1
August 15, 1946
Tokyo, 91°, overcast
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The sound of hammering and hammering –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I open my eyes and I remember –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton … I am one of the survivors –
One of the lucky ones …
I take out my handkerchief. I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I push my hair back out of my eyes. I look at my watch –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
It is 10 a.m.; it is only 10 a.m. –
Just four hours gone, eight still to go, then down to Shinagawa, down to Yuki. Three, four hours there and then out to Mitaka, to my wife and my children. Try to take them some food, bring them something to eat, anything. Eat and then sleep, try to sleep. Then back here again for 6 a.m. tomorrow …
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
Another twelve hours in this oven …
I wipe the sweat from my shirt collar. I wipe the sweat from my eyelids. I look down the length of the table. Three men on my left, two men on my right and the three empty chairs –
No Fujita. No Ishida. No Kimura …
Five men wiping their necks and wiping their faces, scratching after lice and swiping away mosquitoes, ignoring their work and turning their newspapers; newspapers full of the First Anniversary of the Surrender, the progress of reform and the gains of democracy; newspapers full of the International Military Tribunal, the judgment of the Victors and the punishment of the Losers –
Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out …
Turning our newspapers, thinking about food –
Day in, day out. Day in, day out …
And waiting and waiting –
Day in, day out …
The telephones that can’t ring, the electric fans that can’t turn. The heat and the sweat. The flies and the mosquitoes. The dirt, the dust and the noise; the constant sound of hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I get up from my chair. I go to the window. I raise the blind –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Three floors above Sakuradamon, I look out over Tokyo –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The Palace to my left, GHQ to my right –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Under a low typhoid sky –
Ton-ton …
The Capital City of the Shōwa Dead, the Losers on their hands and knees, the Victors in their trucks and jeeps –
No resistance here.
I hear the door open. I turn round; Kimura is stood there –
Early twenties. Repatriated from the south. Only three months here and no longer the most junior member of our room, Room #2 …
Kimura is staring down the length of table at me; half in contempt, half in deference, a piece of paper in his hands –
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …
My stomach knots, my head pounds –
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …
Kimura holds out the paper marked Police Bulletin and says, ‘Maybe this one’s a murder, Detective Inspector Minami, sir.’
*
There is only one working car for the whole division. It is not available. So we walk again, like we walk everywhere. They promise us cars, like they promise us telephones and guns and pens and paper and better pay and health care and holidays but every day we tear apart old bicycle tires to cut out new soles to hammer onto the bottom of our boots so we can walk and walk and walk and walk and walk –
Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura and me – Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Through the heat, through the flies and the mosquitoes –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
From Metropolitan Police Headquarters to Shiba Park –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Jackets off, hats on. Handkerchiefs out, fans out –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Down Sakurada-dōri and up the hill to Atago –
Ton-ton …
Detective Nishi has the Police Bulletin in his hand. Nishi reads it aloud as we walk: ‘Naked body of unidentified female found at 9:30 a.m. this morning, August 15, 1946, at Nishi-Mukai Kannon Zan, 2 Shiba Park, Shiba Ward. Body reported to Shiba Park police box at 9:45 a.m. Body reported to Atago police station at 10:15 a.m. Body reported to Metropolitan Police Headquarters at 11:00 a.m.….
‘They took their time,’ he says now. ‘It’ll be two hours by the time we see the body. What were they doing at Atago…?’
‘She ain’t going nowhere,’ laughs Detective Hattori.
‘Tell that to the maggots and the flies,’ says Nishi.
‘No cars. No bicycles. No telephones. No telegraphs,’ replies Hattori. ‘What do you expect the Atago boys to do about it?’
Nishi shakes his head. Nishi doesn’t answer him.
I wipe my neck. I glance at my watch again –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
It is almost 11:30 a.m.; only 11:30 a.m. –
Five and a half hours gone, six and a half to go. Then down to Shinagawa, down to Yuki. Three, four hours there and then out to Mitaka. The wife and the children. Eat and then sleep, try to sleep. Back here again for 6 a.m. and another twelve hours –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
If this body isn’t a murder …
‘This way is quicker,’ says Nishi and we pick our way over the hills of rubble and through the craters of dust until we come out on to Hibiya-dōri near Onarimon –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton.
