Midnight (52 page)

I agreed.

At 2:00
P.M.
, I picked up the
agid
and the
nikah
translations.

The woman placed them in an elegant gold textured envelope. I pulled the documents out. The words were neatly and beautifully arranged on thick 8 x 11 gold sheets of textured paper. A real professional job and much more than I expected.

I paid what amounted to twenty-five dollars per page, plus the fifty-dollar rush fee. I made sure to collect their printed business cards
and
my receipt as the reverend recommended I do at all times.

At the jewelers, I paid a small sum to have my jewelry steam blasted and cleaned. Although they tried feverishly to actually buy Umma’s high-quality pieces from me, they had to be content with me simply buying their most elegant jewelry cases to put each different piece into.

For only two hundred dollars, I bought two solid gold, twenty-four-karat rings. They were completely plain, no print, no diamonds, no engravings. Fawzi had said that the bangles were the precious pieces and there were no bangles more precious than the ones I had cleaned and glistening in the box.

Two swift deliveries on behalf of Umma Designs were completed. They were the items that the two clients ordered at the tail end of the big wedding, and were patient enough
to wait for. I gladly handed them over and accepted the generous tip from one of the clients, which made up for the non-tip from the other.

I picked Umma up at five. We went to the apartment. I showered and dressed all over again. I had never really known what it felt like to be nervous but I was getting a little familiar with the sensation.

She hugged me before I left, saying, “You already have my permission. If it is Allah’s will, it will be done.” She brushed her hands together to say, “And it is done.” We both smiled. I was out.

At Pratt, I waited at her classroom door. This way, there was no way for me to overlook her when she arrived. In fact, I would see her coming down the hall. Her eyes would give away whatever she was feeling, as they always did, and really on just one look, I would have all of my answers.

The closer it got to 7:00
P.M.
, the more students arrived. At exactly 7:00
P.M.
the professor showed up.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, smiling. “You’re looking quite smart. What’s the occasion?” she asked.

“I’m good,” I told her, diverting her questions.

“Have you changed your mind?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“About the modeling job,” she teased.

“Nah, I’m just waiting for Akemi,” I said.

“She probably won’t come tonight. She’s somewhere preparing for her big show. I’m sure you know all about it,” she tested.

“Yes, I know,” I told her.

“Okay then, bye-bye. Let me know if you change your mind about the modeling, Akemi or no Akemi.” She waved and went in.

I stood against the locker, my heart splitting in half, my body temperature rising, feeling like a fucking fool. I heard
her cousin’s voice in my ear, and her annoying American accent. “Akemi knows where you are! If she stopped coming around maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to anymore.”

I hopped on the train, thought about not going to the dojo, then thought about going home and facing Umma with no results. I thought about going to Queens instead, to Akemi’s studio. Within seconds, I realized that was a wrong move, especially in my state of mind. What kind of a love could she and I have if I had to fight her uncle at his home? I thought about going by the museum where her show was, thinking maybe she was there setting up or rehearsing or whatever.

Then, I just got tight and said, “Fuck it. Should I be chasing her around? If she was my wife, she would be right here with me where I could see her. If my wife wasn’t here with me, I better know where she was and it better be a place that I approved of.”

If she loved me, how could she just stay away?

Before my heartbreak converted to depression and my depression into rage, I took some deep breaths.

I decided I’d go to the dojo and clear my head. No women to entice or seduce me there. No women to arouse and abandon me there. Nobody with the power to break my heart there. No time or space or possibilities of tears there. I could just choose one of the students there and fuck him up real good to release my disappointment while calling it training.

Later, every student in the dojo was already seated in rows when I arrived. I cut across the back of the room headed for my locker. I needed to change in a flash. Suddenly, they all stood up, the sixteen or so Ninjitsu fighters, and began clapping.

I turned and looked at Ameer like, “What the fuck is going on?” I was surprised to also see Chris. I was so sure he was finished at the dojo.

When I turned to get an answer from Sensei, I saw Akemi standing in his space instead. Her eye was completely healed. When I looked into her eyes, I could see my reflection. I knew then that I had my answer.

She wore a gold tunic dress and Manolo Blahnik sandals, a pair I had seen in that expensive store. Her Fendi python pocketbook was so mean it could be worn without clothes. I had to pull myself back from my fantasy and focus on what was really going on in my dojo.

She looked so good that she had the men on their feet. Even the master of calm, Sensei himself, looked swept away. Now, there were thirty-six eyeballs focused on my reactions. I cut and walked around the men like they were cornstalks in an overcrowded field. As I got closer to her, she stepped up and folded into me.

I embraced her warmly and completely even though I was in shock. I was so used to being a private person. To hold my heart in my hands in front of men who had been with me for years but never really knew me made me feel vulnerable in ways that a fighter should never be vulnerable. If there was ever a time for an enemy to kill me, it would’ve been right then. I was so open in that moment that I was unlike a ninja, completely defenseless.

She remained there in my embrace. Then I turned her by her shoulders, kept one arm around her, and walked off to move us into a private corner of this large room.

I pulled out the gold envelope and handed it to her. She smiled and pulled the contents out and read them over. Her eyes welled up in tears that remained floating there but never fell.

“Sensei, please continue with the class,” I called out. But he didn’t and everyone laughed.

Then she turned to Sensei and called out some words in Japanese. Sensei left the room and returned seconds later
with a writing pen in his hand. He walked over and handed it to her.

Look how she has him eating out of her hands
, I thought to myself. Not to mention I wished I could throw a curtain around her so that no one else could see or stare at her beauty but me.

She started writing on the papers as she walked away. All male eyes positioned on each of her heeled feet moving gracefully across the floor. I wanted to know what she was doing. Although I knew that whatever she was doing, no one could stop her.

