Luca, Son of the Morning

by Tom Anderson

‘Come on. We must go quick!’ Cee pushed me towards the rear seats of the buggy, and we both hopped in. The electric motor engaged, and we skittled along the wharf, turning around the side of the big grey building. On this side of it there was a series of metal shutters, each half way open, so that I could see the well-used tractors and boats stored inside.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked Cee.

  ‘To MARKET!’ she yelled excitedly, over the noises of the port at work.

  ‘Which market?’

  ‘I have important job to do, and not much time! I must show fish market to Luca. My father and brother and I all work in fish market many times in one month. Today my father is at sea, fishing, so today me and brother can take you and father won’t catch us.’ She grinned. ‘Father catch fish? Yes. Father catch us taking gaijin with us to fish market? No!’ And she winked at me, her eyelashes flicking up and down as quickly as the smile that went with it.

  Her brother looked ahead and kept driving.

  We ran up a concrete ramp and onto a busy, city street. It was crammed with buses and cars, all held together in a jam, but on our buggy we could ride through the gaps and close to the pavement. At a set of traffic lights we had to wait for the pedestrians to cross, before sneaking around to the left.This new road was clear, and ran parallel to a huge river, which suddenly turned and flowed under us, as we drove out onto a wide bridge. On the other side, we were immediately swallowed by tall buildings, with big shops and restaurants in the ground floors, and everyone was hurrying about in suits. Then we turned again, and were in a narrow lane.

  ‘Sorry. We must go fast,’ said Cee, as her brother began weaving in and out of people.

  The lane was dark – buildings were holding out the sunlight – so the rows and rows of red, puffed-up lanterns that illuminated the way seemed to float in the air above us. Signs in Japanese writing fluttered down on homemade banners outside the stalls that lined the sides. The lanterns stopped, before starting up again, this time with their own black, unreadable writing running vertically down them.

  When the lane forked, we followed to the left, and then came to a sign written in several languages, including English. It was the size of a big shop window, and had a cartoon figure of a man in a hard hat and overalls like the ones Cee and her brother were wearing. He was standing in front of a very basic colourful drawing of a fork-lift truck, and was holding three fish, heads down, in one hand and raising a thumbs-up with the other. A speech bubble was coming out of him for each language, forming a circle of little word-clouds around him. The English one said:

  ‘WELCOME TO TSUKIJI FISH MARKET.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Luca. I know way back to water. You can go home same day.’

  We were turning into a small, open zone where lots of buggies like ours were being parked in rows. On the other side of the clearing were stacks and stacks of wooden pallets.

  ‘I work here every day in month except three. Market very busy now. Come. Must show you all before time finish. Market open already.’

  She tapped a cheap Casio watch on her wrist and held it up for me to see the time. It was 8:01am.

  I quickly tried to do the maths in my head. Did that match up to the time I’d left Chapel Shores? I used to be good at knowing these… What was Tokyo? Like, eight or nine hours ahead of where I lived? Anyway, it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t hold Cee up any longer, whatever I did.

  ‘Tuna fish coming now. You must look!’

  * * *

  Half the stalls were already being hosed clean by the time we’d made it to the back of the room – a distance of about two hundred metres, I reckoned.

  ‘They sell everything in one hour,’ said Cee, proudly. ‘Markets very busy now in Tokyo.’

  ‘Yeah. Looks like it.’

  At the back wall of this massive warehouse, we started tracking along, pausing to peer at the various creatures that sat staring up at us from the tables of crushed ice and stainless steel that hadn’t sold out yet.

  ‘Too busy, Luca.’ Cee was shaking her head. ‘Far too much busy. It makes me and my brother very sad.’

  She stopped – up until now we’d been moving so fast it was almost a jog – and turned to face me.

  ‘Luca, I have read a lot about fish in the sea. Beautiful fish. In Japan we eat fish all mealtimes. We are not looking after them. This very hard for me to think about.’

