Midnight and the Meaning of Love (4 page)

“Then there are spiritual battles. These are the most complex. But to make it simple, let me say that if you are convinced of the truth of your cause, that what you are fighting for is right and true,
then
you will become capable of gaining the confidence you need to have the upper hand over your opponent on a spiritual level. To be certain of your rightness requires some meditation. When you came into the dojo today, you were without meditation. You were only anger. This is why I led you in a session of tai chi, to prepare you to be able to meditate and be certain that you are right in whatever your cause may be. There is always a chance
that you are wrong.
Meditation will reveal this to you.”

I listened intently to what he was suggesting. I wondered for a minute if meditation was really so different from prayer. As a Muslim, I pray throughout the day and night, although I try not to pray at times when my mind is clouded and angry. Fortunately, most of the time my mind
is not
cloudy or angry, just focused.

“Do
you
meditate, Sensei?”

“Only sometimes, when necessary.”

“Because most battles
are
physical?” I asked and stated with confidence. Then a natural smile came across my face. “And in a physical battle, you have no worries, no reason to meditate or hesitate, right, Sensei? And I don’t either.” I held up my fists to emphasize. We both laughed some.

“There, it is good to see your smile,” Sensei reacted. “Your passion and your heart are your assets. The best warriors are passionate and they use the thunder in their hearts to conquer anyone and to overcome any obstacle that threatens their heart.”

I thought about his words for some seconds, and really asked myself if they were true. In the streets, no one says that a man’s passion is good. The streets take passion as a weakness. Niggas work overtime to prove that they are cold, colder, the coldest.

“So
who
has threatened your heart, the heart of a newlywed that should be at ease?” he asked with a half smile mixed with a true concern. Maybe he thought that he had relaxed me so successfully
that he had eased me into a talkative state. But that wasn’t the case.

After a momentary pause, he said with a confident and solemn face, “Allow me to guess. Your opponent, it is your wife’s father, Naoko Nakamura, a man who has many enemies but even more friends.”

I didn’t smile or shift or acknowledge Sensei’s guesses in any way. I couldn’t tell him that my new wife was gone, stolen away even if it was by her own father’s doing. It involved too much pain, insult, and yes, shame. In Sudanese tradition, shame is a heavy burden, like wearing a jacket and pants and a hat and even boots all filled with lead.

“Do you know him, Sensei?” I asked.

“Naoko Nakamura is neither my friend nor my enemy. We are both Japanese. That is all we have in common. He does not know or care that I exist.”

“Then why did you bring his name up and speak on it as if you know him?” I asked, unable to shield my general distrust.

“Every Japanese knows him, especially in my age group. He was born on the day that the Americans dropped a two-ton bomb on the Japanese people of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. After so much death and sorrow, most Japanese people just wanted peace at
any
cost. They welcomed the Americans in and didn’t fight the occupation. Not Naoko. He lost his father the day he was born. When he became a very young man, he wanted revenge. He worked relentlessly, was not a physical fighter, but was more clever than a nine-tailed fox. He was a great organizer of men, a real team builder, Japan’s extreme patriot, and a masterful businessman, so successful that he became known throughout the Asian continent as “the Man Who Never Surrendered.”

I resisted bigging Akemi’s father up in my mind despite what Sensei was telling me. They sounded true, Sensei’s words, but in order to outmaneuver Naoko Nakamura, I had to view him as just another man, nobody’s hero or nothing like that.

So I stood up. “Thank you for today, Sensei. You helped me with my yin-yang.” I smiled. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow night. Now I gotta go.” I turned and headed toward my locker. But he paused me with his words, a final lesson of the day, I figured.

“Scholars have written books about Naoko. He is a very intelligent and accomplished man. When I saw his stamp and signature
on your marriage documents, I thought, ‘What are the chances of a young man from Brooklyn marrying the only daughter of this Japanese tycoon and legend?’ It seemed impossible. In fact, there was more of a chance of me witnessing a solar eclipse.” He smiled.

His words were a strange mixture of him giving me props while at the same time taking them away. After a quick thought, I believed that I figured out what he was really asking me. What were the chances of a talented, rich, and beautiful Japanese teenaged girl like Akemi, who doesn’t speak English, marrying a black African like me, living in the Brooklyn projects in a Brooklyn hood, who doesn’t speak Japanese? But his question didn’t matter to me like it might have mattered to some other black American. I don’t have one drop of inferiority in my blood or mind.
I did marry her
and she married me eagerly. It wasn’t no mystery. It had happened right before Sensei’s eyes in this dojo with his help and many witnesses. I shrugged my shoulders, shaking off the tightness that tried to creep back in.

* * *

I bounced back to my Brooklyn block with only my hands as my weapons. I had no doubt that if anybody tried to test me today, they would receive the full impact of my skill and fury. As soon as I hit my block, I could taste death in the air. There was talk of a kid in the next building who had just gotten slaughtered. First his man was killed. Instead of merking his man’s murderer, he snitched to the jake. Two days later, he got to join his man in heaven or hell. I knew there would be a trail of bodies turning up any day, any minute now. Snitching always resulted in a blizzard of blood.

I had moved my guns and
kunai
because of Naja. When she went into my room without my permission and went through my things to find Akemi’s ponytail, it meant two things to me. One, it meant that it wasn’t her first time going through my things. She was looking for the ponytail that she already knew was there. Two, it meant that she could have easily hurt herself if she came upon one of my burners or tools. Instead of getting more strict with her, I just accepted that she was at an age of being curious. It was easier to move the danger out of her way than to rely on the fact that she wouldn’t do it again if I asked her not to. Anyway, I could never forgive myself if I allowed anything bad to happen to my young sister.