*
Two very young men from the Atago police station are waiting for us in their ill-fitting, dirt-stained uniforms. They bow and they salute, they greet us and they apologize but I can’t hear a word they say –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The uniformed policemen lead us off the road, away from the sound of the hammering, and into the temple grounds –
Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …
There is nothing much left of Zōjōji Temple since it was burnt to the ground in the May air raids of last year –
Branches charred and leaves lost …
The two uniforms lead us through the ashes and up the hill, out of the sunlight and into the shadow; the graves forgotten here, this place is overgrown and its paths lost, the bamboo grass taller than a man and as thick as the insects that cloud the air; this place of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs that run in packs with a new-found taste for human flesh –
In this place of assignation –
Of prostitutes, of suicides –
This place of silence –
This place of death –
She is here …
In this sudden clearing where the tall grass has been flattened and the sun has found her, she is here; lying naked on her back, her head slightly to the left, her right arm outstretched, her left at her side, she is here; her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee, she is here …
Possibly twenty-one years old and probably ten days dead –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …
There is a piece of red material round her neck –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …
This is not a suicide. This is murder –
Namu-amida-butsu …
This case ours –
I curse her…
I look at my watch. Chiku-taku. It is almost noon –
Chiku-taku. It is August 15, 1946 –
The defeat and the capitulation. The surrender and the occupation. The ghosts all here today –
I curse her. I curse myself…
It has been one year.
*
In among the tall weeds, an old man is on his knees, bowing and mumbling his prayers with an axe on the ground before him –
‘Namu-amida-butsu,’ the old man chants. ‘Namu-amida …’
‘This man discovered the body,’ says one of the uniforms.
I squat down beside the old man. I swat at a mosquito with my hat. I miss. I wipe my neck. I say, ‘It’s hot today, isn’t it?’
The old man stops his chanting. The old man nods.
‘This man is a lumberjack,’ says the uniform.
‘And you found the body?’ I ask the man.
The old man nods his head again.
‘Found her just like this?’
He nods his head again.
‘Are you sure you didn’t find any of her clothes, a bag or a purse or anything else near her?’
He shakes his head.
‘You haven’t stashed away her things to sell later, have you? Not put away some of her things to come back for?’ Again, he shakes his head. ‘Not her ration card?’
The old man looks up at me now. The old man says, ‘No.’ I nod and I pat him on his back. I apologize to him and I thank him. I put my hat back on and I stand up again –
I see her out of the corner of my eye …
Detectives Hattori, Takeda, Sanada and Shimoda are sat down in the shade of the trees with their Panama hats in their hands, fanning and wiping themselves, swatting at flies and mosquitoes –
In the shade with the Shōwa Dead …
The two uniformed policemen from Atago shifting from foot to foot, foot to foot; Detectives Nishi and Kimura still stood over the body, still staring at her, waiting for me –
In this City of the Dead …
I walk over to the body –
She is here …
‘I knew it,’ Kimura is saying. ‘Knew it’d be murder.’
‘And she’ll have been a whore,’ agrees Nishi.
‘I doubt that,’ I tell him, tell them both.
‘But this place is notorious for prostitutes,’ says Nishi. ‘We know the ones from Shimbashi bring their men up here…’
I stare down at the body, the pale grey and decaying body, the legs parted, raised and bent at the knee –
‘This woman was raped,’ I tell them both. ‘Why would you rape and then murder a prostitute?’
‘If you had no money,’ says Kimura. ‘There are a lot of destitute and desperate men…’
‘So just rape her and leave her, beat her if you must, but she’s not going to tell anyone.’
‘Unless she knew him,’ says Nishi. ‘Knew his name…’
‘We need to find her name,’ I tell them now, tell them all, my men and the two men from Atago. ‘And we need to find her clothes and any other belongings she might have had with her.’
