Ink and Ashes

by Valynne E. Maetani

  Unlikely we were anywhere near home. Were we anywhere anyone could hear? Images of Forrest on the stairs loomed in my head. I opened my mouth to scream.

  The safety of a gun clicked behind my head. I clapped my mouth closed.

  “Scream. No one will hear you, Kimiko.” The man spoke in a low, raspy voice.

  Kimiko.

  “How do you know my middle name?” I asked.

  He sneered and freed an evil laugh.

  The man walked around, leaning in closer until the mask was only an inch from my face. I tried to stare him down, but the muscles in my neck gave way, and I lowered my head.

  Untying the strings of the mask with one hand, the man lifted it from his face with the other. He threw it to the ground, pulled back his hood, and dragged the zipper down. The hoodie fell from his shoulders, revealing a black fitted T-shirt. He slipped his arms from the hoodie sleeves, letting it fall to his feet.

  In front of me stood a Japanese man. From the gray in his hair, I guessed him to be in his sixties. Every muscle from his neck down his arms was sculpted, stretched over sun-spotted skin, but even more toned than my dad’s. Beneath the tight fabric of his shirt was a sculptured chest and abs.

  “I know more about you dan you know about yourself.” He shuffled away across the dirty concrete floor, kicking up dust clouds until he was a good twenty feet from me. Resting a worn boot on a stray piece of machinery, he lit a cigarette. The embers glowed a fiery red in the darkness. With each drag, my heart accelerated faster.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  He stared upward, watching the smoke dissipate into nothing. “Jiro Arakaki,” he said, emphasizing each syllable.

  But the name meant nothing to me.

  “This is a mistake,” I said, shivering. “You must think I’m someone else.”

  His head snapped in my direction, and he slid his boot from the machinery, letting it thud as it landed. With slow steps, he crossed the floor, one boot stomping, a pause, and then the other, decreasing the distance between us. Thud. Pause. Thud. “No.” Thud. Pause. Thud. He drew even closer, surveying me with creepy eyes.

  Each thud—each pause—echoed in the hollow space, making my heart hammer in sync.

  “Dis no mistake. I know who you are, Kudayah.”

  The way he said my name punched me in the gut. Kudayah. Only my mom’s family in Japan had struggled to say Claire that much. Did he know my father? My dad?

  He puffed his cheeks and blew in my face. His tobacco breath warmed my skin but made my eyes water.

  Something rustled to my side maybe three feet away. I dropped my head to find Nicholas unconscious on a flatbed cart, bound and gagged. His flannel shirt was ripped, and I could see his bare chest. He barely moved, and from the bruises on his body, I could tell he was badly beaten.

  “Let him go!” I cried. “You don’t want him. You want me. Do whatever you want to me, but please . . . let him go!”

  The Japanese man stared at me and smirked as if he took pleasure in my anguish.

  “Let him go!” I screamed. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Honor.” The word rolled off his tongue with little effort. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  “How can this possibly have anything to do with honor?”

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  “You’re yakuza,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “Stupid, stupid girl.” A wicked smile crossed his face. “Do you have any idea the kinds of things your father did? Do you know how long I waited for dis moment?” He paced around the chair and puffed the cigarette. Small spirals of smoke left his nostrils and rose in the air, drifting to the ceiling.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked again, so close I could see the wrinkles on his forehead stretch wide when he spoke. I choked on his smoke-filled breath as he glared and asked, “Do you know who you are?”

  Claire Takata. Daughter of loving parents. Devoted sister. Loyal friend.

  He struck me with the back of his hand, the force almost tipping the chair I was tied to. The sting sent a burning shiver down the side of my face.

  “Answer me,” he said. His voice was soft—quiet, like the purple sky before a snowstorm. He paced around, waiting for my answer.

  Did he have any idea the kinds of things my father did? How he’d left behind a life of violence to have a better life, to leave a legacy for us, where decisions were our own and not the dictates of someone else’s idea of loyalty or obedience?

