by Asuka Komai
-- inspired by a true story --
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One
She is a mysterious girl. The way she thinks is beyond me. I am not sure if she is peculiar or not. Probably it is just a typical girl’s thing that I am not familiar with. Anyway her behaviors very often baffle me.
She is beautiful. She told me she is 28 years old, but as other Asian people, she looks much younger than she really is. Her fragile body gives you an impression of transience, as if it was transparent so you could see through it. At the same time it implies a desperate urgency. There’s not much time left, her elegantly iffy smile is telling so, I can feel her doom. I sometimes become tempted to ask her what she hurries about. But I don’t because I know she would laugh it off—-funny question, young boy... —- Her delicate white skin is so elusive that it will never be possible to catch her real intention. She looks bigger and stronger than I am, most likely because of what she has been through. Actually she is small, like a frail orchid in February, that never accepts any exceptional environment that means literal death, growing straight up to the sky keeping her pride strongly deep inside. Yes, it is her pride that rejects to show her vulnerable heart.
It was a bar in Greenwich Village where we met in private. I was there drinking beer with some of my friends. After school, somewhere downtown, we were always looking for something fun, exciting and different, but after all it always ended up as a regular boring meeting because we didn’t know what exactly we were looking for. A long dull winter was letting us down, other than the music and the light of fake cheers there’s no sign of real liveliness in dead frost February.
I had noticed that a girl sitting at the corner table away from ours used to be a student at the same language school. At her table were four young boys and girls engaged in a light conversation, all looked American. Although we were never classmates, I knew her face. She was kind of famous because of her unusual good English nothing like of other Japanese students. One day I found that she had disappeared from school and I remember I felt a bit disappointed at myself because I never had a courage to talk to her. I assumed that she had gone back to her country. So when I saw her at the bar, first I was wondering if I ought to talk to her, it might be considered rude if I wouldn’t, I was hesitating for a while, then decided not to, considering the people with her were totally strangers to me. Besides, she might not know me. How could I talk to her? “Hi, I have wanted to talk to you.” Ha, silly enough. So I said to myself that I didn't see her.
“I believe we know each other?”
I was startled by her unexpected approach. There next to me stood her with a bottle of Heineken, gently smiling. Her beautifully husky low tone voice made me speechless for a moment.
“Hi, how are you?” I was barely able to say so, and immediately I regretted my unintelligent response.
“All right, thank you,” the connotation of her glance at our table was, “can I join?”
“Oh, hi, you must be June. How have you been?” J.B., my French friend dragged a vacant chair next to him as soon as he realized who she was. Saying thanks, she slipped into the chair.
“Well, now I work for a small auction house in Upper East Side.”
“You’ve got a job!?” that was Kenji, a Japanese boy, who made a funny voice with surprise across from the other side of the table. “xxxxxxxxxx...” his gibberish, supposedly Japanese, made her a little solemn. But it was just a second.
“Not a real job, internship, you know, I don’t have a paper,” she shrugged her shoulders with a light sense of humor. I noticed that from time to time she was looking at me. Her consistent smile was far mystical to me. I found myself getting nervous.
“You mean, you don’t get paid?”
“No,” shaking her head, somewhat emotionlessly, she replied to J.B.’s surprise.
“No...!” He lowered his voice, it was almost growling. “That’s ridiculous. Working free? Huh?”
“I don’t care,” she shrugged off his comment politely. “It’s more fun and much better than studying at school. I learned a lot besides language itself.”
“Maybe you are right... at least you can learn more practical English,” Kenji murmured. “Sometimes I suspect if I am wasting my time at school. But it’s impossible to work for an American company, I can’t speak English well like you.”
“Nothing is impossible. You can do whatever if only you try.”
In spite of her vanishingly soft tone, her whisper was very convincing, greatly persuasive. I finished the rest of my glass, trying not to look at her knowing she was staring at me.
“June, you better go back to your friends, huh?” said I, wishing I could hidden my awkward embarrassment. It was my witless attempt to switch her attention to something else. No offense at all. Even before I finished my words, though, I wished I hadn’t said it. It wasn’t a polite way.
She swiftly turned her head towards the place she used to occupy, and said,
“I don’t know them,” and fascinating smile was on her face again. “I came here alone”
“Oh, man! That’s cool,” J.B. giggled. “June, I think you are cool. Why don’t we have drinks sometime together?”
“Anytime.”
