Yet here the photographs of Cleo and Nina still hung, proudly welcoming the gaze of any visitor, the first impression of the house. It was as if they were souvenirs from a country Nozomi Iwata had never been to. Iwata wanted them gone, but that would take talking. He couldn’t even begin to find the words for such a request. The time for talking with his mother was long gone.
‘Kosuke?’ Nozomi called out.
‘Yes,’ Iwata called back.
‘I thought I heard something.’
In the kitchen Iwata kissed his mother of the top of her head, the sound of her voice softening his disposition. ‘That perfume smells nice.’
‘It’s nothing.’ She blew her fringe out of her face. It was a fine face, pouty lips, big, beseeching eyes and a thick head of black hair – little of which she had passed on to her son.
‘Nothing, huh? The cosmetics girl said you looked well.’
Nozomi rolled her eyes, one of their few shared gestures. ‘Stop being a detective for five minutes and help me clean the fish.’ Iwata laid the shopping bags on the table and his mother inspected the haul. ‘You spent a lot. Work must be good.’
‘What are you watching?’
‘The Wendy Williams Show. I hate her, but I watch.’
‘That’ll rot your brain.’
‘What makes you think it’s so fresh to begin with?’
Iwata wondered why they only ever really conversed in English. It was true that his own was flawless and his mother’s had little wrong with it beyond an accent and the odd slip-up. Yet it was not their language. Gerry was no longer here. For whose benefit was it? Perhaps, he thought, it was easier to separate their past from when their new life in America had started. Japanese, then, represented the before – Iwata’s childhood in the orphanage, before Nozomi had come back for him. She never spoke of those years and Iwata had never asked. He knew enough. She had been in a bad place and had left him at the bus station.
He never asked her reasons for leaving him there, whether out of pride or fear, he didn’t know. She certainly never offered any. That was the before; that was Japan. It hardly seemed to make sense to dredge it up here in America. So it came to be that English overtook Japanese, although silence, more often than not, was their lingua franca.
‘Is everything okay, Mom?’
She looked at him. ‘Everything is fine.’
‘Good.’
In the small kitchen, they prepared lunch, Nozomi occasionally giving directions and pausing as celebrities cried, Iwata just shaking his head.
After lunch they sat out on the porch, drinking coffee. The sky was turning amber in the dusk, warblers singing in the branches above them. A Van Morrison album was playing in the lounge, Iwata’s mother’s favourite song – ‘Beside You’. Van Morrison was one of the few things they agreed on absolutely. Nozomi was wearing sunglasses and reading the Torrance Tribune. She would read every word of it, even the sports and adverts, as though one day someone were going to come and test her on her American knowledge. It was also her usual prop for conversing with her son.
Iwata sipped his coffee and waved hello to a passing couple he didn’t recognize. ‘Who are they?’ he asked when they had passed.
‘I don’t know, but they argue.’ Nozomi peered at him over the top of the paper. ‘Then again, at least they have somebody to argue with.’
‘Not this again. You’re wasting your breath.’
‘Why, have you already met someone? Is she Japanese?’
‘I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with Japanese women.’
‘Where you’re from is important.’
‘Yet you haven’t been back there in years.’
‘My reasons are my own. Now listen, does she know what you do for a living? This matters. Women prefer dumplings over flowers.’
‘What does that even mean? You always talk at me in aphorisms.’
‘What?’
‘Aphorisms. They’re like a –’
‘Kosuke, you know I don’t feel this way but men in your profession are seen as losers.’
‘By who?’
‘People. People around here whisper about you. They call you a debagame.’
‘Well, believe it or not, I’m not too concerned with supermarket gossip. I’m a professional investigator. If they want to call me a peeping Tom, it’s no skin off my nose.’
‘I’m just saying.’ Nozomi dropped her paper and spoke into her coffee. ‘You’re forty. You follow married women around all day and take photographs. A nice girlfriend won’t like that.’