‘Just a moment!’ barks out a voice from behind me, and everyone jumps to attention, to bow and to salute –
I turn round. I know this voice. I bow and I salute. I know this face well. I greet Chief Inspector Adachi –
Adachi or Anjo or Ando or whatever he calls himself this week; he has changed his name and he has changed his job, his uniform and his rank, his life and his past; he is not the only one …
Now no one is who they say they are …
No one is who they seem to be …
Behind him stand Suzuki, the First Investigative Division photographer, and two men in white coats from the Keiō University Hospital with a light, wooden coffin –
They are all sweating.
Adachi points at Suzuki and tells everyone, ‘Move out of the way and let this man get on with his work, then these other two can get this body out of here.’
Everybody steps back into the taller grasses, among the taller trees, to watch Suzuki load his film and start his work –
Click-click-click. Click-click-click …
I look at my watch –
Chiku-taku …
12:30 p.m. –
Everything is lost; there will be a meeting of all the section heads of the First Investigative Division; there will be verbal and written reports; there will be the assignment of command, the delegation of responsibility, the division of labour, of investigation and of evaluation; more lost hours in more hot rooms …
‘Bad luck, your room pulling this one,’ laughs Adachi. ‘Twenty-one days straight. No time off. You all stuck down here in Atago, knowing you’ll never solve the case, never close it, knowing no one cares but knowing it’s yet another failure on your record…’
‘It’ll be just like the Matsuda Giichi case then,’ I say.
Inspector Adachi leans closer into my face now –
No one is who they say they are …
‘That case is closed, corporal,’ he spits.
No one who they seem to be …
I take a step back. I bow my head. I apologize.
‘You’re two men short,’ says Adachi –
I bow again. I apologize again.
‘Where’s Detective Fujita?’
Another bow, another apology.
‘That’s not an answer,’ says Adachi. ‘Just an admission.’
*
The photographer has finished his work. The ground beneath her is crushed and darker. The two men from Keiō Hospital have lifted up the body. The ground is infested with insects. The men from Keiō have lifted the body into the wooden coffin. She is stiff and refuses to bend. The two uniforms from Atago were called to help and the arms were folded, the lid fitted and secured with ropes and knots, bound. She is resisting the box. The two men from Keiō Hospital have taken her back down the hill. She is no longer here …
Now I take out my watch again –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
It is almost 3 p.m. –
I am stood on the top of a wall behind the ruined Tokugawa tombs, looking up the hill and out over a sea of bamboo grass and zelkova trees, islands of fallen stone lanterns and broken down graves; I am searching for her clothes or her bag, when suddenly I see it –
I jump down from the top of the wall into the long, long grasses and I wade through the dead leaves and weeds towards it –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …
The white cloth grinning through the long, long grasses –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …
White cloth around white bones –
Namu-amida-butsu …
Another body …
A second body wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles; a second body ten metres from the first; a second body now nothing but bones –
Tangled up in the weeds and leaves …
I curse her and I curse this place –
I curse and I curse again …
This place of shadow, of forgotten graves and lost paths, of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs and human flesh, of prostitutes and suicides in this place of assignation –
This place of silence. This place of death –
In this place of defeat and capitulation. This place of surrender and occupation. This place of ghosts –
The body now nothing but bones …
In this place of no resistance.
*
It takes three hours for us to report the finding of the second body to Metropolitan Police Headquarters. I stare at her white half-sleeved chemise. Three hours for them to send Suzuki back here to photograph the second body. I stare at her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress. Three hours for the Keiō University Hospital to send out another ambulance to take away the second body. I stare at her pink socks. Three hours for my men to seal off the crime scene and the immediate area around the second body. I stare at her white canvas shoes. Three hours for us to requisition the necessary uniformed men from the Atago, Meguro and Mita police stations in order to secure the area where the bodies were found. Their red, red rubber soles. Three hours sweating and swatting, itching and scratching, gari-gari, while I stand and I stare at this second body –
Her flesh far from here, carried in the mouths of others …
I stare at the bleached white bones of her fingers –
I stare at the bleached white bones of her hands –
Her wrists and her forearms and her elbows –
The bleached white bones of her face –
The permed hair. The yellow teeth –
The shadows have lengthened now, the tall grasses and zelkova trees closer here.
