When she got through security and was once again safely and securely in the International boarding area for her final flight to Manila, her eyes were still heavy and her joints were just a bit stiff from all the sitting she’d done. She figured a walk around the concourse would do her good. The International flights area was on the second floor of the terminal, separated by a heavy wall of glass, but still pretty good people-watching because there was a lot of coming and going below her. It was the perfect setting because while she loved to people-watch, so many bodies being theoretically able to make contact with her was spooky.
Putting both arms through the light backpack she carried on these trips, she marched down the length of the glass window, studying people as she went. When she got to the end of the window, she turned around and started back. She should have started using the cane on these trips thirty years ago. Everyone gave the tottery old woman a wide berth, she thought, smiling to herself. Halfway down the window the second time, she stopped. She was staring at the crowd of black-haired people below her and it took her a moment to realize why.
There was Boris. She hadn’t seen him for fourteen years, but it was him right in front of her. He was shaking hands with a distinguished, elderly (well, a bit older than she was anyway) Japanese man. They bowed to each other, turned and both disappeared into the sea of people.
It was really him, right? Of course it was; her mind knew it the moment her eyes landed on him. It had stopped her even before she knew what was going on. She should have gotten a picture, but she didn’t. Now she was going to stand there until they called her flight.
Christmas Rocks
“You still have those silly things?” Marge asked.
“Of course we do, Auntie; they were the first Christmas decorations you made with us, sad as they are,” Steven laughed as he hauled the painted rocks out of the decorations bag. “Look, we even have the paper chains Katie made out of the cookbook you brought for Papa. He never did figure out how to make scalloped potatoes because she cut up the section of potato recipes.”
“I’m glad those rock decorations go in the bottom of the storage bag anyway.” Marge handed Steven the parcels that had been hand carried ten thousand miles. They were the decorations everyone in the family would open on Christmas Eve and add to the Christmas tree. She would be long gone by then, but saving those single presents to open that night was a tradition they continued that brought their hearts together again after she’d returned home.
“So will we all be together sometime during my visit?” she asked.
“If by ‘all’ you mean will Boris be joining us, the answer is certainly no,” Katie answered. “I’m not sure why you keep asking, Auntie; no one here has seen him since Julia…well, for a long time.”
“I keep asking because I keep hoping for him, Katie, that’s all. Certainly someone has heard from him?” Marge asked.
“Nope,” Steven said, “not since shortly after…well, not since the same time I told you last time you asked.”
Gilberto ignored the conversation, but Marge could read his answer on his face.
“Okay, well, never give up. I’m sure he’s out there somewhere. I, for one, wish him some happiness, wherever he is.” Marge put a cap on the conversation. It was really hard to keep Boris’s confidences, as he’d requested. But how would the Ramos family feel better if she told them she’d not only had letters from him, but she’d seen him in the airport last week? He just refused to acknowledge his family in any way and made me promise to keep his secret under threat of retreating from even me…forever.
“On a brighter note, we will be having one face from the past here for a visit while you’re with us, Auntie,” Steve said. “Benjiro should be arriving in a few days.”
“That’s great, Steven! It’s been a couple years since our paths crossed. How’s he doing?” Marge asked. She was aware of his past addiction issues and all the support Steven gave him when he finally decided he wanted to put his life back together.
“He’s great. He finally has a boyfriend that he’s willing to talk about,” Steven answered.
“Okay, that’s a pretty big step. I’m impressed. Has anyone met this person yet?” Marge asked.
“No, none of us has, but Benjiro told us a bit about him the last time he visited,” Katie answered. “He’s Japanese and a bit older than Benjiro…like maybe twenty-five years older.”
“Oh, goodness, that makes him older than me, I think!” Marge said. “Not a problem. What do they call that when guys do that? I know when it’s a woman they’re called a cougar, right?”
Larry, Katie and Orlan’s oldest son laughed out loud, “Geez, Auntie, you could be a cougar!”
“You hush, Larry. It’s been quite a while since I even thought about dating someone, younger or older than me,” Marge said. “Now pull out some of that tinsel we saved from last year.”
“No, it’s time for a break. How about we all take a walk down to the beach?” Gilberto was tired of talking about family that wasn’t around. He wanted to simply ‘be’ with family that was around. “We can stop by the Sari-Sari and grab a Coke.”
Katie just rolled her eyes. It was one of the serious disadvantages of having her store in what was Papa’s house. He treated it like his private cupboard. But if that’s what it took to make sure he took a break and stayed happy, so be it.
#
Benjiro showed up the first Monday after Marge arrived. By his recollection it had been more than five years since he’d seen her. Her visits were often not planned long enough in advance for him to get time off from his cruise commitments. This year was different because he’d taken a lot of time off due to Tomakita’s illness, and when he was told that he would not be allowed to see Tomakita until after recovery, he’d decided to just keep the time and call it a leave of absence. He needed a break anyway and when he worked he didn’t spend a nickel, so after ten years he had a pretty good stash put away.
Even though it was sort of the rainy season in the Philippines, Benjiro spent every day that he could at the beach. There was usually a significant part of the day when it was not actively raining and he loved to meditate, sitting on the sand, and reawaken after that in the surf.
