by Arne Bue
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The art classes Kenso Nakano took in high school brought him to the girl. They became friends, and they talked about drawing, watercolors and dreams. Her voice ran like fingers on his neck. Kenso Nakano's sexual powers had awakened. He wanted her.
He kept his abject existence in his wretched neighborhood secret from her, and he strove to wear the face of a thoughtful student interested in art as he shared his dreams of travel with her. She drew nearer. The girl came from the privileged class. Kenso would never meet her family, the relationship could not proceed, and he must one day end this friendship, for he would be unwelcome in her confident and narrow circle of elevated society. However, whenever Kenso spoke to her, adulation charged her eyes. She hung on every word. She moved to his side. In his heart he rose to a rich height, and he experienced fulfillment. He'd never forgotten the feeling.
One clear day the group trudged from class to the docks. Kenso walked holding her hand, passing the neighborhood. She gripped his hand, afraid. The class set up their easels, took out their watercolors. She took photographs, ones she would use later as she finished her assignment. Others did the same, those from the rich families. She turned, looking nervously. Kenso Nakano looked behind him, to where the girl pointed.
"This street, dark and dirty, looks dangerous," she said. "How could anyone live there? They must be animals."
Kenso Nakano remained cordial to the girl for the remainder of the semester, but after that, he severed the relationship. He might as well be burakumin. He would hereafter hide his meager background under a disguise of perfect control. And thus, he began on the image. He created the image of a studious individual at peace with himself.
His worst fear was having the mask stripped away, exposing him naked before the world as nothing but a boy from an alleyway near the docks. Beneath his veneer of quiet, studious control lived the son of a poor, minor bureaucrat and a mother who must work for a demeaning photographer. Beneath the cover was nothing but a cheap criminal running drug errands for the crime bosses in Japan. He was considered by his own oyabun as nothing more than an errand-boy. His family was overlooked when it came to insurance the organization provided to the others. Mr. Nakano's entire life was a charade.
His fears stirred his skin whenever eye-to-eye he encountered figures of authority, government officials, Deck Officers, passengers who studied him at length. Should cold eyes rest on him too long, eyes that asked, who are you, really? Mr. Nakano could easily become a man much concerned.
He must fight for control, as he was now, looking at his legacy of art.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Mr. Nakano's knee did not hurt so much Saturday, October 1. The ship would dock in False Pass in an hour and a half. The drugs, all distributed, the money collected, except for the missing two thousand. He headed down the stairs, into the foyer. He overheard the Porter, Billy Sullivan and Anna Knight speaking. Billy was standing at the brass bars of the purser s counter.
"Quick stop?" Sullivan was asking.
"Two cars off, one on," she said. "One passenger off."
The Snake would get off and fill his belly with Brant.
Mr. Nakano felt dizzy; his eyes not focusing. The handrail appeared to crack and fade in the yellow side lounge light, so Mr. Nakano sat in a booth and pressed his hands to his face thinking all the while he was seeing with the eyes of his father, Etsuo. And what he saw had nothing to do with the details of the ship's side lounge.
Before his father, Etsuo Nakano, stood a drab, leaning two-story building which seemed always to labor haplessly to raise itself above the narrow, gray street of the old neighborhood. He'd been here all his miserable life. He knew he would never get out. He'd always been ashamed that wife Noriko must work for the photographer, but that was the only way the small family could pay the rent and keep food on the table. Others in Etsuo's office were likewise situated. Their wives worked, too. Everyone worked to make Japan strong again since the war. The Government said so. Exports were slowly increasing, but Etsuo carried about inside a hollow soul, unfulfilled in his minor government job, his brain wasted. Much of the time depression took him, and he smoked too much, a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. He put out a cigarette with the heel of his shoe. A hole in the bottom of the shoe allowed chilling water to invade from a puddle. Etsuo's right foot always got wet in the rain. Next payday, maybe Etsuo would bring the shoes in for repair. Probably not.
