New Hokkaido

by James McNaughton

  ‘You work at the Language Academy in Willis Street?’

  ‘Yes. I came straight from there.’

  ‘Look, can you help us?’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Free New Zealand.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Give us the names of Settlers, if you can. They don’t love the Empire. They can be useful to us.’

  ‘I can give you two names now.’

  ‘Good man.’

  He gives the names of the two new men, but not the girl with blue hair. Brian looks at him, weighs him up with the skill of a veteran, a man who survived fifteen years in the death camp in Featherston. Chris thinks, what did you have to do to survive?

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Brian asks him. His eyes are pale blue and unblinking.

  ‘I, um … I wanted to meet some women.’

  After a long, searching moment, Brian holds out his hand. ‘I trust you.’ They shake. ‘I want you to stay. We’ll have some music and all leave here as friends.’

  Not likely, Chris thinks. They’ll jump me on the road.

  Just as he enters the lounge, his back tingling as Brian follows close behind him, the song on the stereo ends. The trestle table has gone and everyone is spread out, standing uncertainly as the host takes a single off the turntable. There are more men than women. Chris knows, by the awkwardness, the stony faces and averted eyes, that he’s been talked about. The men have told the women he’s no good, not to be trusted. Rain drums on the roof. Emily won’t look at him. Marty, his friend, comes from his little group and offers a cigarette. Other people light up. He wishes the music would start but the host is scrupulously careful with his records, carefully de-sleeving an LP, removing it from its inner plastic sheath, then holding the vinyl disc by the edges with his palms. Finally an electric crackle, a thickening of silence, and the familiar, beloved burst of feedback that heralds the classic opening track, ‘Losing My Head’, from Lennon Live in Levin. It’s one of Chris’s all-time favourites. As Johnny screams ‘Banzaaaaaaaai!’ the weight that has been bearing down on him shifts. The hair-raising voice and thunderous band bring the room to motion, albeit uncertain motion. The men are unsure whether to lift their feet, and they chug their arms like toy trains. There is some bouncing, the flap and wallop of gumboots, and grim smiling. They peep at each other for clues; abruptly change style. It’s morbid. Torture. He feels eyes flick over him, the tallest man in the room, and thinks of his brother dancing, of his power and restraint, his surprising lightness. Watch me, Emily, he thinks, I’m enjoying myself rather than suffering. He is. He loves this fucking song, and the way Lennon’s rhythm guitar nails the offbeat. As eyes flash over him he senses a shift in the room. They’re following his basic up-and-down motion. You boys can learn something, he thinks. The prop drops his hand circles. Side-shuffling is abandoned. Someone in a black singlet steps out of his gumboots. But just as he feels the room start to jump, the host lifts the needle mid-track—squip. Sabotage, Chris thinks. He’s sabotaged me.

  The light comes on, and the owner, who has been unusually calm about the whole situation until now, is flushed and nervous. ‘Sorry guys, it’s late already. And we do have some other business to attend to. If the rugby players and Ed, Mark, Matt, Graeme, Grant and Peter, yes, I think that’s everyone, could have a word with Brian in the back room, and the ladies leave now so there isn’t a stampede out of here. I have a car for anyone who wants a ride.’

  To his horror, Chris sees he’s the only male not directed into the back room. Marty’s face is cloudy as he disappears down the hall with the rest of the men, all of them, in their black singlets and flannel and bush shirts. The women won’t look at him as they leave to put on their coats. The host is at the door with a torch, in the fancy corduroy jacket he’s worn all night. It’s still raining and all five women want a lift. ‘Just give us ten minutes’ head start, mate,’ he tells Chris brusquely. ‘Then you can be on your way.’

  He turns away and looks out the window, pretending to assess the weather, hoping Emily will come into the lounge and say bye, or just pop her head around the door. The back door closes. She’s gone. Listening keenly, he hears muted exclamations and laughter as the group negotiate the stairs in clipping high heels. A final laugh up on the road, a car door slams. Silence from the back room: plotting. He’s alone.