  She pointed at a stall in one corner. ‘Come see.’We walked over to a small square of metal tables, set up around a hole in the tiled wall. Behind the hole was some kind of washing room for the plastic trays the fish were coming in and out on. This stall was full, and Cee began identifying the fish for me. Each one was staring blankly up at us with eyes like those of the men marching on my Chapel Shores beach at night. They looked so lifeless, so dead, and yet the way they fixed on you, every time, made you think there was still a soul in there somewhere, suffering on this bed of ice.

  ‘This is sardine, this buri. Here is saba – mackerel. Now this fish very beautiful; barracuuuuuuuuuda! Also here is sea bass – which we call suzuki – and this is eel, and, over here, tai fish, which you call red snapper.’

  A small, perfectly formed shark lay at the end of the row. It was the length of my arm at the most, but so streamlined and so detailed. Everything about it said ‘predator’, but here it was, stone dead and frozen solid.

  ‘Ah, you see the salmon shark?’ said Cee. ‘This one very small. Maybe baby salmon shark. Many people like eating salmon shark in Japan and in world too. Now come. Tuna fish ready.’

  She took my hand and walked me back up to the first table, where the barracuda lay. Next to it was an empty metal surface about ten feet across. As we arrived there a man in the same grey overalls as Cee came out of the hatch in the tiled wall, and dragged an enormous fish out of a big, plastic water vat– a fish about half the size of the man himself.

  The man rolled the tuna into place, and I saw its eyes, so still they could have been painted onto its head. In fact, that was the first thing I thought – this was never something that lived. This was a torpedo – it was too round, to bullet-like, too perfect. The fish was dark and, like the eyes, the rest of its features seemed to be fading into its smooth surface. The fins were stuck to its body, and the overalled man lifted them outwards, rubbing gently behind each flipper with a knife about the length of his forearm.

  Then he started to cut.

  He ran the blade deep around the back of the head, then fiddled hard with the handle until there was a hollow, popping sound at the top of its spine and the head lifted neatly off. It looked like he was removing a helmet from a suit of armour, the whole thing seemed so lifeless. I was waiting for the fish to suddenly flop, or shake, to resist somehow. Next the man shoved his knife deep into the fish’s back, and then rammed it along the side of the creature’s body. A few more runs back and fore with the blade, and he was pulling off the biggest strip of meat I’d ever seen – no cow, no pig, nothing you’d find in a butchers back in Britain, could have this much flesh on it. The man kept his focus, and slid four more of those enormous chunks away, until all that remained was a strip of spine, covered with purple and red goo, attached to a tail that still had nothing wrong with it – a tail which still seemed to be reflecting all the colours of a rainbow across the grey table covered in blood.

  The skill of this man made me feel a weird kind of joy. He’d spent his life learning to do this. But the sight of the fanned tail, at the end of a little pole of gore and bone, was crushing that feeling with pure, heavy and hot sadness. This was all that remained of the giant tuna now. Seconds later, it had been thrown in a nearby bin.

  ‘Luca. You know my father catches this tuna fish?’

  I looked over, and could see her eyes slightly wet in the corners.

  ‘Beautiful fish,’ she said. ‘Very sad.’

  ‘But it’s been sold now, ri
ght? Someone will eat it.’

  ‘Father brings fish to market in many ways. Father sometimes brings fish with boat from Tokyo Bay. Sometimes using boat in Shikoku – long way away from Tokyo – and put fish in train or on other boat for going quick to market. Sometimes father is in the market, sometimes father sends us. We learn to choose good price for fish when very young. Important. Choose right price, can take much money. Father has three boats. Sometimes we need to choose right price for many, many fish at same time. Big prices. Cee little and get scared choosing big price for thousand fish to going for sale together.’

  Her voice had slowed down, as if she needed to find or check the right words each time she spoke.

  ‘But you like it, don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘Cee like to help family. But this is not what I want to do.’

  ‘Beats choosing prices for trainers or watches,’ I said. She either missed it, though, or didn’t understand – or didn’t want to bring my own market-pricing skills into it.

  ‘Father catch fish. Father’s father catch fish. Whole family love sea! But we’re killing the oceans. Look.’