She glanced at her almost empty bottle, then sent a keen light to me...
“So, when will we see next?”
***
My name is Hanun, from Chile. I am 21-year-old University student. My major is medcine. I am supposed to be a doctor, just like my father. I didn’t have any doubt in my life track until two years ago. It was in my first year at the University, during the torture-like harsh studies, this suspicion appeared to my head all of sudden. Why did I choose this course? Do I like it? What am I studying for? First of all, do I want to be a doctor?
No.
This crystal clear answer totally bewildered me. I couldn’t change my my running track into another. Into what? It was too late to stop what I had been studying. No, it was too late.
Probably it was because of too much study why I was so confused. I was becoming crazy. I was losing myself. It was obvious that I had to do something different to organize -- or at least clear up myself. Okay, I will be a doctor, but please give me a break... It was shrieking inside me, asking for help frantically. Then I decided to take a year-break from my study and I came to the U.S... Why the States? I needed to be free from my suffocating life. What I really needed was to face myself.
Ever since I flew down into the melting pot last September, I have made quite a few friends. The life in New York itself is fabulous. Great city, New York, the city of freedom. Nobody cares about anything. This is a perfect place for people who are choked with one’s surroundings. Everything is different here from where I belong to. Hanging out with my friends from all over the world, I found myself changed. I have realized that I am quite popular at school. Everybody knows me, everybody wants to come talk to me. This never happened back in my country. New York has changed an unbelievably boring boy into an energetically optimistic and funny guy.
On the whole I was happy with the situation. The problem is... my English was too advanced to have a good time at any ordinal English language schools with mostly Asian students. It didn't take long till I got bored of the school life. I was afraid that I might have made an awful mistake. Oh, come on, my parents didn’t spend their money for such a silly curriculum... I felt every effort was ging into the drain. No, I can’t go back to Chile and see my family with this lukewarm condition. My mind was filled up with cynicism. Well, I will never be satisfied with anything even in the most exciting city in the world. Something is always missing in me, and I will never be able to find what it is.
It is time for me to do something new, something different. Something brings me a real satisfaction.
There she is. A mysterious Japanese girl.
------------------------
Two
June is at the counter, not noticing I am standing at the entrance watching her. She is talking to a guy next to her. I bet he is a stranger to her again.
What a beautiful woman, sigh I. I am not sure what makes her different from other girls. Seemingly she is open and outgoing. Boys gravitate to her modest friendliness. But I know there’s a crucial part she never shows. Its full of sensitivity doesn’t allow anybody to touch it. If someone sees her confidential area, she might be literally broken.
Closing the door silently, I start to make a slow approach to her, wondering when finally she looks at me. This is the best part every time I see her.
“Hanun!!”
When she recognizes me, her face gets blushed a little bit and it contains a cute pleasure. Then she waves her right hand towards me. Every single her action gives me this wonderful feeling. This is good, I sigh again, she likes me, she wants to see me. Who could expect this, isn’t it amazing...?
“Sorry, I couldn’t wait to have a drink,” on the counter table near her left hand is a large glass of draft beer. Ordering the same one, I sit on the next stool.
“What time did you come here?” I ask.
“I left my office earlier. Tell ya the truth, this is my second one,” winking childishly, she taps her glass with her long fingers. Ting-ting.
“Well, not surprising at all, even it isn’t still dark outside. I know you, June,” I send her a humorous smile. “You know what? I didn’t like beer before.”
Really I didn’t, until I came to New York and met new people. I preferred juice, soda or sweet cocktails. Still, I don’t think beer is delicious. What I like is not the taste of beer but the taste of the atmosphere.
“No, you don’t say!” She gives a too obvious gasp.
“True, you made me alcoholic!”
We laugh, in the midst of a peaceful moment.
“So, have you found any company?” With a solemn tone, she asks.
Receiving a cold glass, I put five bucks right on the table in front of a bartender. “Well, sort of. I have been really interested in the United Nations, I speak English and French as well as Spanish, you know...”
“Yap, smart boy.”
“Cut it out! Ha! Anyway I called them several times and there probably will be some positions for me. The problem is, the guy I talked to on the phone said, I would have to wait till September.”
“Holly cow, September? You will be back in your country around then.”
“Exactly. That’s all right, I didn’t expect I could get a job in the U.N., even it would be an internship. There’s a small law firm on Chamber Street, near City Hall, that is interested in having me. I sent my resume already, and I made an appointment to meet a personnel manager there next Tuesday.”
