before Naoko Nakamura kidnapped her. When I read Joo Eun Lee’s poems, I felt that she was a young woman who had been loved and made love to in an unforgettable way but not nearly enough. Her words were laced with a longing for something she had known but had somehow lost along the way.
* * *
I triple-checked that the Asahi Grand Hotel was the largest hotel in Asahikawa. I handed Josna 25,000 yen up front to check us in for one night, although I had not one intention to stay. She did. She and Akemi rode up in one elavator. Josna was purposely wearing my backpack, as I rode up in a separate elevator.
In the one-bedroom suite, I told Josna and Akemi to make themselves comfortable as I dug in my backpack to get fresh everything. Akemi’s eyes followed my every move. I handed Josna the television remote. I understood what Akemi must have been going through these past few years and these most recent highly emotional days. I knew that after losing the people and things that she believed in the most, she was left believing in me. I felt and I knew what she wanted to do. And now I knew where a lot of her heat and passion and swing was coming from. I knew how come she could draw such emotional creations and pull out such intensity and cause anyone looking too close to feel something strong. As I looked back into her eyes, I wanted to do the same thing she did, b
ut this time I would complete the mission first.
In the hot shower I had nothing but exit routes running through my mind, ticket exchanges and purchases and costs and of course the sound of the clock ticking in my ear.
Fresh clothes, fresh cut, I walked out through the bedroom door into the sitting room. I picked up my watch from the desk and clamped it on.
It was 9:50 a.m.
“Josna, you know that we need to fly out of here immediately, right?” I was looking straight into her eyes with all the honesty I had. She lowered her eyes and placed both of her hands between her legs and raised her feet up on her toes.
“Ha,” she said. “But I can’t leave yet. My sculptures have just arrived here, and I promised Mr. Nakamura …,” she said softly.
“I know,” I told her solidly.
“You can’t leave right now, but Akemi and I must. If we work together, we can go. You can stay until your promise to Mr. Nakamura is cleared and everybody can be safe.” I was speaking in a peaceful, even tone.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Lend Akemi your passport. When she and I are safe, we’ll mail it back to you immediately.”
“But how?” she asked, thinking of the difference in their skin and hair, I’m certain.
“Two phenomenal artists, a sculptor and a painter. I’ll leave that up to your imagination.”
“But Akemi’s New York travel visa is on her passport. I don’t have a New York visa in my passport,” Josna said. “If we go back to Grand-mother’s, I could figure out a way to get her passport back from Makoto somehow. Maybe I can convince Ichiro to listen to what I say. He likes me, but it will take some time. No one wants Akemi to leave.”
Akemi began speaking softly to Josna. Their dialogue went back and forth as I agonized over the passport visa scenario. I thought I had it beat with the Akemi-Josna switch I came up with.
“Akemi says that she will definitely leave here with you now, but that she wants you to take her to Busan,” Josna said.
“Busan?” I asked.
“Busan, South Korea. It’s a less than two hours’ flight from Tokyo, and she wouldn’t need a visa and neither would you. Akemi said that she wants to return her mother’s ashes to her mother before she goes to New York with you. She says that once she goes to New York with you, she will stay there with you for good,” Josna explained.
“How will she find her Korean grandmother after all these years?” I asked, feeling suddenly heavy with the thought of another odyssey in another country where I knew no one and could not speak even one word of the language.
“That was the trade,” Josna said. “Discovering the name and address of her Korean grandmother with the telephone number so she could meet her was the promise that kept Akemi cooperating with her father. It was the only thing that he had left that Akemi wanted so desperately. It was the reason she remained silent and rode quietly all the way to the airport and on to Hokkaido. She could have called the police or run for help, but she didn’t because her father promised to give her the information if she just followed his orders.”
“And did he?” I asked with disbelief.
“He did. She has it now. But then her father had Makoto confiscate Akemi’s passport so that she could not leave Japan with you while he was away on his Asian tour. Nor could she leave for the Korea trip without him. Also her credit and bank cards are canceled and she has almost no money or clothing and she’s stuck all the way out here, of course. I told you he is quite clever and extremely determined.”
“How do you know if she was given the right information and address?” I asked, now that I was wiser at this game.
“She has already called. We also called from here while you were in the shower. They are all waiting to meet Akemi over there. They are not waiting for Nakamura-san. It seems that they hate him. You know there are problems between the Koreans and Japanese,” Josna said, not realizing that by now, I knew more than everyone else in this room about what was really going on with my wife and her family and their history and culture.
“Of course, I will take her. She’s my wife and I’ll take her wherever she needs to go,” I said, and I meant it. It was heavy but it made sense to me. Let me allow her to fufill her mother’s final request. Let me put Akemi’s heart and soul at ease, so that all that was left was for her to continue to love me and love our seeds.
