6
August 20, 1946
Tokyo, 87°, cloudy
Night is day. I open my eyes. No more pills. Day is night. I can hear the rain falling. Hide from sight. Night is day. I can see the sun shining. No more pills. Day is night. I close my eyes. The corpses of the dead. Night is day. The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. No more pills. Day is night. The white morning light behind the black Shiba trees. In the long, long grasses. Night is day. The black trees that have seen so much. No more pills. Day is night. The black branches that have borne so much. The dead leaves and weeds. Night is day. The black leaves that have come again. No more pills. Day is night. To grow and to fall and to grow again. Another country’s young. Night is day. I turn away. No more pills. Day is night. I walk away from the scene of the crime. Another country’s dead. Night is day. Beneath the Black Gate. No more pills. Day is night. The dog still waits. Another country. Now night is day.
*
They are all awake now. No Fujita. They are all hungry still. No Fujita. They are all waiting for me. No Fujita. Hattori, Takeda, Sanada and Shimoda yawning and scratching their heads. No Fujita. Nishi, Kimura and Ishida with their notebooks and their pencils out –
No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘By now you all know that the suspect named Kodaira Yoshio has confessed to the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko,’ I tell them. ‘But, unfortunately for us, Kodaira Yoshio claims to know nothing about the second body, our body. Now I don’t believe him…’
No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘But first, we need to find her name…’
No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘Now we know she was alive enough on the nineteenth of July to clip an advertisement from a newspaper,’ I tell them. ‘And we know that Dr. Nakadate estimates she was murdered sometime between the twentieth and the twenty-seventh of July…’
No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘Now remember, investigation is footwork; so let’s take these dates and a description of the suspect Kodaira Yoshio and go back to Shiba to ask if anyone has seen a man like this?’
No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘With a girl dressed like ours?’
No Fujita. No Fujita …
‘Between these dates?’
No Fujita.
*
I take a different route back up to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. Ton-ton. The air is more humid than ever. Ton-ton. The hammering louder than ever. Ton-ton. I want to wash my face. Ton-ton. I want to wash my hands. Ton-ton. I step inside the Hibiya Public Hall. Ton-ton. I wish I hadn’t. Ton-ton. It is the inaugural convention of the Congress of Industrial Unions. Ton-ton. The now-shabby lobby of this once-grand hall is filled with counter-intelligence agents and military policemen, foreign journalists and Japanese snitches, their paperclips in their lapels and an extra ration of cigarettes. Ton-ton. Young men selling Akahata. Ton-ton. Young men whistling ‘The Red Flag’. Ton-ton. I want to wash my face. Ton-ton. I want to wash my hands. Ton-ton. I walk through the Shinchū Gun armbands and the press-corps badges. Ton-ton. The auditorium is dark and airless, packed with men standing and sweating, either staring or shouting at the large stage. Ton-ton. No cigarettes in here. Ton-ton. No extra rations. Ton-ton. The stage is decorated with banners demanding that workers fight for a forty-hour week, oppose mass dismissals and battle against the remnants and resurgence of militarism and nationalism. Ton-ton. In front of the banners sit a dozen men behind a long table, all of them tall, all of them lean, all of them bespectacled. Ton-ton. They bow deeply before the hall. Ton-ton. They introduce themselves. Ton-ton. They bow again. Ton-ton. They sit back down. Ton-ton. Then the speeches begin. Ton-ton. These tall, lean and bespectacled men unbuttoning their jackets and loosening their ties, clenching their fists and waving their papers –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
‘There are those that say, even many here in this hall today, both Japanese and Occupier, that labour should not be militant, that labour should not fight. But I ask you today, is it not our democratic right to organize and defend our jobs? Is it not our democratic right to teach our fellow workers to tell an enemy from a friend?’
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
‘The Yoshida government and the American Occupiers declare that since Japan is now suffering from the consequences of defeat, all internal differences must be forgotten, all labour disputes postponed. But when have capitalists ever welcomed disputes?’
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
‘The Yoshida government is a zaibatsu government. It is a government hostile to labour sponsored by an occupation hostile to labour. Things are the same now as they have always been –
‘New uniforms but the same old politics!’
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
‘The tactics of the present campaign against members of the Communist Party by the Yoshida government and the American Occupiers are the same tactics that were used by the fascists and the militarists during the war years. It shows the meaninglessness of their words, words such as freedom, such as rights, such as democracy…’
‘The red flag, wraps the bodies of our dead…’
‘Labour gives capital everything. Capital gives labour nothing!’
‘Before the corpses turn cold, the blood dyes the flag…’
‘All workers must unite! All workers must fight!’