The day of Benjiro’s arrival, Gilberto made a special adobo. It was special because he used all fresh ingredients. Fatty pork, the blood still dripping from the kill at his neighbor’s pig pen, green chilies, bay leaves, garlic and green onions. The only ingredients not fresh were the aged and spicy vinegar, the soy sauce, peppercorns and salt. Benjiro himself brought beer, lemonade and J Co donuts for dessert.
“I understand congratulations are in order for your new beau, Benji,” Marge told him after dinner, as they strolled down the road toward the beach, her arm hooked through his. She could see him blush, which touched her. “You know it’s not my intention to embarrass you. I’m simply happy for you.”
“I know, Auntie. It’s just something that, even after all these years, I’m not very comfortable talking about,” he answered.
“Well don’t talk then; show me a picture when we get back to the house,” she said. “And between now and then, remind me of how to meditate away the heartburn from that rich meal. I don’t know how Gilberto continues to do it with all this fatty food.”
Benjiro laughed and answered, “I’ve told you before, you Americans eat too much of the pork and fats and not enough of the rice. That’s the key: focus on the rice with just enough of the rest to satisfy your taste buds.” He leaned in closer and said, “At least do that with the fatty dishes. An even better idea is to try to make something yourself that isn’t fifty percent fat content, like most of the dishes Gil cooks.” He winked at her.
Some of the family swam with Katie, some meditated along with Benjiro, and Marge and the rest closed their eyes on the sand with Gilberto. A couple hours later the clouds began to roll back in and the group wandered back home. When they were sitting under the roof in Steven’s front yard, Marge reminded Benjiro,
“Do I get to see that picture now?”
“Sure, just a minute, Auntie.” He went into the house and dug through his bag, returning with a little photo album. “I’m sure there are a couple of pictures in here.” Scanning through the pages, he stopped at one with himself and a distinguished, elderly (well, a bit older than she was anyway) Japanese man. Marge’s breath caught in her throat for a full fifteen seconds. She looked around the photo to see if Boris was also in it. Of course he wasn’t.
“He looks handsome, Benji,” was all she could think of at the moment.
“Do you think so, Auntie?” Benjiro asked. “Sometime I would like my Filipino family of choice to meet my Japanese family of choice. Oh my God, that sounds so politically correct and trite! But it is the truth. Maybe someday I can make my worlds collide.”
“That would be nice, Benji. I’m sure he’d be accepted by the rest of this family if you decided to introduce him. It might surprise even you,” Marge answered. “Now I need some tea. How about you, Benji, can I make you a cup as well?”
“Sure, Auntie, I’ll walk to the Sari-Sari to see if I can get anything to go with it. Some puto, or even store-bought cookies would taste good about now.” And Benjiro headed out the gate.
Marge came back through the door and picked up the little photo album Benjiro left behind. No harm in going through the rest of the pictures, she thought. He did bring it out and offer it and then leave it behind, right?
She found herself holding her breath as she flipped through the remainder of the thin album, stopping at each picture of Tomakita to study him, imagining him out of the backdrop he was pictured in, dropped instead into a crowded airport terminal, fifty feet away through a heavy glass partition. She stopped at one particular picture that was a candid portrait of Tomakita leaning against a heavy chest of drawers. There was a large, framed picture of some kind of warship slightly behind him on the dresser with a gold chain and medal hanging from the corner.
Who knows; it could be him, but maybe it wasn’t. She really hated to think that she could be as graceless and obtuse as mistaking one black-haired Asian man for another one in a totally random situation. Hell, for that matter, had it been Boris? Fifteen years was a long time. Maybe her mind was playing multiple tricks on her. Maybe she was simply finding out what being sixty-five meant.
Yeah, she didn’t believe that either. This would take some thought.
“What are you looking at?” Benjiro asked, returning with a small plate of puto, sweet steamed rice cakes.
Slightly flustered, but still convinced she wasn’t prying, Marge replied, “Oh, I was just continuing to look at the album you brought out for me. This portrait of Tomakita is very handsome.” She handed him back the album.
Benjiro smiled, taking the little booklet to look at the picture once again. “Thank you, Auntie.” He looked again at a picture he’d carried for many months now, at the man he thought he knew and loved, and at the medallion hanging on the picture frame beside him…and his smile faded, his brows started to crease.
“What’s wrong, Benjiro?” Marge asked, looking over his shoulder at the picture.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, Auntie. Let’s have that tea now,” Benjiro answered, closing the album. “Let me just put this away.”
He carried it back to the corner he was keeping his travel kit in, passing by the chair in which Gilberto was ‘resting his eyes’. He picked up the magnifying glass Gilberto kept there to read the daily newspaper’s fine print. Internally, his mind was going a mile a minute; externally, his body was the epitome of calm. How could that be? he wondered. There has to be some sort of explanation.
