The Encounter
...written on 2000-11-26, @ 00:45:14
Tales of Kim's Life in Japan
Sat November 25, 2000
The hesitant "hello" froze between them and then clinked to the sidewalk below. "It's been a long time", she said. "You haven't changed", he replied. She smiled and shook her head.
They found a familiar restaurant and sat down for a long dinner. He traced the lines in his own face back to different happenings through the years. She wondered at the oddness of meeting once again across the time that had come between them.
These transpositions of time and space always have confused her. She recalled the unexpected appearance of a former lover in a foreign country where she was living. For many minutes after his arrival she wandered the other rooms of her house wringing her hands, trying to reconcile this emotionally laden interruption in her new environment while her former lover and her best friend waited together awkwardly in silence in the living room.
They left the restaurant and slowly walked to his car. He is smoking now, but says the Doctor just gave him a clean bill of health. He's twenty pounds heavier he adds, but it is all muscle and by the light of the lamp and the hang of his clothes she can see that this is true.
By now she is no longer self conscious about her own changes she has been through. Their conversation has warmed and the comfortable ease of yesteryear is returning. He shows her his cache of gifts that she had given him over the time they were together. She is touched by his diligence in keeping the memories close at hand. Back at her apartment they exchange gifts and talk over coffee, tea and strawberry cake.
It is late and they both are tired, neither having been able to sleep the night before in anticipation of their reunion, so while he showered off the toil of his long journey, she arranged the two futons on the tatami floor, speading the new electric blanket he had given her between them. His shower finished, she let him settle in and took a shower of her own.
She laid down beside him, facing him with her arms folded to her chest, not daring to get too close until he said, "I am here now." "Yes, you are", she whispered as she moved closer to touch his right arm and shoulder. He then told her of the last day they saw each other all those fifteen years ago. He told her how he wandered the streets and finally ended up at a friend's house, not wanting to go home and be alone in the place where they had spent so many wonderful hours together. As she listened, tears ran over the bridge of her nose, crisscrossed her left cheek and sank into the rice hull pillow. She told him that for her as well, the 18 hour journey and the many nights and months and years thereafter were moments filled with aching and solitude. She wanted to say more, but couldn't as her once silent tears found a soft voice and then finally became wracking sobs.
His arm moved around to pull her close. His fingers stroked her arm and her hair. Her tears wet his t-shirt. He was silent and she knew that he understood her feelings which made her cry even more. She felt his patient, tender massage and exhaled her hot, labored breath on his neck. He instinctively knew this was a signal to touch her more and responded to her near silent request with a light kiss on her mouth followed by an intimate caress. Soon morning was only a couple of hours away and they slept nestled together.
After breakfast, he helped her with a decorating project for her apartment. She stood beside him, anticipating his needs and marveled at the ease with which they could communicate without even speaking. When they had to go to the store to get a supply, she enjoyed taking his arm as they strolled the aisles. She wondered if this was the way one felt when one was in a relationship and that if so, made herself a mental note to advise the other people of the world to cherish their significant others.
The project was done and they were sitting at the kitchen table. He had to leave. He said he was very happy that she was back in Japan and that they would meet again. She reached through one of her pearled layers, grabbed his hand and said that she had felt afraid, happy and sad at the prospect of their meeting. He nodded in agreement. He always knew. He will always know.
She watched as his car pulled out of the parking lot. He looked at her bowing deeply and threw her a kiss. She threw one back, and watched him until he was out of sight. She remembered their ritual from long ago, when, as he drove away from her apartment, he would stop the car at every break in the tree-lined street to watch her wave until she could no longer see him. After she left Japan that first time she received a package of photgraphs from him. He had stopped at each one of those spots to take a picture from his point of view of her apartment where she would stand and wave and at the bottom of the picture had programmed the camera to print "You are not here." Now fifteen years later they were engaged in the same ritual. "He's gone", she thought, and she turned away, her sunglasses for the moment obscuring the fact that she was crying.
Maybe shopping will help she thought as she walked into the seven-story department store. She found roaming the aisles alone however brought tears back to her now unshielded eyes. She pulled out her cell phone to cancel her planned brunch for the next day, she wanted to confess all to the friend on the other end, but instead through much effort, she remained silent and cheerful.
She then left the department store and wandered the city streets not wanting to go home and and be alone in the place where they had spent so many wonderful hours together.