At the mosque entrance was a wall of cubicles for shoes, which must be removed immediately. I removed my shoes. Quickly I moved past others who were obviously already prepared and washed myself—face, hands, nose, feet. Walking through the rows of believers, the women in the rear, the men in the front, I enjoyed even the feeling of the carpet beneath my feet. Standing shoulder to shoulder with many men, we prayed.
A welcome calm came over me. I found my place at a table in an adjoining room where believers were enjoying breaking the fast together. My eyes moved over the faces of Muslims gathering from many different nations. I expected to see men from Arab nations and African nations, and I did. I was real surprised to see tables of Muslims who were Korean, and two who were obviously Chinese. I smiled.
“Brother, where are you coming from?” the voice of a young man seated next to me asked in Arabic.
“Sudan,” I said naturally, which I normally would not reveal. However, because the question was asked in Arabic, it was instinctive to answer it truthfully. Normally I speak Arabic only with Umma and Naja.
“I knew it,” he said. He stood back up from the table. When I took a look at him, I knew it too. He was from the Sudan as well. I stood and we embraced.
“Where in Sudan?” He asked me immediately.
“Sudan is Sudan,” I replied calmly, still fresh from the thoughts of my conversation with Umma. He smiled. We both sat. As I sat, I suddenly saw my Puma walking by from the food table, away from the men and toward where the women were seated. What was she doing here in the mosque? She didn’t see me? She has perfect vision.
“What brings you here to Korea?” the Sudanese asked me. But my eyes followed her.
“I’m visiting with family,” I answered him, knowing that a fellow Sudanese would ask this many questions and so many more. Because we are from the same place, it would be considered perfectly okay to ask and normal to answer, no matter how many inquiries stacked up.
Now my Puma was saying some words to an older woman who was seated alongside of her young ones. The woman got up from the table and joined her. They both walked away and out of the dining room.
“I’m studying here at the University of Korea,” the Sudanese said. “I’m planning to graduate in only two more years, and return to Omdurman.” I knew he was finding a way to raise the topic of where he was from again, hoping to cause me to do the same. Of course I knew his city well enough. It was located next door to the city of my birth, Khartoum.
“What are you studying?” he asked me, although I never told him I was studying anything.
“Excuse me brother,” I said to him. “I have to run.” He seemed taken aback by my exit. I left my fruit uneaten in the dish on the table.
Unfamiliar with the interior of the mosque, but moving around observing, I checked the various rooms.
“Brother,” another male voice interrupted me. I turned.
“Imam Jabril Park,” he introduced himself. We exchanged greetings.
“I interrupted you for a few reasons my brother. First to welcome you. I see that you are a newcomer to the mosque. Second, to assist you. You are moving into an area reserved for the sisters and their children.” He smiled politely. “Let me invite you to break bread with the other believers.” He touched my elbow to move me back into the right direction, the area of the gathered men.
“Shukran Imam Park,” I thanked him. “If you don’t mind, can I ask you some important questions?”
“Of course,” he said. The Imam was willing. He led me into his office. Grateful, I put my mind to focusing on the information that I needed most to hear a knowledgeable Muslim man speak on. I figured that was more important in the order of things than chasing the Puma.
Chapter 17
NIGHT OF POWER
Moving away from the mosque and down the hill and into the now darkened sky lit up by the lights of Itaewon, I was comfortable. The narrow alleys reminded me of both the Sudan and Egypt, Khartoum and Cairo. I came up on an international grocer displaying shelves of the spices and ingredients that Umma used most often, as well as coffees, teas, and candies, including packages of henna, an array of incense being sold along with the foods.
An Islamic travel agency that was closed as I sped to the prayer was open now and doing business with four or more customers. I could smell the aroma of fresh foods being prepared. Previously darkened restaurants were now packed, some without air conditioning the way my father preferred it. Their doors were swung open. I was tempted but I passed on sitting down to eat a full meal. I planned to do that with with Akemi.