Sitting down beside a lamp, he switched it on and removed the portrait of Tomakita from its plastic sleeve. The medallion was the same one Tomakita typically wore around his neck most days. It was hung so that the back of it showed, rather than the front, and there were markings on the back. They were markings Benjiro vaguely remembered looking at but not understanding. “They’re nothing,” Tomakita had told him, when he asked about them. “My mother’s heritage is all. Drop it,” he’d said when Benjiro had pushed a little. But now he thought he recognized them.
He took out his wallet and unfolded the paper on which he’d made the rubbing of the money clip markings. Looking from the back of the medallion through the magnifier to the rubbing, a dark sick feeling began in the center of his forehead. They were the same.
He needed a drink.
When he came back out to meet Marge, she said, “There you are, I thought you got lost. Your tea is going to get cold if you don’t drink it.”
“Where’s Steven? I need to speak with him,” Benjiro replied.
Suspicions
When Benjiro found Steven he dragged him off on a hike, claiming personal business to keep any of the rest of the family from joining. Steven was coming to the end of this home visit and Benjiro was close to returning to Japan to see Tomakita for the first time since his recovery from the procedures he’d had in India.
“I have a problem. It’s possible that it’s a really big problem. I got the dark, sick feeling in the center of my forehead,” he told Steven.
Even though Steven was not some sort of official ‘sponsor’ for Benjiro, he’d been through enough with him to know what this meant. “Did you use again, Benji?” he asked.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Benjiro said, shaking his head. “Sorry, I did make it sound like that, didn’t I. No, I got the feeling, though. I haven’t had that feeling in like nine years. It was really scary.”
“I’m sorry, Benji. I don’t know exactly what it feels like, but I believe that it must be an enormously scary feeling. You’ve said it’s like slipping slowly down a slope, knowing you’re going, horrified at the thought, but still sort of wanting to just fall down and slide?” Steven said, trying to get back into the mode of support again for his best friend.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s like that. But honestly, I’ve concurred it. Even though it scared me, I knew what to do to put it back in its place, tie it back up. What really scared me was what brought it on,” Benjiro said.
“Okay, well what was it? Did you want to tell me?” Steven asked. He assumed Benjiro did, or he won’t have dragged him out on the hike in the first place.
“Yes, I do,” Benjiro answered.
Benjiro explained the medallion and the characters, which matched those inscribed on the money clip almost exactly. They spent the next hour talking about everything they knew, or suspected, about Triads and some of the closest people to each of them.
Steven had already told Benjiro three quarters of what he’d learned from Cho Uncle, but now he spilled the additional information he’d been told about the markings on the money clip.
Benjiro told him everything he could remember about the medallion and what Tomakita told him about what he’d done in the war and since the war. As Benjiro tried to reiterate every detail he knew, he realized there were very few specific details.
And both of them now wondered openly about Boris’ possible connections to any or all of it. While they were quite sure there was nothing specific connected between Boris and the Hong Kong experience, they were less sure there was no connection between the Triad and Boris. They were even less sure there was no connection between Boris and whoever killed Julia. Even if he wasn’t directly connected to the killing, and Steven was adamantly convinced not even Boris would willingly go along with anything he thought would harm his baby sister, they both thought there might be too many connections for him to simply be a wild card among them.
“What next, though? That’s the question,” Benjiro asked.
“Yes, I agree. We need a plan. First, to keep our families safe from all potential harm. Second, to find out how to leverage some of the information we’ve gathered to figure out what’s going on…what went on…” Steven answered.
College Fund
Steven and Benjiro had a lot of hushed conversations prior to Benjiro’s heading back to Jap
an to connect with Tomakita. Steven told Bettina it was to help his friend’s resolve to stay strong and clean. She knew Benjiro had taken the summer and a lot of the fall off from a job that sustained him and allowed him to become financially independent. He’d done it to be with a person that he loved, but who had basically shut him out of major medical procedures, for reasons beyond his understanding. Bettina was easily convinced Benjiro was struggling to hold on to his sobriety. The truth was a combination of that, as well as twists of a different sort.
“God damn it, Steven, I’m not sure I even want to continue with him,” he said. “I’ve told him everything about me. He knows it all and now, it seems, I know nothing of importance about him.”
“First of all, I’m sure that’s an overstatement, Benji,” Steven replied. “Second, what if there are innocent explanations for all of it? Do you really want to throw in the towel if the whole mess is simply history? We all have history, Benji. I do, you do, Tomakita does. We all have history. Some of it’s good, some…well, some’s not so good.”
Steven watched his friend process this for a minute.
#
Steven’s mind wandered back to a time before Bettina, but after he’d started to sail.
Sailing was a lonely existence. He was an introvert, he’s always known that, and it didn’t bother him. He was comfortable being by himself, but he did like people. Sophia and Gilberto raised all their kids around people. They never shielded them from others in pain or sorrow, but they let them experience the bad, along with the good that all parents strive to give their children.
On his early journeys Steven sailed with some tough crowds and under captains that clearly looked out only for themselves. If there were leftovers, they’d share what they had to, but not without grumbling and demanding groveling thanks for their ‘gifts’. He started to take comfort in whatever drug was easily and cheaply available. Alcohol, weed or speed, he’d tried most of it, although he was deathly afraid of needles so nothing every broke his skin.
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish_Silver Dawn Page 13
