Blue Light Yokohama

by Nicolas Obregon

  “Fishing?”

  Iwata turned to see an old, sea-weathered man crouching between crates and old rope. He held a fishing rod between his legs and a roll-up between his gray lips. His eyes did not leave the waves.

  “I’m a police inspector,” Iwata replied. “Do you live here?”

  “Nobody lives here.”

  The old man said nothing more. Iwata climbed the narrow steps to the Midnight Viv and pictured Jennifer Fong doing the same. He saw her, wearing a summer dress, excited for her adventure.

  I love the ocean. It’s the only thing I’ll miss next year.

  Feeling nauseated, Iwata went belowdeck. It was clean, if a little dusty, and unremarkable: a banquette, a sink, a fixed table, a kitchenette, a toilet compartment, a small television, maps on the walls, and old shelves crammed with even older romance novels.

  Did you tell her the boat was yours? Feed her a line about the open sea?

  Iwata pictured Jennifer floating alone on the darkness of the ocean, human flotsam.

  Did she wear a summer dress? Did she wear a summer dress for you?

  Iwata sat on a small berth and it creaked under his weight.

  She was your first. Why did you want her? Why was she special? Did she lie here with you? Did you want her? Did she want you back?

  Iwata pulled back the blankets and found only a musty mattress beneath. He smelled nothing on it. The autopsy, if it could be believed, listed no genital injury.

  You weren’t there for her body—just her heart.

  Iwata peered at the wall around the mattress and looked for stains but found nothing.

  It was too cramped in here, wasn’t it?

  He climbed back on deck and looked up at the sun. It shone in snatches then hid behind clouds.

  Of course, you did it up here. Out in the open. With no possibility of a witness.

  Did you lay her down on this deck? Was the promise a picnic?

  You brought food and drink—laced with LSD.

  Did she think you were going to kiss her?

  Where did you hide the knife?

  Did she close her eyes for it?

  Yes, she closed her eyes for your kiss.

  And you pushed off the straps of her dress.

  And she lay beneath you.

  Shivering in the warmth, on the vast nothing of the sea.

  You kissed her.

  And as you kissed her, you cut her.

  You cut her very deeply to open her.

  You severed her major arteries in one swipe.

  And you pushed your hand inside her.

  And before she realized that this was not a kiss, you were reaching up for her heart.

  And you felt it at your fingertips like a creature in its hole.

  And you ripped it out to the light.

  You held it over her, raining her own blood down on her.

  Did she look? Did she see her own heart as it beat out, alone and uncovered?

  Did she have time to realize, then, that you were not a man at all?

  And when you threw her into the void, did you stay to watch her sink?

  Iwata vomited over the side of the boat.

  When he finished, he fell back against the mast. The wind shifted and dappled shadow fell across him. Iwata looked up and noticed it: a chink of sun streaming through the sail.

  High up.

  Strange.

  With great difficulty, he began climbing the aft mast, his limbs trembling. He paused several times on the rungs to catch his breath. Ten meters up, Iwata reached what he had seen. It was level with his face, an arm’s length away—a tear in the sailcloth.

  “What…?”

  The wind shushed him, as if he were saying too much.

  Iwata reached as far as he could, the rip in the fabric tickling his fingertips.

  He forced himself another centimeter.

  Another.

  The wind picked up.

  Iwata’s balance was gone.

  His grip was gone.

  A desperate clutch and Iwata was falling, his hand full of ripping sailcloth.

  The impact was painful and it took Iwata a minute to regain full consciousness, but the destroyed Dacron sailcloth had taken most of the momentum out of the fall. Wheezing, he forced himself to stand and looked up at the torn sail.

  Backlit by the sunset, fluttering in the wind, was a huge, jagged sun.

  Beyond it, a storm was coming in.

  * * *

  It was 10 P.M. Iwata had a blanket draped around his shoulders and a takeout box of half-eaten dry noodles on the coffee table. Outside, the storm was raging. There was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, so he played the CCTV video once more. He watched Akashi talking to Mina Fong from the elevator again. The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds.