He climbed the stairs, and looked up and saw his wife Noriko and son Kenso looking at him through small windows out into the blue rain.
The shoe would not dry overnight. The leather would be moist and soft around the edges of the hole, and moisture would linger inside and seep through to the skin of his foot when he stepped out onto the gray sidewalk in the morning darkness of his wasted life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Mr. Nakano watched Snake walk uncomplaining with the bad hip down the gangway to the wharf, clutching his rifle case and holding a box probably obtained from Anna. Inside, packets of shabu lay hidden. A dog like Jeffrey's stood by a red truck. Snake got in the cab. The truck drove into the wet darkness.
He attempted sleep in 208 during the short run to Cold Bay, but a vision of Misako leaned over from the bunk above, her eyes blank and white. She'd gone blind and called out a complaining remark to him about the hateful medicine she once took before the operation.
However, his sleepless vision and worries brought him to an answer as to how he might finish his last of all voyages.
The ship's horn issued a blast as the Tustumena pulled out of Cold Bay.
During the two hour run to King Cove Mr. Nakano drank coffee in the side lounge, and while moored in King Cove he looked from the storm deck at rain pouring as hard as on the outbound leg of the voyage. The ship would stay here a little over an hour, then start the 6 hour trip to Sand Point.
He heard Anna make an unusual announcement, one Mr. Nakano considered an opportunity:
Will the person who was stuck in the elevator please check with the Purser at the Purser's Desk?
Mr. Nakano believed Captain Sewell knew of this passenger stuck in the elevator. Indeed, the Captain likely would visit the promenade deck to talk with this passenger.
That's when Mr. Nakano would initiate his plan.
He finished his small breakfast, paid Judy and headed for the foyer. He looked over brochures from the rack near the brass bars to the Purser Station, pretending interest in the one about an Alaska bed and breakfast. Anna addressed the First Engineer, Kathy Haven, a woman many years younger than Mr. Nakano, a tall, narrow woman.
Anna said, "Billy heard him yelling. We called to him, had him push the damn button, and then the car came right up."
"Probably didn't even see the buttons," Kathy said.
Anna and Kathy looked at Mr. Nakano. Kathy, even in her work clothes and without makeup, had a rich, fawn-like beauty.
"You heard what happened?" Anna asked.
"No," Mr. Nakano said.
"A guy gets on the elevator from the car deck, gets the door to close, then doesn't push the button. He hangs around in there for almost a half hour, then starts screaming his head off."
Kathy said, "I checked the elevator out. Never had trouble with it. Serviced, everything." Her long neck curved like a bird taking wing.
"Why not run a check again," Anna suggested.
Kathy did a long, slow slide down the passage and pushed the elevator button. The door opened. She got in, the door closed. The alarm bell sounded. She returned to the foyer.
"Working fine. He could have pressed the alarm bell, too."
"Well anyway, Captain knows. He's coming down to talk to the guy," Anna said.
Mr. Nakano waited on deck by the boarding area until he saw the Captain step to the Purser's Counter. Mr. Nakano moved inside, next to Sewell.
"I just talked to him on the boat deck. Make an arrangement with the galley. He gets free lunch. Older guy. Got a little confused, but
everything's fine," Sewell said.
Anna headed to the galley, and Kathy moved with the sureness of a forest creature to the elevator and disappeared into the netherworld of the ship's diesels. The Captain stepped out to the deck.
Mr. Nakano followed.
The big man appeared to send wounds into Deer Harbor, his eyes covered in Mr. Nakano's estimation with a milky translucent film which brought to mind the despondency of Misako before her operation.
"May I take a photo of you?" Mr. Nakano asked. The Captain did not hear him. He leaned forward, rested his elbows hard on the rail.
Nakano put his hand on the Captain's shoulder. The Captain jerked around, took a quick breath.
"Yes?"
"May I take a photo?"
"Of course," the Captain said, a pained expression. With forced effort he hefted his shoulders, lifted his head.
Mr. Nakano took a picture.