“Good, way to go!”
“Thanks. Well, even though this company has nothing to do with the medical stuff, I’d like to have different types of experiences rather than focusing on just one field.”
“A different field doesn’t matter as far as you have fun...”
June enjoys my adventure as if it was hers. I am truly glad to feel it, and I am glad she gave me this suggestion.
She knew that I was feeling I didn’t learn anything from taking classes at school. It’s a perfect idea to work as an intern. June gave me some web site links and I have been looking for a good place through net that could use interns. It’s been long while since the last time I had this kind of excitement.
“Thank you, June, really.”
“Keep going. It’s just the beginning.”
She asks the bartender for her third drink. I can keep drinking forever, until someone stops me... once she said. That’s true for sure. We toast for the piece on earth.
Then... oh, come on please, not again, I sense the abandoned shadow in her eyes. It is too tiny to understand what it really is. In fact, it is solely an unconscious level of speed. What, June, what is it? What’s going on? What’s on your mind? Who are you, anyway? I barely stop myself being inquisitive. The darkness. The mixture of sorrow and desperation. It says there’s no hope at all. I’ve seen its existence since the first time I met her at the bar. It awfully makes me worry but I don’t think she realizes it.
“I... I’m worried.”
“Stop thinking too much, young boy.”
God, she knows everything. There’s no way to force her to tell the truth. I won’t even try because I don’t like to be made fun of. But one thing, please tell me June, the happiness you are showing me isn’t a fake, is it?
“So...how about you, your job? Your life?” I sip my beer. It’s getting warm. I’d better finish this and ask for fresh one.
“Me? Everything’s cool,” her smile looks genuine this time.
“How long are you going to do this job?”
“Until money runs out,” she looks at me. The light of the daytime is fading away. The shadow of the early night from the window makes her modest beauty perfectly impressive. No one can win her.
Asian people don’t speak much. That’s a cultural thing. At first it was weird to me, hard to understand why they don’t express themselves enough verbally. Soon I found that there’s more significance behind their gestures, behaviors and smiles. Their non-verbal connotation is amazingly rich.
“Can’t you get paid?”
“I told you, I don’t care. I don’t mind working without money. I’m having fun now, that’s important. Anyway New York is not a place to live for good.”
“Why not?” I gasp. “You don’t like New York?”
“I love it.”
Her eyes turn behind me. I look back. I thought someone might be there. There is the crowd in a tiny drinking place in the center of the great metropolis. Lots of people who need a little heaven are floating with some bucks. Outside of the window in the orange shade is an approach of spring. The innocent sky sprinkles the essence of joy and it is now about to embrace the whole town.
“I love New York.”
She sees nothing.
***
Why me? Why not anybody else? I am an ordinary Latin American, nothing in particular. But it is always me who is with her at night somewhere in the city. It’s a mystery with no clue why she is interested in me. Or this relationship may be rather meaningless to her.
It seems special to me, though. This life is totally new. It would never happen if I stayed in my country. We’ve drunk a lot. We go to at least three bars a night. We’ve spent money a lot. We’ve laughed a lot. We’ve talked a lot over mostly trifles. I am sometimes concerned that we’ve spent too much money for a mess. Yeah, you can call it a screwy mess! That’s all right, I said to myself, don’t worry, this isn’t a forever thing...
June isn’t my girlfriend. As a matter of fact, she has a boyfriend. He is a doctor, American, rich enough to live on the 30th floor of an apartment that has a swimming pool on the roof at West side of Central Park. I don’t know how intimate their relationship is but I am sure she is with him when June is not with me. And I am positively sure that she has slept with him... which I’ve never done yet... with anybody else. All I know about her boyfriend is that he works too hard to see her, which leaves her devastating loneliness.
After all, I am just a filler for her. Fine with me. I enjoy this “funny” friendship.
***
“Jesus, how could you possibly be with that kind of girl?”
He sounds very rude. I don’t even know him. I become cautious.
“What do you mean by ‘that kind of girl’?”
On one of the floors of Twin Towers in World Trade Center, there’s a spacious bar with a stage where you can perform music, dance or whatsoever. The location is perfect to see night view of Manhattan. It is an expensive place, of course, except Wednesday nights, free admission nights. That explains this sea of people right now. I’ve been watching June who is now away from me talking and drinking with some strangers as usual. I don’t mind who she is with but I feel like watching her in case something happens.
