Midnight and the Meaning of Love (88 page)

Also, a man has the luxury of emotions in Asia. In the US he would not, especially if he is a young black African like myself. Emotions would have to be processed and packaged and sometimes even stored or frozen until it was safe to use them, let them out, embrace them.

More of a man,
I would say that I am. The elders say experience brings wisdom. I’d say I’m wiser now, stronger now. My standards for myself are even higher now. My strength is stronger, my responsibilities are greater. My business mind is sharper. My faith is solid. I left New York as a son and have returned as a father,
inshallah.

Before, I was a husband searching for my wife. Now I am a husband traveling with wives, whose lives are in my hands. I had to secure them properly and separately, with enough space for them to remain the women they are, but close to me, for me, to watch and love and enjoy.

It would be expensive, this love. I knew. I was preparing to rearrange everything for the better, to make myself better, to allow my wives to grow and become even better. Akemi would have to be set up in a space where it was comfortable for her to create. Chiasa, I knew for certain as her father said, would not sit still and stay home. I didn’t need her to do that, as long as we stayed together and true in
our bond. I had sent her home to Japan while Akemi and I remained in Korea. I had loved her up well the night before. Both of us so reluctant to part for even only a few days. Both of us glued together even at the airport. I sent her traveling with passion marks between her thighs. She waved wildly with the purest smile, the last image in my eyes before she disappeared. She would tie up her loose ends then transfer to a New York school to get her pilot’s license. She would pay for the vending machine with some of the money I had easily provided to her and use the rest for whatever was necessary. She promised me she would sit with her mother and talk nicely. Most important, she promised me to return in a few days. I knew she would, although I missed her every second that she was gone.

I was loving Akemi. Akemi was loving me. Soft, sweet, and sensual, she is my exotic Egyptian house cat, even though she is Korean. Quiet, her silence was soothing. Her emotions were tumultuous and deep, an undercurrent. Her expression of them came out through her body and in beautiful drawings, paintings, and colors. She loved and created, continuously.

The extra time in Busan brought peace to Dong Hwa and his family. “We had made some memories,” as he said. He was right. The Professor had let me know in his manner that he was aware that Akemi was going to become a mother. Cautiously, he congratulated me. Then he handed me the name and information for a Korean obstetrician and gynecologist in New York for my wife to receive “excellent medical care.” When he handed me the information, he smiled. “This doctor is a woman,” he said knowingly. I knew from observing Dong Hwa’s ways that the woman doctor he was recommending had most likely gone to the same university as him. The slick professor would attempt to stay closely connected to my wife and her progress through the doctor he recommended. Of course he was doing this for his own wife’s comfort. Of course he believed that I wouldn’t catch on to his tactic. Of course he was wrong about me, but I understood.

It’s something how small the huge world had become for me. Now I could think with ease about returning to Korea or Japan with my wives in the future. I could even imagine returning to Asia flying in from North Africa, the Sudan to be exact. I had promised Dong Hwa that my wife would remain in touch with her Korean family. In
time he would learn that I was a man of my word. He should have known that by now.

Nakamura had hung himself. He had brought about his own finish, through his own actions. Although I knew he would not surrender, he also would not win. For him to come after me now would be for him to reveal his past crimes. I was confident that he didn’t want to do that. I would allow Akemi to decide how she would relate with him in the future. However, she and I would be side by side. Nakamura had lost his privilege and rights over my wife. He, after all, is not her blood father. I would deal with him now, the same way as I would deal with any man trying to approach my woman.

I met up a few times and chilled with Black Sea. Love had made him cool. He was cooler than he would have ever been.

I am more determined now. A man has to step off of his block, out of his hood to be able to see the whole picture properly and put it in perspective. Stress, misery and hatred, anger, frustration, and fear were no way for a man to live, and none of it had anything to do with love or family. At least, it shouldn’t. If it does, a man has to make moves, big moves, wise moves. A man has to grind until he sets it right. A man has to set things right in the right setting with the right community. It has to be a community that is working with him, not against him all the time, all day every day.

