Love Stories Series

When two 13-year old girls are raped and murdered in Okinawa, a Washington based magazine ‘The Herald’ decides to cover the story because American airmen from Kadena air base are suspected of involvement. The magazine assigns the task to Chieko Hasegawa because of her Japanese ancestry. this is ironical because Chieko had rejected Japanese traditions in favor of a western lifestyle early in her life and had earned the irk of her parents, although a rapprochement had been achieved with them at her father’s deathbed. The heinous nature of the crime forces Chieko to cross the boundary of her professional expertise and start acting like a detective. As she tries to get the DNA of the suspected American airmen, she is assassinated, leaving behind her American husband, Steven, and daughter, Mitsu. Steven is distraught, dejected, and disheartened at the loss of his wife and distressed at the wrangling of the American bureaucracy which refuses to assist him in apprehending the culprits. He buries Chieko’s ashes next to her father’s because he sees her as a Hasegawa in the western garb. Then he resigns from his law firm to devote all his time to Mitsu, Chieko’s only legacy left to him. Later when Chieko’s mother dies, Steven sees that as the end of his connection with the Japan, and, being the only legal heir, he decides to donate the Hasegawa property to the local Community Center and goes to Mizue, the village where the property is located, to complete the transaction. He travel with Mitsu, only four at the time, who has become his own self. As he visits the dilapidated house to collect a few mementoes of his love, his mind is flooded with the memories of his first visit to Japan with Chieko. To keep his love for his wife alive, he plants her favorite fruit tree, persimmon, in the Hasegawa garden. That’s when he has change of heart. Not wanting to discard a place where Chieko was born and grew up, where Mitsu was conceived, and where he himself feels happy and connected with life, Steven decides to keep the Hasegawa property and stay in Japan.

David, a mine engineer stationed in Kenya, and his wife, Marla, unable to conceive, adopt a black infant and name him Thomas. After coming back to the States, Marla goes through corrective surgery and gives birth to a girl, Kim. Growing together Thomas and Kim fall in love and have sex. When Thomas accidentally learns that his adoptive parents do not really want him, he leaves home and Kim becomes a runaway to be with him. Since Kim is still underage, the young lovers escape to Mexico to evade the law and end up in Barra de Potosi where they are robbed by two gamberros, and their lives are threatened. Escaping from there, with the help of a local boy, they settle in Guadalajara where Thomas is able to find work as a tour guide and Kim kills time as a homemaker. After Kim attains legal adulthood, the lovers decide to go back to the States, but not before expressing their gratitude to the kid in Barra de Potosi to whom they owe their lives. Upon arriving in the village, they find that the kid was killed by the gamberros for helping them and his mother is destitute. They leave what cash they have for the mother and, as they prepare to leave, come face to face with the gamberros who want to punish them for their past escape. This time they are saved by the kid’s mother hurling bricks at the gamberros who are injured and later thrown in jail. After settling in the States, Thomas decides to go to Kenya to find his mother, and Kim decides to go with him. Thomas learns that his mother died missing him. He also discovers the truth about his birth and adoption and that truth makes hims angry at his adoptive parents. Just so he does not get cared away with emotions and does something revengeful which destroys his and Kim’s future, he decides to leave the States. To him, self exile appears to be the only way to safeguard their lives and their forbidden love and so he and Kim settle in Barra de Potosi and adopt as their mother the woman who had saved them from the gamberros.

Tandav is a sad story of unspoken love between two men, Kevin, a successful and rich structural engineer, and Patrick, a financially strapped HIV positive dancer in recovery. Kevin is uncomfortable living with his wife, Annie, without knowing why. He seeks divorce and loses custody of his daughter, Kimberley, age 12. But when Kimberley runs away from her mother’s home to be with him, Annie is livid but he is happy. Still feeling lonely, Kevin joins a hiking group, meets Patrick, and brings him home as a live-in companion to him and his daughter and as a dance teacher to both of them. A strong emotional bond ties the three lives together. One day while Kimberly is home sick, she is sexually attacked by an invader. Her scream brings Pat to the scene who subdues the attacker, shoves a Perrier bottle in his anus, and gets arrested for sexual assault. Kevin is furious at the police, gets Pat out of jail on bail, and hires a private detective to find out the truth about the Kimberley attack. The private eye investigation reveals the attacker to be a member of Faggot Hunt club sent specifically to kill Pat but engages in opportunistic assault on Kimberley. There is speculation that Annie is behind all this. Kevin is now in revenge mode. Tragic events follow.

These Stories: Both stories are set in Japan and are about two Japanese women who have their love secrets. Memories of a Distant Star is the story of a young married woman who is compelled by her emotions to retrace her steps on a mountain trail where her first love had bloomed, a one-sided love for Eiichi whom she would never see again. She recalls the moments spent with her companion, and his enchanting poetic stories about the universe and the life within. She relives the devastation she felt when Eiichi got injured through her folly. Finally, amidst her calmness within the storm, she remembers her use of his own technique to heal him, an expression of love for him without his knowledge, a secret she would keep from her husband forever. The Bon Festival tells the story of Akio and Hanako who grow together in a small village and fall in love. Yet, they can’t be together. Hanako marries someone chosen by her family and has a son. Although living in Tokyo and married himself, Akio still can’t give up Hanako. When Hanako’s husband dies in a storm, he begins to see her clandestinely every time he comes to the village from Tokyo for the Bon festival. His infidelity is observed by his wife who divorces him. Free from his own marital bonds he asks Hanako to come with him but she refuses. This goes on for several years. However, Akio gets his wish finally when when Hanako’s son becomes an adult. The two have a long life together. Then one day as Akio holds Hanako in his lap on her deathbed, she reveals to him her secret with which she had lived all her life. Devastated, Akio drags himself to where he and Hanako used to meet secretly and lies down to die in memory of their love for each other.

Jason, an alcoholic, having lost everything except his life, seeks support from AA. Staying sober is still a daily struggle. One day, however, is the beginning of a change from struggle to hope when, Emily, a richly dressed woman with a hostile attitude, walks into an AA meeting he is attending. Hope for himself and for someone else. A simple talk between the two about addiction and AA at coffee grows into friendship and, for Jason, into love which remains one-sided and unexpressed. But his care and concern for his love fails. After Emily does not show up for her AA meetings for four weeks, he goes looking for her and finds her dead body, mostly eaten by wild animals and birds, on her ranch property. Later autopsy reveals meth overdose as the cause of death. What is he going to do now?