"How you enjoying the trip?" Sewell asked.
Mr. Nakano believed the Captain not really interested, from the way he spoke, as though he'd asked the question to countless passengers who in his mind had become faceless people he no longer was able to truly care about.
"I am concerned about those passengers the Troopers took away in Dutch Harbor," Mr. Nakano said. "The homeless brothers." The Captain appeared to see Mr. Nakano for the first time.
"Homeless brothers?"
"A phrase I use in my meditations. We, of course, are not related, except by the fact we are on a journey."
Mr. Nakano's words appeared to seep behind the Captain's gray eyes.
"They're thieves, you know. They tried to steal a birdwatcher's binoculars. Expensive ones," the Captain said.
"They will probably go to court, I assume."
"I didn't realize...Elaine, my Chief Mate, said you didn't speak English at all," Captain Sewell said.
"I speak quite well."
Captain Sewell said, unhappily, "Some sort of gypsy band. Wanted for a scam they ran on some retired folks in Homer, beside the fact they were going for anything not fastened down. Even went for a gold chain hanging on the neck of I can't think of her name."
"Mrs. Berger," Mr. Nakano offered.
"That's it. The Bergers. Professors at Washington State."
"The homeless brothers approached me," Mr. Nakano said, "but I pretended I did not speak English, and they left me alone."
"So that's what you do. You like to be left alone, so you pretend you don't speak English," the Captain said.
"My wife was ill. She had an expensive operation. That is why I must finish this work, so I may pay the medical bills. And I worry about my son, so I gather funds for his college tuition. The worry I carry within keeps me from being sociable. I am sorry, if I am offensive."
Captain Sewell's face remained pale and gray.
"I lost my wife," the Captain said. "Last year. I don't talk much with people any more."
Mr. Nakano would have retreated from this sadness had he sensed the Captain wished to leave the matter in the blowing rain, but the man's moist eyes took hold of Mr. Nakano. A smattering of kind dialogue may well gain the Captain's confidence.
"How did it happen?"
"I'm trying to forget."
"Does it not help to talk of such things?"
"No. I'm adjusting, I guess you could say. Getting used to being alone," the Captain said.
"You have your Chief Mate. I have overhead from crew she is concerned about you."
"I don't have the time for that sort of thing," the Captain said, his posture becoming militant; his words cracking over the wet deck and through the gloom of the day.
"I was a passenger last year as well as this, on almost all the trips."
"I know that. I know what goes on. This is my ship."
Mr. Nakano persisted.
"You have sailed with the woman Chief Mate for two years?"
"More than that. Six years we've sailed together. Aboard this ship, and others."
"One day, perhaps, you will let your life continue," Mr. Nakano said. "I must prepare myself for loss, and provide for family. I have my son, Kano."
The Captain left the boarding area, possibly heading for the quarterdeck, off limits to Mr. Nakano.
Mr. Nakano stepped in front of him.
"Captain, may I ask for something?"
"What is it?"
"I would like to take a few photographs on the bridge."
"Of course. Arrange it with the Purser."
"You do not understand. I'd like to take photos of you inside the wheelhouse, a true Captain."
The Captain looked squarely at Mr. Nakano. "I run the ship, that's all. I used to think I had control over everything. But I don't think like that so much anymore, not since I lost her." He appeared to close in on himself.
This would certainly make things easier.
"I, too, am a man who has lost control, Captain," Mr. Nakano said.
"Shit."
"But I am trying to continue as best I can."
"Photos of me on the bridge?"
"Yes."
The Captain shrugged, walked away, up the stairs, then looked back. "Well, if you're going to take a few shots, you better come along."
Mr. Nakano followed to the sun deck, forward to the quarterdeck and into the wheelhouse. Chief Mate Elaine Miller studied a chart on a table. Radar screens glimmered, alight in green, gray and orange. The two-way radio fizzled, made a hiss; the weather fax purred, issued a report.