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I find the bathroom. The toilet. The sink –
I wash my face and I wash my hands –
In the warm, rust-coloured water –
I leave the building –
Ton-ton …
Outside the Hibiya Hall, a former communist is stood upon a soapbox. Ton-ton. First the man weeps as he recalls the political folly of his youth. Ton-ton. Then the man rails as he denounces birth control as the Victors’ way to sterilize and eradicate the Yamato race. Ton-ton. Now the man calls for three banzai cheers for the Emperor –
‘Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!’ he screams, stood upon his box against a wall still decorated with a mural of a Japanese bomber –
‘Let’s Boost Plane Production for an All-out Attack!’
There are red flags in the trees of Hibiya Park –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I want to wash my face again –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I want to wash my hands –
In the Year of the Dog.
*
I am late, again. Chief Inspector Adachi is standing on the steps outside Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. Inspector Adachi is looking for me. Adachi is waiting for me. He is asking me, ‘So where is Detective Fujita today then, Detective Inspector Minami?’
‘I just left Detective Fujita back at Atago,’ I tell him. ‘Detective Fujita is leading the Shiba investigation in my absence.’
Inspector Adachi asks, ‘So you say you’ve just come from Atago, have you? And you say you’ve just seen Detective Fujita?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We’ve just finished our morning meeting.’
Adachi smiles. Adachi asks me, ‘And you saw Fujita?’
‘Yes,’ I tell him again. ‘Why are you asking me?’
Adachi smiles again. Adachi takes his time now. ‘Do you remember the body we pulled out of the Shiba Canal…?’
‘It was only yesterday,’ I say. ‘And I was there.’
‘Well, it was the body of a journalist,’ says Adachi. ‘A journalist who used different names for different papers, sometimes writing for Minpo, sometimes for Minshū Shimbun, even Akahata.’
‘Really?’ I ask him. ‘And so what was his name?’
‘You don’t know?’ asks Adachi. ‘Really? ’
I curse you. I curse you. I curse you …
‘Why would I know his name?’
I curse you and I curse myself…
‘Well, just how many journalists do you know who write for three different papers under three different names, inspector?’
I smile. I say, ‘I try not to know any journalists.’
‘Not one called Kato Kotaro of Akahata?’
I laugh. I say, ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘Or Suzuki Nobu of Minshū Shimbun?’
I shrug my shoulders. I say, ‘No.’
‘Or Hayashi Jo of Minpo?’
I swallow. I say, ‘No.’
I curse myself…
‘Well, that’s very strange,’ says Adachi. ‘Because late last night I went to the Minpo offices to ask them about this Hayashi Jo, about him being found in the Shiba Canal, about him being nailed and bound to a door, about him being drowned face down and why they think that might be and do you know what the first thing they said to me was? The first thing they said to me was, not again…’
‘Not again,’ I repeat. ‘What did they mean, not again?’
‘That’s exactly what I asked them,’ laughs Adachi. ‘And do you know what they told me? They told me I was the third policeman to have visited the Minpo offices in the last three days…’
I swallow again as Inspector Adachi says –
‘The third one asking after Hayashi Jo…’
I ask, ‘What do you want from me?’
Chief Inspector Adachi steps closer. Chief Inspector Adachi whispers, ‘I don’t want anything from you, inspector, except your gratitude that it was me who pulled this case and not anyone else. But when you do see your Detective Fujita, please send him to me…’
I nod then I ask, ‘But why do you want to see Fujita?’
‘Because Detective Fujita was the first policeman to have visited the Minpo offices in the last three days, that’s why…’
I curse him. I swallow. I curse myself. I ask –
‘And so who was the second policeman?’
Ishida. Ishida. Ishida. Ishida. Ishida …
‘You tell me, corporal,’ says Adachi. ‘You tell me.’
*
I need answers; I need to find Fujita and I need to see Ishida: I want to know how Adachi got this case; I want to know who identified Hayashi’s body. But today is not the day to ask the chief these questions. Today is not a day for talk; today there is no talk of fresh purges; today there is no talk of the Tokyo trials; today there is no talk of SCAP reforms; no talk of better guns; no talk of new uniforms. Because the chief has heard about last night’s party; the good food; their glasses raised; the songs sung; their songs of victory –
‘The suspect Kodaira Yoshio has confessed to the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko and I know many of you think that this means that the case is now closed,’ says the chief. ‘But that is not true. The statements in the confession need to be verified. The addresses of the places the suspect Kodaira claims to have lived and worked need to be checked. And we still have one unidentified body –
‘Inspector Minami, if you would please…’
‘The suspect Kodaira denies any knowledge of the second body found at Shiba. Dr. Nakadate, however, believes this crime to be the work of the same person responsible for the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko, that is to say that Dr. Nakadate believes Kodaira to have been responsible for both crimes…’
‘And you, Inspector Minami?’ asks Chief Inspector Adachi. ‘Do you agree with Dr. Nakadate?’
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I believe that if we can find the evidence or, better still, if we can identify the body and then find witnesses or circumstances that can connect Kodaira to the victim or even to the time we know she was murdered then, faced with the evidence, I believe he will again confess.’
‘And if not?’
‘The murders and rapes of two young women would bring Kodaira the death sentence,’ I say. ‘And he knows it. But only one, in the circumstances in which he has confessed, probably not…’
‘Kodaira murdered his father-in-law,’ says Kai. ‘Midorikawa will be his second murder conviction. Kodaira will hang this time.’
‘Kodaira is an old hand at this,’ I say. ‘If he thinks he can still escape the rope, he has no reason to confess to anything else.’
The chief asks, ‘Do you have any new leads at all on the identity of the second body, Inspector Minami?’
‘A newspaper advertisement seeking staff for a Salon Matsu in Kanda was found in one of the pockets of her dress,’ I tell them. ‘It was clipped from the Asahi of the nineteenth of July and this obviously led us to visit this Salon Matsu in Kanda. Unfortunately, because we had only her clothing to describe, the staff were unable to identify her or confirm whether or not she had been to the salon. However, they suggested we go out to the International Palace…’
Better off dead. Better off dead. Better off dead …
‘The International Palace?’ repeats the chief. ‘Out near Funabashi? Why did they suggest that you ask after her out there?’
‘Ninety per cent of their applicants used to work there.’
‘But that doesn’t mean that this one did,’ says Kai.
I shrug. ‘And it doesn’t mean that she didn’t.’
‘Haven’t the Shinchū Gun placed it off-limits?’ asks Chief Inspector Adachi. ‘Won’t we need clearance…?’
The chief nods. The chief looks at his watch. The chief says, ‘Report back here in three hours, inspector.’
*
I need answers; I need to find Fujita and I need to see Ishida. Chiku-taku. I have to go back to Atago. Chiku-taku. I have to find Fujita. Chiku-taku. I have to see Ishida. Chiku-taku. I have three hours before I have to go out to the International Palace. Chiku-taku. But I need to find Fujita. Chiku-taku. I need to speak to Ishida. Chiku-taku. But first I have to have a drink. Chiku-taku. First I need a drink –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
The bar is in the basement of a three-storey reinforced concrete shell. Chiku-taku. Each room above the bar has been blown out so now only exposed steel girders dangle where once there were walls and floors. Chiku-taku. The bar itself was once one of the government-run People’s Bars; bars that opened just once or twice a week during the war to sell cheap domestic whisky, bottles of beer and the low-grade sake known as bakudan; bars where people queued for hours and hours; bars that were meant to lift our morale –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
This bar is now back in private hands, now open twenty-four hours a day but it still sells only cheap domestic whisky, bottles of beer and bakudan sake and people still queue for hours to have their morale lifted. Chiku-taku. But this morning there are only two other customers at the counter; a middle-aged woman dressed in red, smelling of strong perfume and smoking Lucky Strikes and an old man in a shabby dark suit who keeps taking out his pocket watch and winding it up and putting it away again, then taking it out and winding it up and putting it away again, taking it out –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
There are ugly sores on the skin of the old man’s hands. Chiku-taku. He has had no vitamins and now he has beriberi. Chiku-taku. I down my glass of clouded bakudan. Chiku-taku. I feel it explode in my throat and in my belly. Chiku-taku. I cough and now I ask the old man, ‘Is your watch broken, sir?’
‘I was on the train,’ he says. ‘On the day of the surrender, when a woman standing in the aisle ahead of me lost her balance and the large box tied to her back hit me right here in my chest and stopped this watch in my pocket dead…’
Now he shows me the watch –
It says twelve o’clock.
*
I need to find Fujita. I need to see Ishida. I need to speak to Ishida. Detectives Nishi and Kimura are back at their borrowed desks. Detectives Nishi and Kimura are writing up statements –
I ask them, ‘Did you get anything at all?’
They shake their heads. They bow –
‘Have you seen Detective Ishida?’
They shake their heads again –
‘Right then,’ I tell them. ‘Nishi, I want you to come with me out to the International Palace and Kimura, I want you to find Ishida and, when you do, bring him back here and keep him here but don’t let him speak to Chief Inspector Adachi until I’ve spoken to him first. And the same goes for Detective Fujita if he comes back at all…’
*
On the fifteenth of August last year, minutes after the Emperor had surrendered, the Metropolitan Police Board summoned the presidents of the seven major entertainment guilds in Tokyo. These included the heads of the restaurant, cabaret, geisha and brothel associations. The chief of the Metropolitan Police Board feared the Victors would soon be upon Japan, here to rape our wives and our daughters, our mothers and our sisters. The chief wanted a ‘shock absorber’ and so the chief had a proposal. The chief suggested that the heads of the restaurant, cabaret, geisha and brothel associations form one central association to cater for all the needs and amusement of the Victors. The chief promised this new association that it would not lack for funds –
The Recreation and Amusement Association was born.
