Baku-San Come Eat My Dreams

Freddy Nakamura held his feverish infant daughter, Adaora, close, in her yellow blanket. They were at their family home in an inaka west of Tokyo near Kanagawa. It was a cool evening, a full moon peeked through an open window at the oyabun caring for his sick child. A gentle breeze accompanied his soft hummed melody. Freddy applied an ice bag to Adaora’s head and wafted the steam from ginger tea to her nostrils. Father and daughter both dozed.

Freddy awoke to the sound of an engine approaching and his heart leaped. It was a yellow Lamborghini and through the window was the unmistakable emblem of the Nagasaki, and two intertwined Ns like a boxy horizontal 8. Beebee, the leader of the 88, and his younger brother bobby had come seeking revenge. As they approached, Freddy yelled voicelessly for his men to come to arms as he scrambled for a hiding place for his baby girl. A single shot pierced the silence and Freddy Nakamura lost his grip on life and Adaora, the Tulip of Tokyo.

—

Adaora Nakamura snapped up from her sleep in a full sweat with heavy breath. The master, Chi Thien Su, observed her from a stool from across the room. He stroked his goatee, silvery with wisdom, and his eyes, usually sharp as a hawk, softened with compassion. He rose and opened the curtain to allow the dawning sun of the first day of the New Year to brighten the room. He poured his pupil a cup of ginger tea and applied a fresh, cooled towel to her steaming forehead.

“It seems you are yet to escape the clutches of your fever.”

Adaora grabbed the cup and inhaled the warmth of the ginger deep into her lungs. “Yes, Shifu. I did not wish for my Hatsuyume to be a fever dream.”

Chi Thien Su puzzled at the use of the Japanese tongue in his sacred Pagoda by the sea in the Fujian region. He had taken a risk accepting Adaora, a half-breed girl from Tokyo, under his tutelage. Until Adaora, the Shifu mostly accepted pupils from the mainland — young men from poor villages who wanted to enter the sacred monastic life. He hadn’t had a student in over two decades until Adaora appeared at his door unannounced two years ago to the day.

—

She landed at his seaside Pagoda like a dandelion wish traveling on the wind. She was slender with curly hair pinned back in a bun. Her eyes looked like large tear drops with a fierceness that suggested she never cried. Her cinnamon skin glowed under the perspiration of her travels. The Shifu, seldom startled, was astounded when she said her name was Nakamura, the same name as his last student before her.

Chi Thien Su refused to take on any new students after Freddy Nakamura broke his heart and pursued a life of conquest using the very skills the Shifu had taught him. Freddy had become like a son to the Shifu, who was sworn to a life of celibacy. Now, Freddy’s own daughter, had come seeking the Shifu’s tutelage to avenge her fathers death. The Shifu refused.

For three months, Adaora Nakamura, like her stubborn father before her, refused to leave the Shifu’s compound. She would sleep outside like a stray dog on the steps of the Pagoda. She would fetch fresh water for him and clean the exterior of the compound. One evening, the Shifu discovered her curled up shivering because the chill had entered her bones. He brought her into his home and gave her a room with a bed to sleep in. He sighed heavily that day because he knew his heart had softened before the will of Nakamura, once again. The next day he shook her awake with a stick and asked her one question: “What is it that you seek from me?”

“I seek to learn the mysteries of the martial arts from you Shifu?”

“And to what end?”

“I want to avenge my father.”

The master stroked his silvery goatee skeptically, “Avenge? Avenge him from what?”

“His enemies…”

She could barely answer before the master interrupted her, “His enemies? Do not insult me with naive reasoning. Was it not the punishment of God that befell him. Had he not committed great sins would God have punished him thusly.”

She was as headstrong as her father, “Then teach me how to fight God, Shifu!”

The Shifu chuckled, “You are just like your father. And like him, I will train you in the manner of the Dámó. You must, however, release the vengeance from your heart or it will conquer you in the end as it did your father. Find me in the courtyard in one hours time” With that, the Shifu spun around and left the room.

—

“Shifu, my Hatsuyume was of my father,” Adaora shared with the master. “It was his death, but it was all wrong. I was an infant in the dream and we were at our home in the inaka. But, when he actually died we were in our compound in Tokyo and I was nearly an adolescent.”

“And you’re pondering the significance of the dream?”

“Yes. Well no, not in a sense of “what does it mean”, but why am I having it now?”

“What does it matter if you had the same dream now or at a different time.”

She looked out the window at the sun still rising like a votive candle from the sea lighting everything it touched afire with an orange hue. “When I was younger, I would have these terrible nightmares. They were so terrible that I refused to sleep alone and would sleep with my parents.

One day my father came home with a stuffed toy Tapir, which we call a baku. That night when he tucked me in he pulled out the Tapir and said ‘Ada if you have a nightmare again tonight, just ask baku-san to eat you your dreams’ and he will eat them up and you can go back to sleep happy. I looked at him with a face full of doubt and he began rubbing the toy baku all over my head, messing up my hair until I couldn’t help but giggle and then we were both laughing with glee.”

The Shifu chuckled at the visualization.

Adaora continued, “Even after 2 years, I still miss him dearly and I was hoping that my first dream of the year would be a happy memory with him. Instead, it was a contorted memory of the worst day of both of our lives.”

The Shifu stroked his silvery goatee, “It would appear that even in his absence, your father still holds you close in his embrace.” The Shifu took the empty cup and kettle, “You must rest now for tomorrow, fever or not, we must return to your training.”