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  Praise for New York Times bestselling author Sister Souljah and her unforgettable novels

  Midnight and The Meaning of Love

  “Before there was a Shannon Holmes, a Vickie Stringer, or a Wahida Clark, there was a woman many consider the Queen of Urban Fiction, Sister Souljah.”

  —Essence

  “The story weaves back and forth from the subways of NYC to overseas in a thrilling adventure with an incredible ending and a wrenching tale of love…. This one delivers on all promises…. Souljah has done it again.”

  —Ebony

  “Sister Souljah’s best storytelling yet. It is amazingly written, smart, erotic, and still street enough for her fans from Brooklyn to Compton, London to Cairo, São Paulo to Johannesburg to enjoy and devour…. There is no character in American literature like Midnight. There is no other novel like this one.”

  —BlackAmericaWeb.com

  “Sister Souljah erases any doubt: She is a writer without peer.”

  —EURweb

  “Sister Souljah weaves a story of love, redemption, revenge, and success with such force that it is nearly impossible to put the book down.”

  —NewsOne

  “Souljah’s storytelling is so compelling and vivid that you can hear the vinyl beat of Eric B. & Rakim’s Eric B. Is President playing in your mind as you read the opening pages…. Simply put, Midnight and The Meaning of Love is a love story that will challenge what you think you know about cultures, people, and places.”

  —InkBlot Book Review

  “Souljah knows how to keep you guessing and turning the page, and her latest offering is no exception.”

  —Soul Train

  Midnight

  “A vibrant, engaging novel.”

  —The Washington Post

  “The story is sparkly and seductive from the jump.”

  —Vibe

  “Sister Souljah is the literary hero of the hip-hop generation.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Fans will enjoy this edgy tale of love and survival led by the provocative lead character.”

  —Ebony

  “Shows the true grit of the New York boroughs, the strength and determination of an immigrant family and how, even in a concrete jungle, a rose can bloom.”

  —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

  “Souljah’s sensitive treatment of her protagonist is honest and affecting, with some realistic moments of crisis…. [She] has obvious talent and sincere motives.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Hip-hop artist and master storyteller Souljah offers biting social critique on contemporary urban culture tucked inside a love story.”

  —Vanessa Bush

  The Coldest Winter Ever

  “The Coldest Winter Ever is a tour de force…. As finely tuned to its heroine’s voice as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple…. Riveting stuff, with language so frank it curls your hair.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Winter is nasty, spoiled, and almost unbelievably libidinous, and it’s ample evidence of the author’s talent that she is also deeply sympathetic.”

  —The New Yorker

  “Intriguing…. Sister Souljah exhibits a raw and true voice in this cautionary tale…. A realistic coming-of-age story.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Real and raw…. If a rap song could be a novel, it might resemble Sister Souljah’s book…. The message is solid and one that we can never stop preaching to our youth—anything that comes too easy or too fast is also too risky.”

  —Booklist

  “Souljah adds a new voice to the most marginalized of the marginalized.”

  —Black Issues Book Review

  “Winter is … as tough as a hollow-point bullet…. Her voice is the book’s greatest strength.”

  —Salon.com

  Also by Sister Souljah

  No Disrespect

  The Coldest Winter Ever

  Midnight: A Gangster Love Story

  Washington Square Press

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  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Souljah Story, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition October 2011

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Souljah, Sister.

  Midnight and the meaning of love / by Sister Souljah.—1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  1. African Americans—Fiction. 2. Urban fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.O7374M55 2011

  813’.54—dc22 2011005717

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6535-5

  ISBN 978-1-4391-6536-2 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3742-7 (ebook)

  Contents

  Book 1: A Brooklyn story

  Chapter 1: Word To Mother

  Chapter 2: So In Love

  Chapter 3: Pressure

  Chapter 4: Rage

  Chapter 5: Jewels From My Father

  Chapter 6: Salim Amed Amin Ghazzali

  Chapter 7: My Women

  Chapter 8: Cash Money

  Chapter 9: “Never Coming Back”

