Midnight and the Meaning of Love (76 page)

I called Umma and spoke briefly. We conversed like nothing special was happening in my life. I wasn’t sure if she was feeling any sense of danger because of my abduction. To be sure, I spoke calmly and carefully and joyfully to place her heart at ease.

“Akemi,” I called her at her uncle’s apartment at 5:30 p.m.

“Hai!”
she said softly.

“I’m coming.” I hung up.

Seoul was a three- to four-hour car ride, depending on the route and the speed. I checked it on the map inside my room at Bada Ga after a shower and a cut. I decided to make arrangements for us to go together. My wife and her grandmother should be introduced as soon as possible. It would take time for her to see and react and adjust to Akemi. Then it would take time for her to learn of Joo Eun’s life, death, and ashes. I didn’t want to be cold, yet I knew we had to get it all started up right away.

Akemi was excited when she saw me, but acting calm and cool in her aunt and uncle’s presence. As usual, it was her eyes that gave her heart away. When I arrived, everyone was ready—Dong Hwa, Sun Eun, their two sons, and the two-year-old daughter. I didn’t get the chance to see Akemi separately from them.

Chicken
galbi
was my big outside Korean food experience. In a well-lit restaurant with long and wide wooden family-sized tables, we all sat. Dong Hwa’s family, Akemi, and I and Black Sea and the girl with the killa eyes from Busan University were all there as promised. It wasn’t as though we were too unusual compared to the other customers, except that I wasn’t Korean. Our party of nine was ordinary.
The entire restaurant was packed with families and couples and babies, babies, babies.

The grill was at the center of each table, heating up. The Korean waitress arrived and greeted all of us nicely and set down a large metal ring. She set the table with a long metal spoon and a set of chopsticks for each person. When she returned, she carried a rectangular bucket of raw, thinly sliced chicken breast. It was seasoned, marinated, and drowning in a thick red spicy sauce that resembled Sudanese
shotta.
The waitress placed the chicken, several pounds of it, in the center of the metal ring. When a fillet was too long or thick, she cut it with a huge pair of scissors, which could be found on each table.

When the chicken began to sizzle and cook, she left and returned with two more waitresses who served us each a series of small bowls containing different sides: soup, salad, radish, kimchee, and bean sprouts. I observed that the Koreans liked to have a bunch of small dishes on every table where people gathered to eat and enjoy. They’d rather sip thirty times from tiny glasses than drink all that they could out of one big glass. They’d rather eat small portions out of twenty-four tiny dishes than give each person their own plate and pile the foods up on two or three big serving dishes. I figured it must be a visual arts thing for them.

I’ll admit I watched the food process intensely. I had not eaten since before sunrise yesterday, although I did have some water last night in the cabin. The waitress kept appearing and reappearing, moving the chicken around with two thick and long wooden paddles to make sure it was well cooked. The feeling and the energy was good.

Dong Hwa seemed content to have the attention of his wife back on himself. Akemi was feeding me with her chopsticks, while teaching me to hold and maneuver mine properly. I ate more chicken than everyone else at the table, which seemed to fascinate all of them. At moments I would catch each of them separately or in pairs or sets staring at me. “You must be really hungry,” Black Sea said. When I had seen him yesterday, he had hair. Tonight he had a Caesar just like mine and rocked a white washcloth in the back pocket of his jeans same as me.

“His body is big, so he has to eat,” the girl with the killa eyes said, gesturing and flashing her newly manicured nails. Akemi’s eyes
moved on her. Akemi said something to the girl in Korean. The girl answered back and then they were talking.

“What about after this? You wanna come check out the music scene, and check out a few parties, right?” Black Sea said.

“I got my wife,” I told him.

“You can bring her,” he urged.

“Nah, why would I bring her to a party?” I asked him.

“Then come alone, take a look around.”

“You got shorty right there. What you gonna do with her?” I pointed out.

He smiled. “She’s thinking about you.”

“She shouldn’t. I’m married. I’m happy. I got more than enough.” Black Sea looked like he was thinking.

