10

August 24, 1946

Tokyo, 90°, fine

The Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane is on the border between the Setagaya and Suginami wards, half-way between my own house in Mitaka and the house of Murota Hideki in Kitazawa. I thought you would have seen enough of that place. I know the Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane well, but I’m not sure why I’m here today –

I thought you would have seen enough of that place…

The Matsuzawa Hospital was built during the reign of the Emperor Meiji and survived the fires and the famines of the last two years to still be standing in the reign of the Emperor MacArthur –

I hate hospitals. I hate all hospitals…

But its buildings are in disrepair and its grounds untended now, the gates long taken for the war effort and the trees cut down for winter fuel. Inside the reception, the paint on the walls has faded and the linoleum on the floor is worn, the staff anaesthetized –

But I hate this hospital the most…

‘Former Police Inspector Mori,’ I say again –

But the receptionist still shakes her head –

‘Please check for me,’ I ask her. ‘It is very important and he was only admitted last month. Mori Ichiro…’

The gaunt receptionist in the stained uniform does not speak but turns away and disappears now, disappears into the grubby office behind the grimy counter. I wait and I wait –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku…

The same sounds of screams and sobs as at Keiō Hospital, the same smells of DDT and disinfectant –

I hate this place. I hate…

‘Here it is,’ says the receptionist now with a file in her hand. ‘Mori Ichiro was admitted on the thirtieth of June this year.’

‘And is Mr. Mori still here?’ I ask her –

The receptionist nods. ‘Yes, he is.’

‘I’d like to see him then, please.’

The receptionist shakes her head now. The receptionist says, ‘But you know I can’t just let you –’

‘Then please tell me the name of Mr. Mori’s doctor,’ I say. ‘And tell me where I can find him.’

The receptionist looks down at the file and says, ‘Dr. Nomura. His office is on the second…’

‘I know,’ I tell her and I start to walk away, to walk away and then to run, to run down the corridor and up the stairs, up the stairs and along another corridor, along another corridor to bang on the door, to bang on the door to the office of Dr. Nomura, to bang on the door and then open it, open it and bow and say, ‘Excuse me…’

Dr. Nomura looks up from the papers on his desk –

‘Inspector?’ he says. ‘It’s been a while…’

‘And I am sorry to call on you unannounced,’ I say again. ‘But I am here on police business this time…’

‘Please sit down, then,’ says the doctor now. ‘And can I offer you a drink of cold tea, detective… ?’

I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. I glance at my watch and I shake my head. I say, ‘Thank you but I haven’t much time, doctor.’

The doctor nods. ‘What is it I can do for you, detective?’

‘You have a patient I would like to see,’ I tell the doctor. ‘A former chief inspector of police called Mori. Mori Ichiro…’

The doctor nods again. The doctor says, ‘I know.’

‘Well, I’d very much like to see him,’ I tell the doctor again. ‘It is important I speak with him about an investigation.’

Now the doctor shakes his head. Now the doctor says, ‘I very much doubt that that will be possible, inspector…’

‘Why not?’ I ask him. ‘It’s important.’

‘I understand that,’ says the doctor. ‘But, unfortunately, Mr. Mori has not responded to any of our treatments or our regimens –

‘And so, for the moment, Mr. Mori does not speak…’

‘I would still like to see him,’ I tell the doctor.

The doctor shakes his head. The doctor says, ‘As you know better than most, detective, recovery from the kind of sudden mental collapse which former Chief Inspector Mori suffered on learning he was to be purged, such a sudden mental collapse takes a very, very long time to recover from, if at all, and any further shocks to the brain can cause irreparable damage to the patient…’

I bow. I nod. I say, ‘I know that.’

The blood-flecked scroll…

‘In the case of your father, for example,’ continues the doctor. ‘One sudden moment of lucidity, a moment of clarity, proved fatal.’

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember…

I nod again. I say again, ‘May I see him but not speak?’