Mr. Nakano said, "Good afternoon, Miss Miller." The Chief Mate swung around, cocked her head.
Sewell said, "He wants to take a few photos."
"I thought you didn't speak English," Elaine said. "Tried to get you to talk. So has Anna."
Captain Sewell said, "There's a reason for that, but it's not important now, Elaine."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I don't get it, Elaine thought. A while ago John wants to put Kenso Nakano in cuffs. Now the two are like brothers. Look at them, talking like that, their heads together, out there on the wing. Now John's showing Mr. Nakano how the bow thrusters work, showing the guy the spotlight.
Sewell and Nakano entered the wheelhouse. The Captain showed off the two radar screens, the new, high-tech one that could tell the bridge all about the direction and speed of a passing ship, and the older one that was not only in use but, also, looked upon as a back up. He talked about the single band radio, and when he finished with that he started going on and on about the damn weather fax.
"I usually have three men on the bridge," he told Mr. Nakano. "A Deck Officer, a helmsman, and a lookout."
There goes Mr. Nakano, she thought, snapping another picture out through the window over the bow. Mr. Nakano's probably centered the electronic compass in the photo, the way he's aiming the camera.
"We're going to undock King Cove," Sewell said. Elaine figured Mr. Nakano would leave, but no, he stayed, smiling and snapping off some more shots.
"Would you mind if I take a picture of you two standing together?" Mr. Nakano asked. Elaine wouldn't mind, and she said as much. She figured, he gets done with this shot, he'll leave the bridge, and we can get under way. She wondered about his English. He spoke much better English than she'd ever have imagined.
"Where, over here?" Elaine asked. Sewell was actually smiling, looking down at her, an odd look she wasn't used to. He put his arm around her shoulder, and hugged her.
"Let's give Mr. Nakano a nice smile," he said.
Mr. Nakano took two pictures.
"Thank you so much," he said. "You two look as though you should be as one."
Good Lord, Elaine thought.
Mr. Nakano said, "And I wish you two the best of good fortune."
She looked up at the Captain. His mouth was shaped into a warm grin, but something about his eyes revealed turbulence. They were cold and calculating as he examined Mr. Nakano.
He was saying something to Mr. Nakano.
"You must have studied English at your university," he sai
d.
"Actually, at the Language Club, in Tokyo," Mr. Nakano said.
"Well, perhaps you and I can talk again," he said, "but not now. Chief Mate and I gotta undock, get us underway."
"May I stay and observe?" Mr. Nakano asked.
"Not during docking or undocking," Captain Sewell said.
He escorted Mr. Nakano through the quarterdeck passage to the sun deck entrance by the stairs.
Underway, Elaine spoke on the wing to him.
"How the hell you get him to start talking?"
"He approached me, Elaine. Asked for a picture. Said this was his last trip, that he needed to finish the voyage to pay for his wife's operation, college expenses for his kid . From there, we began to talk a little more."
"What's he do for a living? Is he a doctor or a professor like everyone thinks?" Elaine asked.
"He didn't say. He was really more interested in the Williams family. He called them wandering brothers."
"I'd never think of them as brothers," Elaine said.
"He uses `wandering brothers' in his meditations."
"Why didn't you ask him what he does for a living?" she asked.
"I'm taking that a step at a time," Captain Sewell said.
The helmsman and the lookout watched them standing together on the wing, but the conversation, Elaine knew, did not carry into them.
"He wants something," the Captain said. "I don't know what he wants, but I have a feeling before we reach Homer we'll find out. He'll be talking to me again. I know that. Maybe next time we talk, he'll reveal a little more."
"Why not just ask him what he does? Why not come right out and ask him what he wants?"
"Patience. Meanwhile, I keep an eye on him."
"Like Juneau Headquarters wants," Elaine said.
"Yes. And like Sergeant Henderson and the Drug Enforcement Agency want. I'm going to find out as much from Mr. Nakano as I can. I don't want to push it. I do that, I might scare him off."
"You're still really suspicious," Elaine said.