by Arif Anwar
He hears the rustle of wings behind him, the scrape of talons on dry leaves.
“You are leaving today?”
Ichiro turns, the monk has appeared as though out of nowhere. “I will pack some provisions for your return journey.”
“We are in your debt.”
Knowing it is meaningless to offer money, he asks if there is work the two of them may instead perform before their departure.
“There is no need,” says Julian. “Your temporary help will only remind me how short-handed I am the rest of the year.”
FOLLOWING packing, Julian insists on escorting them to the main road. As they venture out into the whiskey-smooth sunlight wearing only their undershirts over their trousers, Julian points to the general area of Tadashi’s midsection.
“What is it that you’re wearing?”
“This is called a Senninbari, Holy One,” says Tadashi. “When we become enlisted, our mothers stand on the street asking women walking by to tie a knot that is then sewn into the sash. Once a thousand are gathered, the sash is considered finished. Senninbari protect us from gunfire on the battlefield.”
“What do those two characters on it say?”
“That is unmei, meaning ‘destiny,’” says Tadashi. “The Chinese pronounce it ‘ming yun,’ and read it left to right rather than the other way as we do, but that is their prerogative, given that they invented the characters.”
Julian leads them deeper into the forest, a place of silence and leaf-strained light. Barefoot and dressed in maroon robes as the day before, he carries a bamboo stick to aid his hiking.
It is another hour’s march before the trees thin out and they are walking on scrubland, eventually reaching the paved main road.
“You have our gratitude,” says Ichiro, standing at the edge of the camber. “For everything.”
Julian joins his hands together and bows to the men. “I merely drew up that which was below the surface.”
Tadashi unfastens his sash with a ceremonial slowness and offers it to the monk—a soldier surrendering his sword to a conquering general. “Holy One, honor me by accepting this.”
Julian gently pushes the offering back. “I am honored enough by your gesture. Besides, do you not need it more than I do?”
Tadashi appears wounded. “If you will not accept my sash, will you at least bless us?”
Julian considers. “I believe in knowledge, not blessings. If you ask, I can teach to you that which was taught to me.”
Knowing the formal response to this ancient offer, Tadashi says, “We ask. Please teach.”
“Stand beside me,” Julian says.
The men obey.
He bends and uses the tip of his walking stick to etch on the ground a curling bipartite symbol, and once complete, kneels to blow away the dust gathered above the furrows so that the flowing curves and alien proportions are clear against the red earth.
Yet when they crowd in for a closer look he says, “I’m not done.”
As the monk draws a circle around his work, Ichiro feels the world tremble and subside, the ground thrumming as though a mystic circuit has been completed, the rune within coursing with power and mystery.
“Aum is the cosmic sound,” Julian says. “The beginning and the end of the universe, the fixed axis upon which it turns as well as the void that pervades. It is composed of four syllables, four parts: Think of a fish jumping up from a hidden lake, miles below the earth. Think of the creature’s face breaking the water, the brief shining moment in which it is suspended in the air, its return to the lake, and of course the water that surrounds it. A lifetime of study will reveal only a fraction of the secrets of this sound, unlock a scintilla of its possibilities. For you right now, it will be most useful as a tool for meditation, focus. A way to access the transcendent in a time of need.”
The men stare long at the rune, repeat its name under their breaths. Commit it to visual and auditory memory.
Ichiro bows to Julian, and then, remembering something the monk said the previous night, asks a question. “Julian, the village of your birth . . .”
“Ranshofen, in Braunau am Inn.”
“Yes, I cannot place it, but I have heard the name before. Is it famous?”
“For just one thing,” Julian’s face clouds. “As the birthplace of the man Germany and Austria now follow. Der Führer.”
Ichiro nods. “It is remarkable that two men coming from the same village would choose such different paths in life.”
“He is driven by fear and desire. That leads to destruction and sorrow. After my passing, no one will remember me. That is what I sought.”
THEY say good-bye and resume their trudge. They have until late afternoon to reach their camp, when their leave is set to expire. They speak little, taking small sips from a bladder to conserve water. The noon heat is monstrous, their horizons wavering, the trees stock still and dry as though ready to burst into flames.
They march on. Hours pass in which the road remains desolate, unfurling into the glassy, shimmering distance. When they finally see a sign stating that their camp is near, Ichiro stops and waits for Tadashi, who tarries behind, walking with a dreamlike expression on his face.
The air burning in his lungs, Ichiro takes a long sip of water. “Why try to give away your sash?”
“A piece of cloth. What use do I have for it?”
“Your mother made it.”
Tadashi laughs. “My mother or the government? Maybe I was trying to protect the sash by leaving it in a safer home. I should have done it a long time ago. Or I should give it to an infantryman. They need it more, neh? And that way, I’ll increase my chances of ending up in Yasukuni Shrine.”
“Should I give my things away as well?”
“No. You will see your mother again.”
Ichiro stops, chilled by Tadashi’s words. “What’re you saying? What manner of pessimism is this?”
The two friends stare at each other. They are within sight of camp. Shouted instructions to stop and raise their hands reach them from the sentry towers. The guards begin a count from one to ten, following which, they warn, they will shoot.