  I lifted my head, my hands behind my back, hidden from his view. “I am a child,” I said. The thought of my father made me struggle to get free, but the rope cut into my wrists. I swallowed hard and tried again.

  I thought of Nicholas on the cart. Fed. Mom and Dad. Parker. Avery.

  Forrest.

  Desperate to locate an escape, I scanned the gray brick walls. Mr. Arakaki blew smoke in my face again. I coughed as the taste hit my mouth and made my eyes burn. His shirt smelled rancid, and every time he moved, the smell of stale urine mixed with vinegar, sulfur, and rotting vegetables filled the air.

  “I tell you why you are here,” he said. He stood and corrected his posture as if readying himself for a speech. “Almost three decades ago—”

  “I don’t care!” I yelled. I jerked my shoulders and tried to break free. “Help! Help! Somebody help me! Somebody—”

  He slammed the back of his hand against my cheek. The chair rocked and almost fell over. The jolt made my head pound harder. I tried to hold back tears, but the salty liquid slid down my throat.

  He clenched his yellow, rotten teeth and tapped a finger on my forehead. “Don’t try dat again.” He straightened himself. “Years ago I have daughter named Kimiko—just like you. I run a dry-cleaning business, and your father show up on first business day of every month at 8:00 A.M. to collect protection money.”

  His eyes shifted to the wall behind me, and for a moment his face softened. “My wife and I have Kimiko when we were only teenagers. We work hard to make a living. I gave a lot of money to your father, but I never complain. We had daughter, and I do anything to protect my family.”

  Though his English was broken and hard to understand at times, every phrase flowed as if it had been rehearsed for many years. “One day my wife collapse. The doctor told me she would die of brain cancer. She argued to me, but I willing to do anything to save her.”

  A few patches of hair peeked through his half-buttoned shirt. He tugged at a thick gold chain around his neck. “We use all our money, but she died. Just as doctor said she will do.”

  His shoulders slumped forward.

  “On first day of month, your father came, but I didn’t have the money,” he said, shoulders still sagging. “I promise he have payments by end of month, and I thought he have pity for me because he left. But I was fool. They came back and tore apart our house.”

  Tears slid down his face, but he pressed on with determination. “My Kimiko work at bakery after school, but she never came home dat day. Police call and say she in hospital. Someone hit her on her bicycle with car. They haven’t kill her. They just hit her hard enough to send warning. I beg your father and promise to get money even if I have to steal.” He opened his hand in the air, then closed it as if trying to catch something.

  He clenched his fist and moved his face nearer to mine—close enough I could see dirt in his pores, his stained teeth, his soulless dark eyes.

  “By next day I have enough money from family dat I able to pay debt,” he said. “But first of the month came too soon. And your father came to store. I have only half of the payment ready for him. Kimiko would get paycheck next day. But your father become angry.”

  He grabbed my shoulders and shook until I thought my neck might snap. “Your father hit me so hard I fall to floor. He yell and say his boss grow impatient because I always late. The next night they burn a doll, dressed in Kimiko’s clothes, on doorstep of our house.”

  Arakaki-san hung his
head, chin against his chest, as if still experiencing the humiliation he’d endured so many years ago. “And then I receive envelope, filled with pictures of Kimiko at work and school, and pictures of her with friends. All their faces crossed out.” His chest heaved. “I promised to protect her.”

  His voice grew quiet. “For weeks we scared. And then she was gone. I run to Miya’s house. But Miya missing too. I search all night, knocking on doors, but no one had seen them. My Kimiko have just become eighteen.”

  The tears turned to sobbing as he relived the events of that fateful day. “Kimiko Arakaki and Miya Okano. Eighteen years old and best friends. Always together from day they met. Found in abandoned warehouse. Both shot. Both dead.”

  ARAKAKI-SAN WIPED TEARS from his face with the dirty sleeve of his sweatshirt.

  “Your father is coward.” His finger stabbed my chest. “He disappear right after dat. His boss give up trying to find him after only few years, but I motivated by something much stronger dan money.”

