*MOONLIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS
Even as the guarded entourage plodded up the narrow path in the gloom of cold shade, the landscape behind them opened up, lit with fire. The unseen sun, eclipsed by the mountain, imparted to the verdant lowlands a rich interplay of gilded tint, interspersed with creeping blue shadow. Way off in the distance, way down below the slope gave way to a flatland of vineyards and fields, a patchwork of earthy yellow and brown and shimmering blue of alpine lakes. Dark green forests, clinging to the remote ring of surrounding hills like lichen to a rock, absorbed the dying heat of the day.
“Station Six!” A VTR staffer shouted triumphantly, and it was a triumph of sorts. After having been dumped unceremoniously in that high altitude parking lot and pit stop of broken vending machines known as Station Five, it was a relief to be somewhere, anywhere, else.
Yet upon a second glance, Station Six was even more disappointing than the previous dumping ground; just a jumble of ramshackle huts and derelict shacks designed to house summer climbing traffic. There were no more trees to speak of, nor anything green for that matter, just various shades of gray. The monochrome tones ranged from black lava to pristine snow with lots of slush and mud in between. The only thing more jarring than the ugliness of the prefab cabins and longhouses was their apparent flimsiness. To Collin’s eye, the camp looked like it had been built by the Three Little Pigs, and the only structures that looked likely to offer any protection from the huff and puff of the wind were the low-lying stone shelters and Tibetan style huts that were hunkered down to the point of being embedded in the ground, wedged inside a protective wrinkle on Fuji’s exposed slope.
What little flat land there was at the rusticated station was being transformed into a base camp, a bustling hive of activity, mostly centered around securing warmth and shelter, which was none to soon, what with the wind picking up and temperatures dropping. Bonfires were lit, empty barracks were dusted clean and portable bathrooms were installed, though men from all walks of life continued to relieve themselves wherever they saw fit, usually right in the open, in some cases right next to a perfectly functional urinal.
“Want some tea?” Jianhong asked invitingly.
“Sure, thanks babe,” Collin replied.
“I want some too, can you get two cups?”
“Nice move,” he laughed. “For a second there, I thought you were being gracious.”
Collin stood on line at the makeshift kitchen where hot tea was on tap for all takers, while Jianhong awaited tea service a short distance away, saving space for two on a wooden bench.
Perched in front of a stone hut that offered shelter from the worst of the wind on an otherwise exposed pumice-strewn precipice, they sipped steaming tea and munched on apples while resting their legs and taking in the view.
“Hey hear that? Here come your countrymen!” Collin said. The loud, rancorous shrieks of tonal Chinese coming from the SPT crew as they exhorted, chastised and reprimanded one another preceded them, telegraphing their arrival a full five minutes before their tired legs actually reached Station Six.
“Have you said Ni-hao! to the Chinese yet?”
“Why should I?” She snapped sullenly, putting the question back to him.
“I don’t know, because you’re Chinese?”
“So what.”
“Then why shouldn’t you?
“They already think I’m a snob,” she muttered.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not with them.”
“What, they want you to be like, loud, and rude, like them?”
“No. They want me to be part of their group.”
“But it sounds like they’re arguing!”
“No. Just emotional. They don’t realize how it sounds.”
“Good point,” he said, pausing to consider it. “I’m not sure any of us can know what our own language sounds like to those who can’t understand it. I wonder. I bet English sounds pretty grumpy and gruff if you don’t know a word of it.”
“The ‘S’ sound and the ‘T-H’ sound sticks out,” she said. “I notice zat as a kid.”
Looking up, it was still a long way up; looking down, already a long way down. Through their exertions they had reached that undistinguished in-between zone, somewhere between Fuji's dark forested skirt and gleaming ice cap. Above them still rose a mountain’s worth of rubble and rock, so much of it in fact, that the peak itself was obscured by the midriff of the mountain.
He crunched away on a crisp Fuji apple while she nibbled quietly on hers. “From close up it doesn’t look like much, does it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know. From a distance, the slope looks so smooth, silky, and sexy, you know, like the skin inside of a woman’s thigh.”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped.
“The snow line, you see, it’s kind of like ah, a kind of like, you know, the panty-line for Fuji. It starts around Station Seven, right? Seven, halfway to heaven.”
“Heaven? This place is too cold for heaven.”
“What makes you think heaven is hot?” he countered. “I think you are getting it mixed up with someplace else.”
“Paradise?”
“No, not paradise.”
“Your room?”
“Very funny.”
“You know, I heard you talking to the driver. You surprise me sometimes…”
“You were awake? I thought I heard you snoring…”
“I was snoring? Was my mouth open?”
“Gotcha. Only kidding.”
“But really, when you talked to him, it sounded interesting. Why don’t you talk to me like that?”
“Okaaay. You see, the sun? It’s gone, right? It’s already set behind the mountain, but it hasn’t really set yet, so the sky is still bright. So, we are like, night has already begun on this side of the mountain, but its still day on the other side, mostly.”
Jianhong yawned audibly, fanning her mouth for show, but said nothing.
“Has the ah, cat got your tongue?”
“No, just worried.”
“About what?”
“TV. Miki wants me to be on TV, but I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to be on show.”
“Yeah, but it’s all for a good cause, you know, international friendship, and all that jazz. You see, when you get all worried about some little thing, just think of the big picture.”
“What picture?”
“I mean, us, here on earth, as seen from outer space.”
“Is that a picture?”