Ichiro puts his hands up, holding his military identification in one and yelling his name, rank and number. But the soldiers do not lower their weapons, as Tadashi is still walking forward, his manner casual, arms at his side, his expression focused on something only he can see.
“What are you doing?” Ichiro shouts.
But Tadashi does not appear to hear him, much less the soldiers who continue to count down—FIVE, FOUR, THREE . . . a warning siren goes on and soldiers mobilize in the camp in a controlled frenzy. Tadashi turns to him. Ichiro recognizes his expression of pure and primal intensity. It is faith.
“Ask my mother to forgive me.”
ICHIRO ascends the skies above Bengal, just past the Burmese-Indian border. He flies a Kawasaki Ki-48, affectionately called “Lili” by the pilots. His drop zone is in Chittagong, more than two hundred miles from their camp. Originally Tadashi’s, his mission is to drop a payload of propaganda leaflets near a small fishing village by the shore.
They dare not breach the city limits where the British are likely to have instituted anti-air defense. Still, it is the farthest a Japanese bomber has traveled into British-Indian territory, the prelude to a planned strike on Chittagong.
Since his friend fell a week ago, riddled with bullets, breathing out his last in Ichiro’s arms, Ichiro’s life has been a nightmare of interrogations, recriminations and threats from Command. He was told that he would be court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, and at points even threatened with swift execution for treason. Ironically, the utterly bizarre circumstances of Tadashi’s death were what saved him in the end, as the commander could not decide under which violation of the army code he could put Ichiro in remand before proceeding to court martial. It also helped that he was one of the few experienced pilots remaining in a division now short of one.
The monk had scattered t
he seeds of his ideas across both their minds, yet it was in Tadashi that they found the more fertile ground, took root, took him. He wishes that he could weep for his friend, but finds that this grief is not like air—it will not expand to fill whatever space it is released into. Its brittle edges do not fit the shape of his days; its weight demands a fortitude that he cannot offer.
He pushes down on the flight yoke to sink the aircraft into the blanket of clouds that cover Bengal. His break through the cumulus is gentle, cushioned by the rush of wind shear. Now he can see the land from a height of ten thousand feet—it is fissured with broad rivers and estuaries, giving Bengal the appearance of a great green hand reaching into the bay. He descends farther and the land comes into sharper relief—a brilliant patchwork of golden fields, green rice paddies and water flashing silver in the late-day sun.
Four thousand feet . . . soon three. He is minutes from his drop zone, and close enough to the ground to see the thatch-roofed, mud-walled houses clustered around ponds and demarcated by tall areca nut trees. At the sound of his plane, men look up, scatter. The conical hats they wear remind him of those worn by farmers back home.
The altimeter steadily ticks down
Fifteen hundred . . . fourteen . . . he is less than a minute away
Thirteen hundred
Twelve hundred
Eleven hundred . . . he releases the flight yoke and settles the plane on cruise
He is fifteen seconds from the drop zone when he sees the girl—a tiny figure in white. He scrambles for his binoculars to look. She is not more than six or seven years of age, frozen in fear. In one hand she holds a pail, presumably for fetching water. For a mad moment, he feels their eyes lock.
Ten seconds
She is the only human figure visible
Five seconds
She is directly at the center of the drop zone, an audience of one for Japan’s propaganda to Bengal. He pulls the lever to release the payload. Leaflets by the thousands plume out in the plane’s slipstream, a whirling cloud of red, yellow and black that reminds him of monarch butterflies.
He has moments to admire the view before needing to lift the plane out of the low glide, skirting a line of trees with seconds to spare. Against the might of the wind shear, pulling back on the yoke takes much of his strength, and he feels drained.
There are two sounds just then—one a rapid burst of coughs, followed by the whine of the cabin depressurizing. It feels as though someone has just punched him hard on his side. The pain hot and screaming. His right shoulder is soaked with blood. Bullets have pierced the fuselage, and at least one has pierced him. The British have installed anti-air defenses much farther from the city than anticipated.
He watches his fuel gauge drop precipitously. His plane is on a steady downward course. His vision dims. His grip on the yoke slackens.
In a scrabbling grip for purchase as it tumbles off the cliffs of memory, his rapidly fading consciousness casts back, latches onto a symbol. A sound.
Aum.
The pain dulls somewhat as the word leaves his mouth. The fog before his vision lifts as he pictures the symbol Julian drew on the ground. He banks the plane left to follow the water, the white-capped waves frozen into miniature Mount Everests. He descends closer to the beach, almost skimming the grainy sand. He is only a hundred feet from the ground. He hopes that by landing in the water, he can reduce the chance of fire, minimize civilian casualties, perhaps his own.
A line of hillocks rushes up and he wrenches the yoke again. As the sound of tearing metal fills his ears, Ichiro’s last thoughts are of a fish bursting out of the water. Diving back into the blackness.
Book II
Eye
Shahryar & Anna
Washington, DC
SEPTEMBER 2004
DRAGONFLY is easy to miss—a second-floor walk-up on a side street, recessed to accommodate a front-facing patio. Once upstairs, Shar can see that it is longer than it is wide, with a bar at the far end.