Recruits were found or bought among the ruins of the cities and the countryside. Dancehalls and houses of entertainment were reopened or created overnight, the biggest and most infamous of them all being the International Palace, a former munitions factory out beyond the eastern boundaries of Tokyo. Five of the workers’ dormitories were converted into brothels. Some of the old management stayed on to administer the new business, some of the prettier girls stayed on to service the new customers, the Victors –
Because only the Victors are welcome at the Palace –
Only Victors allowed to make the Willow Run –
But the toll is heavy and the turnover high –
Most of the first girls were hospitalized –
Many of the rest committed suicide –
Better off dead …
The second set of girls were geishas and prostitutes, barmaids and waitresses, frequent adulterers and sexual deviants, girls built of stronger stuff, too strong for some because the International Palace was placed off-limits this spring –
Supposedly.
Our chief has got the clearance for Detective Nishi and me to go out to the International Palace. Our chief has even found Nishi and me a ride out there in the back of a Victors’ truck. In the back with Larry, Moe and Curly, three well-fed and well-scrubbed GI Joes –
They offer us chewing gum and Nishi chews their gum. They offer us cigarettes and Nishi smokes their cigarettes. They talk about their lucky days and Nishi nods and laughs along. They talk about hitting the jackpot, about kids in candy stores, about Christmases that come early and Christmases that all come at once, and Nishi is nodding and laughing along, shouting out, ‘Merry Christmas!’
He is a good Jap, a good monkey. He is a tame Jap …
I do not chew their gum. I do not smoke their cigarettes. I do not nod or laugh along. I do not shout, ‘Merry Christmas! ’
Because I am the bad Jap. Bad monkey.
The Victors’ truck drives southeast, out towards Funabashi, out of the city until the ruins become fields, the burnt black earth now barren brown soil, until we can see the series of two-storey barrack buildings rising up ahead, until we can read the signs in English:
OFF-LIMITS – VD. OFF-LIMITS – VD …
More smaller signs, hundreds of them, dabbed in red paint the closer we come, thousands of them, on the fences, on the gates:
VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD …
The Victors’ truck goes through the open barbed-wire gates and sounds its horn as it pulls into a small, dusty courtyard, a crowd of men and women pouring out of the buildings to greet us –
I have been here before, seen these places before …
Little Japanese men in white waiters’ tunics without trays, tall Japanese women in Western dresses without stockings, all beaming and bowing to us, clapping and calling out to us –
These places, these buildings, these women …
‘All clean, all clean, all clean…’
‘Very clean, very clean…’
‘All cheap…’
Now the tall women lead the driver and Larry, Moe and Curly off towards one of the dormitory buildings, the Victors’ hands already up their skirts, leaving just the little men in their white waiters’ tunics standing with Nishi and me in the dirt of the yard –
I am ashamed to be a policeman, ashamed to be Japanese …
I ask to speak to the manager and the waiters disappear –
I am ashamed to be Japanese, ashamed to be me …
The Japanese manager steps out of another of the buildings. The manager straightens his tie. The manager flattens his greasy hair. He bows. He hands me his heavy, embossed meishi –
The manager is another oily little man –
Just another tame collaborator …
I tell him why we are here. I tell him about Shiba Park. I tell him about a murdered girl aged seventeen to eighteen years old. She is better off dead. I tell him about a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress and a white half-sleeved chemise. She is better off dead. I tell him about a pair of dyed-pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. She is better off dead. I tell him about the Salon Matsu. She is better off dead …
The manager shakes his head but he wants to help us because we came here in a Victors’ truck. Because he thinks we have connections to the Shinchū Gun. Because he thinks we have influence. Because he thinks we can help him to get this place reopened –
This place I have seen before. I have been before … He takes us on a tour.
He takes us to the infirmary –
If she was here, then she’s better off dead …
In the infirmary. A huge, bare room lined with tatami mats. Twelve girls lie perspiring on the floor under thick comforters –
They all hide their faces from us, all but one –
I squat down. I smile. ‘How old are you?’
‘Nineteen years old.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Six months now.’
‘And before that?’
‘I was a clerk.’
‘Why do you stay here?’
‘I owe them money.’
‘How much do you owe them?’
‘Ten thousand yen.’
‘Ten thousand yen? What for?’
‘The clothes I’ve bought.’
‘Bought from where?’
‘The shop here.’
‘What about your family? Do they know where you are?’
‘I haven’t any,’ she says. ‘They died in the air raids.’
‘You do know that this place is off-limits now?’
She nods her head. She says, ‘Yes.’
‘Because General MacArthur has banned prostitution?’
She shakes her head. She says, ‘I didn’t know that.’
I nod. I squeeze her hand. I look into her eyes. I start to tell her she should leave here and go back home. But then I stop –
‘We are her only home now,’ says the manager.
He resumes our tour. He takes us to the clinic –
If this was where she was bound …
In the clinic. The girls are examined once a week. In the chairs. Every week. Each chair has a tiny curtain to conceal the faces of the girls from the doctor. Two shallow pools in which each girl must bathe every other day. Every other day, every single week –
‘Very clean,’ says the manager –
She’s better off dead …
He takes us on a tour. He takes us to the dining room –
In the dining room. Here the girls are fed. In shifts –
‘Two good meals a day,’ boasts the manager.
He resumes our tour. He takes us to the ballroom –
In the ballroom. There are a hundred Japanese girls. In Occidental gowns. Nothing underneath. Beneath red paper streamers that hang in the heat from the ceiling. They dance with each other to scratched and deafening records relayed through a battery of amplifiers. Back and forth across the floor in downtrodden heels or scruffy school plimsolls. They push each other. To the distorted American jazz. In the ballroom. Back and forth –
‘They are all very pretty, aren’t they?’ says the manager. ‘But inside they are all very sad and they are all very lonely because General MacArthur won’t let them make friends with GIs any more and so the GIs are homesick and lonely too…’
She’s better off dead …
He takes us on a tour. He takes us to the girls’ rooms –
The girls’ rooms. In the two-storey barracks. Fifty cubicles to a building. Each tiny room separated by a low partition. Thin curtains or sheets for doors. Each entrance with a sign written in a child’s crayon, a sign that says, Well Come, Kimi. Well Come, Haruko …
Well Come Mitsuko. Yori. Kazuko. Yoshie. Tatsue …
Well Come Hiroko. Yoshiko. Ryuko. Yuki …
Inside each small cubicle is a futon and a comforter, a little make-up mirror on the floor, the odd yellowing photograph. The air humid and heavy with the smell of antiseptic –
Better off dead. Better off dead …
At the top of each stairway is one long, narrow room with a painted sign beside the door which says, in English and in Katakana, PRO Station; this is where the Victors get their prophylactics –
The smell of antiseptic. The taste of antiseptic …
Beside this room are two smaller rooms without windows where the girls rest after each visit from the Victor –
Antiseptic. Antiseptic. Antiseptic …
The tour has finished now –
The sights all seen –
Better off dead.
Back outside the two-storey barracks, the manager leads us down one of the covered passageways between the buildings to the company store where the girls buy their cheap cosmetics and their shoddy clothes on borrowed money at expensive prices –
The store is empty. The store is dead –
My heart empty. My heart dead …
‘Now you must meet the officers of our union here,’ says the manager. ‘It is a real union. It is very democratic. Very democratic. Please tell your American bosses this.’
The manager disappears inside the company store but quickly returns, bringing out with him three young women –
Two in Western suits. One in a kimono –
‘These ladies are the officers of the Women’s Protective League,’ he tells us. ‘This is the president, Kato Akiko, a former geisha. This is Hasegawa Sumiko, the vice-president and a former typist. This is Iijima Kimi, a former dancer.’
The three women smile. The three women bow.
I order the manager to leave.
‘We are from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police,’ I tell them. ‘We are trying to identify the body of a young girl found recently in Shiba Park. We have reason to believe she may have worked here. We would be very grateful for your cooperation…’
The three women smile again. The three women bow again.
‘Do you know the Salon Matsu?’ I ask them. ‘In Kanda?’
The three women shake their heads.
‘Do you know anyone who has ever worked there?’
The three women shake their heads again.
‘Anyone who might have left here to work there?’
‘I am sorry,’ says Kato, the president in her bright kimono. ‘But nobody really talks about what they did before they came here or what they will do after they leave here. It is much better for us not to think or talk about the world outside of here…’
‘But you were a geisha. She was a typist. She was a dancer.’
‘Maybe we were,’ she smiles. ‘No one remembers.’
I don’t want to remember. In the half-light…
‘But what about new recruits?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you interview them? Don’t you ask them about their previous work?’
‘There are no interviews here,’ she laughs. ‘Only medicals.’
The chairs and the tiny curtains. Their concealed faces and their open legs. The two shallow pools. Every other day …
I ask all three, ‘How long have you been here, then?’
‘We all came in December last year,’ says Kato.
‘And how much do you owe the company?’
‘About five thousand yen each,’ she says.
‘And do you have any savings at all?’
‘Of course not,’ she laughs. ‘We have to buy our food and pay for our own medical expenses and then there are the new clothes and the cosmetics we need for our work.’
‘But how much do you earn?’
‘Before we were placed off-limits, we each had fifteen customers a day,’ she says. ‘Each customer paid fifty yen and half of that went to the manager and half to us.’
‘That’s almost four hundred yen a day,’ says Nishi, suddenly.
‘Almost four hundred,’ says Kato. ‘But that was before.’
‘And how many customers were coming a day?’
‘Almost four thousand a day back then.’
‘How many girls were there?’
‘Three hundred.’
‘That’s one hundred thousand yen a day for the company,’ exclaims Nishi. ‘One hundred thousand yen a day!’
‘But that was before,’ repeats Kato. ‘That was before we were placed off-limits to the soldiers.’
‘And now?’ I ask her. ‘How many come now?’
‘Maybe ten,’ she says. ‘Twenty at the most.’
I ask her, ‘Why do you have a union?’
‘To petition General MacArthur,’ smiles Kato. ‘The manager thought that if we wrote to General MacArthur as a union, asking him to let his lonely and homesick GIs come here, then the general would allow the International Palace to open again.’
I shake my head. We thank them –
They bow. We leave –
Leave. Leave …
I want to leave this place. This country. I want to flee from this place. This heart. I want to find the driver. Now …
I walk back inside one of the barracks –
Nishi follows me. Up the stairs –
There is a girl in the corridor. There is a naked girl in the corridor. There is a naked girl in the corridor on all fours. There is a naked girl in the corridor on all fours, no older than fourteen. There is a naked girl in the corridor on all fours, no older than fourteen, being penetrated up her backside by a Victor as she stares down the long, long corridor at Nishi and I with tears running down her cheeks, down her cheeks and into her mouth, saying, ‘Oh, very good Joe. Thank you, Joe. Oh, very good Joe. Thank you, Joe. Oh, oh, Joe…’
She is better off dead. I am better off dead …
This is America. This is Japan. This is democracy. This is defeat. I don’t have a country any more. On her knees or on her back, blood and come down her thighs. I don’t have a heart any more …
Her legs apart, her cunt swollen with pricks and pus –
I don’t want a heart. I don’t want a heart…
Thank you, Emperor MacArthur –
I don’t want a country …
Dōmo, Hirohito.
*
Nishi plays the good monkey all the way back to Tokyo as field becomes ruin and ruin becomes shack and shack becomes building and I sit and I watch him and wish I’d had the foresight and the guts to walk back, to walk back barefoot into Tokyo through field and through ruin and not to be sat back here in the Victors’ jeep listening to Nishi mix up his r’s and his l’s while the Victors laugh and throw him cigarettes and chewing gum as childish smiles light up his grateful face and so when we get out at Headquarters and we both bow down as low as we can and thank them a thousand times and they have driven off laughing and joking, throwing their cigarettes and chewing gum, and though I know tonight they’ll burn and they’ll itch and they’ll weep and they’ll scratch it’s no consolation, and so I turn and I slap Nishi hard across his face, so hard across his face that he falls over in the road and does not get back up again –
Because Nishi has no guts. No guts –
Because Nishi is gutless –
Gutless. Gutless …
Just like me.
*
Back inside Headquarters, I go to where we keep the undead. ‘And we’ve both seen this before, detective. Remember?’ I go to where we keep the files of the cases we have not solved. I don’t want to remember. To the archives and the records of our defeats and our failures. But in the half-light, I can’t forget. I ask the man on duty for one of our records of failure. ‘Did you find that file, inspector…?’
‘It would be the fifteenth of August,’ I tell him. ‘Last year.’
The officer disappears and then reappears, empty-handed –
‘Not there,’ he says. ‘Must have already been signed out.’
‘Really?’ I ask him. ‘Do you know who signed it out?’
The officer pulls out the tatty, old battered register –
‘Your Nishi of Room #2,’ laughs the officer.
‘You’re joking?’ I ask him. ‘When?’
‘Only yesterday,’ he says, still laughing at me.
*
Through the dirt and the dust. Through the shadows and the sweat. Chiku-taku. Down Sakurada-dōri to Atago I run. Through the doors and up the stairs. Chiku-taku. Detectives Kimura and Ishida sat in their shirtsleeves on their borrowed chairs at their borrowed desks; Kimura proud to have found Ishida; Ishida nervous and waiting –
I walk straight over. I ask them, ‘Where are the others?’
‘They’re not back from their rounds,’ says Kimura –
I am staring at Ishida. I am asking, ‘And Nishi?’
‘I thought he’d gone with you,’ says Kimura –
I’m still staring at Ishida, asking, ‘Fujita?’
They both shake their heads. Kimura says, ‘Not today.’
I reach down to Ishida. I grab Ishida. I pick him up. I kick away his borrowed chair. I say, ‘Where is Detective Fujita?’
‘I don’t know,’ flaps Ishida. ‘I really don’t know.’
