Midnight (53 page)

Ameer laughed. Some students laughed too, but Sensei did not. I could see he knew now the weight of my heart and the seriousness of this matter.

He continued, “The last thing that your Akemi said was, ‘I have to leave now. I have to go back to wipe the tears from my father’s eyes.’ ”

“I don’t care if it takes you all night. Now that your undercover identity has been compromised, I want you to sit here and tell us what the fuck was going on. Don’t leave out no details. You might as well sit here and talk to us since you’re fourteen, you just got
married
, and
ain’t
on your honeymoon,” Ameer said, smiling.

Chris seemed speechless with fascination. It was just the three of us now.

“Chris, you wasn’t even with us two on Saturday night after the party. I’m telling you,
this man here has two wives and one newborn!
At least, that’s all we know about so far,” he joked.

Ameer was now standing on his feet animating like he was in a play in front of a packed theatre. “Now, your man
did all of this without giving up one word or one shred of evidence. I’m so fucking impressed right now! We all friends here, just give up your secrets,” he begged.

“Your ninja wife is the one who blew up your spot by showing up to the dojo. That was your
only
mistake, the
one
thing that you weren’t in control of! I’m surprised you even let her know where the dojo was at,” Ameer performed. I had to laugh at that one.

“I didn’t. She took the paper from my house,” I admitted, thinking back to when she was walking around my bedroom, rummaging through my stuff. Then I relaxed a little.

“I’ll only tell you two this: Akemi is my girl, my wife, that’s it. Bangs, she has love for me, but I can’t rock with her. Her daughter is not my daughter. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

“Akemi, I mean your wife, she’s beautiful,” Chris said. For the first time, another man commenting on my woman sounded sincere. There was no offense in his compliment. No wrong intention.

“I admire you, man, for real. We been busy playing. You been busy growing up,” Chris said so seriously. Then he looked like he went into his own head and began reflecting on something.

“Who is she? Where did you meet her? Is this marriage even legal?” Ameer challenged.

“Our parents have given their permission,” I said, holding up the envelope containing all of the signatures including the form signed by Akemi’s father. “And our marriage is legal in the eyes of Allah.” That silenced him.

“Even the Sudanese bride returns home to her family after the signing of the
agid
. She doesn’t go right away to her husband,” Umma said, soothing me. She was sitting in the middle of her bed, her bare feet still beautifully painted with
pretty henna patterns. Her lamp lit up her excited eyes as I recounted the story of my and Akemi’s vows.

“The Sudanese wedding takes seven days or more. Do you know that after the huge ceremony for Fawzi’s wedding, the entire family reconvened two days later for his
walima
?”

“Walima?”
I asked. I was seated on the floor with my back up against the wall.

“It is the family breakfast feast where the families celebrate the proof of virginity of the new wife. It is also a prayer breakfast in hope that Allah will bless the newly married couple with new life.”

“How does the family have proof of the virginity?” I asked, feeling naive.

“When you go into a new bride, if she is virgin, there will be blood. It will not be a shower of blood, which occurs in the woman’s monthly flow. Females vary, but there must be some blood coming from her ‘below’ on the first night of intimacy. The husband will know how it feels, how it is and how it looks. He will take time to see the blood. When the husband is sure and feels that his bride has not been entered into by any other man, he is happy. So the families are happy. No one feels cheated. Everyone celebrates!”

I already knew there would be no
walima
between our two families. Yet, I felt a heavy Sudanese kind of pride that there would be blood coming from “below,” not a hand-me-down girl or someone else’s leftovers or an abandoned or passed around piece.

In my bedroom, I kept turning her words over in my head. “I have to go back to wipe the tears from my father’s eyes.”

Not back to Japan, my heart pleaded. The driver said New Jersey. She must be saying that her father has come here to the U.S. and is keeping up in the New Jersey home of his brother. Either way, I had to admit to myself, that this was the first time, since we arrived to America, that I really
trusted any female outside of Umma. Now, after careful thought and observation, I felt within my heart that I trusted Akemi too. Even when I could not see her with my own two eyes standing before me, I trusted that she was good and true, and doing only the right things.