  He took another drag of his cigarette and exhaled. The wisps of smoke hung in the air, before melting into the nothingness above us.

  “Nicholas.” I looked at my friend, then turned to the man. “Please let him go. Do what you want with me . . . just let him go.”

  Nicholas, who must have woken up in the last few minutes of this exchange, moaned through his gag, his eyes begging me not to ask for such a trade.

  “Quiet!” the man shouted. He pressed his lips together. Deep wrinkles marked the sides of his mouth.

  But I couldn’t let Nicholas go through this for my sake. “Don’t do this. Don’t bring shame to Kimiko’s name.” I twisted and again the rope burned into my wrists.

  “Quiet!” the jaded man shouted again. Spit flew in every direction. “What do you know about shame? I am not to blame.” He shook his fist in the air. “You are stupid like your father. I search for him for years, and I would not have found you if you had not call me.”

  This was my fault. I had called him. He was the man from the letter—the man on the other end of the phone. A sick acidic taste rose in my throat.

  “Poor Mr. Tama. You completely ruin his life.”

  Mr. Tama? I raised my eyes to meet his. “What are you talking about?”

  “All he wanted was new start.” Arakaki-san shook his head. “He make it too easy.”

  “Because he hated my father as much as you,” I said.

  “Did he?” His face quirked as if he were reveling in something I didn’t know. He pointed at my chest. “You are hated as much as your father, so what dat say about you?”

  I shifted my focus to the ground.

  “It not hard to find someone who hate you. Do you know things people say about you on Internet? Finding help was easy.”

  I had a pretty good idea.

  He twirled the gun in his hand. “This is your fate. Unmei. This is your destiny—to die like my Kimiko and her friend Miya.”

  “Chase and Mumps may hate me, but even they wouldn’t want me murdered,” I said through quivering lips. At least I hoped they didn’t. Were they murderers? When I thought Mumps was the man in the mask, I’d thought him capable of it.

  Had they helped this man, knowing what his plans were?

  “My father’s dead. If you thought killing me would make him suffer, you’re too late.”

  “I know he is dead. I learn dat when I got here.” He leaned closer. “But I wouldn’t have killed him even if he were living,” he whispered, “so he could see what he caused.” He stood upright and paced the length of the room. For a moment I thought he would leave us there to die of thirst and starvation where no one could hear us call for help, but he circled back, following the same path again and again.

  I refused to believe this was my fate, that there was no other way. How could Jiro Arakaki’s only destiny be to kill me, as if he had no choice?

  The man continued to pace around the cold, bare room. At moments his bass voice would break into song, the same sad ballad he had used to haunt my house. The Japanese melody floated in the hollow room. I wondered if he even remembered we were there with him.

  “Do you know what those words mean?” he asked without looking at me.

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. “It is about a man who looks to skies so dat tears will not fall. Spring, summer, autumn he looks up because he is alone. He counts stars with tearful eyes because he is alone.”

  Arakaki-san continued to walk and lifted his gaze to the light of the moon streaming through the broken windows. “And tears collect in eyes as he walks because sadness lies in shadows of stars and in shadow of moon. And he looks up so tears do not fall. For he is all alone.”

  A twinge of sympathy struck me, but I pushed it away. Sympathy wouldn’t save us.

  “Do you know what it is like to be all alone?” he asked.

  My chin dropped. Exhaustion weighed on every muscle. It had to be past midnight. Dad would tell me to conserve my energy, and I wasn’t about to waste any answering this man’s questions.

  The tears had dried, but strands of hair remained matted to my face. I couldn’t break free to brush them away.

  Arakaki-san finally fell against a large metal barrel and crumpled to the ground. Shadows hid his face, yet I could still feel his eyes piercing the darkness. The sky was blank without stars, but cloud silhouettes unrolled into wisps across the moon, high, but hidden from my view.

  The man stayed slumped on the floor. Every now and then he would wake himself with a loud snore, jerk his head, then fall back asleep. In the stillness, I stared at Nicholas. Guilt washed over me. We needed to get out.