  Humiliated, he takes a beer from the fridge and sculls it. He opens another for the wet and cold road home. I should’ve stayed at work, he thinks bitterly. His anger, always deep-seated and slow to take, begins to burn. I’ll take that Lennon record. But as he searches the spines, arranged in alphabetical order, he realises it will be missed and he will be the prime suspect. For that reason the remaining beer in the fridge is also off limits. He scans the kitchen and his eyes settle on the phone. A toll call is something he can take.

  He dials the familiar number and waits while listening for a change in the house.

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘You know it, bro.’ He lets out a breath. Already he feels better.

  ‘I’ve been trying to ring you.’ There’s a sharp and unfamiliar note in Patrick’s voice. ‘I even rang the Academy.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Sarah … I’ve got bad news, Chris, sorry. Sarah’s been murdered.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone broke her neck in Hagley Park.’

  ‘Huh?’ Sarah is three.

  ‘It was instant. A professional hit.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ He believes it. Tears fill his eyes.

  ‘Chiyo took her to the playground there. She was talking to a friend for two minutes, looked up, and Sarah was gone. She found her under a hedge.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘I don’t know, man. A lot of people don’t like me.’ The sound of his brother weeping.

  ‘I’m coming down Patrick. I’m coming down now.’ He waits. ‘I love you, man. Hang in there.’

  A groan is the reply. His brother, the sumo champion, the strongest and bravest man he knows, is unable to speak.

  A flare of voices in the back room announces agreement or a vote passed. He knows that many of them will greet the news of Sarah’s death with pleasure, even delight. He can’t stand here holding the phone any longer. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I have to go.’

  Chapter 3:

  The Lyttelton Ferry

  It’s a clear, still night, and cold. The late sailing is running late. Chris’s breath steams as he stands on the top deck in the long woollen overcoat Patrick gave him a couple of years ago. It’s a hand-me-down, and too big, but beautifully cut and very warm. After reading an underground pamphlet on a tram that morning, in which Sarah’s death was blamed on the Japanese, he plans to make most of the trip to Lyttelton above deck. In the pamphlet article, senior Japanese officials described Sarah as ‘an affront to the Empire’ and ‘a mongrel to be put down’. Then on National Radio her death was described in Japanese as ‘an act of domestic terrorism’. He doesn’t want to go below and drink hot sake like everyone else in case he’s recognised. There would be no end to the arguing and no escape. The second-class cabins with eight bunks are off-limit for the same reason. Black seawater begins to churn at the stern and the rail vibrates under his hand. A few passengers come up for a look, Japanese tourists mostly. One couple takes turns posing for photos under the limp New Hokkaido flag, a Tourism New Zealand initiative, in which the Union Jack in the corner of the banned New Zealand flag has been replaced by the Rising Sun. Some Kiwis are glad to see the Southern Cross flying again in any form; others see it as a gross defacement. More cameras flash. Chris turns away. In whatever tourist hot spot the Southern Cross flies, the standard Japanese flags fly higher.

  Chris pulls his collar higher. Inexplicably, he has forgotten his beanie. The boat shudders and there is a sense of hard-earned motion. Lights on the water shatter and re-gather in the swelling wake. Most of the houses on the hills are dark, either to save electricity or because they have none. Yet the sky
above the railway station glows majestically. The bright raised mall that surrounds it, known as Little Japan, allows the occupiers to come in and shop and dine and dance, then leave by rail again without touching the ground. Chris has never been there. The dingy pachinko parlours, pool halls, bowling alleys and karaoke parlours he knows uptown will be closed by now. The restaurants and yakitori bars along Oriental Bay are closed or closing. A string of coloured lightbulbs wink out. He thinks of Sarah, how he’ll be unable to stay for her funeral, and wonders if he should have left for Christchurch a bit later. But funerals are for the living, he reminds himself, and his brother needs him now rather than later. He’s alone, staring at a yellow window in Seatoun, when a woman speaks to him in Japanese.

  ‘Are you cold, Teacher?’

  Miss Kurosawa, the Settler, stands hatless at the rail, six feet away, staring at Seatoun. Her hair, with its streak of dark blue, is tugged and worried by the wind. The New Hokkaido flag snaps overhead.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Kurosawa.’

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ She takes out a woollen hat, pulls it on and stares at the lights. Then she glances at him and pushes out her lower lip as if to say, well, here we are.