The blood-flecked scroll on the wall…

‘Yes,’ says the doctor. ‘Though I’m not sure why…’

In the half-light, I can’t forget…

‘He was a policeman,’ I tell him. ‘Like my father…’

The blood-flecked scroll on the wall behind his desk…

‘Like my father,’ I say again now. ‘And like me…’

I can’t forget. I can’t forget…

Dr. Nomura nods. Dr Nomura says, ‘Follow me –’ And so I follow Dr. Nomura out of his office, out of his office and down another long corridor, another long corridor through locked metal doors, through locked metal doors into the secure wards, into the secure wards and down more corridors, down more corridors to the secure rooms, the secure rooms and more locked metal doors –

Now Dr. Nomura stops before one locked metal door –

One locked metal door with a bolted metal hatch –

‘Here we are,’ says Nomura. ‘But just look…’

Nomura slides back the bolts on the hatch. Nomura lowers the metal hatch. Now Nomura steps back and says, ‘There you are…’

I step towards the door. I look through the hatchway –

I stare through the hatchway at the man inside –

The man inside, cross-legged on his cot –

I have seen this man before…

This man in a shapeless gown of yellow and dark-blue striped Chinese silk, with his close-shaven head and his unblinking eyes –

Eyes I have met before…

‘Have you seen enough now?’ asks Nomura –

I step away from the hatch now and I nod –

‘I have seen enough,’ I say. ‘Thank you, doctor.’ Nomura closes the hatch.

Nomura bolts it –

No one is who they say they are…

But I have seen this man before –

No one is who they seem…

This man is not former Chief Inspector Mori Ichiro.

*

I have haggled and I have bartered. Just to eat. I have threatened and I have bullied. Just to work. But I itch and I scratch again. Gari-gari. My hand aches and my body stinks. Of defeat. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. And I curse. I have come to the end of my own street. Ton-ton. I walk down the street to my own house. Ton-ton. I open the gate to my own house. Ton-ton. I go up the path to my own house –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

There is a bonfire of bedding in my garden –

There is fire and there is smoke here.

I open the door to my own house –

I have come to say goodbye –

Their shoes face the door…

This time I cannot turn away. This time I cannot run away –

The rotting mats, the shredded doors, the fallen walls…

From the smell of the children. The smell of the pain.

I stand in the genkan. I call out, ‘I’m home…’

My wife comes out of the kitchen, her face is stained with soot, her hands brushing dust from her worn monpe trousers –

‘Welcome home,’ she says –

Home. Home. Home…

I take off my boots. I ask her, ‘Where are the children?’

‘Masaki! Sonoko!’ my wife calls. ‘Father is home!’

Father. Father…

My children do not run to greet me. My children do not smile when they see me. They stand before me now but do not speak –

Their heads shaved. Their eyebrows shaved –

‘Are you well?’ I ask each of them –

Heads bowed, they both nod –

I lift their faces to mine, lift their little faces to the light, and Masaki looks up at me now and smiles, but Sonoko still can’t look up, she still cannot smile, her eyelids swollen and her features distorted –

I force open her eyelids with my fingers –

Her eyes inflamed and festering –

The eyes of a dead fish –

Pinkeye.

I turn to my wife. ‘When did you last take her to the doctor?’

‘But I think her eyes are getting a little better,’ says my wife. ‘Two days ago, they were so swollen and so inflamed that she could not see anything at all. So I took her to the doctor then and…’

‘Maybe it’s a bacterial infection, not pinkeye?’

‘That’s what I said to the doctor.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘It’s just pinkeye.’

‘Just pinkeye!’ I shout. ‘Just look at her. She still can’t see. She could be permanently blinded! She could be blinded forever!’

‘I know,’ says my wife. ‘But the doctor said be patient.’

‘Doctors make mistakes,’ I say. ‘They usually do.’

‘But what should I do?’ asks my wife. ‘Tell…’

I ask, ‘Which doctor did you take her to?’

‘To our usual doctor,’ replies my wife.

I look at my watch. ‘I’ll take her…’

‘Take her where?’ asks my wife –

‘To a different doctor I know.’

‘What about the money…’

‘Forget the money!’

*

Through the doors of the Atago police station. Up the stairs of the Atago police station. My shirt is stuck to my back. My trousers wet behind my knees. I walk along the corridor. I walk past the banner, two metres tall and fifty centimetres wide in bright-red stitching:

Special Investigation Headquarters.

I should have collected all my belongings and made these arrangements yesterday. I would then have saved myself this –

This sudden silence. This sudden blindness –

There have been complaints about you…

But at least Hattori is not here this morning; probably up at Headquarters for the morning meeting with Kai, Kanehara, Adachi and the chief. But I’m not going to ask Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura or Ishida, I’m not going to ask them –

I hate them. I hate them all…

Ishida looks up. Now Ishida asks, ‘Are you here for me?’