There were so many small businesses with Arabic awnings and lettering, I had to remind myself I was in Seoul, South Korea.
I turned into the Islamic Center for Books, impressed by just them being located here, as well as by the bright lights and stacked shelves of meaningful reading from all over the world. It was good to see men wearing their turbans, or kufis or fezes. They were engaged in conversations about real things. I could tell by their expressions.
One man dressed in his jelabiya, either a worker or the owner, was talking intensely and confidently to Chiasa who was listening and focused. With her back to me, she was wearing jeans and sandals and a pretty Chinese gold satin blouse that was tapered and fitted to her body and rode down over her hips. Her long, thick wild hair was only one third covered with a gold scarf, which she rocked like a headband. Her golden skin set off by the blouse and headband looked beautiful. She always looked graceful in her stance because of her long ballerina legs and perfect posture.
I stepped up behind her and said some words in Arabic over her shoulder to the man who was talking with her. His eyes were filled with a passionate plea to influence Chiasa in one direction or another concerning Islam. I imagine he did this for all of his customers. But I was feeling tight at him for conversing with her. After my words to him, he stopped.
“Ryoshi!” She looked over her shoulder and then spun all the way to face me.
“What is this name you’ve been calling me?” I asked her. She smiled. She looked back at the man that she had been listening to and he turned his eyes away from her and his attention shifted onto a customer who was holding and flipping pages of a book he had pulled from the shelf.
“What did you say to him?” Chiasa asked me.
I grabbed her hand and said, “Let’s go.”
Her palm felt warm. The breeze outside was warm. I was warm. She was completely quiet. We walked and walked. “Chiasa, one thousand mornings, wings of fire,” I thought to myself. Now her tongue is quiet and the fire is in her body.
“It’s after sunset,” I said to her.
“I can see that,” she said.
“But you didn’t see me in the mosque?” I asked.
“Oh, were you in the mosque?” she asked nonchalantly.
“What were you doing in the mosque?” I asked.
“Two things; learning how to make the prayer, and learning how to wrap my hair properly. I think mine is too much. It’s thick. It’s been a problem the whole time I was growing up in Japan. No one knew what to do with it, especially not my mother.”
“It’s pretty,” I told her truthfully.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
I turned down an alley that incidentally led to a makeshift mini city park. It was the opposite of Chiasa’s Yoyogi, which was a wonderful forest of treasures and also her home in Japan. I stopped walking when I reached an available old bench. We both sat down.
“Give me your right hand,” I told her. She held it out. I went inside of my pocket and pulled out the tissue paper. I opened the soft paper and slid seven gold bangles over her pretty fingers and onto her wrist. As she looked down on the dark 24-carat gold, she twisted her wrist to make them jingle, but kept her eyes cast down.
“Give me your left hand,” I told her. She held it out. I slid a ring onto her finger. It was a simple 24k gold band with a setting that lifted one pear shaped, one karat diamond. She stared at it, then
lifted her face.
Her eyes were filled with amazement.
I leaned in toward her. “If I see you again, and you and I are alone, the way that we were for all of those days, I’ll go in you. I know it and you know it.” The pretty Puma lowered her eyes.
“You have your Quran on you. The only relationship that you and I can have is through marriage. It’s written in there. You understand it.” I said calmly, then got up.
Standing over her I asked her, “Where are you staying?”
“At the Shilla with my father,” she said softly.
“How long before you return to Japan?” I asked her.
“Until Thursday morning. My father has a big banquet to attend here in Seoul on Wednesday night. He invited me here. I’m his date.
“I’d like for you to meet with him, my father. If it’s okay, I’ll check with him tonight to ask him if he will and when he can,” she said sweetly, sounding as though she was mistaking her ferocious father for a toothless tiger.
“No problem, I’ll meet him wherever I need to meet him,” I said, as her eyes were staring into mine in a concentrated way.
“Akemi …” I said.
