A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (27 page)

I didn’t try to figure it out. Her purpose for me was legal defense. Besides, I am a Muslim man who believes that believers will always be tested in this life. And, while being tested, no matter how difficult life gets, it is senseless to try and abandon faith. Allah is everywhere. At the same time, Allah is just. At the same time, Allah is above comprehension.

If I didn’t know better, I would think that my life was in my lawyer’s hands. But I know better. Whatever Allah wills, whatever Allah allows will be done, nothing more or less.

And whether Ayn Eliana Aaronson, Esquire, was assigned by her job or if she chose herself to represent me, I believe it was because that is what was supposed to happen. She might think it was all her idea. I believe otherwise.

Ayn had a calm and clever and scholarly way of speaking and questioning, signaling and profiling me without saying directly that that was what she was doing. Even her suggestions, strategies, and conclusions were not spoken aloud, plainly and straight out.

If I had not already met the most intelligent and cleverest
woman in the world, I might not have ever caught on to the double and triple meanings and behaviors and suggestions of my attorney. However, meeting my second wife’s aunt prepared me in some necessary, peculiar, and urgent way for this difficult battle I face. Her name is Aunt Tasha.

15. AUNT TASHA 
•
 
A Reflection

Her blue phone rang. We all heard it. It was impossible not to hear it. Chiasa had the ringer on maximum volume so that she would never miss her father’s phone call, no matter which room she was in at our house, even if she was in the shower. We were each at the front door just about to leave and all very conscious of making good time.

Akemi, feeling impatient, was standing high in her Valentino Rockstud black sling-back pumps. The subtle tapping of the tip of her gorgeous heels was the only indication that she did not like that Chiasa was holding everyone up. My first wife had an appointment with the director of the Museum of Modern Art. He’d called her as a favor to a VIP donor to the museum. The donor wanted to meet the brilliant sixteen-years-young Akemi to discuss the possibility of privately commissioning her artwork that the museum had featured months ago. She wanted me to escort her. Of course I would, as well as carry her huge portfolio of original drawings and paintings.

Chiasa had dashed to her room and caught the call before there could be a third ring. “Daddy!” we could all hear her say in an excited tone. I smiled and Umma laughed. Akemi watched me closely with her shapely, expressive eyes. Those eyes were like sensors that captured images that her fingers would later sketch and draw from memory. But more than that, her eyes were sensors that recorded feelings as well. This is why her artwork has soul and movement.
You could look at it and feel like you saw her art breathing. Her drawings and paintings of nature seemed to capture the light of the sky and a glimpse of the beauty that Allah created in trees and flowers, mountains and oceans and waterfalls. Akemi was so highly skilled that she could draw something simple, like a chair. When you look at the drawing, you would feel as though you knew the last person who sat in that chair, their size and weight as well as what era the chair came from and how long it had been around.

She had her hair pulled back in a tight bun hidden beneath a mean black fedora. It was her style, and she knocked me out. I was content that she was covered. Her black summer linen skirt and beautiful white linen blouse made her look like a wealthy princess.

She exhaled, slid out of her heels and approached me in the living room where I now stood listening to Chiasa’s phone call. Her black eyeliner, drawn on nicely, highlighted her sensual eyes. I hugged her and held her close in my embrace. Umma smiled. She had been smiling a lot lately, and a few times even laughed aloud out of nowhere, refusing to explain herself. My wives did not know why she did, but everyone loves smiles and laughter, so they let it pass. Besides, there was no common spoken language between my Umma and my wives. Umma only spoke Arabic and a few functional English words and sentences. Akemi could not speak in Arabic or English, but she also knew a handful of functional English words. She spoke Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai. Chiasa could speak fluently, comfortably, and confidently in English, Japanese, and French. So my first and second wife shared only one common spoken language. I could speak fluent Arabic, and of course English. I knew a few functional words, phrases, and sentences in Japanese and Korean only because of my love for both wives. Love makes me learn.