  Iwata watched it again.

  And again.

  He watched the silent sequence play out over and over as he sipped cold almond tea.

  What the hell is wrong here, Akashi?

  Iwata stood up with the blanket around his shoulders and from the home bar poured himself a whiskey, which he drank with decongestants. The burn made him cough but he felt better for it.

  On the coffee table, his phone buzzed.

  There was a reply on 2Chan from Coco La Croix.

  Hong Kong Fan, you won’t be disappointed! Venue = highest point in Dogenzaka. See you on the dance floor. Look for the top hat. CLC.

  Iwata raised a toast.

  “To new friends.”

  He closed his eyes and drank. Warmth unfurled in his chest like a waking bird. Outside, the sea churned. Only the faintest city lights twinkled in the black.

  Iwata, you ever think that some of those cities are good and some are bad?

  * * *

  In Iwata’s dream he was walking down the jetty, a sense of dread deep within him. The jetty stretched out interminably, over a calm, gray sea. The Midnight Viv was too small. On the deck, a figure was standing with its back to Iwata. Its skin was very dark, billowing in the wind as if it were stitched. The figure’s neck was very thin—funnel-like. Its belly was grotesquely huge. It seemed to be panting.

  The old fisherman called out.

  “Don’t get on boat, Inspector.”

  “I need to talk to that man.”

  The fisherman looked up from the waves, his eyes milky.

  “It not man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ngo gwai.” Hungry ghost. The fisherman shook his head. “You should leave this place. Go before it see you.”

  “But I can’t. I know who it is.”

  Iwata started up the stairs to the boat and drew his gun.

  The dark figure began to turn around.

  CHAPTER 24: A NICE METAPHOR

  IT WAS A GLOOMY DAWN over Discovery Bay. The storm had blown itself out in the night, and a foggy hush enveloped the island. Iwata forced himself up from the couch and looked out of the window.

  A fisherman repaired his net. An old lady walked her dog. A man scrubbed bird droppings from the parasols of the terrace restaurant—all of them at the mercy of animal rhythms.

  The room was bathed in a flickering blue light and shadow.

  The video of Akashi in the elevator was on pause. A smile was frozen on to his face. He was mid-bow. Sunlight streamed through the hallway. His shadow was plastered on to the wall inside the elevator.

  Beauty lies not in objects, but in the interaction between their shadow and light.

  “Your shadow. In the sunlight,” Iwata whispered. “But Mina’s shadow…”

  Iwata rushed over to the television and pressed his face to the screen.

  “Where is her shadow, Akashi?!”

  Laughing, he punched the wall victoriously. There was no mistaking it. Mina Fong was not there.

  Akashi was alone in the elevator and he was simulating a conversation.

  “Was this for show? Or had you just lost your mind?”

  Iwata recalled Akash
i’s burned-out shack in Chiba.

  Did the fog seep through your thin walls?

  Did it soak through your house and absorb your mind in the days before death?

  Did you go through the motions, saying what you were required to say?

  The phone began to ring, mewling like a newborn. Iwata answered absently, his eyes still glued to Akashi’s false smile.

  “Yes?”

  “… Mr. Iwata? It’s Mr. Lee, Mrs. Fong’s lawyer. I just had a visit from the police.”

  Iwata instinctively looked out of the window.

  “So?”

  “They were asking about you and what you’re doing here. I explained our reason for meeting was quite legitimate, but they made it clear that you have been breaking the law here, making official inquiries for which you have no authorization. They were talking about a diplomatic incident.”

  “I’m not here in an official capacity. I spoke to people of their own free will.”

  “Mr. Iwata, I’m telling you this as I believe whatever it is that you’re doing is in the interest of this family. So you should know they asked me where you’re staying, and I had to tell them. This wasn’t more than ten minutes ago.”

  The clock showed 5:50 A.M. Less than ninety minutes before Iwata’s plane left.

  “Thank you for the warning, Mr. Lee.”

  “Good luck, Inspector. I wouldn’t come back, if I were you.”