*
The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. I have walked away from that place. The good detective knows nothing is random. I have walked out of the shadow and into the sunlight. The good detective knows in chaos lies order. I have walked back down the hill and into the temple grounds. In chaos lie answers …
But there is nothing left of the Zōjōji Temple –
Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …
Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate –
Branches charred and leaves lost …
In this lonely place, I stand beneath the dark eaves of the gate and I watch the ambulance drive away –
We have seen hell, we have known heaven, we have heard the last judgment and we have witnessed the fall of the gods … Under the Black Gate, a stray dog pants –
But I am one of the survivors …
His house lost, his master gone –
One of the lucky ones …
In the Year of the Dog.
*
It is another long, hot walk back to Metropolitan Police Headquarters, a walk made worse by the dirt and the dust from the trucks and the jeeps with their big white stars and their big white teeth –
The constant, constant sound of hammering –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I knock on the door to Chief Kita’s office. I open it. I apologize. I bow. I enter. I take my seat at the table –
Chief Kita sits at the head of the table with his back to the window, its frame still buckled from the bombs; Chief Kita, the kachō of the whole of the First Investigative Division, an old but lean man with a deeply tanned face, a close-shaven head and hard, unblinking eyes; Chief Kita, the best friend my father ever had –
I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …
To his right, Chief Inspector Kanehara with Adachi –
But in the half-light, I can’t forget…
To his left Inspector Kai, leader of the First Team, and me; Inspector Minami now, leader of the Second Team –
No one is who they seem to be …
The report for the Public Safety Division is on the table. It has been translated into English, probably by Kanehara, and then typed up. It is passed round the table for all our signatures and seals –
I take out my pen. I stare at the report –
It could be Das Kapital …
The typed Roman characters –
Mein Kampf…
I sign it.
The report is returned to Chief Inspector Kanehara. Now Chief Kita nods at me and I begin my report; I repeat the timetable of the discovery and reporting of the first body; I detail the state and environment of the first body on our arrival; I recount my initial interview with the lumberjack; I defer then to Adachi who reports the timetable involving the photographer and the ambulance –
‘My initial deduction upon seeing the body was that a murder had been committed. Therefore, I ordered Inspector Minami and his men to conduct a thorough search of the immediate area surrounding the body. It was during the course of this search that Inspector Minami himself discovered the second body, which was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body.’
‘Detective Inspector Minami, please…’
‘As Chief Inspector Adachi has said, the second body was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body. The second body was badly decomposed and largely skeletal, but it appears to be the body of a young woman. However, unlike the first body, it was not naked but wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. Initial inspection and experience would suggest that death occurred between three and four weeks ago but of course that will be precisely determined by the autopsy. It is clear though that the two women did not die at the same time.’
‘Do you believe these deaths are connected?’ asks Chief Kita.
‘Until the results of the autopsy are known, the location and sex of the two bodies remain the only connecting factors,’ I reply. ‘Despite their proximity, the nature of the vegetation meant that the site of one body was not visible from the other. As you are all aware, there was what would seem to be a piece of material tied round the neck of the first body, leading us to assume that death was a result of murder. On preliminary examination of the second body, no such material was found, nor were there any other obvious signs of a murder having occurred. As we know, in the last year a number of bodies have been found in the environs of Shiba Park. However, before today’s discovery, only one of these has proved to be murder. The other deaths were as a result of either suicide or disease.’
Chief Kita nods. Chief Kita says, ‘Chief Inspector?’
Adachi nods, reluctantly. ‘I agree with Inspector Minami.’
‘Then we’ll handle the two cases separately,’ says the chief. ‘Until we have the results from the autopsies which will be…?’
‘The day after tomorrow,’ says Adachi.
‘From Keiō or Tokyo?’
‘From Keiō…’
‘By?’
‘Dr. Nakadate.’
