“I understand, Alma,” he said.
“Forgive me, Ichimei. I’ve had a thousand mad thoughts about how we could continue to be together, to have a hideaway where we could make love rather than this disgusting motel, but I know it’s not possible. I can’t keep this secret any longer, it’s destroying me. We have to say good-bye forever.”
“Forever is a long time, Alma. I think we’ll meet again in happier circumstances, or other lives,” said Ichimei. He tried hard to remain calm, but an icy sadness was filling his heart and strangled his voice.
They embraced desolately, the orphans of love. Alma’s knees buckled, and she was on the verge of collapsing against her lover’s strong chest and confessing everything, even the darkest corners of her shame, begging that they get married and live in a shack, bring up mixed-race children, promising him she would be a submissive wife and would give up her silk-screening and her comfortable life at Sea Cliff and the splendid future that was her birthright, abandon this and much more just for him and the extraordinary love that bound them together. Ichimei might have had an inkling of all this, and was considerate enough to prevent her humiliating herself in this way by closing her mouth with a chaste, fleeting kiss. Still holding her close, he led her to the door and from there to her car. Kissing her on the forehead one last time, he walked to his gardening van without so much as a backward glance.
July 11, 1969
Our love is inevitable, Alma. I always knew it, although for years I struggled against it and tried to tear you from my mind, knowing I could not do so from my heart. When you left me without giving any reason I could not understand it. I felt cheated, but during my first trip to Japan I had time to calm down and eventually accepted I had lost you in this life. I stopped making pointless conjectures as to what had happened between us. I had no hope that destiny would reunite us. Now, after fourteen years apart, every day of which I have thought of you, I understand we will never be husband and wife, but also that we cannot renounce everything we feel so intensely. I invite you to live our love in a bubble, protected from the thorns of life and preserved intact for the rest of our lives, and beyond death. It is up to us to preserve our love forever.
Ichi
BEST FRIENDS
Alma Mendel and Nathaniel Belasco were married in a private ceremony on the terrace at Sea Cliff, on a day that started out warm and sunny but that turned colder and darker, with unexpected storm clouds that reflected the bride and groom’s state of mind. Alma had purple shadows under her eyes from spending a sleepless night tossing and turning on a sea of doubts. As soon as she saw the rabbi she ran to the bathroom, stomach heaving, but Nathaniel shut himself in with her, made her splash herself with cold water, and urged her to control herself and put a brave face on it.
“You’re not alone in this, Alma. I’m with you, and always will be,” he promised.