“I called her …” Chiasa said swiftly. “She wants to meet. I wanted to meet also. So we agreed on tomorrow night at eight p.m., me and Akemi at your hotel.”
“Chiasa quick like lightning,” I said in a lowered voice.
“Ryoshi …”
“What?” I said then asked. “Who is that, Ryoshi?” I asked her for the tenth time.
“It means, ‘the hunter’. That’s my name for you,” she said softly.
“The hunter?” I thought about it and smiled.
“Yes, the hunter, and you got me.” She pointed at her heart with one slim pretty finger. It brought my eyes to her chest. Her nipples were raised up and making an impression in her gold satin blouse. I moved my eyes away. I was at the breaking point with her. A slight push is all it would take.
“Let me take you back to your hotel.” I grabbed her hand. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to feel her.
In the taxi, she laid her hand on my leg. We were seated close together.
“I want you to,” she whispered. I looked at her.
“I want you to ‘go in me,’” she said. Then we were quiet the rest of the way, only my right and her left hand caressing.
The Shilla hotel was some exclusive five-star place. Riding the route that led to it, introduced me to some new night images of Seoul. Like any major city, it had its places of great wealth all the way down to low living. It had places of industry or offices or fashion. It had temples and throw back alleys that gave the feeling that we had traveled back in time and been dropped into their traditions.
I hadn’t thought about it. Yet there was no reason to expect the general to stay anywhere else besides in this luxury. I let the general’s daughter out in front and continued on with the same driver. I rode for some seconds with my eyes closed. I thought to myself, She got me. She’s very smart and very quick and very, very, clever. She’s the real hunter.
Chapter 18
TEARDROPS
Patiently I waited outside on the steps that led into Hyundai Suites. Akemi and her aunt, uncle, and cousins were not back yet. It was 10:00 p.m. Something must’ve happened, I thought, as Professor Dong Hwa had suspected that it would.
By 11:00 I was still downstairs sitting, then standing, then pacing.
I shot across the narrow lane and into the impromptu city park which faced the hotel. Seoul had a few of these I’d seen. They were small sitting places with cement grounds, two to four benches, monkey bars, and a couple of swings, that’s it. But I checked a place to bust out some pull-ups. I wanted to burn off some energy, beat back my hunger while waiting for my wife. When she arrived, inshallah, I would go walking with her and we would eat wherever she wanted to eat. I had waited the whole evening to eat with her.
The park was closed and the lamps were off. I didn’t mind the dark or even working out in a Seoul city park. Yet it was clear that it was the opposite of my Busan beach.
One hundred pull-ups, two hundred fifty sit-ups, one hundred fifty-seven push-ups later, Dong Hwa’s van appeared and every one began stepping out of the vehicle beside him. She didn’t see me sitting on the chain facing the hotel but in the shadows of the closed park.
“Akemi,” I called her.
She turned around and looked in the direction of my voice first, before our eyes met, her standing, me sitting and rocking on the chain. She said some Korean words to her aunt and her cousins. Then she walked my way.
Professor Dong Hwa didn’t pull off immediately. Instead he watched my wife until he saw me stand and pull her close into my arms. She was wearing a red silk mini so mean it could only be worn over jeans. Her hair was wrapped. On her pretty fingernails she had painted on black hangul lettering flawless, she brushed over the letters with a clear gloss that glistened. Stray strands of her hair had eased out of her scarf. I moved her hair from her sleepy eyes. She looked up at me. She was still herself, all feelings and seductions. I squeezed her some and carried her down the lane on my back.
In a pasta place she said and gestured that she had already eaten, but she kept pushing her fingers in my sauce and licking it, or offering her saucy finger to me instead.
In her one scoop of vanilla with the caramel drizzled on it, she spilled two tears. I called the waiter the way they do in Korea, “Yogio!” I paid him and grabbed her hand and left most of the ice cream and caramel melting on the dish.