  It’s not a normal interaction. He realises that his formal politeness is not required. ‘I forgot my hat,’ he says.

  ‘I recognised your hair. Why is it so short? Like a soldier’s.’

  ‘I cut it myself. To save money.’

  ‘Mm.’ Even in her coat she looks thin. ‘I won’t sleep tonight,’ she says. He can tell she means it. It’s the immediate problem he faces as well.

  ‘Are you cold, Miss Kurosawa?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looks at him, then looks around the empty deck, and he expects her to go. ‘Why are you going to Christchurch?’ she asks, looking at him now. The ferry is leaving the heads. Beyond the lights of the colony at Breaker Bay, dark cliffs stretch away.

  ‘To see my brother. How about you?’ What he really wants to know is what crime she committed in Japan.

  The ship begins to lift and fall with the oncoming ocean swell.

  She speaks English, a thrilling violation of the rules. ‘I’m visiting friends. I lived there for eighteen months before I came to Wellington.’

  Smiling in the dark, he says, ‘I see.’

  ‘I had a Kiwi boyfriend there.’ She glances around. ‘A big secret, yeah?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He broke it off,’ she tells the darkness. ‘He wanted to fuck sheep instead.’

  Surprised and delighted, he laughs. He didn’t think it was even possible for a Japanese woman to say something like that.

  Her lips briefly form a sad clown’s expression. Her eyes are expressionless and humorous for it. He likes her at that moment as a woman, not as a Japanese woman. She turns to him and steps closer. Her hand flies out and brushes something from his shoulder. ‘Bye.’ It’s oddly endearing. Her hands return and she adjusts his lapel in a very familiar way. Brushes more dust that only she can see off his chest with her nervous fluttery fingers. He’s getting excited. ‘I’m too cold,’ she says.

  ‘You could just about fit inside,’ he says.

  She gestures quickly that he should unbutton the coat.

  Turning away from her, his heart hammering, he unbuttons the coat, not believing she’ll actually get inside. Then her hat is under his nose, her hard skinny body against him. ‘Button up,’ she says. ‘Make an oven.’

  The coat is big enough. If someone comes up on deck, he thinks, they won’t see her. She slips up a hand and takes her hat off. Her hair is fragrant, wonderful, and very personal. The ferry rolls in the ocean proper as he feels her hand on his crotch, touching him through his pants. She finds the zip, releases his dick and runs her fingers lightly up and down the length of it. ‘Let me out,’ she says. He doesn’t move. ‘Quick, over by the vent.’ He sees the spot, a bolt of darkness that will make them invisible from the top of the steps on the other side of the deck, and lets her out. In the shadow she takes her coat off and stuffs it under the rail. Unbelievably, she reaches up under her knee-length skirt and whips her knickers off. She’s back inside the warm cocoon of his long coat. He frees his right arm. Inside the tent of the coat he feels her cool flat stomach; kisses her neck as he runs his hands up under her blouse. She’s braless; her nipples are long and hard. She reaches back again. Then she frees her hands from the coat and steps up onto the bottom rail, booted feet apart. She is very wet. She reaches back, hangs her bum down a little and guides him; a push and he’s sliding deliciously in. Heat. He’s gripped tight. She pumps and grinds on him; her back is lithe, snake-like. Hanging from the rail, her entire weight seems to clamp and centre on his cock. He groans. The stars are high and cold. Diesel fumes thread the air. It feels so good. He’s never been fucked like this, so expertly. She releases a drawn-out sigh. If anyone comes now, he thinks, we’re dead. She groans and he feels himself starting to come. We’re dead. She feels so good, and he pictures her removing her underwear, the flash of pussy. It seems a miracle as he comes. She arches her lean back, shudders and pushes down hard. Then she lifts herself off. He undoes the remaining button to free her and she lightly steps down from the rail. He shields her as she quickly dresses. Now it’s done he has an overwhelming desire to get away from danger, from the spot and from her, to get to safety below deck.

  ‘Ah, that was incredible, but … ’

  She nods. ‘Bye, Teacher. Sleep well.’