Ishida has his orders…

‘It’s a bit early yet,’ I tell him. ‘And I’ve some things to do before we leave for Tochigi, so I’ll meet you at the ticket gate of the Asakusa Tōbu station at three o’clock this afternoon…’

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku…

Ishida nods. Ishida says, ‘I’ve been told to buy the tickets…’

‘Well, I hope they’ve given you the money, then.’

Ishida nods again. ‘I’ve enough for three days.’

‘I won’t be needing a return ticket,’ I laugh –

But no one else laughs. No one even smiles…

Ishida just asks, ‘How much rice should I bring with me?’

‘Rice?’ I ask him. ‘Surely we’ll be bringing rice back?’

‘I heard we’ll not find an inn unless we take rice.’

‘Do you have any rice, detective?’ I ask him –

Ishida whispers, ‘I have a little at home…’

‘Then bring enough for both of us,’ I say and I turn to go –

‘Why should he take any rice for you?’ asks Kimura –

I turn back round. I ask him, ‘What did you say?’

‘I said, why should he bring any rice for you,’ repeats Detective Kimura. ‘You’re not his boss any more, are you?’

‘Maybe not now,’ I tell him. ‘And maybe not in this room. But on that train and in Tochigi, I’ll still be the senior officer…’

‘Senior officer? Really?’ snorts Detective Kimura now. ‘Well, I’d save my rice if I were you, Detective Ishida…’

I walk over to Detective Kimura and I pick up one of the telephones on the desk, one of the telephones that cannot ring, and I smash it into the side of Kimura’s face and then, as he cries out and reaches up to hold his face, I punch him in his gut and I bend his left hand back until he howls out in pain and begs me to stop as I slap him and slap him and slap him, again and again and again across his face and then I push him back onto his desk and I watch him roll onto the floor and now I lean over him and I tell him, ‘And I’d learn some manners and I’d learn some respect if I were you, Detective Kimura.’

Now I walk over to Detective Sanada and I say, ‘You said something very interesting yesterday, Detective Sanada. You said Masaoka Hisae told you that Kodaira always had gifts on him…’

Detective Sanada sweating. Detective Sanada nodding –

‘You said he had ladies’ gifts; jewellery, watches and…’

Detective Sanada nodding and saying, ‘Umbrellas.’

‘That was good work,’ I tell him. ‘Because after you said that, when I was up at Headquarters, I heard that we are going to wash another unsolved case as a possible Kodaira Yoshio job –’

I am not their head. I am not their boss…

‘Shinokawa Tatsue, seventeen years old, found raped and strangled in the basement of the Toyoko Department Store in Shibuya on the sixteenth of January this year. However, the autopsy estimated she’d been dead since late October or early November last year –

‘And guess what?’ I ask. ‘Her umbrella had been stolen.’

Again, there is no applause. But I don’t want any…

‘So if any of you want to impress your new boss,’ I tell them. ‘I suggest you go back to Masaoka, back to the Widow Okayama and back to all the other people who knew Kodaira, his family and his workmates, and you try to trace all these gifts he kept giving away –

‘Because somewhere out there in Shibuya or Shinagawa, in Toyama or Tochigi, are the belongings of our own Shiba body –

‘Excuse me,’ I tell them. ‘Your Shiba body…’

No applause. Just silence. Just blindness…

I walk over to my desk now, my former borrowed desk, and I open the drawer ready to tip out the entire contents into my old army knapsack. But the drawer of my desk is empty –

My desk has already been cleared –

I curse and I curse and I curse…

‘Inspector Hattori took all your things up to Headquarters,’ says Ishida. ‘He didn’t think you’d be coming back here again.’

I hate him. I hate him. I hate them…

I say nothing. There is nothing to say. I leave –

I hate them. I hate them…

Down the corridor. Down the stairs –

I hate them all…

Detective Nishi is standing on the steps outside Atago police station. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi must have ducked out of the room while I was beating the shit out of Detective Kimura, while I was lecturing the hell out of the rest of them. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi is waiting for me. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi wants another word, a last and final word. I am looking in a mirror. But Detective Nishi still looks like shit. I am looking in a mirror. Nishi still looks like he hasn’t slept. I am looking in a mirror. Nishi telling me, ‘I had nothing to do with any of it…’

I laugh. ‘Had nothing to do with any of what, detective?’

