The Blue Light Project (37 page)

“
Your
auntie, baby. I’m your daddy’s sister.”

Rabbit stood back watching this with a half smile. He looked like he were trying to make himself small. But then Ali noticed him and extended a hand, and Kumi took his arm and pulled him towards the living room, down a hall lined with books. Eve walked past the colorful spines of hardcover volumes, names she hadn’t seen since she was a child. Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume and Diderot. Books on art and archaeology. She stopped with her finger on the spine of a boxed set of Gibbon’s history of Rome.

“Yeah, I know,” Ali said. “Like a copy of Dad’s library. Living around the block from our old house. The twists have been strange. The outcomes unexpected. Nobody is more surprised in all of this than me.”

Eve didn’t press the point. They’d been in each other’s company for less than three minutes.

She walked into the living room where Kumi had led them, and
where she tried to preside over polite pre-dinner small talk. A useless exercise. Ali had become like their father in this respect too. He did not do the human pleasantries well. And so he sat with his hands folded while Rabbit talked to Kumi. Until it was finally time to eat.

They went in to dinner. Kumi carried out a hotpot, rice and small plates. Eve saw back into the kitchen: the spice rack, the cupboards with the stainless pulls shaped like different vegetables, the food processor and the pots hanging on the far wall. Eve in turbulent, conflicted flow. She’d hoped to find him doing well, but all this domesticity threw her. She had no point of reference, no memory of him being like this before. And she knew she’d struggled herself with household routines at Nick’s place. But these observations were then quickly lost in another one as Ali bent his head to pray over the food. Eve found herself staring at that remarkable sight. Ali in a wheelchair, brought down from his high places. And this: the finger to the lips, to the heart. The medieval regimen. Ali with a God.

They joined hands, awkwardly. Ali held Eve’s fingers tightly just as she held Rabbit’s. She couldn’t close her eyes. They were locked now on the table, on her bamboo placemat. On the blue ceramic salad bowl, the near edge of which just hemmed into the top of her view. A household moon. Her neck hurt, bent down like that while her brother—roof climber, graffiti writer, shit disturber, substance abuser—her brother interceded on behalf of the troubled world. Ali prayed: “ . . . that all those in the theater might be saved, the children and the hostage taker alike . . .”

They said “Amen.” Kumi, Yuko, Francis, Ali last. The paternal punctuation. Rabbit sat still wearing his bemused half smile, fiddling his chopsticks in his hands. Eve put a hand on his leg under the table. He covered it with his own.

Food was served. Eve thought she could hear all of their thoughts zipping and singing through the complexities of the moment. Who
should go first and what they should say. What ground to cover. All while the little dishes went around. Spinach, salmon, rice.

Then Ali began and Eve thought he had a new and unfamiliar voice. There was a certain gravity and calmness, a seeming dispassion. He had reached deep conclusions, Eve thought. Like someone to whom the world had been exposed by science. Although it wasn’t science in this case but the other thing, the other source of bottomless certainty. The one they’d been taught as children to treat with aesthetic appreciation and respect—a verse, a statue, a ring that had belonged to a great-uncle who was a priest—but never to absorb into the personal system.

Ali was talking about the plaza, about Meme Media. They’d been mesmerized by the news for the past forty-eight hours, just like everybody else.

“It plays like a kind of movie,” he said. “Which is probably because we all feel like we’ve seen something like it before.”

He paused for Kumi to serve rice, his expression suspended.

Rabbit said, “I heard someone say the police have known who the hostage taker was from the beginning.”

“Like we should be reassured,” Ali said. “Some psychopath known to police. But I doubt it anyway.”

He was taking spinach while he spoke, delicate chopsticks, quick sharp movements, the click of contact between wood and plate.

“Why doubt it?” Eve asked him.

He looked faintly uncomfortable, as if he’d now been trapped into saying something that he hadn’t been planning to say. “It’s just that show,
KiddieFame,
” he said, glancing up at her, then back to his plate. “Maybe we should have seen it coming that someone would target that particular show.”

Eve ate some rice and frowned.

“You disagree,” Ali said. “I know that expression, Evey.”