  Chapter 10: Dojo

  Chapter 11: Lock & Keys

  Chapter 12: Passport

  Chapter 13: Wedding Gifts

  Chapter 14: Hustler’S League: The Junior Division

  Chapter 15: Bangs

  Chapter 16: Son, Father, Grandfather

  Chapter 17: Serious-Minded

  Chapter 18: Sensei

  Chapter 19: Sudana Salim Ahmed Amin

  Chapter 20: Friends

  Chapter 21: The Meaning

  Chapter 22: Ricky Santiaga

  Chapter 23: Ameer Nickerson

  Chapter 24: Wisdom

  Chapter 25: Finally

  Book 2 :Japan Story

  Chapter 1: DcIamonds In The Sky

  Chapter 2: Foreigner

  Chapter 3: The Elephant

  Chapter 4: Harajuku

  Chapter 5: Fighting

  Chapter 6: Close

  Chapter 7: Chiasa

  Chapter 8: The Kidnapper

  Chapter 9: Invisible Man

  Chapter 10: Felines, Friends, and Wolves

  Chapter 11: Ashes

  Chapter 12: The Sky

  Chapter 13: “Two”

  Chapter 14: Akemi

  Book 3: A Korean Drama

  Chapter 1: Anyonghaseyo

  Chap
ter 2: By The Sea

  Chapter 3: Foreign Family

  Chapter 4: Romantic Call

  Chapter 5: Test

  Chapter 6: Not A Dream

  Chapter 7: The Match and The Deal

  Chapter 8: Son

  Chapter 9: Body Search

  Chapter 10: Reflecting

  Chapter 11: Black Sea

  Chapter 12: The Curtain

  Chapter 13: The Cautious Professor

  Chapter 14: Panic

  Chapter 15: War

  Chapter 16: Oasis

  Chapter 17: Night Of Power

  Chapter 18: Teardrops

  Chapter 19: One Soul

  Chapter 20: Inshallah

  Chapter 21: Whole Women

  Chapter 22: Struck By Lightning

  Chapter 23: Identity

  Chapter 24: Chingoo

  Chapter 25: Rest In Peace

  Chapter 26: Wings Of Fire

  Book 4: A Brooklyn Finish

  Acknowledgments

  Show Love

  Love is a powerful emotion propelled by energy, thought, and action. It can change you and anyone around you who you love. Love needs no announcement, it is visible in the eyes and body and deeds of everyone who loves. If you cannot see love through action, it is not love. It’s something else …

  If an elder loves you, she and he and they will prepare you to do well in life.

  If an elder abuses you, confuses you, misuses you, it’s wrong and it is certainly not love.

  Elders who do not love lose their authority and influence over you because they are corrupt and unable.

  It is an elder’s job to share wisdom and not conceal it, destroy it, deny it, or distract you from it.

  Here are my jewels to you, the young all around the world in any and every place no matter the faith or politic.

  You are not too young to love.

  Intelligence is the ability to solve problems.

  Wisdom is experience along with intelligence.

  Ignorance is not knowing better.

  Evil is knowing better but doing wrong anyway, while influencing others to do the same.

  Vanity is uselessness.

  A nigger is any person of any race who refuses to learn, grow, and change.

  Arrogance is thinking and acting like you are better than others without true or good reason.

  Look toward GOD, above every elder, and even your parents and all of your community. GOD is first, the MAKER of your soul in every religion and in every corner of the world. GOD is the reason for you and I to be humble and live respectfully. GOD is love.

  Sister Souljah

  Chapter 1

  WORD TO MOTHER

  Warmhearted and young, armed and dangerous, I was moving my guns and weapons out of my Brooklyn apartment to one of my most reliable stash spots. As heavy as they were, my thoughts were heavier and even more deadly. I was trying to move murder off my mind.

  Kidnapping is a bullshit English word. It doesn’t convey the insult that the offense carries, when a man invades another man’s home, fucks with his family or his wife, la kadar Allah (God forbid), and steals her away.

  The man whose wife is gone stands there try’na push the puzzle pieces together of where his wife is exactly and what happened exactly. His blood begins to boil, thicken, curdle, and even starts to choke him. That’s why for me, kidnapping and murder go hand in hand.

  In my case, my young wife Akemi’s kidnapper is her own father, her closest blood relation, a man who she loves and honors. For me to kill him would be to lose her even if I win her back. And I refuse to lose.

  Ekhtetaf is our word for kidnapping. My Umma pushed it out from her pretty lips. She pulled it from her soul and gave it the true feeling that it carried for us—the hurt, shame, violation, and insult. For half a day it was all that she said after I relayed to her that Akemi was gone. My new wife had been taken against her will back to Japan without a chance to express herself to us, her new family, face to face.

  For me to see my mother Umma’s Sudanese eyes filled with tears tripled my trauma. I had dedicated my young life to keeping the water out of my mother’s eyes and returning a measure of joy to her heart that life had somehow stolen. But Sunday night, when our home phone finally rang, and Umma answered only to hear the silence of Akemi’s voice and the gasp in Akemi’s breathing and the restraint in Akemi’s crying, Umma’s tears did fall.

  There was a furious rainstorm that same Sunday. Everything was soaked, the afternoon sky had blackened and then bled at sunset. So did Umma’s eyes switch from sunlight to sadness to rain and eventually redness.

  Through the evening thunder I sat still, trying to simmer. They say there is a beast within every man, and I was taming my beast with music. My earplugs were siphoning the sounds of Art of Noise, a soothing song called “Moments of Love.”

  My sister Naja held her head low. She was responding to our mother Umma’s feelings. Like the seven years young that she is, she did not grasp the seriousness of Akemi’s disappearance and believed more than Umma and I that Akemi would be coming through the door at any moment.

  * * *

  Much later that same Sunday night, family day for us, my Umma placed a purple candle in a maroon dish and onto her bedroom floor. She struck a black-tipped match and it blazed up blue. The subtle scent of lavender released into her air. There in the darkness, I sat on her floor, leaning against the wall, and listened to her melodic African voice in the expressive Arabic language, as she told me for the first time ever the story, or should I say saga, of my father’s fight to take her as his first bride, true love, and true heart. I knew then that the darkness in her room was intentional. She wanted to shield the sea of her emotions since there was no love more intense than the mutual love between her and my father. She also wanted to subdue my fury. She wanted me to concentrate instead on the red and then orange and then blue flame and listen intently for the meaning of her words and the moral of her story so that I would know why I must not fail to bring Akemi back home and why I had to seize victory, the same as my father did.

  Monday, May 5th, 1986

  At daybreak, when the moon became the sun, Umma’s story was completed. She lay gently on the floor still dressed in her fuschia thobe. Her hair spread across her arm as she slipped into sleep. Our lives and even our day were both upside down now. I lifted her and placed her onto her bed. I put out the flame that danced on the plate in the middle of mostly melted wax.

  Umma was supposed to be preparing for work, but her most important job, which took all night, was finally finished. She wanted to transfer my father’s strength and intelligence and brave heart to me, her son. She wanted me to know that I must not be halted by my deep love for her, my mother. She had told me, “You have guarded my life and built our family business. I love you more than you could ever imagine. In my prayers, I thank Allah every day for creating your soul and giving you life. I thank Allah for choosing to send you through my body. But now, ‘You must follow the trail of your seed.’ ”

  Chapter 2

  SO IN LOVE

  Naja overslept. When I went into her room to wake her for school I found her sleeping in her same clothes from yesterday and clutching a doll. The scene was strange. At night she usually wore her pajamas and her robe and woke up wearing them as well. She didn’t play with dolls, wasn’t the type, was more into puzzles and pets. As I approached her bed, I saw the doll had the same hair as my wife, long, black, and thick. That hair is real, I thought to myself, and reached for the doll. I maneuvered it out of Naja’s hands and flipped it around. It was a tan-skinned doll with Japanese eyes drawn on with a heavy permanent black Sharpie marker. The material was sewn and held together with a rough and amateurish stitch.

  Naja woke up and said with a sleepy slur and stutter, “I finally made something by myself.” She turned sideways in her bed, propping her head up with her hand, and said now with confidence, “It’s Akemi. Can’t you tell?”

  I smiled the way a man w
ith troubles on his mind might smile to protect a child’s innocent view of the world. I could’ve easily got tight with my little sister because she had gone into my room and removed the ponytail of hair that Akemi had chopped off of her own head one day in frustration with her Japanese family.

  “It looks like her. You did a good job,” I told Naja.

  “Do you really think it looks like your wife or are you just saying that to be nice?” Naja asked.

  “I’m saying it to be nice. Now get up, you’re running late for school today.”

  * * *

  Akemi’s expensive collection of high heels was lined up against the wall in our bedroom. Her hand-painted Nikes and other kicks with colorful laces were spread out too. Her luggage and clothing, every dress and each skirt a memory of something sweet, were all there. Her black eyeliner pencil that outlined her already dark and beautiful eyes was left out on the desktop. The perfume elixir that Umma made for Akemi, but truly for my pleasure, was there also. The crystal bottle top was tilted to the right from the last use. Her yoga mat was rolled up and lying in the corner. She had left her diary out for all to see. She knew we could not read one word of the Japanese kanji that began on the last page and ended on the first. Yet she had colorful drawings in there as well. Just then I recalled her fingers gliding down the page with a colored pencil in one hand and a chunk of charcoal in the other.