  After she’s gone down the Tourist Steps, he waits. Thirty long seconds later, two Kiwi men come up. As he leaves, two Japanese tourists are ascending the Tourist Steps. A heavy-sea door swings on the deck below and he glimpses the back of a brown uniform, a soldier. He clatters down, shocked, and instinctively heads in the opposite direction. The soldier seemed to be hurrying away. Squeals come from above, from the tourists on the freezing, windy deck. It is suddenly a hive of activity up there and he feels very fortunate not to have been caught by Kiwis or Japanese. His relief quickly gives way to suspicion that the soldier he saw stopped access to the deck while Kurosawa was with him. She was meant to make contact with me, he thinks, but why? Why on earth would she fuck me? He stops and heads back, thinking he’ll ask the two Kiwi guys if they were stopped from going up. But a soldier at the bottom of the steps requests his ID. The man takes his time examining it, even though it’s green. He gives Chris’s details into the radio on his shoulder, speaking excruciatingly slowly, spelling and re-spelling his name and address. They wait. The ID is cleared. The soldier looks through him, to the next passenger in the line wanting to go up to the top deck.

  Apart from a dozen tourists taking photos of one another, there are two pairs of Kiwi men. He doesn’t recognise either as being the pair he passed as he left. The dark spot by the vent where he and Miss Kurosawa did the deed offers much less privacy than he had thought. He approaches the nearest pair of young men, both clad in black jerseys and black jeans. ‘Excuse me, guys, did you just get here?’

  ‘What?’

  The man who has replied is drunk and belligerent. Brought up on deck by his friend to calm down, Chris thinks.

  ‘I mean, was the deck empty when you came up?’

  ‘Why?’

  Chris appeals to the other man, the more sober one. ‘Did the guard hold you up for long down there?’

  ‘What’s your problem?’ says the drunk. He goes to push Chris on the shoulder but his friend restrains him.

  Chris looks away, keeps his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Doug, give it a rest, will ya?’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, mate,’ says the sober one, ‘there seemed to be problem with my ID but it’s fine. Why?’

  The drunk refocuses. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘I say there’s a fucking problem.’

  ‘Shhh, there’s tourists here.’

  ‘I’m looking for my girlfriend,’ Chris says. ‘Her ID’s expired.’

  ‘O
h.’ The drunk looks shocked, like a bucket of cold water has been tipped over his head. ‘Shit. That’s no good, mate.’

  He moves quickly through bright corridors shot with volleys of drunken laughter, the rows of New Hokkaido posters for the tourists protected by gouged Perspex, and machines vending Japanese cigarettes, junk food and soft drinks. A door swings open with the motion of the boat and startles him. Through a window he sees a group of lanky Russians in their green uniforms playing cards and drinking. Downstairs is calmer. The third-class sleeping area is thankfully dim and almost quiet. The engines are a soothing constant. He removes his shoes and steps onto the tatami-matted floor. The large room is covered with bodies lying under blankets and sleeping bags. A group of three young men are sitting up talking near the far corner, slurring their words. He notes that the spaces by the walls are taken as he selects one of the last orange vinyl and foam pillows inside the door. It’s crowded and he has to tread very carefully. Halfway around the room, and seriously considering a return to the anonymity of the top deck, he sees a spot between two sleeping family groups that will accommodate him. He stretches out on his back. I made it. The ferry’s engine hums through the mats. He’s reasonably comfortable, warm, safe, and his mind does cartwheels. The thought of Miss Kurosawa makes him hard again. It was outrageous, unreal, and he decides that she set him up, that she made contact to establish a relationship and get information. Maybe she has to do what they tell her to avoid prison. His dick hurts so he lets it out, safely concealed by his coat. He returns to the flurry of activity on the steps as he was leaving, the soldier disappearing through the door, maybe taking Kurosawa to be debriefed? Or she’s a bad girl and we were lucky not to get caught, he thinks, turning over, no nearer sleep. The room has quietened down to the one slurred conversation between the three young men in the far corner. As their muttering rises in intensity, he focuses to catch the content and hears the unmistakeable sound of a tape-recorder button being pushed. There’s a quick squirt of sound; the button is pushed again more emphatically and a sonorous voice rings out.