When the Smoke Clears

With all the last minute details to be handled before the big day, I’m running from place to place, purchasing toiletries, last minute copies and faxes to various agencies, even time at the post office to secure some stamps and send of the last round of care packages to my soldier/friends from me for a while.

But I found myself a ways away from the cabin around lunch, and close to my favorite sushi restaurant anywhere.

When I say this place has the best sushi I have eaten, I am not lying. I have eaten in California, Seattle, around most major cities, and nothing compares to this place in a little strip mall at the foothills of the mountains. Sushi is not just about the freshness of the fish, though that is a key component. The rice and even the way the fish is cut can affect the flavor. A bad white tuna tastes flat, fishy, and has a rubbery texture. A good piece cut at the right angle and just the right thickness is like a light version of the most tender of kobe beef soaked in butter. Decadent.

Today I sat quietly at the sushi bar, the only one there. Two of the four chefs were working lunch, one was my favorite of all of them. He was always too busy to talk the other times I had visited, but not today. I watched as his long knife cut the seaweed, his hands constantly being washed, then dipped in water, then shaping the rice. The many times I have been in before I have tried to catch his eye to say hi, to say I appreciated how well he worked. Sometimes I would, other times not.

Even in his white smock and white hat, always impeccably clean, he had a hard look about him. He seems almost unable to smile, his attempts at smiling looking almost dangerous, his eyes hard, and cold.

“Everything okay?” He asked when he had a moment to slow down as Chopin played gently on the speakers overhead.

“Yessir. Every time you make it, it is always outstanding.”

“Thank you,” he bowed, his heavy accent coming through his soft, but gravelly voice. “You sometime not here often.”

“Yes, I live 35 miles away up in the mountains.”

“Oh,” his eyes narrowed, harder. Analyzing. His brow wrinkling, gray hair at his temples bristling. “Why here for lunch?”

At that moment a regular patron wandered in and sat near me at the sushi bar. The wait staff came over and filled his water glass, exchanged his disposable chopsticks for some quality ones, and began asking about why he had been away lately. He liked the attention. I would, too, though my disposable chopsticks were fine. He began talking loudly about the new videogame he had started playing, some sort of fantasy role-playing quest. The chef’s eyes turned colder as the loud man stood up on his stool and stuck out his hand to shake the chef’s hand, which was engaged in rearranging the fish in the case. The chef shook his head no and issues a curt, “sorry.”

He moved closer towards me. “So why for lunch today?”

“I’m leaving for military training in a few days. I will be gone for at least a few months and I know I won’t be able to have any food this good while there.” Glasses in the seated area of the restaurant clinked away as new groups settled in at their tables. I enjoyed my little corner away from the crowd.

I began to notice the worry crease between his brows was not natural like mine, but rather inked in the green of an old tattoo. As his hands busied themselves, I saw characters that didn’t seem to be Japanese on his arms and hands. Then came another of his grimacing smiles, enough to frighten a child. “I train for military too. I miss it sometime.”

“The military?”

“No. Only training. I train in Thailand for one year.”

“That sounds great,” I added while he tore a strip of paper from the machine next to him detailing his next order. He dipped the paper in water and laid it on the second level of the counter in front of him.

“Is that where you learned about this?”

“No,” he said, his eyes losing focus, drifting to another place. “No, I learn fight.” He seemed to pause for a moment in thought, though his body did not slow down. I could see his physical presence while his mind abandoned this place for a vivid memory long past.

“…aaaaand the chicken chow mein and a couple of those sushi piece things,” the loud patron at the other end of the bar called out to the waitress.

I saw the chef come back to the moment, anger in his eyes that dissipated in a flash.

“Which army were you with if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Cambodia. After Thailand I fight in Cambodia. Seven years. It was bad time then. That war not good. I had to leave.”

“Seven years is a long time to be fighting.”

His eyes drifted again, harder, reviewing. “Yes. Too long.” He came back to the present for a moment, “What is your name, please?” I told him, he repeated it and tried to smile again.

“What about yours?” I asked.

“Tom.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tom?” Another grin/grimace. “What’s your real name, if I may?”

“Sah-rhin.” I repeated it, attempting to mimic his intonation and accent as closely as possible. He nodded his approval at my pronunciation. “It easier for most people say Tom.”

“Thank you for trusting me Sah-rhin.”

I opened my fortune cookie. Okay, it’s not at all Japanese, but I’m eating sushi made by a Thai-trained Cambodian war fighter who probably witnessed, and, from the intensity of his gaze, may have participated in some horrible things. Inside were three fortunes:
Your family is young, gifted and attractive. – no comment. Not much of a family here.
You will soon be crossing great waters on a fun vacation. Well at least that means I won’t be deployed right away, unless the ’stan is turning into a tourist hotspot.
Your surrounding friends will take good care of you. Yes, I get the hint everyone, Michele, Chou, etc.

I laughed. “Three?” Sah-rhin asked. I tried to show them to him, but he said, “Oh no, I not read that small with bad eyes.”

I nodded.

“You come back again before you leave?” he asked as I signed the card slip for my meal.

“I don’t think I’ll have time.”

“Maybe you can. We talk more.”

“I will try, then.”

“It good we talk.” Perhaps I could hear more about the tattoos.

“Thank you, Sah-rhin,” I said with a slight bow. “I won’t forget your name.” He set down his knife, rinsed his hands and bowed towards me. Then he stepped forward, reached across the counter and presented his hand to shake. His grip was coarse, hard, firm, almost like the wall he placed around himself.

“Even if you not come back many month or year I not forget your name, RSM.”

I don’t doubt it.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS