I don not know , Max, I just do not know But I do know that he is not going to change his mind."
Max shook his head
"Ikemi,I don understand. You don not agree with your father , do you? Come on! You were born in American! You have spent all your life here! You went to American school and now you are studying at an American university! You are American too,Ikemi! You are the same as me! We are American and we are free to choose who we see and what we do! You don not always have to do what your father wants,you know."
Ikemi lifed her eyes and looked at Max.
"You are wrong,Max I am sorry. I am not free. Yes,I do live here,and yes , I went to school here .But my father is Japanese and after my mother died he brought me up . I can not go againstmy my father."
Max looked down at Ikemi is face.
"But what about me? " Max said quietly . "And what about us ? Ikemi,this is crazy! Are you foing to let your father decide who you should marry? Is what your father thinks more important than loving someone?"
Ikemi did not look at Max. She did not want to see the hurt in his face.
"I am sorry , Max,I am really sorry," she whispered. "I...."
But Max stood up and walked away before she could finish her sentence.
She watched him walk slowly across the beach. She wanted to turn after him,throw her arms around him,kiss him.She wanted to tell him she loved him,tell him that she loved him so much it frightened her.
At the top of the beach he stopped , turned ,and looked back at her .Their eyes met for a moment and then she looked away quikly. She hated hurting him . Max was the kindest man she knew.
It did not matter to her father that Max was kind.What mattered to her father was what a man said and he did . Her father thought the most important thing for a man was to patient,to be quite , to say nothing , to be brave, to be able to feel pain without talking about it.It was not surprising that he did not like Max.Max was loud, he was noisy,he did not think before he spoke,he was importient-he was everything her father hated in man. It did not matter to her father that Max was honest,generous and helpful . It was not important to her father that Max made Ikemi laugh and feel happy.
"Why?" she whispered to herseifas she watched Max disappear."Why do i have to cHoose between them?"
About 8000 Km away., off the west coast of Afica,the weather was very diffirent from the beautiful,calm,sunny day on the beach in florida. it was stormy in Weast Afica , very storm; large waves were crashinig onto the sand ,and the leave of the palm trees were blowing noisily in the wind . The beaches of Senegal were empty except for a few brave children who were jumping in and out of the waves.
The sea was empty too. All the fishermen had come back to land .They had heip each other p[ll their boats high up onto the beaches , away from the waves,The fishermen sat in groupd,tailking and laughing ,happy to be on the land and not on the sea . Soon the storms would pass ,the sea would become calm , and they would go out fishing again.
The fishermen were right; the storms did pass . they moved slowly west ,away from the coast and out into the sea .And as they traveled over the sea,they took in the hot,wet sea air and they grew bigger and bigger . Then the storms all blew together and made one large storm.And as the hot wet air rose from the sea into the storm the wind began to movie in circles.An eye formed in the center of the circles of cloud and wind . At first the eye was wide,about 200 Km across, and the wind blew round and roud the eye quite slowly.But as the storm traveled over the sea , the windds bacame stronger as more and more hot wet air rose up into the storm .The eye of the storm got smaller as the winds bacame stronger.
And all time the storm continued to move west over the sea . It moves west,following the warm water that traveled west from the coast of Afica out into the Atlantic.The warm water moved thousands of miles arcoss the Atlantic ,toward the coast of North American . And like a wild dog chaing the smell of kill. the storm followed the warm water .Day after srormy day,it traveled across the warm water .Day after stormy day , on September 13 ,when Caribbean, the winds blew up to 120 Km an Hr. Screming ,terrible,and dangeroud,a hurricne was born.
The weather forecasters called the killer wind Hurricane Irene.And Hurricane Irene threw itseif across the Atlandtic,straight towards Amrerican.In Front of it the hurricane pudhed a huge wall of water , an eight meter high storm wave that would destory anything in its way.