“You know...” crawling out from somewhere, the young American guy is staring at June, a glass of wine is in his hand, “she is too gorgeous.”
“Too good for me?” I spit it.
“Oh, man! That’s not what I’m saying,” he turns his eyes from her. I finish my beer and start to go towards a bar to get another drink.
“Come on, man, be cool!” the stranger pulls my arm. His rudeness pisses me off. “What’s her name? Can I treat her one drink? Is she your girl?”
That brings me to a standstill. I look at his audacious face, trying to figure out the best way to do or say, then decide to just walk away from him without saying anything. June doesn’t know what is going on out here. If she was my girlfriend, then what? What would I do? Grab her shoulder and say, “Listen, this is my girl. Don’t touch her, nobody!”... I come to a bar and order a glass of cocktail. I want to get drunk. I need strong one. June is now dancing to the salsa music. She is obviously drunk. Sometimes I envy her for getting easily drunk. I wish I could. I always get cautious every time I am with her.
And she is not my girl, that’s it. She doesn’t love me. What about me? Do I? No, no, no, it should be nothing to do with love. Why not? Because I should be happy enough with the fact that she likes me, right?
All of sudden, I find out that I am stunningly afraid of something.
“I’m confused...” faint voice leaks out from my mouth with exhalation.
It is far past midnight. To be honest, I am sick of being in the crowd. The effort to get drunk seems fruitless. The loud noise makes me nuts, gives me headache. I want to go home, or at least somewhere quieter. Although I don’t want to interrupt her amusing moment, I decide to tell June that I am leaving. I believe I have a responsibility to take her home safe, but if she wants to stay, I can’t help it.
“June... June!”
It becomes almost a shout against the music. She keeps dancing. The way she dances is very attractive, somewhat too sexy. One of the people she dances with sends a suspicious attention to me, that indicates her that I am behind her.
“Hi, Hanun, where have you been, I've been looking for you!”
She collapses into my arms. This unpredictable action gives me a shock and I lose my balance with all of her weights. “Watch out!” Someone holds my back and it changes my staggering direction into the wall.
“Don’t leave me, Hanun, I need you...”
Needless to say, she is completely messed up. Her conscious is floating between the reality and the fantasy. She might not distinguish who I am. How could she keep dancing under this condition? Her body is constantly trembling.
“I don’t leave you,” say I firmly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Pushing our way through the restless movement, I lead June to downstairs by the elevator. For a while I hesitate about if we’d better take subway, then go outside the building to get a cab, in case she wants to throw up on our way home.
“I know why Japanese people like the words ‘humbleness’ and ‘modesty,’” as soon as we rest in a cab, she returns from a bad dream and starts talking grimly. Her tone is strangely sober, rather funny, as if nothing had happened there tonight. She looks bewitching. She’s got to be a witch that can forget whatever she wants to ignore.
“Because they think that they are humble, not understanding what humbleness really is. It is totally stupid that they are proud of themselves not knowing what they really are. Completely silly believing they are better than others.”
The Big Apple never sleeps. Heading up to the street, the shade of town lights her half-closed eyes. And she is Japanese.
“I miss my daughter.”
I am speechless. Oh, she’s got to be kidding me! This bad girl likes to give me a shock. This should be just another insensitive joke. Or it is something different... what? What daughter?
“She is two years old. I haven’t seen her for more than a year.”
“You... married?”
I try to figure out what kind of emotion there is on her face, but I can’t find anything. No sorrow, no anger, no regret, no enlightenment, nothing. She nods once without seeing me and then makes an instant smile... quite... frightening.
“Please, June, give me a break. Is it some kind of sick game? So you have a husband!”
“Why can’t I? What’s wrong with it?”
I regret my childish attitude because of her ultimately unchanging calm voice, like a small boat that never resists constantly surging tough waves because it isn’t afraid of wrecking havoc. It might accept even death when time comes. I hate this kind of frustration, she is always right and I can’t beat it.
“...and I’m divorced. What’s wrong with it? They left, I’m free, that’s it.”
Of course everybody is afraid of death, so is she. She’s just good at hiding it.
“Sorry,” I can’t find any witty word other than this ridiculous one.
“Why? You don’t have to be sorry. Never,” Her heartless tone tells that it rejects everything, cruel enough to let me down.
