Sons (30 page)

C
OLIN
had walked to a huge window that looked out over the city. The storm, still raging high up on the glacier, had caused a fog to settle in. Reykjavik’s midday lights danced like blurred fireworks in the mist’s silvery shroud.

Jan came up behind him and rested his hand on his shoulder. He offered him the sandwich Amal had produced as if by magic.

“You should eat something.”

Colin shook his head. He wasn’t hungry. In fact, he was in so much pain he thought he’d never be hungry again. He looked at their reflection in the window, father and son, mirror images separated by an ocean of distrust.

I wanted to be big and ended up being small, more like a kid now than ever.

Colin spoke to his father for the first time since the nightmare began.

“What did they say about Zan? Will they let me see her?”

“I think she’ll be okay. You’ll have to ask her mother about seeing her.”

“You’re angry, aren’t you?”

Fearing his father’s wrath, Colin quickly looked away, ashamed.

Jan stood silent. From the very first, he’d offered love and support to his son. Colin returned that love and support with the back of his hand. Any reasonable man would feel betrayed, and Jan Phillips was every inch a reasonable man.

Jan swayed on aching legs. He needed rest. He needed time, but as it was, the time was now. He decided not to mince words with his son.

“Angry? Yes, Colin, I’m angry. I’m angry because you’re so damn vulnerable, just as every person born into this world is vulnerable… and I can’t change that. You’re fifteen, and no matter how grown up you
think
you are, in
this
world, you may as well be toothless and naked.”

Colin began to cry.

“Why? Why did Louis do that to me? I never did anything to him? Why are people so bad?”

“Colin,” Jan said, “not everyone who frowns at you is your enemy, and not everyone who smiles at you is a friend.”

Colin blotted a tear from his cheek and murmured sadly, “I think I found that out the hard way.”

“Yes, you did, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Louis and his friends are the worst kind of people. Once they set their sights on you, you didn’t stand a chance against them. What I want to know is
why
? What we
all
want to know is
why
?”

“I love Zan. I want to be with her all the time. I thought if I had a job, I could get a place of my own and we could be together, but it all blew up in my face. Stupid! Stupid!”

“Is that the only reason?” Jan probed.

Colin hung his head low and murmured, “Guess not.”

“What then?”

Silence.

“Is it the gay thing?”

Colin’s quivering voice stumbled over the words, “Yeah, I mean, it was at first. The whole idea of you and Michael made me crazy. I thought I was going to turn gay if I stayed with you. Then after a while, I was kinda okay with it, but then you got me the computer, and I thought it was a bribe… I don’t know… I don’t know! It all just piled up, and Louis seemed like a way out… I….”

The deep cuts on Colin’s hands began to hurt. He wrapped his arms around his waist and shifted on leg muscles aching from the stun gun. Bending over, he whispered, “That man… I killed that man! I didn’t know he was going to die! Am I going to go to prison?”

“No. Nothing is going to happen to you. Do you believe me?”

Colin nodded an uncertain yes and said, “I… I’m afraid this will happen again. I don’t know if I can live being afraid all the time. How will I know who my friends are?”

Jan puffed out a weary breath and said, “Colin, this is not a world I would have made for you, and no matter how much I want to, I can’t protect you from it—no one can. Right now, all I can do is set you on the path I think you should take. I can walk a little way with you, if you want me to. If you fall down I can help you up, but I can’t walk for you. The world is a very dangerous and scary place. It’s here, and we’re in it. We can be in it together, or if you insist, you can be in it alone. I can’t change how you’re feeling.”

How am I feeling?
Colin wondered.

“Don’t you think you should sit and rest a while?” Jan said.

Colin shook his head no. “I’ll be okay, but there’s something I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“You came up on the glacier unarmed. You didn’t even have a knife. Weren’t you afraid?”

Jan thought of the Archangel Michael and the inscription:

Call Upon Me Sayeth the Lord, and I Will Answer.