  Iwata hung up, snatched out the videotape, and frantically started packing his bag—files, photographs, and clothes. He did a last sweep of the rooms, leaving Jennifer’s until last. There, he looked at the dusty objects that would never be used again. The silence pulsed, desperate to reign once more. Feeling sick and breathless, Iwata turned to leave.

  He almost missed it.

  A photograph lodged in the frame of the mirror of Jennifer as a young girl.

  He’d seen it before but he hadn’t seen it. The time stamp showed 1996. Jennifer’s father’s arms were awkwardly slung around her. They posed against a skyline—somewhere. Behind them, a glorious sunset. They were in some sort of small room with big windows. But there was something else.

  Something Iwata had seen before.

  Behind Jennifer and her father, the unframed limbs and unposed expressions of other tourists had been captured. And amidst that, a hand clutching on to a handrail.

  And on the wrist, a gold watch.

  A gold watch with a sapphire face.

  Iwata snatched up the photo, left the apartment, and hailed a taxi for the airport. As it pulled away, he watched old men along the marina setting up their fishing rods for the day.

  Iwata closed his eyes.

  * * *

  The lake looks like a prehistoric crater filled with copper-green water. Kei and Kosuke are fishing in their underwear as they smoke cheap cigarettes. Their pale torsos are a brilliant white in the sun. Empty beer cans are strewn around their small, shabby camp.

  Kosuke puffs out his cheeks.

  “Shit, it’s hot.”

  “You know what?” Kei speaks out of one side of his mouth to keep the cigarette in his lips. “I think I’m actually going to fucking miss this. Crazy, huh?”

  Kosuke casts his line again.

  “You stuck it out to the end. I never thought you would.”

  “Someone had to look after your sorry ass.”

  The line twangs.

  Kei bounds into the water, reeling furiously.

  He turns, grinning, holding up a thrashing silver fish. He nods at its impaled face.

  “A nice metaphor for the last ten years.”

  “Looks like you too.”

  Kei kisses the fish on the mouth and tosses it into the gutting bucket.

  “So, where will you go after?”

  “Tokyo, probably.” Kei shrugs. “We don’t all have rich American stepfathers.”

  “I’m not sure how rich he is.”

  “Somehow I doubt your mother would marry a pauper.”

  Iwata shrugs. A dragonfly buzzes between them. “Maybe. You know her as well as I do.”

  “So why come back for you?”

  “Who knows?”

  “But I mean why now, why is she back now? You’ve seen what I’ve seen. Parents only come back for puppies.”

  “Kei—”

  “New husband, new house, new Cadillac. I guess she thinks she might as well throw in the long-lost kid, too?”

  “You know something? I don’t care.”

  “Come on, Iwata-kun. You don’t care why she’s back?”

  “I’m leaving this place. That’s all I know and all I need to know.”

  “Oh, I get it. I get it. What you really want to know is why she left.”

  “Kei—”

  “No, I’m right. You know I’m right. You want to know why she left you. You want to know, just like every other fuckin’ kid in Sakuza. You wanted to know the first day you were dragged in. You wanted to know when I put my arm around your shoulder. And you still want to know now.”

  “Not this shit again.” Kosuke throws his rod into the water and wades away.

  “Iwata!” Kei calls after him.

  “You know everything, don’t you?”

  Kei bounds after him and grabs his shoulders with wet hands.

  “All right, come on! You don’t care, okay. And you’re right, I don’t know shit, I don’t even have any fuckin’ parents—what could I know?”

  “I’m sick of fishing.”

  “Come on, man. Have a beer with me.”

  Droplets scurry down their tanned backs. The mud between their toes is warm jelly. Crickets chirp for the ending summer.

  “Come on, Iwata. You gonna drown yourself?”

  “You’re a sanctimonious asshole.” Kosuke squints up at the sun. “But I’m thirsty.”

  Kei claps him on the back. They return to the sandy bank and open their last beers. Kosuke lets the foam drip down his chin and land on his knees.

  “You know.” Kei scratches his navel. “This was fun. In parts.”

  “What, today?”

  “And the rest of them.”

  They look at each other uncertainly.