‘Your demotion,’ he says. ‘All their complaints.’

I ask, ‘What complaints are they then, Nishi?’

‘Hattori’s complaints to Adachi,’ he says.

I shake my head. ‘I despise all of you.’

‘But I’m on your side,’ pleads Nishi –

On my side. On my side. My side…

I shake my head again. ‘No you’re not, and you never were.’

*

In another ruin, among another heap of rubble, with a last cigarette. Two stray dogs circle and watch me smoke, waiting for me to die. Two stray dogs in dirty coats on skinny legs, their pale tongues hanging loose from their dark mouths. The sparrow sings, the nightingale dances. This ruin, this rubble, was once a grand house and ornate garden owned by a family of Satsuma Samurai stock, a family that had once given the country ministers and generals, given her industrialists and financiers, from a house that once hosted banquets and balls, a garden that echoed to the songs of victory –

And the green fields are lovely in the spring…

Now three more stray dogs appear among the rubble and bark at the other two strays. Three more stray dogs in dirty coats on skinny legs with pale tongues and dark mouths. The five dogs form a pack, circling me. The pomegranate flowers crimson, the willows green-leafed. I watch the dogs circle closer and closer. I watch them sniff the ground. I watch them sniff the air. I watch them circle closer and closer. The first two dogs are the bravest, marching up and down before me, closer and closer. The three newcomers less certain. I put out my last cigarette. Now I pick up a stone –

And there is a new picture.

*

Through the doors of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. Up the stairs of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. The sudden silence. My shirt is still stuck to my back. My trousers still wet behind my knees. The sudden blindness. I walk along the corridor, the Police Arcade. I walk past the chief’s room. I shouldn’t have come here. I walk past the meeting room. I walk past Room #1. I should have stayed away. I come to Room #2. My former room –

No one will see me. No one will speak to me…

But Room #2 is empty. The Metro Arcade –

No one here. No one here…

I walk over to my desk, my former desk at the head of the room, and I open the drawer to tip out the contents into my knapsack. But the drawer of this desk is empty too –

This desk has also been cleared –

I curse. I curse again…

I go back out into the corridor to look for someone; anyone –

There’s a familiar face on the stair; a familiar face from Room #1 and Inspector Kai’s team. But this familiar face, he sees me first, he sees me first and he looks away, he looks away and he turns away, he turns away to walk away, to walk away the other way –

But he knows. He knows. He knows…

So I stop this familiar face and I bow and I apologize, and he bows back, and I bow again and I apologize again and then I ask him, ‘Where is everyone? What’s happened?’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ he asks. ‘They found Detective Fujita.’

I bow. I thank him. I excuse myself. I turn away –

I walk away. Back down the stairs –

Through the doors. I run –

I run, run, run away.

*

I take my daughter’s red geta clogs in my hand. My wife puts my daughter on my back. I carry my daughter down the garden path. I carry my daughter down the street. I carry my daughter through the mulberry fields on a shortcut to another hospital, a different doctor –

The hospital has just opened. The queue already formed –

I open my police wallet. I tell them it’s an emergency –

I shout. I threaten. I bully. I jump the queue –

The ophthalmologist is a woman –

‘My daughter can hardly open her eyes,’ I tell the doctor. ‘They’ve been like this for almost two weeks. I am concerned it’s something more serious than pinkeye, that it might be a virulent bacterial infection that could permanently damage her eyesight. I have to go away for a time and I’m worried that the situation will worsen while I am away. My wife and I are really at an utter loss…’

‘Don’t worry,’ says the lady doctor. ‘This will clear up in a –’

‘But when?’ I ask her. ‘It’s been nearly two weeks now…’

‘She smells of smoke,’ says the doctor. ‘She’s been sprayed with DDT. The smoke and DDT have aggravated her eyes…’

‘We had no choice,’ I tell her. ‘We had lice…’

‘Please don’t worry,’ says the doctor. ‘The eyes themselves haven’t actually been infected. By the time you return from your trip, I’m sure your daughter’s eyes will have completely recovered…’

‘Isn’t there anything you can give her to hurry things along?’