“Well, I had some help.”

Puzzled by the cryptic answer, Colin continued to gaze out the window, and then he asked, “Who was that man, the one who went after Louis?”

“That was Louis’s father. I called him after I found out that Louis had kidnapped you. I told him I was coming here to find you, and he asked to come too.”

Jan’s voice became hard as flint. “I also told him that, if I had to, I would kill his son to get mine back.” Jan looked away. “It can’t have been easy for him, I mean, loving a son everyone else hates.”

“If he knew what Louis was like, why did he go after him? He saw the blizzard was coming. Didn’t he know the helicopter was leaving?”

“He knew.”

“Then, why? Why did he stay with Louis?”

“It’s what fathers do.”

Colin stared out at the city. He pondered Jan’s last words.
It’s what fathers do.

Jan sighed. He toyed with the frayed end of a sleeve. As had happened so many times before, the communication between father and son flourished and then wilted into silence. Even in this crisis, the same silent wall rose between them.

Then, unexpectedly, Colin leaned back, resting his head against Jan’s chest.

“Dad…?”

Jan’s heart skipped a wild beat.

“Yes?”

“Can I come home?”

Epilogue

T
HE
taxi carrying Jan and Colin from their Osaka hotel dropped them off at an intersection where no posted street signs designated either location or direction.

Colin said, “Dad, are you sure we’re in the right place? There aren’t any street signs or house numbers. How can anyone find anything?”

“The instructions the desk clerk gave me say to look for the house on the corner where the pear tree is in bloom. Cross diagonally from there and walk halfway down the block until you come to a high fence with a dragon door. That will be the house of Mr. Tsukamoto. How hard is that?”

“And what happens if one day the pear tree gets blown over in a storm, or if it happens to be winter, or what if you don’t know what pear tree blossoms look like? Tell me that?”

“You’ve got a point there, but as it is, there’s the pear tree, and it even has tiny pears on it, so come on.”

For a while, the two walked shoulder to shoulder along a narrow walkway. Suddenly, Jan stopped before a polished oak door embossed with the figure of a sleeping dragon.

Colin traced the dragon’s sensuous coils with a fingertip.

“Hmph!”

“
Now
what’s eating you?” Jan laughed.

“Nothing. It’s just that if I was going to put a dragon on my house it would rear up with fire shooting out of its mouth. It sure wouldn’t be asleep!”

“For the Japanese, the sleeping dragon represents confident power. It tells all who approach in peace that they are welcome, but to rouse the sleeping dragon would be to invite its wrath. It’s like having a big sign that says, “Beware of Dog.” The good thing about doing it this way is you don’t have to feed the dragon or walk it,” Jan said, laughing. “Oh, and one thing more, remember that Japanese culture is a lot about manners and gestures, especially speaking out of turn.”

“You really love this, don’t you?”

“Love what?” Jan said.

“Being the wise father,” Colin said affectionately.

“Actually, I do—any complaints?”

“No complaints.”

Jan pulled a bell cord. If there was a bell attached to it, Colin didn’t hear it.

Arata Tsukamoto’s teenage son, Seiji, opened a small square door set in the dragon’s breast, briefly eyed Jan and Colin, and then snapped it shut.

Seiji quickly opened the dragon door and said, “Mr. Phillips, it is good to see you once again. Please come in. My father is waiting for you.”

Colin caught his father’s sleeve.

“You’ve been here before!” he accused.

“Guilty.”

“And all that business about the pear tree was….”

“True. I needed the directions the first time I came here,
and
if it’s any consolation, I got lost,” Jan admitted.

Shedding their shoes at the front door, the three entered the house of one of the most powerful men in Asia.

Seiji stopped midway along the hall, drew back a panel of rice paper and lath, and stepped inside. Jan and Colin followed him into a long, sparsely furnished rectangular room. Three ebony chairs and a low table of the same wood, surrounded with cushions, held center stage on a yellow bamboo floor. The room’s outside wall was slid back, allowing a full view of the gravel and rock garden.