I am struggling against the temptation of holding her again, like when she fell into me at the club, and saying, “I don’t leave you. I will never leave you alone.”
No, I can’t do that, because I am miserably powerless. She doesn’t want my help, that’s the irritably unchangeable fact.
“I miss her...” mutters she, its tail vanishes into the cold air in the night town.
***
“I’m now just under your building,” it was five before noon when she called me. “Can you come outside? You can take a break now, right? I’m in front of the entrance.”
Actually I was about to go get lunch from one of delis outside, so there was no problem with leaving the office. I told my boss that I would have lunch with my friend and be back by one o’clock. Three minutes later, getting down from 22nd floor, I found her innocent smile.
Our conversation at an Italian restaurant was kind of typical of ours. There was nothing special to talk about because we see each other almost every night even after I started working as an intern for a law firm. I picked pizza. Her choice was pasta. I have never seen she finishes her own dishes, and this time either. “Marvelous, just too much for me.” But glasses of wine seem never much enough to satisfy her. The problem is she hates to drink on her own, so I had to take one in the middle of the day. I tasted a light dizziness coming from a glass of red wine, wondering how much money I had spent for alcohol since I started to go out with June. Three grand, four grand? Or probably more. I felt a slight chill. And still more and more money is drained away into beer, wine and crazy parties.
The show seems endless...
“I want to get drunk from the daytime, under this sunshine!”
After we left a restaurant close to Brooklyn Bridge where we had lunch together, June holds my right arm and stops me going back to the office.
“Go ahead. I’ll be back to my work.”
“No, I want to be drunk with you!”
I turn around and look straight into her eyes.
“June, we can go drinking tonight, I have to work now. What could I say to my boss? ‘I won’t go back, sorry, I am with a friend, and going to a bar from now, see-ya!’ That’s preposterous.”
“You can say you will go to the airport to see off your friend.”
“June, you...”
“Come with me, please, come, come, come!”
Phew, such a naughty girl. I look up at the incredibly blue sky. There seems to be no cloud to be found. Seagulls are flying with the lilting rhythm bringing the comfortable summer wind from East River far beyond the stagnant civilization. It’s quite understandable to desire to get away from this choking package and feel the approach of fresh season. It is about to skim your cheeks. You can easily notice that May is just next to you. Without a word, I start to walk towards one of the public phones standing along the street. “Yes!” The way she whispers is like a little kitty.
“Could I have an afternoon off? My friend is leaving for her country this afternoon. I’d like to go to JFK with her and see her off.”
My boss is always nice to me, and I am just an intern from a foreign country after all. “Okay, nice day.” He hangs up, not doubting anything. Whether or not my story is true doesn’t affect him anyway. Still, I feel guilty. Gosh, my life is becoming screwy ever since I got involved in one little girl. In my brain this ill feeling is rattling all the time and I can’t get rid of it. On the other hand, I know I enjoy this craziness.
“So, where would you like to go, my lady?” When I turn around from the phone, there is a happy face right in front of me. Well, I don’t intend to stop this way of life as long as she wants to keep it.
“I will go anywhere you wish, from this early afternoon.”
“Thank you, Hanun, you are my hero!” her beautiful black hair glitters to the dazzling sky. She is always in black, like the most of young New Yorkers, but her black is special because it is beautiful.
“Sure,” of course I am always great. I don’t deny what she says and she does. There’s no reason I want to deny her. Perhaps I should, otherwise she would end up crashing somewhere crucial, utterly deteriorated. The thing is, however, I have no idea how to stop her.
We head to the pier seventeen, the place always full of tourists. It sometimes good to be one of them away from what you are engaged in. We are in the Wednesday afternoon in the terrific weather. Although the mild wind from the river is a bit chilly, it warns that we be ready for the unbearable sizzling season. I need to buy a pair of sunglasses, seeing the reflection of the sun over the river silently waving from north to south, I say to myself.
We enter one of the fancy shops among them. There we are led to upstairs from where we can enjoy the view of Brooklyn beyond the river. The huge room surrounded by windows looks deserted yet, at the center is a bartender busily rubbing glasses with a pitiful white cloth. Above him is a small television that delivers a fine spectacle of a basket ball game. An exciting scene with no sound in the middle of abandoned place looks odd. You can’t appreciate a good taste of drinks at this sort of place, so the space itself becomes more important, also conversations, and most importantly, people who you are with.