When I thought of my two babies, I said, “Josna, you are the key to make sure no one on either side, in any family, gets hurt. All I want is my wife and nothing else,” I reminded her calmly and carefully.
“With your passport, we can get out of Japan. Once we are in Korea, we can send you your passport, and you can send us Akemi’s passport as soon as you get Makoto to give it up. Are you with me?” I asked her solemnly. There was a pause. Moments later, she handed me her passport. I opened it, looked, and then glanced at my wife a few times, comparing.
“I have cosmetics here in my purse. I’ll need scissors,” Josna said looking straight into me as though she were uncertain if I really wanted her to go through with this. Her eyes were asking me, “Exactly how far will you go?”
“Akemi, I will be right back,” I said to my wife. “Stay inside, okay?” I slid Josna’s passport into my pocket to be certain she wouldn’t change her mind. Then I looked at Josna, “My clippers are in the water closet.” I knew she understood.
In the elevator, I pulled out her passport to take a look at her photo. Josna had short hair in the picture, but not as short as her hair is now. At this point, I’d take my wife even without her long beautiful dark hair.
In the lobby I exited the elevator as Chiasa was revolving through the revolving doors. She and I were telepathic now, as she had suggested the second day we met. She stared at me to signal that we should meet discreetly. I veered off toward the washroom. She stalled a bit and did the same. In the Japanese Toto toilet, each toilet has a separate closed-in room. I opened the door and Chiasa stepped in. I checked to see if anyone saw, and then I entered also. It was she and I in the tight Toto closet.
“What’s all this?” I asked her, referring to “our breakup,” and our pretending not to know one another.
“It’s better this way,” she said, knowing I was listening for more of an answer. “Shota drove me here. We’re friends.”
“Friends?” I repeated.
“He believes that I saved him. I removed his blindfold and pulled your washcloth out of his mouth and untied him, so I guess I did,” she said coyly.
“He went for that?” I asked.
“Easily. You should’ve seen him guzzling that water I offered him.” She smiled. “And I handed him the keys, telling him that I found them right outside the vehicle.”
“What else did you tell him?”
“I told him I was there to buy some lavender from Serenity Fields when I saw him in distress. So I stopped to help him.” She was looking straight into me.
“So where is he now?” I asked.
“He left to go get Makoto from his hotel.”
“So you are flying back to Osaka with us.” I told her.
“How will you two leave Japan once you get to Osaka International without Akemi’s passport?” Chiasa questioned my question. Then she answered it. “Don’t tell me …” She gasped. “Cool fucking idea,” she said with subdued excitement.
“What a costume! Lucky you, you won’t need it.” Then from out of her waist pack came Akemi’s passport. She handed it to me.
“Sleeping Beauty is Makoto,” she said. “I searched his pockets. I had my gloves on, of course. It was easy. Usually when they tranquilize a wild bear with that stuff I used, the trappers pull his lips up and check his gums and gawk at his teeth and take a blood sample and really invade his whole seven-foot body while it lays there lifeless. Sometimes they tag him. When he wakes up, he doesn’t even realize he’s been raided and is wearing a tracking device that won’t come off no matter what he does,” she told me in excited whispers.<
br />
“So why is Shota headed to Makoto’s hotel?”
“He’s just a neighborhood boy, not a ninja, not Nakamura’s security, not too smart. I mixed him up a little. I was stalling for you.”
“Will he call the police?”
“I don’t think he’ll call. He’ll want to save face with Makoto, Makoto will want to save face with Nakamura. Nakamura will want to save face with the media and everyone else who knew him. Besides, Makoto won’t know what hit him. He saw you and he knows it wasn’t you that shot him. He has no witnesses. It was just you and me and him. We two are definitely not telling,” she said without a shred of doubt.
“So you’ll come to the airport and leave with us?” I said to her.
“I’m invisible today. That won’t be possible,” she said with a pleasant but serious smile, her white teeth glistening. “I’ll take the longer route. I catch a bus from here to Sapporo. I’ll use my same return ticket to Osaka. I’ll get our stuff from the lockers. Oh yeah, that’s right, give me your key for the Kyoto lockers.” She held her hand out. “You’re not going to Kyoto, right? You’ll get to Osaka International Airport and then to New York?” Chiasa asked.
“Nah, I’ll go to Osaka and then to Korea,” I told her.
“Korea!” she exclaimed.
“Long story, but I have to go there first. Keep it between me and you,” I said.
“I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s fly to Osaka and then we can take the boat from the port in Osaka to Busan, Korea. It’s better. When Nakamura looks for you and he checks all the airports, there will be nothing. Once you get to another country, he loses his pull. He can’t do anything to you two over there. I know there’s a boat. I rode it over one time when I had a four-day break from ninja camp,” she said, remembering. “We went to Busan for shopping. The boat, um, the ferry to Busan is called the Pan Star Line.”