* * *

The Eid ul Fitr is the Islamic celebration that occurs after the month of the Ramadan fast. On the Eid, which lasts three days, everyone gathers and celebrates the spiritual sacrifice that was made by all believers around the globe. We pray together. We eat together. We exchange gifts.

Mr.Ghazzahli was wearing his
jelabiyah
when he opened his gate on June 9th, the morning of the Eid. His sons emerged from behind him in Islamic wear as well and immediately went to work helping me to move the packages from the taxi. The men spoke only to me, as Chiasa and Akemi stood to the side in the entrance of the gate. Akemi was wearing
hanbok
, a beautiful traditional Korean dress. The skirt was royal red with delicate embroideries around its perimeter. It flared out because of the layers of cloth underneath her skirt. The top
blouse was white with a V-neck and long sleeves. The ends of each sleeve were stitched with five inches of embroidered cloth. The white silk V-neck blouse, which was connected to the skirt, was outlined in a thick beautiful black ribbon that draped down the front of her dress. She looked like an empress and was intriguing to anyone who had never seen how the Korean females, still living in Korea, really rock it during their festivals and weddings and celebrations. Chiasa had combed then brushed and pinned Akemi’s hair up into four royal buns. She had complimented the beauty of the dress by giving Akemi that hairstyle.

No words had to be exchanged as my elegant wives stood still and waited quietly. I could feel Mr.Ghazalhi searching and waiting for an explanation from me.

“Ramadan Mubarak Amm. You remember my wife, Akemi.” I said in Arabic. He smiled and welcomed Akemi.

“This is Chiasa, my second wife,” I said in Arabic. The three men, father and two sons, stood stuck for some seconds. I saw Chiasa thinking really hard to remind herself not to instinctively bow before these men, her elders.

In English I said to Chiasa, “This is Mr. Salim Ahmed Amin Ghazzahli.”

“
Asalaam alaikum
,” Chiasa said.

Sudana and Naja came running out as her father and brothers were moving our packages inside. Sudana went immediately to hugging Akemi.

Naja said to me “Finally! You came home.” I put some bags down and hugged my little sister, lifting her up off her feet. When I brought her up to my shoulder level she said, “Hi Akemi!” with big excitement. “You look so pretty!” Naja said. Akemi smiled a bright genuine smile.

“Who’s she?,” Naja said as I placed her little feet down onto the grass.

“She’s my wife also. Her name is Chiasa. Treat her well,” I ordered staring authoritatively into my sister’s eyes. Naja’s young eyes widened.

“Bring Akemi to Umma,” I told Naja.

“Umma’s downstairs,” Naja said. Now she was holding Akemi’s hand and walking her around to the side door, the apartment below.

“Welcome home,” Sudana said to me.

“Ramadan Mubarak.” “Chiasa, she is Sudana, Mr.Ghazzalhi’s daughter.” Sudana stared at her. There were two hazel eyes staring into two silver gray eyes. Su-dana was wearing a creamy-colored orange thobe. Chiasa was wearing a marigold yukata with a wicked black sash that Akemi had wrapped around her waist. Chiasa’s mother had gifted the yukata to her when Chiasa went to Japan to talk nicely with her. Her mother had told her to always remember, “You are a Japanese woman, feminine and regal and polite.” She looked so beautiful to me. Her hair was wrapped and it was nice to see what the heels did to my pretty puma.

“
Salaam alaikum
,” Chiasa said softly.

“
Alaikum salaam
,” Sudana responded.

“Chiasa is my wife also.” I said solemnly. “I love her a lot, so please be good to her.” I told Sudana.

“Are you Muslim?” I heard Sudana ask her as I was walking inside. I left it to Chiasa. I knew she could handle it no matter which direction it all moved in. Akemi was all right with it, how could anything else matter?

* * *

At the meal of meals there was Mr. Ghazzahli and his wife Temira, their four daughters, Basima, Sudana, Darakhshan, and Faliha and two sons Mustapha and Talil, also Umma, Naja, Akemi, Chiasa, and myself. I wouldn’t want to forget my twins.
Inshallah,
and whatever surprises Allah would send through Chiasa,
inshallah.