“Is she a good girl?” I asked him, referring to the girl with the eyes.

“Korean girls are a whole lot of work. But they’re good girls,” he said.

“Then get to work, my man,” I said. We laughed.

“Tell me where the party’s at, I’ll take my wife home and come through late just to check out the music,” I told him. “But if I don’t come through, you’ll understand. Don’t hold it against me,” I said.

“You got it,” he said.

* * *

At Dong Hwa’s apartment, he and I sat alone in the living room.

“Is your wife enjoying my wife?” I asked him.

“Thank you, I meant to thank you. My wife is so happy. She is treating Akemi as a
dong-seng
, not like a niece.” I understood Sun Eun and Akemi were like sisters, not aunt and niece.

“Good. I’ll be here to get her back tomorrow evening. Oh, and I’ll need you to set up the meeting with her grandmother. I decided I’ll take Akemi up to Seoul. I can’t plan to stay in Busan too much longer,” I said.

“Oh, I see.
Jamgganmanyo,
” the professor said, getting up.
Jamgganmanyo
means “wait a minute.” It’s the same phrase as the Japanese
chotto matte.

He went into the back of his apartment and Akemi came out front. She sat down next to me and leaned against my body.

“Mayonaka,” she said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Akemi Mayonaka miss,” she said, always putting her English verb at the end of the sentence and out of order. I don’t know if she was upset that I didn’t show up the night before to check her, but I hope she knew for sure that I’d wanted to and wasn’t playing around. I hugged her. One of the sons showed up in the living room.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Chonin Kim Jun Hwa Midah,” he answered.

“Kim Jun Hwa, do you speak English?” I asked him.

“Very little,” he said shyly, seeming much younger and softer than any Brooklyn male at thirteen.

“How do I say in Korean, ‘I love you’?” He looked around the room and everywhere except at me. Then he said “
sarang hamida
.” I repeated his words, trying to get the pronunciation right, to Akemi. She smiled so much. Then I asked Jun Hwa, “How do I say, ‘Akemi, I’ll love you forever’?” He said “
Akemi dangshin sarang hamnida youngwonhi!
” I repeated it. We all began laughing. “Now say in Korean, ‘Don’t worry. I will never leave you. If I go anywhere, I will always come back to you.’” He said, “
Nanun hangsang dongsingeote dola olgeoya.
” I repeated it. Akemi slid her arms around me.

Dong Hwa and Sun Eun came out together. The professor looked oddly at his son, as though he thought he had missed out on something. They both sat down. Akemi eased her arms and body off of leaning on mine. Now we were five on the floor.

“We contacted Akemi’s grandmother. We can all go to Seoul tomorrow night. We’ll meet her Monday afternoon, but my wife and I will have to return to Busan immediately after the meeting.” He was checking for my reactions. I could tell there was probably more to it, so I didn’t say anything. “We decided that we all need to be there when she first sees Akemi and hears the news. It’s better this way. We have to be sure.” The professor sounded worried.

“What time tomorrow night?” I asked.

“If we leave at eight, we’ll get there before midnight,” he said, and then laughed at his use of my name in another manner.

“Alright then, in Seoul I’ll buy our airline tickets to the US. Akemi and I will fly out from there,” I said.

“We’ll see,” the professor said. “We don’t have a way of knowing
what will happen in Seoul.” He said it in a way that didn’t sound like he thought I needed his permission to get the tickets to leave, but like he was expecting or feeling that something big or unusual might happen.

As I started to leave, Akemi said, “Please stay,” her eyes pleading. I knew she wanted to be with Sun Eun in the days but definitely wanted to be with me in the nights. I looked at Dong Hwa. This was his apartment, his space.

“You and I can sleep here in the living room, and Akemi and my wife in the back,” Dong Hwa said.

I smiled. “We’re married, Akemi and me,” I reminded him. Why would I want to stay with him, when I could stay with her?

* * *

Late night, the apartment lights were all off, Dong Hwa was asleep on the living room floor, as he wanted it, and I was sitting on the couch in the living room, thinking.