Kanehara and Kai pretend not to look up from their notes. Kanehara and Kai pretend not to look from me to Adachi to Chief Kita. Kanehara and Kai pretend not to see our exchange of glances –
I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …
‘It can’t be helped,’ says the chief. ‘Let’s proceed…’
Now comes the structure of the investigation. The delegation of responsibility. The division of labour …
‘Inspector Kai and Room #1 will open the investigation into the first body. Inspector Kai and Room #1 will set up their Investigation Headquarters at the Atago police station. Inspector Kai will report to Chief Inspector Kanehara.’
Inspector Kai bows. Inspector Kai shouts, ‘I understand! Thank you! I will not let you down!’
Chief Inspector Kanehara bows. Kanehara shouts, ‘Thank you! I will not let you down!’
‘Inspector Minami and Room #2 will investigate the second body found at Shiba Park…’
I bow too hastily; there must be a hint of relief, a glimpse of respite in my action, because Chief Kita’s tone is harsh now –
‘Inspector Minami and Room #2 will conduct the investigation as a murder inquiry. Inspector Minami and Room #2 will also set up their Investigation Headquarters at Atago police station until further instructions are received. Inspector Minami and his team will report to Chief Inspector Adachi.’
I curse him. I curse him. I curse him …
I bow again to the chief. I tell him I understand. I thank him. I promise I will not let him down –
So tomorrow morning Room #2 will take their trunk to Atago. Tomorrow morning our banner will be unfurled and raised on its poles. Tomorrow the investigation will begin. Day and night, night and day. From tomorrow morning there will be no rest, no time off for twenty days or until the case is closed …
‘Has anyone anything else they wish to say?’ asks Chief Inspector Kanehara. ‘Anything they wish to clarify?’
There is nothing to say. Nothing to clarify –
There is silence now, almost –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
‘Then tidy up all your affairs tonight,’ Chief Kita tells us. ‘Leave nothing unfinished. No loose ends, please.’
The chief looks away now –
I glance at my watch –
Chiku-taku …
It is 8:30 p.m.
*
I run down the corridor of Police Arcade to the back stairs. I leave through a back door. I cut through Hibiya Park. The temperature not falling with the night, the flies and mosquitoes hungrier than ever –
Pan-pan girls calling through the shadows and the trees –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’
I run across Hibiya-dōri. I reach the elevated tracks –
Pan-pan girls in the shadows and the arches –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’
I follow the Yamate train tracks –
To the Shimbashi Market –
‘Asobu …? Asobu…?’
To Senju Akira.
Kettles and pans. Crockery and utensils. Clothes and shoes. Cooking oil and soy sauce. Rice and tea. Fruit and vegetables. The kakigōri stalls and over and over, again and again, the ‘Apple Song’ –
‘Red apple to my lips, blue sky silently watching …’
All laid out on the ground, on stall after stall –
Half of it Japanese. Half of it foreign. All of it illegal. But there are no police here. No Victors. No Occupiers –
‘Apple doesn’t say a thing, but Apple’s feeling is clear…’
Here there is only one law; buy or be bought. Sell or be sold. Eat or be eaten; this is where the cannibals come –
‘Apple’s loveable, loveable is apple…’
To the Shimbashi New Life Market –
‘Shall we all sing the Apple Song?’
The old Outside Free Market is gone. The old Black Market is finished. This is the new market for the new Japanese yen –
‘If two people sing along, it’s a merry song …’
This is the two-storey Shimbashi New Life Market with its modern arcades for over five hundred stalls –
‘If everyone sings the Apple Song …’
The dream of Matsuda Giichi –
‘It’s an even merrier song…’
But Matsuda Giichi never lived to see his New Life Market open because two months ago, on the night of the tenth of June, Matsuda Giichi was attacked and shot in his office by Nodera Tomiji, one of his own former gang members, one who had been expelled during Matsuda’s reorganization of his own gang, the Kantō Matsuda-gumi, in their amalgamation with the Matsuzakaya gang –
But nobody really knows if Nodera killed Matsuda –
Nobody saw Nodera pull the trigger and fire –
Nobody really knows because Nodera Tomiji was drunk when persons unknown found him in a bar on the Ginza –
And he was dead when they left him –
‘So let’s all sing the Apple Song and…’
Now Senju Akira is the new boss –
‘And pass the feeling along…’
This is the man I’ve come to see. This is the man whose men are waiting for me. The man whose men are watching for me –
They know I’m here. They know I’m back …
In their pale suits and patterned shirts, with their American sunglasses and Lucky Strikes, they are whispering about me –
They know why I’m here, why I’m back …
Among the kettles and the pans, they come up behind me now, one on either side, and they take an arm each –
‘You’re more brave than you look,’ whispers one of them –
‘And more stupid,’ says the other as they whisk me past the mats and the stalls, the crockery and the utensils, out into the alleys and the lanes, through the shadows and the arches, until we come to the wooden stairs and the open door at the top with its sign –
Tokyo Stall Vendors Processing Union.