Early Tuesday morning we made prayer. I took the train ride in with Umma as usual. I asked her if she had known that “Umma Designs” needed to pay taxes to the American government. She looked at me strangely and said, “I go to work every day at the factory. When they pay me, they have already deducted the money for taxes from my paycheck. That’s what I pay them.”

At 10:00
A.M.
, I was at the lawyer’s office.

“Saul Slerzberg’s home is his to sell. He is debt-free as far as liens against his home are concerned. His deed is old, I can update it for you with his consent. Also, I would advise you to spend the money and have the home inspected before your mom agrees to the sale or signs anything,” the lawyer said.

“Mr. Slerzberg has already said that if anything’s broke, we should just fix it,” I informed her. “It’s an ‘as is’ deal.”

“Well, usually, if something is not right with the house, and the inspector confirms this fact after his inspection, you can negotiate to have the amount it will cost you for the house repairs deducted from the overall selling price of the house.”

“That’s not happening here. Eighty thousand for this guy is the magic number. We’ve looked at a lot of properties. The ones that Umma likes are out of our price range. This place
is the only one so far that is in the right location for work and school, at the right price. Mr. Slerzberg is an old guy. He wants to get out of New York quick,” I said.

“Yes, maybe too quickly. Maybe you’ll sign these papers and hand over your money and he will leave so fast your head spins. Then you find out your house is wired all wrong and is a fire hazard. Or, your air-conditioning doesn’t work and it’s June! Or God forbid the plumbing is jammed and the plumber wants five thousand to lay new pipes, meanwhile your toilets are backed up and the whole house stinks!”

“Slow down,” I told her. “Easy, I understand. We’ll get the inspections.”

“Sorry,” she said, slowing down and content that she seemed to have won her argument and made her point.

“I want to ask you a couple of questions about taxes,” I said, leaning forward in my chair on the opposite side of her desk.

“You’re wearing a ring today,” she observed. “On your married finger . . .”

After completing my business with the lawyer, I headed to the Museum of Modern Art. I wanted to see the place where Akemi would have her exhibit. I wanted to have an idea what she was involved in, and thought just maybe she would be over there too.

The museum was situated in what I refer to as a “White zone.” I never take my guns into White zones. I stash ’em before and pick ’em up later. White zones are closed-in areas where it is guaranteed that there will be metal detectors, security, and constant police patrols. White zones are areas where I already know there won’t be many Black people, where I will be an obvious standout and automatic suspect. It is very easy to get picked up in a White zone, because the
authorities are all the time wondering what the fuck you are doing there and what the fuck do you want?

The museum was a nice-looking, well-kept, oddly shaped facility where it was clear that millions of dollars were being spent to keep the lights on, the thick glass windows shining, the turnstiles and security desk operating, the huge bookstore in the lobby stacked with an inventory of thousands of intriguing items, and the pictures and displays mounted, framed, and lit up.

At the museum entrance, before the security desk, there were seven metal easels on which thick boards were mounted, advertising the upcoming exhibit and exhibitors. “Seven Continents, Seven Geniuses, Seven Youths,” the display was titled.

Underneath the board for Asia was a huge black-and-white photograph of my wife, Akemi Nakamura. The caption beneath her photo read, “As Soon As She Sees You, You’re Captured.”

Looking at her picture, I could see that it was taken before we met. Her ears were not pierced in the photo. I looked at the way her thick black hair, black eyes, and full lips were pulling me. I wondered if they were pulling everyone else also.

Their description of Akemi read:

Sixteen-year-old Akemi Nakamura is the Japanese-born artist who swept our art competition and best represents the artistic talents of the youth of Asia. She has mastered the unique style of combining pencils, markers, and paints together on one surface. Her original artwork also contains numerous creative surprises that make it stand out from the work of her peers.