I knew why Umma smiled and even why she laughed. She takes me seriously and believes in marriage as a requirement and the only relationship that can be shared between a male and a female that involves sex, babies, and family. At the same time, she thought there was some comedy in watching my wives and me, all teen years young,
yet very global. She loved seeing me grow as a man as I attempted to balance two wives, which wasn’t easy. Loving them both was easy, but balancing was a separate matter. Umma and my feelings were connected. She knew what I knew. I could not be in two separate places at one time, but I wanted to be. Umma would watch as I worked out the best and right thing to do in each situation.
Don’t move too far from the front door. Don’t follow Chiasa because I am curious as to what her father is saying now. Don’t allow Chiasa to make Akemi and me late to her business meeting. Don’t cause Akemi to feel that she is not my first priority. Don’t leave Chiasa behind when we were all going out together. Don’t forget Naja will be home soon and at the bus stop near our home, where at least one of us is supposed to be standing even before the bus pulls up and lets her off.
To be a son, husband, and brother and the only male in our household was more than a maneuver. A man could not pull it off, work hard, and also maintain peace and pleasure in his household if his love was not deep and genuine. The effort alone requires that.

“
Aafi lai
,” Chiasa said—“forgive me” in Arabic—to Umma, using one of the ten Arabic words that Naja had taught her for good manners. Then to Akemi she turned and said, “
Sumimasen
,” a Japanese apology. The two wives began speaking to one another in hurried hushed tones in Japanese. I did not interfere in their talk or question Chiasa directly in the presence of Umma or Akemi. I had learned how to handle these domestic situations. My wives had just recently made an agreement. Akemi told Chiasa not to translate between the first wife and her husband. Therefore, when Akemi had anything to convey to me, she would do it the same way she and I had always done it, through our eyes, facial gestures, and body language. Sometimes she would do it through her art, using a random sketch to get her point across, or by her putting my Japanese-to-English flash cards together to form an English sentence that expressed her meaning. Sometimes she would get frustrated and speak fluent Japanese to me, which I could not translate or understand. I could only react to her tones and my intuition. The truth was I loved my relationship with Akemi and the unusual way that we
communicated with one another. It made me love her from the start, and that love only increased day by day. Making love to Akemi was like the conversations she and I never had, since we don’t share a common spoken language. Making love to one another was one of the languages that both of us performed well, craved, understood, and felt deeply.

I opened the front door so both my wives would catch the message and walk out behind me. They did.

*  *  *

Very late that night, I entered our house. While removing my Nikes, I noticed that the aroma of the dinner we’d had earlier, which was prepared by Akemi on her night to cook, was wafted away by the purifying scent of eucalyptus that drifted from beneath Umma’s upstairs bedroom door. Quietly I eased out of the shoulder straps of my North Face backpack, unzipped it, and lifted out two heavy bags of coins, which I had collected from one of my three vending machine locations, the only ones I had not sold off wholesale. I pulled out the money belt that I never wore around my waist, using it as padding in my knapsack instead to keep the coins from shifting around and jingling. My money belt was tightly stacked with dirty one-dollar bills.
Wish they were hundreds
, I thought to myself.
In time
 . . . I reassured myself.

I stashed the earnings in the utility closet just for the remainder of the night. Before dawn I would bury half, and after dawn I would bank the other half. That was my method.

Washing off the grime of the streets, the filth of the money, and the soot of the subway in our first-floor half-bathroom, I was preparing myself for a late-night prayer. Cleaning my face, ears, neck, forearms, and calves, I finished by cleaning my feet. It occurred to me to ask Chiasa if she wanted to join me in the prayer. She was the only one in our house whose bedroom was on the first floor. Besides, I adore her.