  The tops of my ears burned from the glacial air. All feeling in my hands and feet had been gone for at least an hour. If I felt this way, how did Nicholas feel?

  I winced when I looked over. Seeing Nicholas sent panic through me. He barely moved. The shallow breaths that escaped his lips and materialized as he exhaled were the only evidence I had he was even alive.

  But all I could do was look, and my strength betrayed me. My mind started to wander in and out of consciousness, until all I could see was Forrest. My worries for Nicholas and my worries for Forrest melded into one great ball of fear, which turned to nightmares in my dreams.

  I JOLTED AWAKE when Arakaki slapped my face. My skin was near frozen before, and now the shivers were uncontrollable. Hypothermia was setting in. Outside, snow had started to fall against the black night.

  I mustered enough energy to lift my head. “Please don’t do this. You have a choice.”

  He stared at me with sharp eyes, ignoring my pleas. “I did not choose for Kimiko to die. Dat choice taken from me.” Greasy strands of black-and-gray hair fell in his face.

  In the faint light of his cigarette, I could see red lightning-like lines streaking the whites of his tired eyes.

  “I’m sorry for what my father did,” I said. “For what he put you through. If you think it will make you feel better, you can kill me, but there’s no honor in retaliation. Please let Nicholas go. You can’t respect the life she led by taking the life of another.”

  “You.” He pounced at me until his face was right in mine. “You are shame to our people. You have no idea what honor means. Things I have been through are things you cannot understand.”

  His shouts hurt my ears, but I had no way of escaping. I shut my eyes. “How are we different?” I cried. “Both of us are suffering because of decisions my father made. We had no choice regarding the consequences of his actions, but we have a choice now. I refuse to believe his poor judgment defines the kind of people we become.”

  He lunged and wrapped his hands around my throat, squeezing as I struggled for breath. Blackness closed in. Just when I thought I would pass out, he let me go. I choked and gasped for air.

  But he wasn’t done yet. He stepped back and delivered a flying kick to my side. The chair crashed to the ground, its metal legs screeching across the floor. My cheek slid along the concrete like sandpaper. When
I finally came to a stop, blood pooled around my ear.

  The side of my face flared with pain. “I’m sorry he did this to you,” I said. My voice was weak, and I couldn’t stop shivering. “But Nicholas and I are innocent. Like Kimiko. If you kill us, you only take more innocent lives. For the past several months, you have tortured me, recreating all the events that happened to your daughter. This has nothing to do with honor.”

  He threw back his head. “You don’t understand! She is gone.”

  “I do understand. He did this to all of us, not just Kimiko. I’m sorry he did this to you,” I whispered. I couldn’t help but resent my father in this moment, resent how his past still haunted us. I wished I’d never seen that letter.

  But now wasn’t the time for regrets. I slid my wrists back and forth, over and over again, cutting my skin against the rope to loosen it. “I’m so sorry.”

  He yelled what sounded like Japanese profanities. In complete madness, he spun around and around, his eyes possessed. He stomped across the floor, picked up a small metal pipe, and swung at a barrel. The booming, hollow sound filled the empty space. He flung the pipe at a window. Shattered glass rained everywhere.

  I tugged at the rope harder. My wrists were raw and bleeding, but the rope had started to loosen.

  Arakaki-san stormed to a large shelf full of machine parts and shoved it to the ground. Gears, nuts, bolts, cylinders, and small pipes toppled in all directions, deafening me as metal clanged against the concrete floor.

  He picked the gun back up and waved it in the air, firing a couple of shots. Part of the ceiling crashed to the floor, narrowly missing my head. He stretched both arms high and spun in slow circles. Without warning, he recklessly aimed it at Nicholas.

  And then he pulled the trigger.

  Nicholas’s body jumped and slammed back down against the cart.

  “Nicholas!” I screamed. “Nicholas!” I jerked side to side and tried to fling myself toward him.