  “In parts,” Kosuke says, his smile wry. “Yeah.”

  The distant roar of the dam can’t take away the birdsong behind them.

  “So, America, huh?”

  “The land of the free.” Iwata raises his can.

  “Maybe I’ll get some money together in a year or two, come visit you. We’ll do the whole thing. Drive-in cinemas, cheeseburgers, big tits—the whole fucking thing.”

  “The American dream.”

  Kei crushes his can and ekes out the last drops of beer on to his tongue.

  “You think they have yakitori in California?”

  Kei asks this distantly, the silver of the water illuminating his face.

  “I don’t know,” Kosuke says. “But they don’t have The Foxhole.”

  Kei laughs at the smallness of their world—they became kings without knowing it.

  Kosuke’s line twangs now and he frantically reels it in. This fish is much smaller, almost not worth keeping at all, but he tosses it in the bucket anyway.

  “Hey, Iwata-kun.” Kei smiles sheepishly. “I got you something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Kei parks his fishing rod and goes into his bag. He takes out a portable record player and sets it on top of a log between them.

  “Doesn’t that belong to the orphanage?”

  “Play it, you prick.”

  Kosuke eyes him suspiciously and lowers the needle. He hears brass—blue but brave—now strings—sorrowful but spirited—and feels the rush of a favorite song.

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  I’m happy with you.

  Please let me hear.

  Yokohama, Blue Light Yokohama.

  Those words of love from you.

  Kosuke turns to Kei.

  “Shit, I love this song. How did you get t
his?”

  “In Kyoto. Don’t be a sap about it. No big deal.”

  “The day Uesugi took you to the doctor?”

  Kei’s face darkens for a moment at the memory, but he shakes it off and leaps toward Kosuke.

  He grabs him by the waist and waltzes him around the muddy bank. It is a silly waltz and he begins to imitate Uesugi in that way that he does, placing his hand on Kosuke’s head and quoting him, quoting someone else—Plato, or Christ, or Chekov.

  Uesugi becomes the chestnut girl now and the waltz becomes less rough.

  “I got an idea,” Kei says.

  He dips his fingers into the gutting bucket and paints his lips glistening red with fish blood. He paints his eyebrows with mud, and wets his eyelashes into black spikes with water.

  Kosuke isn’t laughing anymore.

  Kei steps into his shadow. His lips part. His breath smells of blood.

  Kosuke turns away, toward the glittering water. Kei’s fingers encircle his torso, almost fitting between ribs like piano keys.

  He kisses Kosuke on the nape of the neck.

  “What are you doing?” Kosuke asks, closing his eyes and shuddering.

  Another kiss on the shoulder.

  Droplets of water slide down Kosuke’s spine.

  I walk and I walk, swaying,

  like a small boat in your arms.

  I hear your footsteps coming.

  Give me one more tender kiss.

  The scent of your favorite cigarettes.

  Yokohama, Blue Light Yokohama.

  This will always be our world.

  Kei slips his hand into Kosuke’s pants and he grips his penis. He clamps his arm across Kosuke’s chest like a harness on a roller coaster and he begins to masturbate him.

  “No.” Kosuke’s voice is thick and hoarse. “Kei.”

  Kei sings along with “Blue Light Yokohama.”

  “Give me one more tender kiss. I walk and walk, swaying, like a small boat in your arms.”

  He quickens the strokes now and Kosuke can’t say anymore, he can only close his eyes. He is a boy standing over the precipice of the whirlpool below. He is a boy spying on nuns as they bathe in the lake. He is a boy looking at the chestnut girl through her window as she dresses.

  “Nobody loves us,” Kei whispers. “Except for me. I love us. I love you.”

  Kosuke’s breath catches in his throat and his semen curls into the water. The sun illuminates it in pearlescent snatches, quick as fish scales.

  Shaking, Kosuke opens his eyes and sees Kei’s dirty fingers gripping him. He sees the purple juice of the dead fish in the bucket. He feels a wave of fear and anger rush over him and he is a little boy again, sitting on a bench, alone in the bus station. He snaps around.