Arata Tsukamoto, the Mundus Master for Asia, rose from the ebony table where he sat writing a letter. Smiling, he extended his hand in western fashion and said, “Phillips-san! Welcome to my home. What a pleasure! What a pleasure.”

Jan grasped Arata’s hand and then bowed slightly from the waist.

“It is good to see you again, my friend.” Then, making reference to Mundus, Jan asked, “Is Asia well?”

“Asia is well. And America—is America well?”

Colin took all this in, wondering what the Asia and America references meant.

“America is well also,” Jan said. “Arata, I want to introduce my son, Colin.”

Colin stepped forward and offered a slight bow. “I am honored to be here, sir.”

“Please accept my gratitude for this visit. Regard my home as your own.”

Arata turned to his son.

“Seiji, why do you not show Colin your spider collection?”

“Of course, Father. Please, come with me,” Seiji said to Colin.

After the two teens left the men, Seiji stopped in the hall just outside the door and asked, “Do you
like
spiders?”

“Not particularly,” Colin said, wrinkling his nose. “I mean, they’re interesting… I suppose. I guess I never paid much attention to them.”

Seiji laughed. “Me neither, I mean, I liked them when I was younger, but I have lost my desire to keep them. My father does not know this, and he keeps bringing them in from the garden for me. I keep them for a few days out of respect for my father, and then I release them.”

Seiji scratched his head for a thought. “I know! Do you want to hear my latest rock album? The band is called Hard Jelly.”

“Yeah!” Colin said. “I’ve never heard Japanese rock before. I think it’s getting more popular back home, but I don’t know anybody who has any.”

“Come on, then!”

Behind Tsukamoto’s study door Jan said, “My friend, Seiji knows we can hear him, doesn’t he?”

“Jan, you have forgotten your Japanese customs. Whatever is said, or done, behind a closed door does not exist.”

“But the spiders, if you know he has outgrown his interest in them, why do you continue to bring them to him?” Jan wondered.

“Yes, I know he no longer cares for the spiders.” Arata stepped out to the long gallery that faced an ancient azalea garden. “You see, Jan, the love of a child for a parent is the only love that is intended to grow apart. One day he will find the courage to tell me he has lost interest in spiders. On that day, he will begin to pull away from me and start the road to manhood, and on that day, my heart will sing a sad song.”

Jan nodded. “I’m just beginning to know my son… so little time before he leaves me. He already has a girlfriend back home, so I see him less and less. If we could only slow time, just a little.”

The two men stood side by side and shared a reflective moment. Tall cedars embraced the garden. A seamless patchwork of moss, white gravel, and azalea gave way to a rock-strewn stream. Above, sun and clouds shoved shadows across the ground. Beyond, the cedars broke apart to reveal a glade of wild flowers.

Arata broke their silence. “Well, now to business. They are in the garden. My daughter, Akiko, is entertaining them while they wait. They do not know it is you who is here to see them.”

The folds of his silk kimono slid down his arm as Arata pointed the way. “Follow the path across the stream, then through the cedars and around the pond. There you will find a small shrine to
Emma-O
, the god of revenge. You will find them there.”

Jan stood, exhaled a long sigh, and then headed out into the garden. Minutes later, he reached the shrine. The weathered idol looked as fearsome as it did the day it was carved.

On seeing Jan approach, Arata’s daughter excused herself and hurried off toward the house. Jan couldn’t help but notice the young girl’s tear-rimmed eyes.

“Mrs. Kwon, Dr. Kwon?” Jan said quietly.

Startled, the Korean couple turned and stood at the sound of Jan’s voice.

“Mr. Phillips! Have we been brought all the way from Seoul to meet with
you
?” said Mrs. Kwon, her voice betraying disappointed anger.