When two bottles of Corona are served, we say cheers, for peace on earth. Another show begins. We drink. Drink and drink. Until alcohol makes her drunk enough to be happy. Drink then drink. A couple of hours later, we move to a different place. After beer is gin. She loves this peculiar liquor. I take tequila. Before knowing her, the idea to have this Latin strong medicine under sunlight had never occurred to me. It feels good once in a while enjoying a little adventure. I don’t want to let my life corrupt, though. Drink after drink. All conversations have no significance.
When we get out from the last place, I am astonished to know what time it is. Midnight. Altogether we have spent time at five places. We kept drinking for around eleven hours. I am drunk as well as she is. It doesn’t matter who is more drunk, at least it doesn’t matter to me. We come to the subway station. It is always amazing that trains are crowded even around this time. Where are those people come from? Where do they belong to? And where are they going to? Sometimes I really want to ask them so that I can find out where I want to go.
It was almost 1 AM when we finally got on a subway train. Falling into a seat with June, I am sleepy. I have to work tomorrow. Technically speaking, I don’t have to. I thought I had to so that I wouldn’t waste my precious time in New York. I thought I had to something very constructive so that I could say to my people, “Hey, I was in New York!” I thought I had to learn something great, something meaningful. Now suddenly, everything seems like a mass of vanity. What an idiot I am! What I am making effort for is full of emptiness. Then, life is sadly fleeting.
I look at June, on my right side. First I just lean my head against the wall and feel like falling asleep. Then I feel her. The smell of herself. Her delicacy, sensitivity and this; her tragic weakness. Next to me lying are her black shirt, black skirt and black shoes. I touch her black hair without any hesitation. It is unbelievably soft. She is working tomorrow, too. Her black eyes look into hollowness without any emotion as always. I want her to cry, or do anything that makes her human being. I push her head against my shoulder. I don’t feel any rejection. There’s no strength emitted from her. I look into her face, trying to search for things that are going on inside her. I wish I could dig her real intention out, but I shouldn’t dig her dignity. Her eyes turn from nowhere into my eyes. We meet in the air. Across from us are one old black man and two Spanish girls, a Chinese lady with a Chinese newspaper, a white college student boy, a tall middle-aged Jewish man in a suit. Next to me on the left side is a black woman, sleeping.
We start kissing.
***
I made a high-end restaurant reservation for 2. They’ve got good reputation of high quality as well. Their sophisticated French cuisine even attracts Mr. United States President. That’s why I chose here for June’s birthday. It may cost me close to five hundred dollars for two of us. Hanging up the phone, a tiny sigh comes from my half-closed mouth. It isn’t a matter of money. I’ve got to make this occasion special. I ought to do anything to make her content. It is fun to prepare things particularly for her, but on the way my heart sharply aches with a vague sadness.
She is leaving for Japan soon.
The whole world now looks different to me, because now she is special to me more than ever. So I don’t understand why her world doesn't seem to change. I admire her ability of being ignorant. That’s right, she’s got a boyfriend already. I may be nothing to her, I’m afraid she doesn’t remember the night we kissed. Or maybe kissing itself doesn’t mean anything to her.
Even so, my heart still pounds whenever I recall that night. Her pliant long legs appearing from the edge of her black skirt remains vividly in my brain. It is too clear to go away.
On Friday, her birthday, I leave my office earlier. First go back to my dorm in Brooklyn and get dressed. Then go to her apartment in Queens. She lives there with a Taiwanese roommate. I arrive there at seven sharp. She has been waiting for me in totally black formal dress. “I like my birthday,” once she said before, “Even though it is the day I get one year older, still it is the most exciting day in a year.” So I hope she has been looking forward to this momentous day.
“How are you, birthday queen?”
She smiles. Her simple dress brings her slender figure up elegantly gorgeous
and her skin looks brighter than white snow. There’s a cab waiting for us at the entrance. I lead her into a car and we are going to enter into the millions galaxy.
The night doesn’t cover the entire world until nine o’clock. We can see the aftermath of the hectic daylight flaming in the west sky. Stars are not allowed to show their performance above all the skyscrapers. Holding a countless tiring works in it, the city itself seems never tire. When the car crosses the Queensboro Bridge towards Manhattan midtown, I keep staring at the United Nations building standing along the East River on my left side. The zillions of windows are already lit by urgent human development. Everything’s here. Everybody’s here.