She spoke some more to Sensei. He called me over.

“She says that you said all that is needed are two or three witnesses. ‘Well, we have seventeen witnesses instead,’ ” he translated for Akemi.

“It’s true that we do have four men here who are at least eighteen years old,” Sensei pushed.

Ameer was standing in the back with his hands in the air like, “What the fuck is up with you now?” Chris was mesmerized.

I excused myself to the men’s room and performed
wudu
, the washing that each Muslim must do before making a prayer.

I returned and made a prayer at the front of the room facing east.

I recited
Al Fatiha
in Arabic:

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.

The Beneficent, the Merciful,

Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for help.

Guide us on the right path,

The path of those upon whom

Thou has bestowed favors,

Not those upon whom wrath is brought down,

Nor those who go astray.

When I raised up, everyone was standing in complete silence. I pulled the jewels from my inside jacket pocket. I opened the elegant boxes and placed each bangle onto Akemi’s wrist. The diamonds on the right, the gold on her left. For me, this was not any type of game.

“Sensei, Akemi may recite her
nikah
now if she chooses,” I said. Sensei translated. She chose. She recited her
nikah
in Japanese. Sensei translated her words into English for the seventeen witnesses, four of whom were adults, in addition to Sensei who was somehow representing Akemi and Akemi’s understanding as a father, guardian, or family advisor would normally do.

Akemi faced me, and began reading the
nikah
in Japanese from the paper in the gold envelope. She was speaking with no fear, as though no one else was there other than the two of us. Sensei translated the words of the
nikah
into English for everyone to hear and understand. I recited my acceptance of her giving herself to me in marriage. We signed the
agid
in the presence of everyone.

Sensei placed his signature on our documents, as did two other adult students whom I knew from regular classes.

I opened the box with the simple gold rings and slid one onto her finger. She placed the second ring onto mine.

She held her arms up for everyone to see. She dropped her wrist down to show off her fingers and the ring. Then she bowed over completely before me. These cats went wild with cheer.

Not your average Islamic ceremony, I knew.

Having already signed her name on all of the documents, she handed Sensei the paperwork, plus some papers from her pocketbook, and said some words to him in their language.
The more she spoke to Sensei without my understanding, the more uneasy I became.

She turned to me and folded herself into my embrace. She eased out from me and turned to leave and of course I followed her.

As we exited the dojo, a limousine, double-parked halfway down the block, began driving our way. The driver pulled up and double-parked in front of the dojo. The Asian driver emerged and ran around to open the car door. I told him to get back in the car. I spun her around and looked at her to show my confusion at whatever her plan was.

She placed her hand onto the car door handle. I put my hand over hers; the gold glittered polish on her fingertips looking exquisite against my black skin.

We opened the door and she stepped on the inside of the limo door. Then she turned towards me to show me that she was leaving alone.

She said, “
Aishiteru
.”

In a move that went against all of my beliefs about public intimacy, I kissed her. She leaned against the warm exterior of the limo and her body relaxed. Her mouth was moist and warm. I saw her eyes roll into her head and then close in pleasure. She gave in to the feeling.

Soon, she pushed my body away gently and said, “Sayonara.” This is a Japanese word that almost everyone knew, or heard or said before. But since I first met Akemi, it is the one word that I never liked to hear her say.

She got in the limo. I closed her door and went to the other side where her driver was. I leaned in towards him knowing that I was intimidating him. He was a small man. He opened his window only enough to hear me out.

“Where are you supposed to take her?” I asked.

“New Jersey,” he answered.

I stood there with my hands on his window, delaying him.
All I could think was that I wanted Akemi to stay here with me. I felt a thousand percent possessive over her, same as I did before we recited the
nikah
, but it was even more pressing to me now.

Instead, I told myself she will be fine and she will make the right choices which are best for both of us. I felt wrong for doubting her in the first place, when it was so completely evident that she is mine, and I am where she wants to be. I pulled away from the driver’s window, tapped the top of his hood, nodded to Akemi, and the driver pulled off.

Nobody was fighting in the dojo. Everybody was at the window watching me. Ameer was in the front now, of course. As I approached the building, the curtain that separated the Ninjitsu world from the Brooklyn streets dropped.

When I entered the dojo they were all seated on the floor there staring at me.

“What?” I asked. Sensei was seated in the middle of them on the floor, which I had never seen him do before. With a playful smile he said, “If at your age you can win over such a lovely young wife who will do anything for you and pledge her love with such open loyalty, then perhaps you should be teaching this class, and I should be back here listening and learning from you.” The class laughed all together.

I stood there dazed by the whole last hour of my life.

“Loosen up, man, you got the girl!” Ameer said. They all laughed again.

Still thinking of Akemi, I asked Sensei, “What did she tell you?” He smiled.

“Perhaps you’d better get a professional translator to translate the events of this day for you.”

“
Sumimasen
, Senseisan,” I said, apologizing to him for the disrespect I caused him to feel by getting someone other than him to translate my marriage documents into Japanese.

“Very well,” Sensei said. “She said, ‘I love you. You are my
husband now and I am your wife, nobody can change that.’ She also said that neither a beautiful bird, nor a beautiful leopard, is beautiful in a cage; no one can change that either.”

“She’s deep,” Chris said.

“She probably heard that somewhere in a rhyme,” Ameer said.

I wasn’t saying anything, just thoughts racing through my mind, my heart and my body throbbing equally.

“Do you know the meaning of her name?” Sensei asked, always in the teaching position.

“Her name, Akemi, means, ‘Bright Beauty.’ ”

“Midnight and the Bright Beauty,” Chris recited out loud.