“I mean like imagine a bright ball, floating in nothingness. Can’t you picture it? Simply sparkling. Don’t you see? Unlike the mountain, the earth is never not in the sun, but it is always lit up. Exactly half of it is bathed in bright light at any time. The moon’s always in the sun too, except the dark side, which isn’t the same as the far side, but anyway, hey look, I think I see the moon coming up over there.”
“How romantic!” She feigned another yawn, but this time she leaned gently into him.
When the moon broke free of curtain of low-lying clouds on the eastern horizon, Jianhong started humming a sad, faraway tune.
“What song is that?”
“Moonlight in the mountains.”
“I remember, I remember!” cried Collin. “You sang it at the end of that office party, last year’s forget-the-year party, right? Well, I didn’t forget it. You have a sweet voice, the song was beautiful…”
Her eyes lit up appreciatively. She was touched that he could still summon up her performance in memory. After all, he had been drinking like a pig and playing the field like a dog. It was one of those mortifying office parties at which he made a pass at every last female but her. Was it because he had a thing for Japanese and she wasn’t Japanese enough? Or was it something else?
And why did he always act like a jerk around Japanese girls? What did he think they had that she didn’t? He was attentive enough now, easy to talk with, but that’s because she had him captive, there was no competition, well, except for Miki, and Miki was way beyond his ken.
She still hadn’t forgiven him for ignored her at the hotel to entertain a slut in his room, even after she went shopping for him, even after she got him invited there in the first place. But just now, he seemed a little bit less of a jerk than usual, but then again, maybe her judgment was impaired from the thin air. Was it him? Her? Or both?
“Moonlight in the mountains,” he murmured, breaking a long silence. “You know, that song, it really knocked my socks off,” he added.
“You really remember it?” she asked sweetly.
“Oh, it was wonderful,” he answered softly. “How could I forget it? So romantic, and so totally me! It was about me, wasn’t it?”
She elbowed him sharply, followed by a battery of thrusts, pokes and jabs from activated feet, fists and fingers. They tangled and tickled playfully, pushing and pulling, attracting and repelling in equal measure.
“Wow. We’re on Fuji. Isn’t it amazing?” said Collin, with a shiver, looping his arm around her, huddling for warmth.
“What is amazing, is, is, is…” she faltered. “Why are you still in Japan?”
“What is amazing is being here with you,” he answered tenderly.
They melted into one another in a lasting embrace as the sky lost light and bonfires fired up around the base camp.
Miki walked by with a small entourage, taking notice of her two foreign workers, slacking off on the bench, fooling around. She flitted right past them, busy with the gaggle of stylists and producers accompanying her, but not before catching Jianhong’s eye. No words were exchanged, there was no time for that, but she would give her assistant a talking-to later. Presently, she needed to inspect the facility where a generator-powered makeshift studio had been erected.
With the weight of the world weighing down on her mind, Miki found it incongruous that her personal assistant and personal rewriter should be tickling one another, carrying on like slaphappy children. Had she erred in her judgment? She invited him as an afterthought, and mainly because she thought he could be of use. What he didn’t seem to perceive was that there was nothing about this Fuji trip that was a free ride, everyone had to carry his or her own weight.
The four walls of fate were closing in on her from all sides, simultaneously. Time and space were being taken away from her, but there was much work to be done and many sacrifices to be made if she were to do her part in upholding a hallowed tradition. Her father’s visionary plan was unfolding even as he withered away; she had no choice but to stand up and face the challenge, if that was the way he wanted it, then that was the way it had to be.
With only fifteen minutes to airtime, her stylists were anxious to attend to her mussed up makeup and wind-blown hair, but she brushed off their concerns, uncharacteristically, saying she wanted to take in some air before settling into the studio routine.
How quickly the insolent American had reverted to type! Look at the lunk! Look at him warming himself by the fire while the other VTR workers labored with team discipline, cleaning cabins, carrying supplies into camp. While untiring producers helped carry heavy gear and her uncomplaining camera crews checked and double-checked their equipment, the gaijin devoted his energy to shooting the breeze, charming the girl, the only girl in sight. Her diligent little assistant didn’t seem to mind, in fact the way she looked back at him when he talked, the way her eyes widened when he unleashed his corrosive charm, suggested she didn’t hate him as much as she pretended to. If those two ever stopped fighting long enough to realize how much they cared for each other, she would have no one to turn to.
“Working hard?” Miki quipped, announcing her arrival.
“Hardly working,” Collin answered without missing a beat. Already he had released Jianhong’s hand and abruptly and stood up, as if at attention, an impertinent smirk crossing his thin lips. “Welcome, welcome.”
“Is there not work to be done?”
“Yean, Jian, and uh, I, we, we were just talking about work.”
“Is that so?”
“And talking about you…”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. We think the world of you!”
Miki smiled demurely at the sight of his trademark shit-eating grin but said nothing more. She walked on.
A sharp, short gust of wind ripped across the unprotected slope causing the bonfire to leap and crackle. “Be fraternal with all,” her father had counseled, “but beware of friendship.”
Ever since she was groomed to be the anchor of the news, the endless demands of work made social entanglement an unaffordable luxury. She knew all too well from the lonely ache that wouldn’t go away that worldly success came at an unworldly price. But if she were less than vigilant, if she were to cave and lose her cool now, what way out was left? If she let herself melt, what would the icy recesses of her hidden heart reveal? Was disclosure always for the good? Intimacy could be so messy, was it really necessary?
Even now, she inwardly yearned to be a nobody, to be a part of the silly, irresponsible world of slackers and servants, like the young man and young woman who proclaimed fealty to her face even as they conspired to betray her.