Passing by Central Park South, we are approaching Columbus Circle. A lot of limos are hastily serving for the rich people coming in and out of nice hotels on our left side. After going a bit down the Eighth Avenue to 58th Street, we get off the cab. The restaurant highly recommended by New York Times is solemnly welcoming us.
Everything goes smoothly and graciously. The meal is fantastic, the service is excellent, the atmosphere is perfect. There seems nothing to complain about. I haven’t prepared either a birthday cake or some special arrangement from the restaurant because I knew June doesn’t like to get paid that type of attention from strangers. If there was a birthday song for her, she would feel very uncomfortable and I wanted to avoid any potential embarrassment. The restaurant doesn’t know that this is a special occasion, I didn’t even ask them for flowers. Nice dinner in an appropriate place should be all she needs.
Normally there is a bunch of stuff she wants to talk about such as her job, friends, life, past and future. “My roomy is funny,” “I want to have a cat,” “American food is boring,” “Today I had an argument with my boss,” “There’s a brand-new supermarket built in my neighborhood,” “When I was younger, I wanted to be a painter...” The topics are countless. Today, however, she tends to stay inside herself, occasionally looking nowhere.
Impressed by her good sense of fashion in a chic dress, I am proud of myself for being with her on her greatest day. On the other hand, I am wondering why she is with me tonight, not with her boyfriend. What the hell is he doing right now? I stop myself asking. It is a very very personal area I shouldn’t invade.
“You look nice today,”I say.
“Thanks, so do you,” she replies.
Two plates of lemon meringue pie come to our table. Realizing what it is, she shows a little surprise. I send a quick wink to her. This is her favorite dessert. Yes, I am keeping notes about her.
“Hanun, this is nice, really. I mean, you are nice.”
“My pleasure.” I feel it is too good to be true sending compliment to each other. “Where would you like to go next, birthday princess? You can do whatever you like today.”
“I would like to go home.”
I hardly believe what I am hearing.
“What?” I think this may be another joke. “Come on, June, it’s Friday night, let’s get partied.”
“I want to go home. I am exhausted after a long week.”
I quickly figure out she means it, and I can’t force her to do what I expected. Come to think of it, having party is part of her ordinal life, nothing in particular at all.
“But I want to make today special,” the tone of my voice is almost close to one of begging.
“You did it already,” she says. On her face floats an eternal calm, or vanity. “It was nice. I enjoyed my birthday.”
So we take a cab again to go back home. The full moon is right above us. When the car crosses the bridge to the east, she breaks the silence.
“I want to be the moon.”
A moment of silence. I look up to the sky. All of the artificial lights from the ground melt before they get to the light of the moon.
“I want to be the moon and look down the earth knowing everything that's going on. Most of people don’t even notice that I am here seeing them. But once in a while some of them see me, impressed by my beauty. A few even try to find me to get energy from me. I have a power to drive them insane, the power is stronger than the sun’s one. What I like most is, they don’t know that I am here but I know everybody, every lie and every truth.”
“You sound like you are give up something. Don’t be negative, June, you are beautiful.”
June turns to me, in the darkness, and says, “There’s something I want to give you.”
Then she opens her black purse and picks out a small black notebook from it.
“Let me ask you something.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you like me?”
Silly question, I can’t help chuckling.
“I am serious,” her eyes tell that she is. So I stop laughing and say, “Sure.”
Then she starts to write something on her notebook. I am curious, at the same time, scared. After a few minutes, she tears a page of the notebook and gives me a piece of paper.
“Would you do me a favor? I want you to read it.”
“No problem. ‘—-When I am 35 years old, if I am not married and.... eh.... if he still loves me.... eh.... I will..... marry..... Hanun.’”
Silence.
..I would love you if you loved me. I can’t because you don’t. How could I love you, hey? But I don’t dare to say it.
“It’s a certification. You keep it, okay?”
June whispers. She is the most peculiar matter of the reality.
***
I am tackling an insensitively huge burger to fill out an awkward space between us. June is sipping a diet coke frequently paying her attention to outside of the window. It is raining.
“Why do you have to go back to Japan?” Finally, I can manage to open my mouth. “You don’t have to, do you?”
“I told you,” she says, not allowing any obstruction into her determination. “New York isn’t a place to live.”
