Akemi said she'd learned of a demonstration against the government's handling of the pandemic. Sten had told her about it, and she would join him there. The gathering would be held in a park popular for such events- it offered a big open, circular space around a fountain, good for a large group to assemble. Trees accenting the periphery made that a pleasant place to be.
I couldn't go because it was dangerous for someone not as young as Akemi to be in a crowd with or without masks.
Sten, in his early forties, if that, at least five years my junior, apparently didn't feel concerned about his own safety, anyway considered the risk worth taking.
I couldn't tell Akemi not to go with him, much as I might have wanted to- no "might have" about it. I did want to, but Akemi is a free person and has every right to participate in public forums, if that's what she wants.
Akemi said Sten had forgotten an article of clothing at her studio when he visited, left it there when he departed- a brown wool cap. What was that, his way of laying a claim on her, planting a stake in her work life? She said she would return the thing to him when she went to the demonstration, bring it along.
I tried not to think about what she might wear there.Would she change for the meeting with Sten? To her blue outfit, denim vest top and culottes- loose shorts; that is, ones with wide openings for her legs, shorts that showed her legs. They fit snug at the rear. God, it looked good on her. The thought stung me.
Afterward, Akemi told me little except that at the event she'd met a U.S. veteran of a recent war who'd talked to her (and Sten?) about the horror of overseas deployment in a conflict zone, the seemingly random acts of violence on all sides, even against the civilian population. He said his team also targeted locals to relieve stress driven by resentment at the apparent failure of some natives to appreciate the efforts his country was making for theirs by invading.
He described a night when he and others were providing security for an outdoor protest demonstration - "like this one," he said to Akemi, "except that it was dark." Fires set here and there in trash cans- there might also have been burning tires- provided illumination and were beacons of threat. And he'd seen a member of his unit- guy he knew well, not quite a friend; tall, slightly higher rank than him-or was it lower? staff sergeant- toss liquid accelerant on a local boy who tagged along with them as a mascot. Right in front of him.
Akemi quoted and I paraphrase. "That fire bomb- small but no joke- sailed past me. Miniature lance or flaming Q-tip. Tiny. Miniscule. A dart, but large-scale problem if it landed on you. Tipped with flaming goop that adheres to surfaces like skin."
Akemi explained that the former soldier seemed fixated on the flung, hand-crafted weapon, couldn't stop trying to make her see it as he had, its look, its dimensions. He couldn't nail down the image- obviously unlike any she'd never seen- so resorted to comparisons.
Akemi described him as a tough and unsentimental guy with a roaring laugh but said she thought he was still upset by that night, the crime he witnessed, turning it over and over in his mind.
What bothered him, he told her, was the victim. The fresh-faced, always friendly young man, innocent, good-natured, looked only about sixteen- reacted with surprise, disbelief, then horror as the incendiary gel spread a fiery web across his mouth and jaw. He tried to beat it down, off. His hands flapped wildly. He was plump, fatty and so were his fingers. The veteran remembered his soft, round tan face, glowing with youth- he wasn't even of age- and the light of fire on him, said you could see rapid-fire changes of his expression as he processed the betrayal, saw his mistake in trusting the friendly soldiers; likely, he would never again open so easily to anyone. The staff sergeant, sadistic maybe, or just bored, pissed off, had acted on a whim and showed- clearly felt- no remorse, much less apologized to the boy or others rushing to help him, extinguish the yellow-orange fire- even though the prank would ruin the lower part of his face for life.
I was trying to deal with my work life on the one hand and keep Akemi happy- with me- on the other.
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