A Moment of Silence: Midnight III (The Midnight Series Book 3) (50 page)

“I was born in Japan, grew up there in the forest,” she said, smiling, a pure, pretty smile.

“Then I’ll have to teach you.”

“Are you going to take me to a party?” she asked, excited.

“Yeah, right in your room. Me and you and some music.”

“That’s not the same thing!” she said, laughing.

“In Sudan, single college men and women can’t even have a party. The police come in with sticks and whips and send everybody back to their families,” I told her.

“Why!” she exclaimed like she couldn’t believe it.

“It’s an Islamic country. Islam is the wisest faith. It takes into account human nature and instinct in every instance,” I explained.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, if a group of young males and females meet up in the dark in a room where the music is playing, if the beat is powerful, naturally bodies start to bounce and move. If I see something I like, and a female sees something she likes, next thing you know, we’re up on each other. And, if we are not married, we will most likely still end up fucking ’cause the mood is so intense and because it’s a natural feeling. You already know, unmarried sex is forbidden in Islam.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “But whips and sticks? Do you think the same thing happens at every party just like that?”

“As long as there is one female or more, and one male or more, it happens, just like that,” I assured her. “Just look at what happened between you and me when we first met. Soon as we saw each other, we caught feelings.”

“True,” she said softly. “We had feelings, but you didn’t touch me. We didn’t have sex.”

“Right, but you kept trying to get me alone in a room,” I said, teasing her with the truth.

“Oh!” she shouted excitedly. “I did not!”

“Yes, you came to my hotel room, didn’t you? You were offering me translation services. I saw those big pretty eyes and thought I might lose my mind. It was hard every time it was just you and me in a room.”

“But you resisted me,” she said.

“Until I married you, I had to. Now look at me. I can’t keep off of you. And if someone tried to keep me off of you now, they would need a stick and a whip and a pistol,” I said. She laughed hard. I laughed too.

“Hope you know, it doesn’t matter what anyone says about you, how weird or unique or different you are. You are right here,” I told her, and placed my hand over my heart, then grabbed and hugged her up. “Come, let’s go inside.”

“What about the fire? What about our clothes?” she asked, a careful reminder. I scooped up two fistfuls of soil and suffocated the small fire. She swiftly picked up each of our pieces of clothing and we headed into the house.

*  *  *

“Your second wife will hand you your first son,” she said. I was sitting on her bedroom floor with my back against the wall. She was sitting in my lap with her face against my chest, right over my stab wound. “Your first wife will have twin daughters.”

“
Insha’Allah
,” I said. Wild thoughts were streaming through my mind now. I know why any man would adore her, get obsessed and do some real stupid shit to win her. I know that any man that has the pleasure to see and speak to her, to look into her eyes or experience her smile, would fall for her. I know a man could lose his mind over her. I did. She felt so good to me, had me so open. I felt the heat of
murder with the thought of anyone, anywhere, anytime trying to get at Chiasa. Word to mother, I feel murderous if any man even looks at her. I needed to admit that to myself. If I could lock her up and be the only one she talked to or ever saw, I would, but I know that’s insane.
It’s a strong feeling
, I told myself.
It’s something you have to manage
, I told myself.
Get some discipline
, I scolded myself.

“What about the cuffs?” I finally asked her. She exhaled.

“I don’t like when you leave the house without seeing me, even if it’s only for a few seconds. And I don’t like when you keep secrets from me,” she said softly. “And I don’t like when we pray separately. And I want to hear you call the
adhan.
I miss that,” she confessed. “Remember in Itaewon?” she asked me, referring to a section of Seoul, Korea. “The mosque always had the call to prayer and we could hear it all around outside and in the open air. That was so nice,” she said.

“You want me to say the call to prayer inside our house?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “at least in the morning for Fajr and then the last prayer of the night. I never heard you sing before. But your speaking voice is so nice. I know it would sound beautiful, you calling the prayer. And I bet if Akemi could hear the call to prayer, it would bring her to her knees finally. That’s what I love about our faith. It has everything anyone would need to hold their family together. And if we do what we are supposed to, the way we are supposed to do it, all of us will feel good.”