Everyone was eating, smiling, talking, and asking and answering questions. It was incredible to hear Japanese, Arabic, and English all at one dinner table. Akemi, of course, could have added Korean, Thai, and Mandarin Chinese. Chiasa could’ve added French.

Umma was smiling. She was probably smiling because I had made it home safely. She greeted me with happy tears. Tears and women, I had plenty. Perhaps she was smiling, and crying while smiling, because I gifted her two daughters-in-law and three babies in their wombs,
inshallah.
Perhaps she was smiling because the one month had made me more of a man.

Umma Designs would be very successful this year, I believed. Especially with the fabrics I had imported from Asia and the influence of both Chiasa’s ninja-style presence and Akemi’s incredible art
merged with Umma’s talented eyes and fingers. I had also expanded my business plans to include a vending machine empire built off of my first machine, which I purchased with my money and the translation assistance of my second wife.

Akemi would always be a moneymaker. She made more money in Asia than the entire trip to Asia had cost me, minus, of course, the price that I willingly spent on jewels, gifts, and money given to Chiasa.

I also said a prayer of thanks to my father. It was his diamonds that saved me. “Three wishes,” he had named the three diamonds that he once dropped into the palm of my hand; “three wishes when everything and everyone else around you fails or when you feel trapped.” I had only used one of the wishes and spent less than half the money that the one diamond had cashed in at.

If anything were to happen to me now, I knew for sure that I had given my Umma, who is my heart and my purpose, all that one son could offer, a house filled with love and life and a successful small business. I had chosen the right wives, one who was the sweetest and most sensitive woman, an incredible and bankable artist, just like Umma, and another, who would defend Umma with her life and perhaps even pilot the plane that would land Umma back in the land of our people, Sudan.

“There’s only one dilemma,” Umma said that day of the Eid when the meal was finished and all of the gifts given out. She and I were alone for some moments. Akemi was in Umma’s bedroom speaking over the phone. It was a long conversation, long distance to Josna. Chiasa was talking to Naja and trying to “make friends” with Sudana.

Umma said to me, “First, I didn’t know that you would choose a second wife so early, so young, and so swiftly. But, you are your father’s son and I see both of them, Akemi and Chiasa, in your eyes. Yet you have done something that your father did not do. Your father placed me higher, his first wife, first love. You have not selected a second wife. You have brought home two number ones. That Chiasa is very powerful. Her soul and her presence is very strong. She has agreed to be number two. You and I both know she’s a number one. Even she is certain of that. Akemi is certain as well. You are so fortunate to have Akemi. She loves you so tremendously that she would not keep you away from another woman with whom she now has to
share. You will have to work twice as hard. Chiasa will need another house or apartment. They are friends now and that is so good. It says a lot about you as a man. Yet, two great loves will need their own space. Even two beautiful plants need their own soil and own flowerpots or the roots would tangle and they would both die.”

“Do you like Chiasa, Umma? Could you love her as your daughter?”

“I love her already because you love her so deeply. Her smile is pure. Her heart is light. Her soul is good. She wants to be a good Muslim woman. I can tell. She does not know it, but her soul is Muslim already.” I listened and thought carefully about what Umma was saying.

“Do you see her speaking so nicely to Sudana?” Umma asked me about Chiasa.

“Yes,” I answered Umma as we were speaking Arabic, which Chiasa could not decipher.

“Chiasa knows that Sudana loves you. She will be nice to Su-dana. But she will never allow Sudana to become wife number three.” Umma laughed. I smiled.

“I don’t want number three. I am completely happy,” I admitted. I didn’t say more, but I felt an aggressive, powerful love stirring in me as I observed Chiasa. Umma was still watching my second wife closely. “Chiasa will continue to grow and learn and venture out. She will make Akemi stronger. She is not a problem. Chiasa is a blessing,” Umma said sincerely.

I was relieved. I already knew that nothing and no one could come between me and each of my wives. Yet it was peace now that Umma approved.

Chiasa turned and looked at me. It was a look that I had seen before. It was a look that I welcomed. She stood up from the couch where she was sitting and went into the bathroom. I followed.