Back in my room I pulled down the blanket that I kept folded and in the top corner of my closet. I unfolded it on my bed and then felt around the hemline. I ripped open the hem carefully and retrieved my three diamonds that Umma had sewn securely into the ragtag blanket. It had been my idea to store the diamonds this way. I thought a safety deposit box at the bank was too accessible to employees and higher-ups, and the diamonds were too valuable to me to risk it. Buying a vault for our apartment was too obvious, because the streets watch you bring it in, then plot all day every day for a way to get it out. Putting diamonds into my mattress or anywhere any criminal would look automatically was dumb.

So I kept the beautiful blankets that Umma crocheted for me on my bed and kept this cheap hospital-issued blanket that Umma had received when Naja was born in the closet. I knew this blanket would never receive a second glance or be stolen by anyone. So it made a perfect decoy. I had planned to store the diamonds there until forever. I had hoped to one day hand these three diamonds to my own son,
inshallah
, the same way that my father had gifted them to me seven years ago. That’s how it works with a family heirloom. It is not the same as money a person has inherited or a piggy bank that you go in and out of, or even a savings account that you keep for a while with the intention of spending in the near future. An heirloom is something that gets passed from generation to generation. It is something cherished, the same as these diamonds were, not only because of their value, but because they were lessons from my father. In my lifetime I could work and eventually go and get more diamonds, but they would
not be the same African diamonds that my father gave me in the Sudan, along with his lessons and heart and intentions and instructions. For those reasons alone, they could never be replaced.

But my father did say that the three three-karat diamonds were “three wishes.”

“Use them when everything and everyone else around you fails or when you feel trapped.”

I knew that Naoko Nakamura had me trapped at the moment. But I also knew that I wouldn’t allow him to hold me there for long. I would use at least one of the “three wishes” to go get my wife.

It could be said that my using the diamond was the same as giving the diamond to my son. I was not too young to know that if I had a son in this world, he would be wherever my wife was, resting in the comfort of her womb.

I rode in with Umma. She had to catch the four-to-midnight shift at the Brooklyn textile factory since she’d missed her usual work time slot. We did not talk much. Umma is the kind of woman who doesn’t repeat herself or nag. She knew I understood what must be done, and she would wait to hear my plan and add her thoughts later on. Besides, those midnights when I pick her up from her job are when some of our best ideas and plans are hatched.

After I was sure she was straight at her job, I headed to Manhattan to the Diamond District, to find a reasonable jeweler among thieves to buy at least one of my diamonds. Six was the magic number. I had seen six jewelers by six o clock, the time when the jewel merchants generally start feverishly packing to leave the heavily guarded area. I was not satisfied with even one of the six negotiations or offers. I knew what my father’s gems were worth. I decided I would come back early the next morning and push until I found the right deal.

That same evening, moving east away from Forty-Seventh and Avenue of the Americas, where many of the jewels from around the world are stored and bought and sold wholesale and retail, I made a left onto Park Avenue. I strolled up the full length of the blocks. I looked around carefully, checking out the discreetly placed hotels that lined that expensive area. They weren’t well-known like the Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Ramada. I liked that. They were more exclusive. Even though their nightly price tag was more than I could afford without cashing in at least one of my diamonds, I had to find the
right location to place Umma and Naja while I was away in Japan. I already knew that I would not leave them alone in the Brooklyn projects. We had only two weeks remaining before we could move into our new house in Queens, which we had bought using the money that we earned together from Umma Designs, our family business. Umma, an incredible seamstress and an expert in fabrics and textiles and designs, had created and sold enough clothing, hats, upholstery, curtains, and so on to bring in eighty thousand dollars over a five-year period. I had managed, marketed, and served as the sales, communication, and delivery person for our company.

Now, even in this crisis, the bottom line was that until I was certain that Umma was safe, I couldn’t leave the city. As much as I love my wife in my heart and in my blood and even in my bones, Umma will forever be my first love, my mother, and my purpose.

After a while, I located a place called “The Inn,” a small hotel in a four-story brick building on Park. The manager was polite enough to show me a suite without seeming to suspect that I was a criminal, like most small business managers and owners instinctively suspect and treat black males. A brief tour, and I became sure that this place had the right feeling, the right amount of space, and cleanliness, as well as a small kitchen for Umma’s use. Immediately outside of the hotel was an upscale deli and a low-key pharmacy.

The hefty price was $350 per night. When I heard the quote, it made me lean back. Then I regained my composure by guaranteeing myself that I would only be gone for three to five days and that this place would help me feel at ease enough to do whatever I had to do to retrieve my wife.

Nightfall came. The New York City lights lit the way for many late-working professionals to escape. Satisfied at how my exit plan was shaping up, I shot over to the Bronx to have a meet-up with Mr. Ghazzali. He had been Umma Designs’ best customer. He was Muslim and Sudanese, head of the only Sudanese family besides ourselves that we had come to know in America. The owner of a taxi business, he had enough confidence in Umma’s skills to hire her to be the seamstress for his nephew’s elaborate Sudanese wedding. After viewing and observing Umma’s detailed understanding of Sudanese culture, Mr. Ghazzali hired her to be the wedding planner for the entire event. The ten thousand dollars that we earned from that one wedding is what put us over the top so that we could finally buy a small house in an effort to move out of the Brooklyn projects. He had hired us once, been kind to my mother and family, and paid his debts on time. Now I was gonna hire him to do some simple but important work for me.