“I just wouldn’t blame them for what happened,” Eve said.

“I’m not blaming them. I’m blaming me,” Ali said. “I mean me in the sense of those of us who watch the show. Don’t you watch it?”

He had addressed this question to Rabbit, who shook his head, but then stopped himself. “Not regularly. I have a couple of times down at the Grove bar.”

“I hate the whole idea of it,” Ali said, wincing. “But if I’m clicking channels and I come across it, I can’t turn the thing off.”

“So it’s a bad show,” Eve said. “That doesn’t mean kids deserve to be terrorized for being on it.”

Eve got the feeling she’d awoken Ali somehow, saying so. His eyes were bright now as he formed ideas. He pointed his chopsticks at his sister. “What’s looming, though? What is the threat in this situation?”

“That a child might get hurt, of course,” Eve said.

“Exactly. But were we so angry when those same kids were getting lined up for one of these so-called Kills?

“I don’t even watch the show,” Eve said. “But this Kill thing they do is fake. In bad taste, maybe. But it’s not real.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ali said. “How alive are those kids outside of their competitive desire to be famous? How alive are we letting them be? Telling them fame is everything.”

“You were a graffiti writer,” Eve said, putting down her chopsticks. “What’s not attention-seeking about that? I’m not criticizing. I enjoyed watching you be that person.”

“Fair comment,” Ali said. “I have no right to lecture. But my point remains that the show is destructive and we seem to enjoy that about it.”

“Guns don’t kill people,” Eve said. “Celebrity does.”

“Eve Latour, gold medalist, being sarcastic with me,” Ali said. “Can’t walk down a street without someone wanting to touch her.”

Rabbit shifted in his chair beside her. Kumi too seemed poised, as if trying to think of something to say that might smoothly change the subject.

“Are we actually arguing?” Eve asked. “I haven’t seen you in years.”

“We shouldn’t be,” Ali said. “That’s just my point, E. You’ve lived through all this yourself. You must have thought along these lines before.”

She stared at her brother. Several seconds. Then she said: “Ali, where did you go? I needed you after Dad died and you were gone. That’s more the lines which I’ve been thinking along lately.”

Ali stared at her intently, leaning forward. “E, you mad at me?”

“Don’t do that,” she said. “I’m not laughing. I’m not seeing this as a big joke.”

“It’s boring, though, Evey,” Ali said. “Addiction. Recovery. A bit of travel.”

“Tell me about it, though. It’s been a long time. And I’ve come here to find out what happened to you. I heard you went to Asia. Tell me about that.”

“Tokyo,” Ali said. “Which is where I heard about your gold medal, actually. You marrying the . . . what was he?”

“We never got married. We were engaged. He was a film director. His name was Reza.”

“Eve and Reza. You know the last time I saw you?” Ali said.

Eve picked up her chopsticks again. “You better not tell me you saw me here in town and didn’t even say hello.”

“Shibuya,” Ali said. “When I was in Tokyo, this is true, I saw your face on a huge news billboard in Shibuya.”

“Well . . .” Eve said, and lost her words. She imagined her face up there above the traffic. Enormous and exposed. “Well, you should have called or e-mailed. Or texted. Meanwhile I return home and find you’re gone. All the police can tell me is you didn’t die here.”

Ali raised his eyebrows. “You talked to the police?”

“Of course I did. You were a missing person,” Eve said. “Why were you in Tokyo? Were you working there?”

Ali was teaching English and doing his art. Still hanging in there. Still trying to make it work. “But I was a failure,” he said. “Bottom line.”

“You weren’t,” Kumi said.

“I was,” Ali repeated. “But fuck, I tried.”

“Ali.” Kumi glared at him.

He was making collages out of
hentai.
You could cut these pieces down small enough, he said, and any part of the human body could be used to make a flower, a forest. He was turning animated porn into formal Japanese flower arrangements. He never convinced a single gallery to touch the stuff.

Eve looked at her brother and saw how he had aged. Strange not to have thought of this before. In their years apart, they’d passed through some moment after which his face no longer looked just as she remembered. A bit of her father, true. But he would age into his own face, as they all did.

“Then you came back here,” Eve said.