‘There’s an injection,’ says the doctor. ‘But it’s expensive.’

‘I have money,’ I tell her and I bow. ‘Please, doctor…’

*

Was it Senju or Adachi? They have found Detective Fujita. Adachi or Senju? Do they weep for him? Or do they laugh at him? Senju or Adachi? Is day night? Or night day? Adachi or Senju? Is black white? Or white black? Senju or Adachi? Are the men the women? Or the women the men? Adachi or Senju? Are the brave the frightened? Or the frightened the brave? Senju or Adachi? Are the strong the weak? Or the weak the strong? Adachi or Senju? Are the good the bad? Or the bad the good? Senju or Adachi? Are strikes legal? Or are strikes illegal? Adachi or Senju? Is democracy good? Or democracy bad? Senju or Adachi? Is the aggressor the victim? Or the victim the aggressor? Adachi or Senju? Are the winners the losers? Or the losers the winners? Senju or Adachi? Did Japan lose the war? Or Japan win the war? Adachi or Senju? Are the living the dead? Or are the dead the living? Senju or Adachi? Am I alive? Or am I dead…?

Was it Adachi or Senju? Senju or Adachi?

Now they have found Detective Fujita –

Adachi or Senju? Senju or Adachi?

Now they will find me –

Adachi or Senju?

But I have to take a chance; I have to take a chance that they won’t catch Ishida before he leaves Atago, that Ishida will have already left Atago and be on his way back home now for his rice; have to take a chance that Ishida will then go straight to Asakusa, that either Headquarters won’t know what time we’re set to leave Tokyo for Tochigi, or that they won’t think to send anyone to stop us –

Senju or Adachi? Adachi or Senju? Senju or Adachi…

These are the chances I take. The chances I take –

Or was it me? Was it me? Was it me?

I take as I cut and run through Tokyo –

Was it me? Was it me?

The City of the Dead –

The Shōwa Dead…

*

Baba Hiroko was found dead on the third of January this year in Tochigi Prefecture in the jurisdiction of the Kanuma police station. But Baba Hiroko was not from Tochigi Prefecture. Baba Hiroko was from Tokyo. Baba Hiroko lived at 1-9 Shin-Tsukuda Nishimachi, in Kyōbashi Ward with her mother and her uncle, Kobayashi Sōkichi.

I run through Kyōbashi Ward, looking for the street and keeping in the shadows of the old office buildings still standing. I find the street and I walk down it, looking for the address and dodging the sunlight in the empty spaces created by the bombsites –

The shadows and the sunlight, the black then the white…

I come to a battered board fence; a huge pile of rusty iron, a cabin with a glass door and a stained tin roof visible through the gaps in the wood; this place must be 1-9 Shin-Tsukuda Nishimachi –

Behind the fence, an old man in overalls stands in front of the cabin, a handkerchief around his head. I call through the fence. I tell him who I am; Inspector Minami of the Tokyo MPD. He tells me who he is; Kobayashi Sōkichi. He tells me he is Hiroko’s uncle –

I tell him why I’m here and where I’m going –

I ask if I can speak with him. He nods –

I think about her all the time…

I step through an opening in the boarding into the scrapyard. He takes off the handkerchief and wipes his neck. He shows me inside the cabin. He points to a small stool, which is the only piece of furniture in the cabin. He sits down on an empty packing case, an old colour postcard of the Itsuku-shima Shrine still tacked to the wall –

‘Me and this shack is all that’s left,’ says Mr. Kobayashi –

I stare up at the boarded ceiling, still black with winter soot, the blackboard by the window, and now I stare across at the butsudan on which a potted sakaki tree sits before three framed photographs; two are of older women, the third of a much younger woman –

‘Hiroko left here early on the morning of the thirtieth of December last year. Her mother had been evacuated to the employee apartments of the Furukawa Denki copper factory in Nikkō…’

The same company Kodaira twice worked for…

‘But because of the situation here in Tokyo and because of the better standard of living out in the country, her mother was still living up there. Hiroko wanted to spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with her and she had some gifts to give her…’

‘Do you remember what these gifts were?’

