by Chris Ward
‘You think I treat you harshly,’ he said, his voice a hoarse rustle like someone speaking through a mouthful of leaves. It was the sound of a killer coming for you in the night, but Nozomi was so accustomed to it that it was almost comforting. ‘You think I starve you, mistreat you, leave you to fend for yourself?’
She shook her head. ‘No, of course not—’
‘I’m training you,’ he said. ‘I am your master and your teacher, and I tell you what you need to learn so that you will never have to suffer from experience like I did.’ He reached up with bony fingers and plucked a feather out of his cheek. Nozomi gave a little gasp as a trickle of blood ran down his face. A thick, dark brown tongue flicked out, licking it away.
‘Mine is a not a face that is loved,’ he whispered, so low she could barely hear him. Ripples of terror trembled through her. ‘Mine is not a face that is given sympathy, or offered forgiveness. It is not a face to inspire, or to encourage, or to save. It is a face born out of the darkness and destined to stay there. All the wealth in the world is not enough to burn my shadow away. Mine is a face that is hated, persecuted, hunted, abused, despised, destroyed … until there is nothing left.’
He was breathing hard now, the grey bags of loose skin under his eyes pulsing with blood. Nozomi stared at him, too terrified to look away.
‘Yet when I take a walk out into the country, do the animals shun me? Does a cat turn and run away, or a dog drop its tail between its legs at the sight of me?’ He stabbed a finger into his palm. ‘No! Because among the animal kingdom you are what you are. You are not singled out for ostracising, persecuted for the way you look. If I walk down Las Ramblas tomorrow, how do you think people will react?’
Nozomi looked up and gave a brief shrug.
Her master shook his head. ‘I would be persecuted, shunned, abused … for what? Because I’m an ugly bastard? Thank you, humanity, you’ve ruined my day.’
He jumped up to his feet and took hold of her shoulders. His grip was surprisingly strong for such a spindly frame. ‘This is what I save you from, my little princess. I teach you how to survive, how to trust no one but yourself, and in doing so I save you from their judgment.’
‘Thank you, master,’ she muttered.
‘You’re quite welcome,’ he said, and this time his face opened up again in as wide a grin as he could manage. ‘This little article I had the luck to find; it mentions that Matsumoto has been released. He’s back on the streets.’ Her master leaned forward, peering up at her out of one eye. ‘Do you want me to get Matsumoto for you, little princess? Would you like to take your revenge?’
Nozomi remembered her mother’s eyes and nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Good, good. Every good tragedy needs a convincing protagonist, and I’ve been struggling to find one. Jun Matsumoto will do just nicely.’
7
A greeting for the tourists
Jorge sat on the edge of the Barceloneta boardwalk, staring out at Port Olímpic. His feet swished in the breeze as he thought about the girl. His stomach was growling with hunger, and when he remembered the bread she had knocked into the water, he was filled with a sense of longing stronger than he had ever felt for his parents. Still, even though autumn was coming on, there would be tourists down by the port and perhaps he could beg something or pick some scraps out of the litter bins that stood at intervals along the promenade.
Eleven years old, going by his own estimation of the seasons’ turn since he had run away from the orphanage, he could get food if he was prepared to go back, but having been left on the steps of the former bank in Sant Andreu, he had grown up into a two-colour world, one of the outward white and the inner black. On the surface his orphanage had offered salvation to dozens of street kids, but behind the plastic smiles of the priests who ran it was a world of depravity and abuse. Tired of entertaining his carer’s perversions to get his dinner each night, Jorge had cut and run, and while he’d heard that eventually God’s intervention had taken the form of a smartphone camera, he wasn’t about to go back. Like a housecat suddenly set loose, he was enjoying his newfound freedom. Summers were hot and winters were mild, and most days he was able to find enough food. At times, life was dandy.
He wouldn’t pass up the chance for a friend or two, though.
He had been following Nozomi for some days. She was always there on a Friday, the night the baker left out his unsold goods before a fresh load came in on Monday, and she usually got there first. On quiet weeks there would be enough leftovers for several of them, but particularly during the summer months the baker often sold out. There were other places to find food, and he had also seen her rooting through the bins over in Santa Caterina Market.
Like him, she seemed to have morals. When the easiest course of action was to steal, she preferred to wait for handouts just like he did. There were soup kitchens across the city, but in the last couple of years the number of homeless and refugees out of Eastern and Western Europe had begun to swell, and so things had got tighter.
Change was in the air, and the girl, Nozomi, had blown in on the wind. Jorge, smelling the scents of upheaval, wanted a longer taste.
He looked up at the sound of a huge ship’s horn bellowing far out at sea. One of the cruise liners was coming in, a huge white pencil shape slowly turning towards the port. Jorge got up and ran along the promenade in the direction of the long breakwater that stretched out to sea. He couldn’t get into the passenger port of course, but the breakwater, which was always scattered with fishermen, nearly encircled it, and the huge ship would pass within a couple of hundred metres of the end. From its size he estimated he had about twenty minutes to make the two mile distance along the promenade and out on to the breakwater.