Now they let me go. Now they let me wipe my face and wipe my neck, straighten up my shirt and put on my jacket –
The calls of odd, even and play …
There is a foreigner coming down the stairs, an American in sunglasses. At the foot of the stairs, the American turns his face to look at me and then looks away again. He nods to Senju’s men as he disappears into the alleys and the shadows –
No one is who they say they are …
There is no ‘Apple Song’ playing here as I walk up the stairs towards the open door, just the dice and his voice –
‘You got good news for me, have you, detective?’ calls out Senju before I even reach the top of the stairs –
I stop on the stairs. I look down at his two goons. They are laughing now. I turn back to the door –
The sound of dice being thrown. The calls of odd, even and play, odd, even and play …
‘Don’t be a coward now,’ he shouts. ‘Answer me, detective.’
I start walking again. I reach the top. I am a policeman. I turn into the doorway. Into the light –
‘Well?’ asks Senju –
I kneel down on the tatami mat. I bow. I say, ‘I’m sorry.’
Senju spits his toothpick onto the long low polished table. He turns his new electric fan my way and shakes his head –
‘Just look at you, officer,’ he laughs. ‘Dressed like a tramp and stinking of corpses. Investigating murders when you could be getting rich, arresting Koreans and Formosans and bringing home two salaries for the pleasure. Taking care of your family and your mistress, fucking the living and not the dead…’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘How old are you now, detective?’
‘I am forty-one years old.’
‘So tell me,’ he asks. ‘What do they pay a forty-one-year-old detective these days, officer?’
‘One hundred yen a month.’
‘I pity you,’ he laughs. ‘And your wife, and your children, and your mistress, I really do.’
I lean forward so my face touches the tatami mat and I say, ‘Then please help me…’
And I curse him; I curse him because he has what I need. And I curse Fujita; I curse him because he introduced us. But most of all I curse myself; I curse myself because of my dependence; my dependence on him …
‘You chase corpses and ghosts,’ he says. ‘What help are you to me? And if you can’t help me, I can’t help you.’
‘Please,’ I say again. ‘Please help me.’
Senju Akira throws down five hundred yen onto the mat in front of my face. Senju says, ‘Then get a transfer to a different room; a room where you can find things out, things that help me…
‘Like who paid Nodera Tomiji to kill my boss Matsuda; like who then killed Nodera; like why this case is now closed …’
‘I will,’ I say, then over and over. ‘Thank you.’
‘And don’t come back here until you have.’
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘Now get out!’ he shouts –
I shuffle backwards across the mats then down the stairs, past the goons and through the alleys, back into the market –
‘Shall we all sing the Apple Song?’
The Shimbashi New Life Market –
This is the New Japan … This is how we live –
‘Let’s all sing the Apple Song and pass the feeling along.’
*
I haggle. To eat. I barter. To work. I threaten. To eat. I bully. To work. I buy three eggs and some vegetables. There was no fish and there was no meat. Now there is another problem on the Yamate Line and the trains have stopped running in the direction of Shinagawa, so I take the streetcar. It is crowded and I am crushed and the eggs were a mistake. I get off at Tamachi and then I walk or run the rest of the way. The vegetables in my pockets. The eggs in my hands –
To eat. To work. To eat. To work …
There is only this now.