Suddenly I saw Akemi crawling by from behind the couch and out onto their enclosed glass terrace. Now she was seated on her knees behind a plant, waving me over. I smiled and walked over. She placed her pretty palms on the terrace floor, asking me to sit beside her. She was wearing unsexy pajamas, a big shirt and drawstring pants that were too big also, with huge red strawberries all over.

I knew what she was thinking. When the sun rises again, there would be no touching. She wanted to touch me. I wanted to touch her too. Off in the corner of the terrace shielded by the plants, with the terrace door shut, we sat down together. She crawled into my lap, put both her hands on my face and just stroked my skin. I pulled her close and stroked her hair and then her neck. I put my hands underneath her big pajama shirt and felt her goose bumps leading all the way up to her nipples. I stroked the bare skin of her back down to the top of the separation in her butt. Her body heated up. I wasn’t gonna make love to her while Dong Hwa was lying down asleep on the other side of the glass, even though we were shielded by the plants. She was breathing in my ear, which raised up my temperature and sped up my pulse. I started tonguing her and that felt good. She came closer, wrapped her legs around my back, and hugged my neck so tight. She pulled back and put her hands beneath my shirt. Her traveling
fingers felt the welts and abrasions on my chest from dragging my body underneath the truck the night before. Soon I was under a full body search by her fingertips. Now I was lying on my back being licked.

It wasn’t difficult fucking face to face, my back up against the wall, her moving her hips so smoothly and continuously as though she wanted to heal me with her pussy. Our sex life was furious, more turbulence than any flight to anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, she had a love for me that no language could describe.

In the cool breeze before sunrise I ran Haeundae Beach, my same route. When I arrived in Kwong An Li, the banana and fruit and water vendor was just setting up. Probably he was surprised that I popped up in the early morning and that I wasn’t buying my usual after-sunset order. I simply said
“Anyonghaseyo”
and kept it moving.

I searched out a cab with the sign in the window that read We Speak English or International Taxi. There were many because Busan was designed to absorb the tourist treasure.

I hopped in. “Can you drive as directed?” I asked the cabby.

“Bo?”
he said, which means “what” in Korean.

“I’ll tell you left, right, straight, whatever. Understand?”

“Agahsimidah,”
he said, which means “I understand.”

I had my homemade map in my hand. I called out “left, right, straight, up, down,” and he followed.

We arrived at a place called Taejongdae Park. My cab driver said that he couldn’t drive his vehicle any further than that. I paid him and got out. There weren’t many more directions remaining on my mapped-out trip. Since no vehicle could move beyond the location where I was now standing, I walked the route following my map as I had written it.

Do Not Enter was written in every language, and every other sign said Unauthorized Area, in every language. Then I knew.

The military hideout that I was abducted to was somewhere right beyond the borders of Taejongdae Park. I didn’t have any intention of running up in there like a kamikaze or a one-man army bent on revenge. Instead I only wanted to know where I had been taken. I
wanted to see it in the daylight, the route going and coming, neither of which I could see Friday night when I was captured or when I was blindfolded and driven back Saturday afternoon.

I didn’t say shit to anyone but I was astounded by the nerve of the general, as well as his range and power. The idea that someone could use military monies for personal reasons, and to smash or intimidate one young man on foreign soil was mind-blowing to me.

When I read the book about Naoko Nakamura and his complaints about American military bases on his Japanese land, I didn’t fully understand the insult of them. But now that I had been held on some kind of base, populated by American soldiers, or recent recruits, it was becoming more clear.

Chiasa said those bases were like little Americas inside a foreign country. She said they had their own separate world in there, and she was right. It was a mini America with Campbell’s soup, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, and Duncan Hines cakes. There was no chicken
galbi
or kimchee or
samgyetang
in there. As far as authority, the American military could kidnap a person, play with him and his life, torture him, and then erase the incident as though it had never happened. If I ever broke my word and brought it up, which I would not, they would probably plaster pictures of my face in the press, portraying me as an insane guerilla terrorist, someone who had attacked them.