“So you cuffed me to Akemi so that I wouldn’t leave the house without you. But when I woke up, you were not in the house,” I said.

“But
you knew
I was right around the corner with Naja,” she said. “When you leave sometimes, I don’t see you for a long time, the whole day, most of the night. And that’s okay. I just want that whenever we part from one another, you say
ja mata
to me and then leave me with a nice
mazaj
.” I smiled.

“Mazaj,” I repeated. “Where did you learn that word?”

“You know I listen carefully. I might know about thirty Arabic words by now. And in Naja’s school there is this one teacher who
every morning talks about her
mazaj
for the day. I love the sound of that word,” she said.

“And
ja mata
?”

“That’s Japanese. Just a cool way for young people to not say ‘goodbye,’ which sounds so final. Instead, it’s ‘
ja mata
,’ like, ‘I’ll see you later.’ ” She smiled.

“I can hold on to a good feeling for days and nights and even more days. I can wait for you. I’m good for that, however long it takes. But if you leave without saying anything, without letting me know what’s going on and while keeping a whole bunch of secrets, that’s no good for me. Then I’ll be worrying the whole time. I need for you to take a few minutes and leave me with a good feeling before you go. Confide in me, so I can hold onto that.”

“A whole bunch of secrets.” I repeated what sounded like an exaggeration.

“Yes.” She kissed me. “A whole bunch of secrets. Like what about your friends?”

“What friends?” I said.

“See! That’s what I am talking about. You said those guys in our backyard every day were workmen building a wall. You told Umma and Naja and Akemi and me not to come outside when they were here and not to interact with them at all.
But it was obvious that they were your friends.
My window faces the yard. I could see how you were with them. I could see your smile. I saw you lifting weights with the cement blocks, challenging them. I saw the three of you talking together and laughing and joking. I can tell when you love somebody. I can see it and feel it right away,” she said.

“And who do I love?” I asked her.

“Umma first of all, and Akemi and Naja and those two friends who helped you build the wall,” she said. “Is there a reason you don’t want your friends to know us?”

I was quiet, thinking about how to say the truth in a right way.

“You don’t want me to train in your dojo?” she asked. “You won’t tell me why my cousin Marcus called you? You went out in the
night and came back with a stab wound. I would never have known if I didn’t dig through the trash and see all of the bloody cotton, bandages, clothes, and used alcohol wipes. And even then, I still didn’t know if it was you who got hurt. I worried about Akemi and the twins, and Umma and Naja. But I realized pretty quickly that it had to be you from examining your clothes. I wondered where exactly on your body you were hurt. Until I felt your chest, I had no way of knowing. Why won’t you let me fight with you against your enemies? Why didn’t you let me comfort you, clean your wounds? When we first met, I introduced myself to you the most natural way I could. I introduced myself as ‘Chiasa, the whole woman, not a half.’ So why not take all of me, instead of selected parts and pieces?” she asked me softly. “I am a woman. I like to love and fight and fuck and read, and learn and talk and earn and fly and ride and discover things. That’s my adventure. Are there parts of me that you want to erase?”

I just hugged her and held her close for a while.

“I’m a Muslim man, living in a foreign land,” I finally said, directly into her ear. “It’s not my women who I don’t trust. It’s this place. Should I tell you what I would do if I just acted on my instincts and impulses? I wouldn’t let you talk to any other men. I wouldn’t let them see you. I wouldn’t let you take pilot lessons with any other male students or teachers. I’d ask you to stay in the house when I go out and wait here till I get back. I wouldn’t let you go anywhere, unless I escorted you. I wouldn’t let you work for anything, but I’d give you everything you needed and everything you wanted. I know you are trained in martial arts, but I don’t want you to fight. I get tight if I think that you think I need help to conquer my enemies. I’ll protect you, provide for you, love you. How does that make you feel?” I asked her.