He was huffing and puffing by the time he got there, his back soaked with sweat despite the cool autumn breeze. The ship was starting a great sweeping turn through the choppy waters of the bay as it lined itself up for the final approach to the passenger terminal a few hundred metres out across the water.
Jorge went right to the end and climbed down over the large rocks that were piled up there to protect the breakwater from winter storm waves. Green and slippery with algae and lumpy with barnacles, he worked his way carefully down until he was on a single flat rock just above the surface of the water and hidden from the breakwater above. There he sat down to watch.
A couple of tugs had met the cruise liner and were pulling it gently in towards the dock. The ship looked immense as it rose above Jorge like a floating five-storey building, all white and shiny with a flag flying from a funnel above its top deck that he didn’t recognise. He could see the tiny shapes of people standing on the deck, leaning over the rail and looking out towards the city stretching up a gentle slope away from the seafront.
He sighed. How magnificent Barcelona must look from there. He could only imagine it. His view was much different.
He glanced behind him towards the town and something caught his eye. Bobbing along through the water, something was moving slowly towards the port disembarkation pier across the water. Jorge frowned. It moved rapidly, like a miniature submersible, but from the way something rounded and black was poking out of the water it almost looked like a dog swimming.
It was heading around in front of the huge ship, aiming to reach the pier first. Jorge watched as it disappeared into the ship’s shadow as the vessel began mooring procedures, then disappeared entirely as it went into the dark water beneath the pier.
For a moment he forgot about it as the ship’s horn gave a huge bellow and the vessel settled against the side of the pier. The passengers would exit from the other side, then go along the pier to the immigration building to the right.
Something gangly and loose-limbed was climbing up the side of the pier. Jorge squinted to try to see it better, but against the stains and scars on the stones of the pier wall it was impossible to make out its true shape. It seemed to be scampering though, rather like an overlarge spider.
As it reached the top
it swung out, for a moment hanging in mid-air, then flipped over the railing on to the top of the pier. Jorge waited for it to run for the ship or perhaps even towards immigration, but instead it just stood stock still on the portside.
Like a human statue.
Jorge stared. Some crazy guy had swum across the harbour to be the first of Barcelona’s many human statues that the incoming wave of tourists would experience.
The screams were audible over the gentle sighing of the breeze.
Jorge climbed back up to the breakwater. He ran along among the fishermen, many of whom were as homeless as he, asking the same question to each until finally one of them rolled his eyes, muttered a frustrated curse and held out a pair of binoculars.
Jorge lifted the old instrument to his eyes. The thing, whatever it was, stood on four spindly back legs, with four more raised above its head like a giant spider ready to strike. It was jet black and gleamed under the sun like something metallic.
A gunshot rang out across the bay, making Jorge jump. The old fisherman snatched the binoculars back and with a grumble pressed them to his own eyes, but Jorge could see enough now to no longer need them.
Two policemen had advanced on the creature. It staggered backwards beneath a second gunshot, and with a third it fell over the portside.
Screams still came from a growing crowd of tourists as they alighted from the ship. Pandemonium was breaking out, and the police were struggling to contain it. One of them was pointing his gun down at the water.
Jorge shivered. The street performers on Las Ramblas were generally beguiling; a blend of classic characters from fairy tales with more modern pop culture icons, with a few illusion artists thrown in.
This one though, had been terrifying.
He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he knew what it had looked like.
Like a giant, evil spider.
8
Teething problems
Jun winced as the plane set down, landing with a light bump. The roar of the braking engines filled the cabin, and he must have cried out because a cabin attendant was staring at him from where she sat near the exit doors and Jennie’s hand had closed over his.
He didn’t remember flying ever being so terrifying, but the prescription sedatives that had got him from Japan were beginning to wear off.
‘We’ll soon be outside again,’ Jennie was saying to him in a soothing tone, as though he were an old man on his first flight.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
He resisted the temptation to snap at her. He knew she meant well. ‘Yes. Don’t worry.’
They filed off the plane and passed through immigration. Everyone seemed to be staring at him, and Jun found the best course of action was to keep his eyes on his feet. Jennie’s hands were always nearby, guiding him along, turning him towards escalators and automatic doors. Whether it was the drugs or his failing resolve that was causing him to struggle, he didn’t know, but by the time Jennie led him through a door into an airport hotel bedroom he had begun to wonder how he would survive without her.
After asking him if he was fine for perhaps the hundredth time, Jennie went to take a shower. Jun stood by the window for a while, watching planes landing and taking off on the runway visible in the distance. Jennie had thought it wise to spend a night getting over their journey before they headed into the city, and she was right. All Jun wanted to do was sleep, but suddenly he found himself wide awake.
‘Must be the jetlag,’ he muttered to no one as he turned on the TV and sat down on the end of the bed, trying not to think about Professor Crow and the other reasons he had chosen to come here.