In a mostly empty theater we sat a while. A film that was completely foreign to me played on the screen. We didn’t need them, the actors. We kissed softly and touched instead, seated in the last row in the corner. One hour in, she fell asleep on my arm. I held her, thought about how she must feel. Eventually my thoughts settled on whether she spilled two tears because of her emotions from meeting her grandmother. After all, today was the first day Akemi had spent with her in her entire lifetime.
Or was my wife crying because she had received a call from Chiasa at some point earlier today? I sincerely hoped it was because of the grandmother.
When I woke her up to leave the theater, she threw both her arms around my neck. Minutes later I carried her back to our suite.
Lying in one bed, with no lights, beneath the sheets, she moved her hands all over my body slowly before climbing on top of me and easing herself onto her favorite place. We had a slow, silent grind with only the sound of moisture mixing. Both my hands were gripping her hips and moving them around. She was so sleepy but still she wanted that feeling. My entire face was covered with her heavy hair and my skin was wet from her hot and continuous tears.
She slept now. I held her tight for a while listening to her breathe and feeling her heart beating against my bare chest. As I drifted off, I thought to myself, If Chiasa is all fire, and she is, then Akemi is pure sugar, the sweetest feeling I’ve ever known, the sweetest emotion, the sweetest taste, the sweetest woman.
Before sunrise, I eased her over onto three pillows and covered her with the bedsheets. I showered, made prayer, and afterward fell into a needed rest lying in the other bed.
When I woke she was gone. She had pasted a piece of paper to my headboard with a strip of lotion on the back to hold it up there. I pulled it down. It was written entirely in Korean hangul.
Not the type to panic, I panicked. I threw on my clothes, the ones I’d worn the night before, and took the stairs down to the front desk. The last letter that I had gotten from my wife led to her disappearance. This second letter had me shook.
“Excuse me, please tell me in English what this says,” I asked the desk attendant. She looked at the note curiously, and then she began to blush. Looking at her face, and without hearing her interpretation yet, I felt relieved.
“She says she loves you. She has gone with her grandmother to Wolgyedong and afterward they will visit a school named Yeomyung, and she will meet you back here tonight. She wr
ites, ‘Hopefully at seven p.m.’ That’s it.” The attendant smiled partway and then snatched her smile back.
“Comsahmidah,” I said, meaning “thank you” in Korean.
“Oh, you are in room seven-oh-seven, yes?” she asked me. “You have a message.” She turned and pulled an envelope from the mail slot.
The flap of the envelope was not glued shut. The note was written in English on Hyundai Suites stationery.
Thank you for being so good to Akemi and us. We have gone back to Busan. I have already extended your reservation until Thursday. If Akemi could please remain in Seoul visiting with her grandmother for today and tomorrow, we would really be so grateful to you. The two of you may travel back to Busan on Thursday with her. Grandmother has decided that we will have a ceremony for Akemi’s mother, Joo Eun, on Saturday in Busan. She has decided that Busan is the place that Joo Eun would’ve preferred. We will scatter her ashes over the South Sea on an island not far from North Korea. It will bring peace to everyone and give Sun Eun and me a chance to make all of the arrangements. The elder has decided this. In Korean culture, we follow the elder’s way in these matters. Please understand us.
Professor Dong Hwa
When I told the desk clerk that I would make the payment for our room extension, she said, “It has already been taken care of.”
Back in our room, I changed into clean clothes. Afterward I made telephone calls to handle and rearrange all of my business to fit the new schedule, which was only possible because of Umma’s assurance. I didn’t mind making the changes, although I thought that Dong Hwa should’ve faced me instead of writing the letter. I knew how important the ceremony for Akemi’s mom’s ashes was to her and also for her newly discovered family. For me, this situation was, as Haki had once mentioned, “a clash of cultures.”
In Sudan men handle the business of burials and funerals. Our women do not even attend such events. Instead, they gather indoors and mourn and comfort one another, cook and share and converse. Men carry the body, which has already been washed and cleaned and prepared according to our faith and culture.
Midnight and the Meaning of Love Page 60