‘There was a red scarf she’d knitted herself, I do remember that. Then I think there were some bits of food and what-have-you. I mean, her mother was probably eating better than us, but Hiroko saved up her rice ration for the whole month…

‘But Hiroko never arrived and then, four days later, her body was found in that field near that mountain in Nishi Katamura, Kami Tsuga-gun. In that lonely field…’

She haunts me…

‘Hiroko had been dragged across the field, her face had been beaten, she had been throttled, she had been raped and then she had been strangled with her own scarf. The murderer had then stolen all her belongings, the two hundred yen she had had with her, as well as her coat and her scarf and all the presents she had for her mother…

‘Hiroko’s mother blamed herself. Her mother felt she shouldn’t have stayed in Tochigi, that if she had returned to Tokyo then Hiroko would never have gone up to Tochigi that day, that she’d never have met the beast that did those things to her…’

‘Where is her mother now?’ I ask. ‘Not still in Tochigi… ?’

‘Hiroko’s mother died of the shame and a broken heart…’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I tell him. ‘I’m very sorry…’

‘Whoever killed Hiroko, killed her mother too.’

I nod and I tell him he is right. I ask if I may pay my respects and then, for the second time today, I kneel before a butsudan –

But this time I do not ask for forgiveness –

This time I ask only for guidance –

The guidance for justice –

Justice & vengeance…

I stand back up and he thanks me for my time and he thanks me for my trouble and then he shows me back out of the cabin –

Back out into the sunlight and the scrapyard –

‘My own son is still in Mulchi,’ he says. ‘Least, that’s what they tell me. I’ve heard nothing. But, until I do hear otherwise, while he’s chopping wood on the Amur River, I’ll keep this business going so there’s something for him to come back to…’

But now Hiroko’s uncle stares across the street at the buildings going back up, and he says, ‘Then again, perhaps he’s already just another ghost…’

*

The Ginza Subway Line terminates at Asakusa station in the basement of the Matsuya Department Store. The Tōbu Line starts and finishes on the second floor of Matsuya; Ishida will be there at three o’clock. I look at my watch. Chiku-taku. I am early. I need to keep my distance for now. I come up for air out of the subway –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

But there is no air in Asakusa; just markets to the left, looking north, and ruins to the right, across on the other bank of the Sumida River. There is no air; the same burnt field, flat but for the black scorched concrete and the new yellow wood. No air; this place is death, always death, death before and death again now –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

I came here the day after the Great Kantō Earthquake; that day the whole city stank, stank of rotten apricots, and the closer I walked to Asakusa and to the winds that blew across from east of the river, the stronger the stink of apricots became –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

The stink of rotten apricots that was the stench of the dead, the mountains of dead lain out under a burning sky among the charred ruins on both banks of the Sumida –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

I stood among those corpses piled up high along the riverbanks and the body of one young boy it caught my eye, his body caked black in rags and filth, his face and hands covered in blisters and boils, I wondered where his father was, I wondered where his mother was, his brothers and his sisters, and I prayed that they were dead, better everyone was dead –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

Everyone dead –

Ton-ton…

Hammering then and hammering now. Better everyone was dead. Hammering then and hammering now. Better everyone was dead. Hammering then, hammering now –

Better everyone was dead…

Dead then, dead now –

Everyone dead…

Then, twenty-two years after that first fire rose up with the earth, I watched as a second fire rained down from the skies onto Asakusa and Tokyo, borne on a loud wind that swept the fire over the low half of the city, that swept half the people away in its wake –

A century of change in one night of fire…

Fires unfolding like fans, burning buildings, boiling rivers, bodies suffocated by smoke, scorched by flames –

I smelt them then. I smell them now –

That stench of rotten apricots…

Now I walk away from the Matsuya Department Store, towards the Niten Shinto Gate, onto the empty black square where the great Kannon Temple once stood, past hundreds of tiny stalls, trumpets and saxophones wailing from amplified loudspeakers –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

I make my way through the old clothes market, I push my way through the crowds, and I come to a row of food stalls wedged together by the side of the Asakusa Pond, the air here thick with the smell of burning oil. I stop to drink among the old soldiers –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

I stare out at the billboard advertisements –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

For the restaurants and revues –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

Movies and musicals –

Ton-ton…

The sun falling in black and white lines through the bamboo roof, I stare out into the face of a young boy, caked black in rags and filth, his face and hands covered in blisters and boils, he weeps pus and tears, now he raises his hand and he points his finger –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

Hammering then, hammering now –

Masaki, Banzai! Daddy, Banzai!