  The chunks of meat were being neatly carved and stacked into floppy strips of steak, deep reds, purples and shades of orange streaking their way through the skin; uniform lines across the surface of the meat that looked like the layers of a chopped onion, or the grain of a smooth piece of freshly cut wood.

  ‘So how am I going to help you, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Help?’

  ‘Yeah. Isn’t that the plan? Why I’m here? Isn’t this the bit where I help or there’s something only I can do.’

  It was the first time Cee had to really properly think before saying anything. Her eyes and mouth flashed with that smile, before she twisted her forehead into a quick frown and blinked several times.

  ‘Luca is not here in Tokyo to help Chie!’ Her energy was straight back, and she used her proper name in her excitement at how wrong I was. ‘No-no-no. Luca is very kind, but not necessary.’ After the momentum her voice had gained from going back to the right version of her name, she almost choked over the last word… ‘Ness-a-saaaaa-reee…’

  I didn’t reply, and that smile flicked across her face again.

  ‘Luca! Cee is helping you this time. I don’t need help because another boy has already come here. Alec has been here.’

  ‘Do you mean Alex?’ I said, suddenly wanting to talk with the speed and excitement of Cee. Alex! It had to be him. Surely.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘His name Alec.’

  ‘AleX,’ I said, stressing the ‘x’ again. Al-ecssss.’

  ‘Maybe. Boy from Colombia.’ She lifted one eyebrow, expecting me to agree.

  ‘Yes! That’s it. Alejo!’

  ‘Good, yes, same boy. Alexo.’ She repeated the name close enough. Neither of us could say it like he had anyway.

  ‘He was here?’ I asked.

  ‘The day before yesterday. He has gone home now. Yes! Alec helped Cee already. And he asked me to help you.’

  ‘How did he help you?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. He came and helped me to understand the words in the sea.’

  ‘You mean the voice?’

  ‘Yes! The voice!’

  ‘I’ve heard it,’ I told her. ‘How did you find the voice?’

  ‘One day Cee was sitting on the beach and thinking about how sad our catch of fish is. So many beautiful fish all dying for us to eat. Some of them have been alive for years but it takes five minutes to eat them, and we eat four times in a day. I am not sure if eating fish is right for me, and not when we catch so many at once either. Maybe if we eat only the fish we catch with the traditional methods and not the big boats that look like evil spaceships… But for me, I would love to eat more fruit – but fruit, my father says, is so expensive in Japan. Fruit is also beautiful but not alive in the same way a fish is alive, although my brother says fish have only a little more life than fruits. It is not easy for me to understand or decide what is right. But I am thinking on the sand about all of this, and then, as Cee is feeling sad, the sea begins to speak! I am not joking. It speaks and says…’

  She paused and frowned.

  ‘Says what?’ I asked.

  ‘Problem to understand the voice. Funny, Sea spelt S-E-A speaking to Cee spelt C-E-E and C-E-E cannot understand because S-E-A is speaking in English and very strange voice, very hard to hear.’

  ‘That’s exactly what happened to me!’ I said. ‘I still can’t understand what the voice is saying, and I’ve swum in there.’

  ‘Yes, so this is where Alec helped. Alec came out of the sea, and tells C-E-E what S-E-A is saying!’

  ‘And?’ I asked ‘What is the sea saying?’

  ‘That you are coming here. Boy with father who sells something bad and that I must make him listen.’

  ‘Got that right,’ I said. ‘Jeez, Alex has been moving some, eh?’

  ‘Alec doing very well now. He will speak to you himself soon. He swims to you in UK or you swim to him. He helped me to think about what I can do with my life. That I could go to a big city school and learn English and many languages. I don’t want to work killing fish. Now maybe one day…’

  ‘Hey, it’s tough, man,’ I said, ‘when your parents do stuff you’re not into.’

  She looked confused, like maybe I’d said it wrongly. Then she smiled and said:

  ‘So. You want know how I help you?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Luca,’ she said, her voice going soft and leaning forward, out of earshot of her brother.