*
I have waited hours to lie again here upon the old tatami mats of her dim and lamp-lit room. I think about her all the time. I have waited hours to stare again at her peeling screens with their ivy-leaf designs. I think about her all the time. I have waited hours to watch her draw her figures with their fox-faces upon these screens –
I think about her all the time …
Yuki is the one splash of colour among the dust, her hair held up by a comb. Now Yuki puts down her pencils and stares into the three-panelled vanity mirror and says, ‘Oh, I wish it would rain…
‘Rain but not thunder,’ she says. ‘I hate the thunder…
‘The thunder and the bombs…’
She haunts me …
‘Rain like it used to rain,’ she whispers. ‘Rain like before. Rain hard like the rain when it fell on the oiled hood of the rickshaw, drumming louder and faster on the hood, the total darkness within the hood heavy with the smell of the oil and of my mother’s hair, of my mother’s make-up and of her clothes, the faces and the voices of the actors we had seen on the stage that day, in those forbidden plays of loyalty and of duty, those plays of chastity and of fidelity, of murder and of suicide, those faces and those voices that would swim up through the darkness of the hood towards me…’
She has haunted me from the day I first met her, in the thunder and the rain, from that day to this day, through the bombs and the fires, from that day to this …
Yuki is lying naked on the futon. Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid! Her head slightly to the right. Red! Red! Incendiary bomb! Her right arm outstretched. Run! Run! Get a mattress and sand! Her left arm at her side. Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid! Her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee. Black! Black! Here come the bombs! My come drying on her stomach and on her ribs. Cover your ears! Close your eyes!
‘Make it rain again,’ she says –
And then she brings her left hand up to her stomach. I think about her all the time. She dips her fingers in my come. I think about her all the time. She puts her fingers to her lips. I think about her all the time. She licks my come from her fingers and says again, ‘Please make it rain, rain like it rained on the night we first met…’
She haunts me here. She haunts me now …
I place an egg and two hundred yen on her vanity box and I say, ‘I might not be able to visit you tomorrow.’
Here and now, she haunts me …
‘I am a woman,’ she whispers. ‘I am made of tears.’
*
The Shinagawa station is in chaos. Every station. There are queues but no tickets. Every train. I push my way to the front and I show my police notebook at the gate. Every station. I shove my way onto a train. Every train. I stand, crushed among people and their goods –
Every station. Every train. Every station. Every train …
This train doesn’t move. It stands and it sweats –
Finally, after thirty minutes, the train starts to move slowly down the track towards Shinjuku station –
Every station. Every train …
I force my way off the train at Shinjuku. I fight my way along the platform and down one set of stairs and then up another. I have the two eggs in one hand, my notebook out in my other –
‘Police. Police,’ I shout. ‘Police. Police.’
People hide their eyes and people clutch their backpacks. People stand aside as I heave my way onto the Mitaka train. I stand crushed again among more people and more goods –
This is how we live, with our houses lost …
I jostle my way off the train. I go through the ticket gate at Mitaka. I put the eggs in my jacket pocket. I take off my hat. I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I am parched –
Itching and scratching again –
Gari-gari. Gari-gari …
I follow crooked, impotent telegraph poles down the road to my usual restaurant, half-way between the station and my home –
The one lantern amidst the darkness where once there had been ten, twenty or thirty others, illuminating the street, advertising their pleasures and their wares. But there is no illumination –
No wares or pleasures to be had here now.
I step inside. I sit down at the counter.
‘A man was here looking for you last night,’ says the master. ‘Asking questions about you. After your new address…’
No one who they say they are. In the half-light …
I shrug my shoulders. I order some sake –
‘No sake left,’ says the master. ‘Whisky?’
I shrug my shoulders again. ‘Please.’
The master puts the glass of whisky on the counter before me; it is cloudy. I hold it up to the light bulb –
I swirl the mixture around –
‘If you don’t want to drink it,’ says the master. ‘Then go.’
I shake my head. I put the glass to my lips. I knock it back –
It burns my throat. I cough. I tell him, ‘And another!’