I pull his face closer to mine by his shirt. There is sweat down his face. There is sweat down mine. There are tears in his eyes and there are tears in mine. ‘You’ve lied to me before. You’ve lied…’
‘No,’ squeals Ishida. ‘I haven’t lied to you. I haven’t…’
‘You’ve lied and you’ve lied and you’ve lied…’
‘No, no, no,’ cries Ishida. ‘I haven’t…’
‘You’ve lied to protect him…’
‘No, no, no. I haven’t…’
‘Lied to save him…’
‘No, no, no…’
‘Yes, you have,’ I hiss and I push him away from me. Back over his borrowed chair and back onto his borrowed desk. The sweat down his face and the tears in his eyes –
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry…’
‘Fujita’s finished,’ I tell him. ‘And you’ll be finished…’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…’
‘If you don’t tell me where he is…’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry…’
‘Tell me! Quick!’
‘Detective Fujita will be in the Ginza tonight,’ sobs Ishida. ‘He’ll be at the New Oasis club. After nine o’clock.’
‘He was seen drinking with Nodera Tomiji at the New Oasis on the night of the Matsuda Giichi hit…’
‘The New Oasis? Why there?’
But Ishida looks at the floor –
Ishida shakes his head –
‘I don’t know…’
I take out my handkerchief. I wipe my face. I wipe my neck –
I lean over Ishida. I lift up his face. I dry his eyes –
I tell him, ‘You stay here with Kimura, OK?’
He buries his head again and he nods.
*
There were tea-shops and cafés here once where you could listen to a gramophone recording as you watched the latest fashions stroll past. Now I stand on the Ginza and I stare into the windows of the Victors’ Post Exchange. I stand and I stare with the hungry kids and teenage girls at the Victors’ brand-new clothes, at their bright white towels and their real leather shoes. I stand and I stare as the children and the girls swarm around Victors laden down with shopping bags, the children and the girls begging the Victors for gum and chocolate –
I walk away. I walk away. I walk away. I walk …
Past the department stores, most still empty but some now opening on the lower floors, though these floors are covered with rubble and their showcases filled only with cheap junk. Past dead buildings still nothing but concrete frames, still black from the flames, along crumbling sidewalks and the endless piles of garbage –
I turn away. I turn away. I turn away. I turn …
From the shoddy little mats along the old broken curbs with their harsh silk handkerchiefs and their coarse picture postcards, their busted fountain pens and their flavoured cups of ice –
I look away. I look away. I look …
But every single rag and every single morsel has a market value here, every single grain of rice from our one bowl a day when one cup of rice, three cigarettes and four matches are our ration, when a long-dead fish is a whole week’s wage –
I cannot run away. I cannot run …
Now it’s time. Chiku-taku …
Now day is night.
*
Day is night. Night is day. Day is night. Night is day. Day is …
I stand before the door. I read the sign above the door –
The New Oasis is a Korean-run shithole in the shadow of the original Oasis, down another Ginza backstreet, between another bombed-out shell and another mountain-range of garbage. The original Oasis was another gift to the Victors from the Recreation and Amusement Association, another International Palace. But the New Oasis is not for the white Victors. The New Oasis is for the yellow ones, the Koreans and the Chinese. The New Oasis is not run by the Recreation and Amusement Association. The New Oasis is not owned by Ando Akira. The New Oasis is owned by Mr. Machii –
Machii Hisayuki, a Korean-Japanese, the Bull of Ginza …
I am itching and I am sweating and I am scared –
The old rival of Matsuda. The new enemy of Senju …
If Fujita is here, then Fujita has crossed a line –
Hayashi Jo face down in the water …
The door is closed. I open the door. I see a flight of steps down to another closed door. I walk down the steps. The door has a spyhole. I knock on the door. I know someone is staring at me through the spyhole. The handle turning now. The door opening –
‘What do you want?’ says a thickset Korean in a suit –
‘A drink,’ I tell him. ‘I’m here to meet a friend.’
‘This is a members’ club,’ he says –
‘Then I’d like to join,’ I say.
‘It’s one hundred yen.’
I curse. I curse …
I take out my wallet. But not my techō. I open it. I have one hundred yen in notes. But that is all I have. The thickset Korean takes the notes from me. The Korean puts them in his own pocket –
He laughs, ‘Welcome to the New Oasis club…’
The ceiling is low and the lights are dim. If Fujita is here, then Fujita has crossed a line. The bar is long and the staff Korean –
I see Fujita. Fujita is here. Fujita sees me. Fujita has crossed the line. I think he’ll run but he smiles. Fujita smiling. He is smiling as he stands and walks down the length of the bar towards me –
What if he has a gun? What if he pulls it here?
Down the length of the bar, still smiling –
Hayashi Jo face down in the water …
Fujita bows and says, ‘Good evening.’
‘Hayashi Jo is dead,’ I say. ‘And Adachi is looking for you.’
‘Adachi knows nothing,’ he says. ‘But he says nothing and then lets you fill in the gaps for him. Congratulations, inspector –
‘He’s probably followed you all the way here…’
‘I told Adachi nothing,’ I say. ‘But he knows things.’