Iwata laughed. ‘Maybe I’m not looking for a nice woman. Or any woman at all. But that’s not the point. The point is, if the biddies at Mitsuwa disapprove of what I do, too bad. But if it’s you that disapproves of what I do, just say it out loud.’
Nozomi put down her cup and took off her sunglasses. Sometimes months would go by without Iwata seeing her eyes and every so often her elderly appearance would startle him.
‘Kosuke, listen. It’s your life. I never pressured you to make me proud. I just don’t want you to be alone –’
‘I don’t think either one of us has ever been very proud of the other, Mom.’
She looked up at the sky and put her sunglasses back on. ‘Maybe not.’
‘Look, I know you don’t like what I do with my life. It doesn’t reflect well on you, pillar of the community that you are. But understand this: I’m not marrying again. I did it once. And look how that turned out.’
Nozomi exhaled slowly. ‘You hardly come to see me and every time you do you argue with me. I’m not disappointed in you. I never will be. I just want you to be happy.’
‘Okay.’
‘Kosuke, one day I want to talk to you. Explain. I think we could –’
‘Not today, Mom.’
She nodded once and they sat in silence until it was dark. Then Iwata checked his watch and kissed his mother on the top of her head. From that angle, he could see the tears in her eyes. Pain and guilt tumbled through his gut. He wanted to say something but he just didn’t know where to find those words.
‘Take some of the food with you.’
‘No, you have it tomorrow.’
‘I always tell you to buy less.’
‘Next time I will.’
‘Gold coins to a cat, son. That’s what my words are to you.’
2. A Sad Business
Driving east on Sunset Boulevard, Iwata decided to treat himself. He stopped at his favourite walk-up spot, Tacos Delta, and went for a plate of steak picado, rice, beans and an iced Jamaica. He sat near the open kitchen door, enjoying the sound of the laughter and the Spanish over the hiss of the cooking. Iwata liked the smell of the warm spices mixing in with the smoky tang of the parking lot.
The cooks doubled as waiters, wearing hairnets and neat moustaches, addressing customers in English or Spanish, depending on their skin colour. They would manage to fire off several wisecracks as they wheeled out of the kitchen, dropped off dishes and scrambled back in.
Iwata’s food arrived and he slathered it in the spiciest salsa they had. He ate under the coloured bulbs, amid grinning families and day-labourers swatting away moths.
3375 Descanso Drive was a small ten-unit condo complex with butterscotch-stucco exterior walls veiled in bougainvillea. To the south, there was a sudden and beautiful vista of Downtown LA. This neighbourhood had once belonged to the poor, the sex workers, the junkies. Later came the artists, the hipsters, the hopeful actors. Now, like many once-diverse slices of the city, it made developers hot under the collar, ripe for reinvention in luxury, highly vendible to wealthy white folk looking to buy in ‘edgy’ areas.
Iwata opened his front door and smelled the usual mix of laundry and dashi stock. He silently greeted the sweet bay plant in the corner that was starting to make its case as a small tree. He’d been meaning to organize the place ever since he’d moved in, but that had been three years ago. He owned little beyond books and records anyhow.
; Iwata picked out two letters from his mailbox, one from his internet provider, the other a clipping from the Torrance Tribune regarding a Japanese singles night on Sawtelle Boulevard next week. A Post-It note in his mother’s awkward little handwriting was attached: Go. x
Sighing, Iwata took an alcohol-free beer from the fridge, sat at the coffee table and fished out his advanced-Spanish CDs. He took a swig and pressed Play on his CD.
‘Hello, again! ¡Hola amigos!’
Iwata raised his beer.
‘¿Cómo están todos? Today we’ll be looking at the preterite versus the imperfect. So let’s get started! ¡Empezamos! ¿Estás listo? Then let’s try: Ramón spoke for two hours. I’ll repeat. Ramón spoke for two hours.’
Iwata cleared his voice. ‘Ramón habló dos horas. Preterite.’
‘… did you say “preterite”? ¡Bien hecho! Well done! Okay, let’s try another one: The girls were speaking in English. The girls were speaking in English.’