I drain glass after glass as the old men at the counter joke with the master, horrible jokes, terrible jokes, but everyone smiles, everyone laughs. Ha, ha, ha, ha! He, he, he, he!
Then one old man begins to sing, softly at first, then louder and louder, over and over –
‘Red apple to my lips, blue sky silently watching …’
*
In the half-light, my wife sits sewing at the low table, my children asleep under the mosquito net, and suddenly I feel too drunk, too drunk to stand, to stand and face her with tears in my eyes –
The two eggs broken in my pocket –
But she says, ‘Welcome home.’
Home to where the mats are rotting. Home to where the doors are in shreds. Home to where the walls are falling in –
Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home …
I sit down in the genkan with my back to her. I struggle with my boots and then ask, ‘How are the children?’
‘Masaki’s eyes are much better.’
‘How about Sonoko?’
‘They are still inflamed and swollen.’
‘Haven’t you taken her back to the doctor?’
‘They washed them out at the school yesterday but the nurse told her to stay at home until they have cleared up. They are worried it will spread to the rest of the class…’
Now I turn to face her and ask, ‘So what did you do today?’
‘We queued at the post office most of the morning…’
‘And did you get the money? Did they give it to you?’
‘They told us to come back tomorrow. So then we went to the park in Inokashira but their eyes hurt and they were hungry and it was so hot that we came back here before lunchtime…’
‘Have you eaten anything today?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘Some bean-paste buns.’
‘Fresh?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘One each.’
‘One each for the children and one for you?’
‘I wasn’t hungry.’
‘Liar!’ I shout. ‘Why do you lie?’
My wife stops darning the children’s clothes. She puts away her needle and thread. She closes her sewing box. She bows slightly and says quietly, ‘I am very sorry. I will try harder.’
Now I stand up. I walk across the mats –
These rotting mats …
‘There was a murder today, maybe two murders,’ I tell her. ‘My room has pulled the case and so you know this means I’ll be away for the next twenty days or…’
My wife bows again. My wife says, ‘I know. I understand.’
I take the three hundred yen from my pocket. I put it on the table and I say, ‘Take this.’
My wife bows a third time. My wife says, ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s not much, not with the way prices rise,’ I say. ‘But if I can get away, I’ll try to come back and bring what I can.’
‘Please don’t think about us,’ she says. ‘We will be fine. Please just think about solving the case.’
I want to upend the table. I want to tear apart the children’s clothes. I want to slap her face. I want to beat her body –
I want to make her really, really hate me –
I want to make her really leave me –
This time. This time. This time …
To take the children and go –
‘Don’t try and make me feel sorry for you,’ I tell her and close the doors to the other room. ‘Martyrdom is out of fashion!’
*
Behind the shredded doors, I close my eyes but I cannot sleep –
I think about Yuki all the time, all the time …
I could never sleep because I thought about her –
Because she haunted me even then …
From the day I first met her, even here –
She is lying naked on the futon, her head slightly to the right, her right arm outstretched and her left arm at her side. Her legs are parted, raised and bent at the knee …
I get up from the tatami. She brings her left hand up to her stomach. I go into the other room. She dips her fingers in my come. I search through the kitchen cupboards and drawers. She puts her fingers to her lips. Through all the cupboards and the drawers. She licks my come from her fingers. But there is no Calmotin and no alcohol to be found, not one pill, not one drop –
She haunted me even here …
I gently slide open the doors. I step inside the room in which we sleep. My two children still lain together beneath their net. I lie down beside my wife. Her eyes are closed now. I close mine but I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep –
In the half-light, I can’t forget…
I remember when the bombs began to fall on Mitaka. I remember their evacuation, out to my wife’s sister’s house in Kōfu. I remember the platform on which we parted. I remember the train on which they left. I remember their tears; that they would live and I would die. Then, when the bombs began to fall on Kofu, when her own sister called her cursed, I remember their return to Mitaka. I remember the platform and I remember my tears –
That they would die and I would live –
In the half-light, the walls falling in …
‘But we’re already dead,’ they’d said. ‘We’re already dead.’