‘What does Adachi know? What is there to know?’
‘Adachi knows you went to the Minpo offices,’ I tell him. ‘He knows you went there to see Hayashi Jo…’
‘And so what of it?’ asks Fujita.
‘So they told Adachi that he was the third cop in the last three days to visit them and that you were the first…’
‘But that doesn’t mean I killed him,’ says Fujita. ‘Does it?’
‘But yours is the only name he’s mentioned,’ I tell him. ‘You’re the only person Adachi is looking for…’
‘I’m not afraid of Adachi,’ laughs Fujita. ‘The captain has his secrets, just like everyone else. Just like you.’
I curse him and now I curse myself…
I ask, ‘Did you kill Hayashi Jo?’
‘Now that’s a very strange question to be asking me,’ says Detective Fujita. ‘Because I hardly knew Hayashi Jo at all and it wasn’t me who gave poor old Hayashi’s name to Senju Akira…’
Day is night. Night is day. Day is night. Night is day …
Fujita smiles, ‘I thought that was you, corporal?’
Day is night. Night is day. Day is night …
Fujita laughs, ‘That was you, wasn’t it?’
Night is day. Day is night. Day is …
I start to speak but the lights go out –
There’s been another power cut –
Night. Night. Night …
‘That was you, wasn’t it?’ whispers Fujita again, in the dark.
*
The power is still down and it is even darker now. The lights still out and I’m even drunker now. I’m drunk on Korean liquor. The stench of the liquor sticks to the sweat on my skin. My skin itches and so I scratch. Gari-gari. I scratch and I scratch until my arms bleed beneath my shirt. Gari-gari. My shirt heavy with sweat and now blood. Blood on my hands as I walk from the Ginza back towards Atago. Back towards Atago through the debris of Yūraku-chō. The debris of Yūraku-chō piled up in mountains and in monuments. In monuments to loss, loss under every archway. Under every single archway, down every single alleyway. Down every alleyway and in every shadow. In every shadow and in every shout. Every shout of –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’
I look under every single archway. Down every single alleyway. In every single shadow. Until I find the one I am looking for. The one in her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’
In her white half-sleeved chemise and pink socks –
Her white canvas shoes with red rubber soles –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’
Her hair is black. Her skin is white –
Under an archway. In a shadow –
‘Asobu …? Asobu…?’
‘Asobu?’ she asks me in a harsh Tōhoku accent and I nod and I follow her deeper under the archway, deeper into the shadows where she asks me for the money first –
‘I’ve no money,’ I tell her –
And I curse myself again …
I take out my police notebook. I show her my police notebook and she curses me now and says, ‘I’m with the White Bird Society.’
‘So what?’ I tell her as I kneel her down on all fours–
I kneel her down on all fours and I raise her dress –
Her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress …
She wears no underwear. She is naked beneath –
I screw her backside as she curses and curses –
On her knees. On her knees. On her knees … I turn her over and I lie her on her back –
I screw her cunt and then I come –
No country. No heart …
‘Finished?’ she asks in her harsh Tōhoku accent and I nod as she pushes me off her and stands back up and dusts herself down, rubbing at her knees and then at her palms –
Night is day. Day is night. The men are the women …
I stand before her now and I bow. I say, ‘I’m sorry I have no money. I’m very sorry. What’s your name?’
The women are the men …
And she tilts back her head, deep under the arch, deep in the shadows, and she laughs, ‘You choose: Mitsuko? Yori? Kazuko? Yoshie? Tatsue? Hiroko? Yoshiko? Ryuko? Go on, you choose…’
The dead are the living. The living are the dead …
‘Your name is Yuki,’ I tell her. ‘Yuki.’
*
I close my eyes, but I can’t sleep. Day is night. I can hear the rain falling. I open my eyes, but I can’t think. Night is day. I can see the sun shining. I close my eyes, but can’t sleep. Day is night. The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. I open my eyes, but can’t think. Night is day. The black night light behind the white Shiba trees. Close my eyes, but can’t sleep. Day is night. The white trees that have seen so much. Open my eyes, but can’t think. Night is day. The white branches that have borne so much. Close my eyes, can’t sleep. Day is night. The white leaves that have come again. Open my eyes, can’t think. Night is day. To grow and to fall and to grow again. Close eyes, can’t sleep. Day is night. I turn away. Open eyes, can’t think. Night is day. I walk away from the scene of the crime. Close, can’t sleep. Day is night. Beneath the Black Gate. Open, can’t think. Night is day. The dog still waits. Can’t sleep. Day is night. The dog still waits. Can’t think. Night is day. The dog still waits. Can’t. Day is night. The dog still waits. Can’t. Night is day. The dog still waits. Can’t. Day. The dog still waits. Can’t. Night …