‘Las chicas hablaban en inglés. Imperfect.’
‘… did you say “imperfect”? I bet you did! Aplausos, amigo.’
Iwata went through the exercises on autopilot. He’d never really thought too much about learning Spanish but when he had found himself colliding with it on an almost daily basis in his work, he had decided to take classes. Now he was more or less confident in his conversation and his vocabulary was solid. He enjoyed being able to use interesting sentence structures, arriving at a destination along differing routes. It gave him pleasure to think how far he’d come.
When the CD was over Iwata went into the spare room, took off his shirt and sized up his heavy bag. Iwata threw fast, snapping punches, his feet always moving between shots, his hands never dropping. He’d joined the boxing class on a whim, drawn in by the stupid neon bicep outside; it was something to fill empty hours. Pleased with the lack of chat and posturing, he’d stayed with it.
As he worked out, he thought about apologizing to his mother. He knew he should. But then, it was always so easy to do in theory.
Hearing a noise, Iwata embraced the punchbag. The phone was ringing. He wiped his brow and picked up. ‘Hello?’
‘Kosuke … it’s me.’
‘Kate? Is everything all right?’
‘Actually, it’s not.’
‘How can I help?’
‘God, I don’t know how to say this.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘It’s my husband. Kosuke, I need you to follow him … I’m going crazy. I need to know.’
Iwata had known Kate Floccari for over a year, having met her at a convention. When he had told her what he did for a living she had given him her card – as a prosecutor, she was in need of someone in his line of work. Since then, they had worked together on dozens of occasions. Iwata helped her prep for cross-examination, spending long hours going over weaknesses in witnesses, or an opponent’s background and how they might react under pressure. He had located assets for her, everything from stolen artwork to offshore accounts – even industrial designs. And, their bread and butter – he had located people: reluctant witnesses, secret mistresses, employees with knowledge of corporate misconduct; on and on it went … But it had never been personal. Until now.
‘Meet me at my office at 9 a.m. We’ll talk then.’
Anthony Floccari was miles away from campus. Even if anyone saw him, it could surely be written off as coincidence. Professors bumped into their students all the time. He sat on a bench reading Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann and told himself that he was doing nothing wrong. Then, biting his nails, he contradicted himself. Maybe, sooner or later, forbidden acts are just inevitable.
Distant drilling reverberated through the afternoon. Soft currents rattled the cherry blossoms into pink wedding send-offs. The brunch crowd grinned over iced coffee and eggs.
Anthony had wanted Anya since the first time she walked into his class. That was not particularly surprising; he frequently found himself fantasizing about his students. He’d just never done anything more than fantasize.
It would have been nice for him, as a sort of moral black box, to be able to point to a startling aptitude with sentence structure, or even just a splash of originality in her work. But the truth was Anthony just liked the way she looked.
‘Hey, Prof.’
He turned, feigning surprise. The straps of her tank top and bra were misaligned. She had three freckles beneath her collarbone, as if indicating her rank in an army of women he wanted to fuck.
‘Anya,’ he purred. ‘Sit down.’
‘Thanks.’ She sat and rolled her tongue across her teeth. ‘So I checked, and the line in there is, like, crazy long.’
She’s cancelling. Anthony felt both disappointed and relieved.
‘Well, it’s no big –’
‘But, uh, I live close by,’ she blurted. ‘We could just have coffee at my place?’
He glanced at her mouth. Her lipstick was almost black. She tossed her hair, apricot shampoo drifting under his nostrils. They hadn’t even agreed on a pretext for meeting.
Just have coffee at my place, he repeated in his head. Just. Just. Just. How many shipwrecks had come from just a few grey clouds.
‘Or not!’ Anya laughed. ‘It’s okay. I get it if it’s, like, you know, weird.’
Anthony stood and grinned. He knew it was a formidable grin.
‘No. It’s not weird at all.’