I knocked; no answer. She must be asleep. I should have turned
and headed straight to the living room to make the prayer alone as I had first intended, but other thoughts streamed in and invaded my right mind. I turned her knob, following my curiosity instead. She wasn’t in her bed or even in her room. Yet the spring warmth was rushing through her opened window. I had told her when we first moved in not to leave it open or unlocked, even if she was only up chilling in Umma or Akemi or Naja’s bedroom. I’d offered her an air conditioner, but she preferred a fan. Now her window was open, her fan was spinning, and she was gone.

As soon as I reached up to shut and lock it, I saw her outside, seated on the railing of our backyard deck. In the black night, at 1 a.m., she was reading a book with a small book light illuminating the words. I stepped out of her window, my feet landing on the deck. I reminded myself that it was just eleven more days until the decorative iron security window guards were installed, preventing any intruder from going in and out of her bedroom window with the ease that she and I had both done.

She smiled. I smiled. She clicked off her little book light and tossed her book, titled
Seven Pillars
, onto a small low outdoor table, which was situated next to where she sat up high. At times she liked speaking to me in the dark, I remembered. After we were first married she was shy about revealing certain feelings. Sometimes she would cover her face with her hand and say, “Don’t look at me.” Sometimes she would look away when I smiled at her. In the dark she would feel confident to speak and express her rawest emotions.

“I came to get you for the night prayer,” I said. I was moving my mind back in a right direction.

“You don’t need a reason,” she said softly, and jumped over the railing and down into the grass. I walked over and looked. She was turning the metal knob to our garden water hose and rinsing her mouth, splashing her face, dousing her ears and nose.

“C’mon,” she said excitedly as she rolled up each pant leg and used the hose to wash her calves and feet. She handed the hose over
to me as she pulled out a long scarf that she had woven into her belt loops. She fanned out the wrinkles and quickly wrapped it into
hijab
, covering her hair, neck, and shoulders.

“I’m ready,” she said. She’s smart and swift. I never have to waste words with her. I rewashed using the hose. Felt I had to because since washing moments ago, my mind had wandered off where it should not have been focused at prayer time. The cold water cooled me down and set it right.

We made
salat
, she standing behind me, beneath the night sky and summer stars in our Queens backyard. Praying out of doors, and in the garden in Sudan, was something my father and I and our family and friends often did.

Many moments later, our prayers completed, Chiasa walked away towards the incomplete wall instead of back towards our house. I just watched her. Suddenly she stopped, turned facing me, and asked, “Could you go stand over there near the deck?” I didn’t know what she was up to, but her hypnotic silver-gray eyes were sparkling in the moonlight. I did as she asked. She gestured with her hand and said, “Bend a little, please.” The second I reached the squatting position like a wide receiver before the quarterback snapped the football, she ran towards me at top speed, jumped with both feet, and landed on my back, standing. She leaped from my back onto the rail of the deck and was then balancing herself like a tightrope walker as she walked the length of the railing, laughing lightly and covering her mouth to muffle her joy. Coming up the four short steps to walk beside her in case she caught a splinter or fell left or right, my smile broke out naturally, just thinking about her while asking myself the question,
What will she do next
?

“I have to do something,” she said. “If you don’t want to allow me into your dojo . . . I have to use the whole yard. I’ll be out here late night with my sword.” She was now gesturing as though she was holding her sword in her hand and using it to charge her rival.

Chiasa knows my heart. She knew I would never bring her into a dojo filled with men, even though she is an expert martial
artist and trained ninjutsu fighter. She knew why. Still she had used the art of invisibility to follow me there one evening in her sunglasses and modest disguise. She almost had me blinded until we both ended up paused in a crowd of walkers, gathered on the corner waiting for a green light. Some old woman was crossing at the speed of an infant just learning his first few steps. She dropped one of her two bags and her grapefruits began rolling out. Everyone kept moving except the old lady and my second wife. Not a native New Yorker, she was the only one who eagerly grabbed up the grapefruits and helped the elder, who was still standing in the middle of the street when the green switched to red. Holding the elder’s hand, she patiently walked her across, signaling drivers, who still honked and swerved around them. I watched her carefully and waited on the other side.