But she said she loved New York. What I want her to do is to stay here a little longer at least until I leave here. It is obvious that we’ve had a great time together. Why should we stop this? I’ll be in New York for three more months, I think I need her being with me for the rest of my stay.
She said to me not to come to the airport. “Please don’t. I don’t like saying good-bye at the airport. It is awful.” But I had decided to go. Though I didn’t know what was the best thing to do, it was necessary for me to come see her off. I didn’t want to ruin what we have shared between us.
“I think it’s time,” she stands up.
“Okay,” there are still more than half of fries on the table but I don’t mind throwing them away. My heart is pounding, my mind, thundering.
So, you are going. No one can stop her. I don’t have a power or right to do it. She’s got her own life that is different from mine. Now she is leaving. Yes, she is leaving, and I am just watching it. We reach to the gate of her flight where a full of people waiting the departure time impatiently. The dreadful muddy air makes me so ill that I can’t help saying, “June, let’s go home.”
“Yes, I do, but you can’t come with me to the nice beautiful country, sorry!”
It is a joke, I know, but it is merciless enough to send me to hell.
The announcing voice is making a stagnant echo far beyond my mind.
It’s time. She has to go.
June, June. I want to say something, not something nice but something I can send my real emotion. June, June. Don’t go. I can’t live without you, please. Hey, let’s have fun a little bit more... Once she looks at me as if examining my thought, but it is only a split second, then she turns from me and goes straight forward to her gate with her ticket in hand, with no reluctance, no regret...and no hug, no kiss, no nothing. She disappears from my life. She doesn’t turn back to me even once. It is a completion of rejection against showing all negative emotions.
I am standing still, like a moron. I can’t even cry. This isn’t right, this is impossible, please, anybody says that this is a dream. This shouldn’t happen. She can’t leave my world. I need her.
No hug, no kiss, no nothing. The reality is making a subtle noise in my vacant brain. I keep standing alone with a piece of paper. I will marry Hanun if he still loves me....the only paper.
It is raining. She’s gone with a beautiful silence in June.
------------------------
Three
After June's departure, we've been talking to each other constantly through email, and she told me that she’s got a new job in Tokyo. It is a very prestigious job and there she works as a secretary. She also got a new boyfriend, supposedly Japanese. Most of the time she sends a group mail, not individual one. In fact, I’ve got email from her almost everyday, but they are not specifically to me. So I don’t know her life in details, but it seems quite all right in general.
At first I was terribly missing June so I even planned to go to Japan to see her. After I met my girl, Claire, the remain of June’s relic was being washed away little by little. Claire is an ordinary girl, compared with June, but I am grateful to be with her because she says she loves me. The first girl who really loves me! That was enough to give me joy. And of course I love her, too. My internship is going pretty well. Though I will go back to Chile eventually, on the whole my life in New York goes quite in peace.
So I’ve decided to tell June about my girlfriend through email.
Two days later, she emailed me back.
‘You seem tired and lost. Don’t think too much, young boy! Stop being philosophical. Why don’t you sometimes hang out with your favorite French girl, and relax? You enjoy your life.’
What an abstract letter! This is so ambiguous I don’t understand anything. What kind of sense is it trying to make? Could be merely a joke again. Or she wants to treat me thoroughly as a kid. But I can’t help feeling this is a sort of disguise. I may not know anything about June. She is too elusive and never showed herself. Nobody can translate her implication, I bet. Should I be happy with my new girl?
There’s a small piece of paper in my desk. The verification June gave me. It isn not a very good idea to say to marry somebody you don't love. Once I picked it out from the deep inside of the drawer, and thought whether it’s better to tear it up or not. I looked up to the sky through window and found the moon shining stationary. The lines of its light spiral away from the center look scratchy because of the huge emission from civilization in summer. We tend to forget that our ways are lit by the moon. It was snowing on the very first day I spent time with June in person. As soon as I came back home, the telephone rang. It was from June. Although we had already talked a lot over dinner and drinks, again we talked until three in the morning. I can clearly recall the scene I saw from the window while we enjoyed the conversation that night. Numberless of fluffing pieces of tiny feather-like snow was silently floating in the fantasy world. It was endlessly dancing in the reflection of orange streetlights. Nothing but beautiful. Inside my room was warm. I felt everything could stop, forever.
Time flies so quickly. lt seems like it was just yesterday. Now green leaves are waving to the wind under the scorching sunshine.
I decided to keep the paper, then put it back to the same place with stationery and pictures.