“It makes me feel really good. If that is your truth, I’m just happy you shared it with me,” she said.

“And those two guys are my best friends. I do love them. But here is what you need to know about all men. If any man,
relative, friend or foe, sees another man having something too precious, genuine, beautiful, rare, he wants it for himself. As a Muslim man, I want my friends and brothers and all men to have good and true and beautiful things for themselves too. But none of them can touch mine. Each man has to earn his own wealth, whether it’s women, land, gold, or money. That’s the struggle each man has to wage. There are men who want the gifts that Allah provides, but who are unwilling to humble themselves in faith to receive the rewards. Men unwilling to strive, sacrifice, or limit themselves, soon as they realize that there is some work or struggle involved, they turn away. But even after they turn away, they still want the wealth that Allah rewards to those who work and strive sincerely and who respect limits and walk the straight path. That’s when there is war between men.”

“
Arigato gozaimasu
,” she said, thanking me in Japanese.

“For what?” I asked her.

“For answering my questions,” she said. And then she was silent. I knew it was because I did not speak about the stabbing.

“Men fight. Expect that, and don’t expect them to tell you about it. A real man keeps his women out of the realm of war. War is a brutal, man’s space. If a woman, who a man really loves as deeply as I love you, comes into the realm of war, she will cause that man who loves to become distracted from his target. Instead of finishing his battle, he will become preoccupied with her. Just the fact that she’s there will add more fuel to his fury. He may even kill, ignoring other options, because she is there. Her presence will make the war turn out differently than if it was just kept between men. If a man has to worry about protecting you, while confronting or being attacked by his enemies, it gives his enemies the advantage,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to be the reason your man gets merked, simply because you believed that you were trying to help him fight his battles, would you?” I asked her.

“Merked?” she repeated.

“Murdered,” I clarified.

“No, not at all,” she said. “Not murdered. That would be too harsh,” she said softly.

“Don’t worry about what Marcus said to me on the phone. Leave it between men.”

“Even though I saw his
karambit
in your hiding space where you keep your guns? You want me to overlook it?” she asked slowly and sweetly.

“His
karambit
?” I repeated.

“It’s a close-combat blade. The handle fits snug in a fighter’s fist. It’s easy to conceal and the blade itself is curved like this,” she said, drawing the shape of the blade on my skin with her fingertip. “It’s deadly. It belongs to Marcus. I’ve seen it in his collection before. But of course they make plenty of them, so maybe it’s yours, although this was my first time seeing you with it.”

Now I knew what I already knew. My second wife sees almost everything having anything to do with me. She went in the ditch I dug, the box I built and buried to stash my heat. And I’m sure checking my stash tonight was not her first time doing it. She knew so much about me that I didn’t voluntarily tell or show her.

“Yeah, overlook it,” I told her solemnly.

“Well, at least I know that it wasn’t Marcus or Marcus’s blade that cut you. The way that weapon is curved, if an enemy swung down properly, it would have not only sliced open your chest, the hook may have even snatched out your heart. The cut you have is not so deep,” she said with the feeling of love streaming through her voice. “The cut you have looks like it was done by a halfhearted fighter.”

“Halfhearted fighter?” I repeated.

“Yes, like a guy who wanted to make you hurt, but not enough to push the blade in forcefully. Like a fighter who was undecided, which is the worst kind of fighter. My sensei would say that this is a person who doesn’t deserve the weapon he holds in his hand. My sensei would say that whoever did that had a weak mind. If his mind was strong, and if he was capable of making a decision and
following through on what he decided, that guy would have never picked up the weapon in the first place. He would have figured out that he is afraid of the fight, he is afraid of killing and equally afraid of dying, and he lacks confidence in his victory. It would have been better for that kind of guy to just communicate and try to solve his disagreements with you. And Marcus has had military training. I don’t think of him as a halfhearted fighter. Why would he fight you anyway?” she asked naïvely, but still poking around for details.

“Oh, and I decided that he probably called you to make sure that we all show up to the Martha’s Vineyard July Fourth celebration.”