He cycled through news programs, foreign dramas, gameshows and shopping channels for what felt like hours. Finally he settled on a European music video station. He gave a wistful smile as he recognised a couple of the bands they had once toured with, playing some songs he recognised, others he didn’t. The thundering metal felt good though, like music therapy. He wondered whether he might have recovered more quickly if the hospital had allowed him to listen to his favourite bands. Then a video came up of the first incarnation of Plastic Black Butterfly, with O-Remo Takahashi wailing in Japanese about the end of the world over Ken’s thundering riffs, Bee’s punching bassline and Dai’s pounding drums, and the nostalgia got so great that he switched the channel over to a kids’ cartoon show and pulled a pillow over his head.
The shower switched off, and a few minutes later Jun peeked out from under the pillow to see Jennie emerge wearing a beautiful, figure-hugging dress. She had put up her hair and looked radiant.
‘You look nice,’ he muttered, his throat dry.
She smiled. ‘You like it? It’s the only thing I’ve got that’s not creased to hell.’
He nodded dumbly. ‘Very pretty.’
She cocked her head and smiled. ‘Why, thank you. If you brush your hair you won’t look so bad yourself.’
Jun realised he was staring again, and went to take his turn in the bathroom. He stood under the water for a long time, staring at the wall, seeing faces from his past reflecting out of the streams of water running down the tiles, then eventually managed to pull himself together long enough to scrub himself clean. When he switched off the water the shadows from the past withdrew, allowing him enough clarity to get changed. He emerged to find Jennie sitting at a desk, putting on make-up. ‘The flight left me looking like crap,’ she said. ‘I figured if I was going to wear this dress I might as well put on some make-up too. Plus, you took ages.’
He shrugged and gave a half smile. ‘I was washing my hair.’
‘There’s a restaurant on the ground floor,’ Jennie said. ‘Are you ready to take me to dinner, Jun Matsumoto?’
He forced a smile. He would have preferred to eat in their room, but he had no real choice now she was all dressed up and ready to go. He didn’t want to upset her, so he nodded.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
#
The restaurant was almost empty. The waitress led them to a corner table. Jun took a seat in the corner, facing out at the room. Jennie sat opposite.
‘You look nervous, Jun.’
‘I’m trying not to.’
‘Are you worried about Crow?’
He suppressed a thousand more elaborate answers. ‘Just jetlagged,’ he said.
The waitress came to take their order. Jennie ordered fresh salmon while Jun settled for a Spanish omelette, the cheapest item on the menu that wasn’t a side dish. Jennie ordered a glass of wine and Jun ordered a straight whisky. It wouldn’t make anything better, but it might take the edge off it for a while. When the waitress brought their drinks Jun downed his in one gulp and immediately ordered another.
‘I think we should get in touch with the police,’ Jennie said, after a few minutes of awkward silence. ‘We should let them know what we think and maybe they’ll reopen the investigation.’
Jun shook his head. ‘That’s what Crow wants. He likes an audience. Look what happened last time.’
‘Then what do we do?’
He opened his mouth to say something sharp and conspiratorial. We’ll hunt him down. We’ll lay a trap for him, then when he bites down on the bait we’ll snap the trap shut and take the sucker in. We’ll rescue Nozomi and Akane—She’s dead, Jun, she’s dead. No no no, she’s still alive—and leave this hellhole behind.
‘I just got out of a mental hospital,’ he said, giving a slight shake of his head. ‘I haven’t got a clue. I feel like getting drunk and falling asleep in front of some shitty movie.’
‘Well, I think the movie might be a good idea, but perhaps we shouldn’t drink so much. Not straight after the flight.’
Jun stared at her. He wanted to scream. In her elegant dress with her make-up done and her hair tied up, she looked like a princess. She was so achingly beautiful that if he looked at her too long he might cease to breathe. She had survived, and in the ashes of the dead around her, she had bloomed.
He
still lay face down in the dirt, haunted by a thousand ghosts.
And he hated her for it.
‘I want to drink,’ he said, picking up his glass and draining it.
She looked down at the table top. ‘If it makes you feel better,’ she said.
It did.
#
He remembered her crying, perhaps after something he had said, perhaps through concern for him. He didn’t know. He had ordered whiskeys until his stomach felt so tight he’d needed to go off to the toilet to be sick, but there was too much of it already in his system. All he could remember of the elevator was the blinking floor lights.
#
He was sure it had to be a dream. His eyes were open, but the lights were off, the only light in the room coming from the glow of the airport spotlights through a curtain that had been half torn off its rail.
She was silhouetted against it, her shoulders and face outlined in black. As he stared disbelievingly, she cocked her head to one side.
‘Akane….’
She took a couple of steps towards the bed, and her silhouette expanded to fill the grey space. He could hear her breathing now, and the rustle of her hands as they sought out the bedclothes and climbed into the bed beside him.
‘Jun, I’m sorry….’
‘Akane!’ he cried, his voice breaking up. ‘Akane! Don’t leave me! I miss you! I … miss you!’
Tears streamed down his face as her arms reached for his shoulders. He was crying like a child as she pulled him close. He nestled his head into the crook of her shoulder and smelt the gentle scent of her skin that he had missed for so long. She had returned. Akane had come back to him.