He looked across the corner of the table at her. Nodded.

“You sneaked back into town.”

“I didn’t sneak,” he said. “Things weren’t going so good for me, E. Ask Kumi. She was the one who kicked me out.”

“I knew you were here,” Eve said. “When Dad died. I knew you were here. Mom was on the coast. After the funeral I was so sure of it I went to the police a second time. Still nothing. Why the hell didn’t you call? Why didn’t you come to the funeral?”

“I was using,” Ali said. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Using,” Eve said. “I guess part of my problem was I never knew that. When I saw you the last time I knew things weren’t going well. But if I’d known about the using, Ali . . . I would have tried to help.”

Eve threw her napkin down onto the table and pushed back her chair. “Sorry,” she said to Kumi, and she left the table, her throat tightening, her eyes threatening to release tears. But she pinched off
all these symptoms, these ways to release, to vent. And when she was safely in the bathroom, the door closed quietly and locked behind her, she leaned on the counter, head down between her shoulders. Eyes closed. Shoulders silently heaving. She’d decided already that she wouldn’t cry for Nick. Now it was time to decide that she wouldn’t cry again for Ali either. When pushed close to tears, Eve thought, pressing her palms to her eyes, you simply had to learn something.

She washed her face. She saw that a set of stones were set up in a ring around a miniature torii gate on the counter. Some tapered candles. A long lacquered box with matches next to it. A plaque of praying hands above the toilet. She looked at herself in the mirror, looked into her own eyes. Why was she here? Because of a memory. Wind in his hair, up some structure somewhere. Ali elevated and unafraid. That memory had been so crucial to her.

You had to learn something.

Eve went back into the dining room. Ali was eating, talking to Rabbit, who looked up at her with concern. Kumi was just about to get the kids ready for bath and bed. Yuko said to Eve: “I love you.”

Eve leaned down and kissed her. “I love you too, honey. I really do.”

“I used to live on Sixth Street,” Ali was telling Rabbit. “Bought my dope in that little park there.” He was eating. Chopsticks in motion, muscles rippling along his arm. He had tattoos Eve had never seen before. Sacred heart, Celtic cross, Star of David. He was taking bean sprouts from a small dish, dipping them one by one in a dark sauce and delivering these to his mouth. He did so with a loose-wristed ease, elbow to the wooden table. A worn motion.

She sat down. “You know what I think about? I think about us climbing that radio tower. I think about how absolutely terrified I was.”

Ali nodded. He said: “E, I really am sorry.” He chewed and worked through his next thought. “Let me ask you something. Did you get along with Dad?”

Eve told him: “We kind of had a mutual agreement not to talk so much that we argued.”

“He and I didn’t have that agreement.”

“Do you miss him?” Eve asked.

“I do,” Ali said. “Although I also wonder why he was such a bastard.”

“He always knew what he was doing,” Eve said. “Why and to what end. It made him impatient.”

Ali tapped his chopsticks on his plate. An unconscious, nervous movement.

Eve said: “I always thought you were the same. But with a different spirit somehow. Happier than Dad. So much freer.”

Ali frowned, his fingers twisting a teacup in place on the tablecloth. The tea itself long cold. And the next thing he said seemed at first disconnected from what had come before. He looked at her, tilting his head in resignation. He told her about buying this house. About how much moving back to the neighborhood meant to him. He’d surprised himself, wanting it so much. He told her about his work too. He was part-owner of a language school downtown. Kids came from all over the world. A lot of Koreans and Chileans at the moment, but the thing went in cycles. He had partners and they’d done well financially. They’d recently expanded the facility, even bought other properties. He still went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings but had found a way to enjoy them. And Eve understood him to be telling her that whatever she thought, he was not like their father in always knowing what he was doing. Not why. Not reliably to what end.

“I didn’t call,” Ali said, “because I was ashamed. I was waiting for the time to be right. I’m glad you were more impatient. I’m glad you came looking. I’m lucky.”

He put his hand over hers on the table. Then, after a moment, he took his hand back slowly and looked at Rabbit. “So what about you?” Ali said. “Why’d you quit the flowering alleys of Stofton? I liked those.”