The floor thumps with the deep bass of Ambient music. An invisible projector throws Japanese anime against the wall. A woman clad in all black greets him. “Just one?”
“Two, but I can wait at the bar.”
He is a half hour early. He consults the menu and orders a Ramune soda, wanting to keep a clear head.
As the appointed hour of seven approaches, Dragonfly begins to fill with a steady trickle of DC’s bright, beautiful and young.
Seven fifteen. Then seven thirty. By now the club is almost full, buzzing with conversation. He is about to ask the bartender for the bill when Katerina arrives, sees him across the room and walks over with a quick wave. She is dressed in a slim black cocktail dress that reaches her knees but leaves her shoulders bare. Her hair is piled on her head in a stack of thick gold. Earrings, long and sparkling, swing with every step she takes. She greets him with kisses on each cheek. This close, he can smell the faint perfume of lilacs on her skin, see the effort she has put into her makeup. If she were walking down the street, she would merit a second glance from most men she passed.
She places a clutch on the counter—slim and black like her dress. “Did you have trouble finding this place?”
“No. Are you um . . . going somewhere after this?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Your outfit.”
She laughs. “A girl should look nice on a Friday night, don’t you think?”
She catches the bartender’s eye. “I’ll have a vodka sour. You?”
“Dark and stormy,” says Shar.
The bartender returns before long with drinks that Shar and Katerina sip facing forward, watching each other’s reflections in the glass panels behind the bar amidst an unnatural silence.
“Is it normal practice for you to meet with your clients like this, after work?”
“It’s not normal. But neither is your case, Mr. Choudhury.”
“What’s so difficult about it?”
“I didn’t say ‘difficult.’”
“You said ‘not normal.’”
“That’s not the same as difficult. Difficult things don’t have a lot of solutions.”
“So it’s simple?”
“On the face of it, it actually is very simple. Since you can’t marry someone, the only way for you to stay back in America is through a job. But you still need luck on your side.”
“I’ve tried everything,” says Shar. Which is true. He has sent out resumes widely, for positions such as researcher, lecturer, executive assistant, program designer and policy analyst. But even the smallest flames of interest that he kindled were extinguished when he had to answer that one question—Are you permitted to work in the United States?
“Maybe not everything. No one ever has tried everything. That’s what we’re here for. Mr. Ahmed will find a way for you. I know it.”
He smiles. “You have a lot of faith in him.”
“I’ve my reasons.”
“What do you mean?”
She assesses the state of the club. The noise in Dragonfly is reaching a crescendo, the clientele spilling from the packed tables onto the dance floor, where a sunglassed, headphoned DJ spins J-pop.
She places twenty dollars on the counter. “Take a walk with me.”
THEY take a stroll around Adams Morgan. The night is warm. The steamy remnants of the day’s rains halo against the streetlights. Walking up 18th Street, they must push past gallivanting crowds of college students and revelers.
They turn into Ontario Road, free from pedestrians and lined with tall, darkened townhomes. In the empty parkette at its terminus, they find a bench to sit on.
“Do you know what a K-1 visa is, Mr. Choudhury?” Katerina asks.
“No.”
“Then this will require an explanation. Around three years ago, my mother and I lived in Kiev, in one of those many khrushchyovka apartments built in the fifties. My father was a civil engineer. He died when I was a teenager. He received a small pension from the government. That
, along with some scholarships, was enough for me to complete a master’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kiev. I spoke good English, had a good degree from a good university, but there was just one problem—there were no jobs in Kiev, or Ukraine in general. I took part-time work as a receptionist in an Internet firm, kept looking for work.
“It was a friend of mine who told me about a site—there were so many of them popping up back then. The way she explained it, it didn’t sound like much of a commitment. I would have to write a paragraph about myself (or the website would do it for me), post my best pictures, and who knows, maybe I’d meet a kind gentleman in America, Canada or Western Europe. I thought about it. Did it. But I also kept my life going. If something happened, it’d be like winning the lottery, I told myself.
“But something did happen. I uploaded my best pictures. And there was interest from men. From many men. I’m not boasting, but this was something I had time to get used to in my life. Most were jerks. Perverts. I’d gotten enough lewd messages and pictures that I was close to deleting my profile and moving on when Howard contacted me. He was about forty-three. So, much older. He had his own private electronics repair business in Virginia. He had been married before, and had two teenage daughters. He was tall, fit for his age. Maybe not too good-looking, but he dressed well, had a kind face. Most importantly, his first message to me was to comment not on my body or face, but my name. Saying that it was the name of his grandmother, who came over to America from Sweden.
“We moved on to video calls over the Internet. He had that American way. Loud laugh that made you feel at ease with yourself. Warm. I didn’t fall in love with him, but I thought I could at some point.
“He applied for a K-1 visa for me. That’s what’s called a ‘fiancée visa.’ You like a woman (can be a man I guess, but mostly it is women), you apply for a visa for her to come to America, and when she arrives, the two of you have ninety days to figure out if you want to go through with it.