When Anthony got home he felt both exhilarated and terrified. For some reason he thought he was going to burst out laughing as he opened the front door. Then he heard his wife’s voice. Kate was muffled, speaking over the sound of running water.
‘What did you say?’ he called out, trying to sound the way he always did.
‘Ants. They’re back.’
‘Ants?’
‘You know: tiny, six legs, unwelcome.’
‘They’re back?’
‘Yes. They’re back … As are you’ – she glanced up at the clock – ‘at a quarter to ten.’
Kate was drowning the ants with torrents of hot water, like some small offended god.
‘I lost track of time at the gym.’
‘For three hours? I called the college; they said you’d left early.’
‘You called?’ He used his smile, hoping it looked unthreatened. ‘Since when do we call?’
She was still holding his gaze.
‘Kate, what is this? I left early to beat traffic, which obviously I didn’t do, then there’s parking, there’s changing, there’s showering, there’s getting gas, then there’s more traffic. Come on, it’s LA – you know this.’
It sounded solid, but he reminded himself to fill the tank first thing tomorrow.
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I just – I don’t know …’
Anthony turned off the tap and hugged her. ‘It’s okay. The pregnancy is just playing hell with you, that’s all. I love you, Kate.’
‘I love you,’ she murmured into his chest.
He stroked her hair, knowing there was no way he could smell of anything but soap. They took two alcohol-free beers out to the balcony, him on the right, her on the left. That’s how they slept, how they fucked these days, and how they usually posed in photographs.
Kate reached out and pinched his bicep. ‘That gym is paying off.’
The far-off whoosh of the freeway was soothing, the lukewarm night ruffling their hair paternally. Anthony’s return smile was wan. ‘Gotta keep tight for my girl.’
She stroked the rim of her bottle with her bottom lip and looked at the ocean beyond the freeway. He knew he was the only one to see these childlike gestures. As one of the most feared prosecutors in the city, every daytime gesture, every word, would convey purpose. But these throwaway mannerisms that only came out at night were the real her – like gentle, reclusive nocturnal creatures. He used to love these gestures. Now, he just knew them.
‘Hey,’ Anthony spoke brightly, despite his thoughts. ‘You okay?’
‘Mm.’
‘What’s up?�
�
‘Nothing.’
‘Kate.’
‘I just had this dumb feeling earlier.’ She whispered it. ‘Like maybe the idea of the baby had freaked you out and you were going AWOL on us.’
Anthony met her eyes. Sometimes she looked like a kid. He felt disgusted with himself.
‘I know,’ she laughed. ‘I know. It’s dumb.’
‘It is dumb.’ He regained himself in that winning grin and curled a hand around the nape of her neck. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Kiki.’
They held hands in silence.
She’s going to be the mother of my child. I’m happy with my life.
But as the traffic lights far below changed he asked himself the obvious: Then why Anya?
Anthony Floccari was respected for his writing, in his work. Money had ceased to be a real concern some time ago. He had a beautiful wife. But none of it was enough. It never was.
Once, as a small child, he had met his great-grandmother in Bologna. His Italian was sparse but he had understood her judgement of him. He’s a looker but careful with him, that boy has a hole in his basket. For a few years Kate seemed to have filled him in, like concrete. But she lived her life by a certain code, which, after such a long time, he had grown weary of. With her rules and expectations, she felt like a beautiful little prison.
Anya, however, had no rules. She was absolutely his. She would do anything he wanted and would knit her brow in concentration to get it done well. She would laugh at his jokes, gag on his cock and learn from his anecdotes. In the afternoon sun, naked in her bed, she had shrieked with laughter at his impressions of her classmates. Closing his eyes, he could still see her tits jiggling, still hear the lilt of her giggles as she begged him to stop. To his alarm, Anthony realized he was getting an erection. He folded his legs.
‘I need a shower,’ Kate said.
They kissed. When she was gone, Anthony went downstairs and grilled some asparagus. As he ate, he watched a documentary about Mayan culture. At 10.30 p.m. he deleted the text message that read: I’m still sore. I love the feeling. x
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