Her greatest talent, however, is her photographic memory.

She despises drawing or painting using mounted objects or models. It is believed that she can look at her subject once, close her eyes, and then open them and bring it to life on her canvas in great detail by memory. She is a unique talent unlike any artist the world has known. Her eyes are more precise than a camera. This is why we say “As soon as she sees you, you are captured.”

Behind me now were three or four people, also taking a look, but not a glance, because they didn’t leave right away. They stared instead.

An attendant in matching pants and vest approached the gathering crowd that was beginning to block the museum entrance.

“Welcome to the Museum of Modern Art. This exhibit will be featured on Saturday, May third, here at the MoMA and will be on display for three months up until August third. A reception will be held in our auditorium welcoming these seven young artists who have poured their hearts out onto canvas for your viewing and enjoyment. Will you be joining us in the museum today?” she asked, pointing towards the desk where the entrance fees were being collected.

I stepped to the side, away from the group and towards their attractive bookstore.

I was looking around and not looking all at once. I was thinking about the phrase, “Seven Geniuses, Seven Continents.” I was wondering if I really ever thought of Akemi as a genius. I thought of how I had lived my life in America preferring to be anonymous, yet had somehow attracted and married a female who was selected to represent a continent of almost four billion people, with India and China having more than one billion souls each.

I tried to bring it all into perspective, telling myself that not all of the people on the continent of Asia were young,
so she wasn’t really representing all four billion of them. Not everybody on the continent of Asia was an artist, so she wasn’t really competing with very many. However, my excellent math skills betrayed me. Because my mind had already calculated that one percent of four billion is four hundred million, if even a half of one percent of four billion teen artists competed in the Asian teen art competition then there still were 200 million contestants.

If the contest sponsors did a lousy job and failed to look at all of the artists’ work and just settled on the best out of five thousand teen artists, Akemi still would be considered a phenom, a phenom of international importance and clout.

In falling in love with her honestly, I had not considered her in this way, as a woman who belonged more to the world than to me. As she blew up in significance in my mind, I began to feel local and small, an African boy from thousands of miles away who was just trying to protect and help provide for his mother and sister by building and maintaining a small family business, who also worked in a small fish shop, and fought in a small dojo, and conquered small men like Tafari and Conflict, who were even smaller.

I thought of my father, who was a phenomenon himself, an international phenomenon. I thought of how he saw the whole globe as his backyard and traveled freely around the world with no fear, defeating any circumstances that tried to hold him back and more importantly, propelling himself forward and protecting his interests, his family, and even his culture.

I thought of him as the scientist and builder he was and the great things he built as evidence and testimony to his greatness. I stood trapped in my thoughts, breaking myself down to nothing and then building myself back up again, stronger.

If I am my father’s son and he is a phenom, then I should
at least be a small wonder. If she, an artist obsessed with creating and re-creating beautiful finds, found me, then I must at least be beautiful.

If my world is small and hers is so large, then she, who must have seen so very much and traveled so very far, was like a collector of rare jewels, wasn’t she? She tossed the rocks to the ground, sold off the rubies, emeralds, and diamonds and held on to one particular gem, the most authentic, purest, shiniest, most valuable one for only herself to keep. Didn’t she?

Building further, I told myself that I might operate in a small world, but I am not small-minded and I am not a small man.

I thought of my grandfather from Southern Sudan who when I would be standing still in his village would say, “There is no reason to go anywhere else, you are already in the best place in the world and everything that is actually needed in life is already here.”

He would also say that I was “born great,” by origin and blood.

Our relationship was pure. It happened between us and never involved the artificial or official or material elements of this world. It was an energy so powerful, words would have only gotten in the way. It was a collage of smiles, glances, and looks along with an incredible effort to read each other’s thoughts and convey our feelings. It was a mutual admiration and respect of two young souls in awe of one another.