  ‘Alec asked me to help you understand a beautiful girl.’

  ‘She’s not speaking to me,’ I said. ‘Water or not.’

  Cee laughed. ‘The girl is very busy! She is working hard. She thinks the same thing I am thinking. Work hard for self and then no working for father when older! You must talk to girl!’

  ‘I do talk to her,’ I said, ‘but she doesn’t answer anymore.’

  ‘This is no problem, Luca. You understand. Go home and understand. Understand girl very busy. One day she will rest. Same like me. Only three rest in one month. Maybe girl rest. Luca talk. Make girl-friend be girlfriend!’ She winked, and the smile lasted. ‘Very easy in UK. Wish was easy like this in Japan. Only boy Cee can talk with now is brother! But this change. Going to school in big, exciting, Europe or America city one day. Life make like new for me. Very soon. Very good. Live like Alec or Luca; going away from home and find adventure! This is my goal.’

  ‘It’s a good goal to have,’ I said. ‘Better than my goal. I don’t even know what mine is. Maybe I’ll never even have one.’

  Her brother was watching as another tuna rolled its way onto a table, fat and shining and sleek, only to get dragged off as a piece of smelly, bleeding litter, its meat gone to the freezers and fridges of a hungry human world.

  ‘Talk to the girl! Ask the girl about important things! Girl is also very important for people like us, but she is not hearing the voice. Luca talk to her instead. Must do this! Cee tell Luca. Luca listen. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll listen.’

  ‘Good and then you can be okay for swimming again. Come. Brother can drive back for catching tide and warm water. Luca remember where is swimming in right place?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll remember.’

  * * *

  The water still looked dirty, but as soon as I felt the warmth rising up around me I wanted to go further in.

  I wondered when the voice was going to start, as I stretched out through the deepest parts of that cosy sea and swam on, into the currents. Would I get another chance to try and make it out? Was there time to look back, and see the silhouette of Cee, rippling through the surface, waving and bowing, bowing and waving? There was that point again, as I turned and kicked downwards, when there was no need to
see anymore, where only the hearing really mattered.

  It had been quieter on the way here – maybe because I’d entered through the dune. But now, as I drew myself along the sea bed, with the current all around me, that deep echo started to fill the water again. ‘Luca,’ I heard it saying, and then more words, but coming just too thickly through the water for me to make them out. It was saying something different, though. The rhythm wasn’t the same as last time, and there was more urgency.

  I was scared to say his name. Each time it sat on my tongue – Gigi – it would get stuck and stay there, as if the sounds themselves were holding onto my mouth, trying not to get flung out into the open. Gigi? Is it you? Through the weight of water, I tried to call it out. I wanted to ask other things, too. Can I trust that girl? Can I trust Alejo? That, and much more. Could the source of the voice hear the questions in my head?

  Cee had talked about Gaby. What did she have to do with all this? If you are Gigi, I thought, and tried to say, then why can’t you just reach Gaby yourself? Perhaps he already had. Maybe that was it. Maybe she had seen those figures and heard this noise – sorry, felt this noise – because that’s what the noise was; a feeling as much as it was waves of sound. From the dark depths beyond, the vibrations kept coming at me. The same incomprehensible words, on repeat again.

  You’re her grandfather, aren’t you?

  I tried again to ask it, as clear as the swirling water would let me. Or great, great-grandfather, or whatever it is she called you. What do you want me to say to her? Then the words started coming out of my mouth, and I could feel the bubbles of water carrying them away. I wanted to know so much. Why was he walking onto the beaches every night? Who was it walking with him? Was something trapping them, forcing them to keep going, or was it a choice? Are you a ghost? I blabbed the words into the ocean, but the deep hum of his voice came back, my name the only word I could hear. Now the words were pouring out of me, so I added my first questions again. Can I trust that girl? Can I trust Alejo? Why were these kids from other countries involved? And why were we all trying to help each other? It seemed that was what the voice wanted from us. Can I trust you, whoever you are, Gigi?