The hammering never stops –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton…

*

I put my daughter on my back again and I carry her home through the mulberry fields, back towards our house but then, when we get to an old well, I put her down. I take out my handkerchief. I wash and soak it in the well. I wring it out. Then I put it over my daughter’s eyes –

‘Just until the smoke has gone,’ I tell her.

I put my daughter on my back again and I carry her home, through the gate and up the path to the door and the genkan –

‘We’re home,’ my daughter and I shout together.

I fetch some water and I go back out into the garden. I pour the water onto the flames and I put out the bonfire of bedding –

‘The smoke irritates her eyes,’ I tell my wife.

My wife bows down. My wife apologizes –

‘Don’t,’ I tell her. ‘You had no choice.’

My wife bows again. My wife thanks me again. My wife says, ‘I am very sorry you had to take her to the hospital. You must be tired now. I have made you some breakfast…’

‘Not now,’ I say. ‘There are some things I must tell you…’

‘Daddy’s going away again,’ sings my daughter.

My wife begins to scold my daughter –

‘Sonoko is right,’ I tell my wife. ‘But I am going away because I have been demoted. I have lost my command and I have lost my rank. I have been ordered to go to Tochigi Prefecture as part of the present investigation. However, it is only for a few days and I would hope to be back by Tuesday or Wednesday. But, when I return, I will then be transferred to a local police station and I don’t know where that will be or for how long –

‘I have been told that the Public Safety Division of GHQ has been asking questions about my previous record and career, about my suitability as a police officer. It is possible that my name will appear on the next Purge Directive. It is certain that this will mean dismissal. It is also possible that this might even mean a trial and imprisonment. Even execution…’

Now I bow low. ‘I am truly sorry to have to tell you this…’

My wife bows deeply too, her shoulders shaking, her tears falling on the tatami, and she sobs, ‘I am sorry. This is all my fault.’

‘The fault is mine,’ I tell her. ‘Don’t reproach yourself…’

‘I am sorry,’ she sobs again. ‘I have been a poor wife…’

‘Please don’t cry,’ I ask her. ‘And please don’t reproach yourself any further. You have looked after our children and you have maintained our house under difficult circumstances. We continue to face a difficult and uncertain future and so we must both be strong for our children. We must both try our very hardest…’

My wife nods her head. My wife bows her head.

‘Did you get the money out of the post office?’

‘We’ve queued every day, but still nothing…’

I take out an envelope from my jacket pocket. I tell her, ‘There’s some food in my backpack, some rice and some vegetables, and this money will be enough until I get back.’

My wife bows. My wife thanks me –

We are both on our knees –

Get off your knees!

I get up from my knees. I walk through to the other room where our butsudan alcove is. I kneel down before our butsudan, before the photographs of her parents and mine, her sister and my brother. I lean forward on my knees to light three sticks of incense. I tap the metal bowl three times. I kneel back down before the altar –

Now I pray to my father, my mother and my brother –

To apologize for my behaviour and for my failings –

To beg for their forgiveness and their guidance –

To ask for their help and for their protection –

I lean forward on my knees again. I place the envelope of money on the butsudan. I place the bag of food before the altar –

The air is heavy with the smell of incense –

The smell of smouldering bedding –

My eyes sting. My eyes smart…

The smell of DDT –

My own tears.

*

I am late now and the Asakusa station is crowded, dark and hot. Every station. Hundreds, maybe thousands of passengers in queues for tickets which take hours, even days to get, tickets for trains which take hours, even days to arrive. Every station, every train. The whole of Japan, the survivors, the lucky ones, on the move, on the move –

I look to the left and to the right. In front then behind me –

No men from Headquarters. No men in uniforms…

I push my way through the crowds. I push my way up the stairs to the second floor, towards the platforms and the trains –

I look to the left and to the right. Behind me then –

I see Ishida up ahead. Ishida at the ticket gate –

Does he know they found Detective Fujita?

Ishida bows. Ishida hands me my ticket –

Does he know? Does he care… ?

I hurry us along. We show our train tickets and our police notebooks at the gate. Quick! We walk briskly along the platform. We pass the long string of run-down third-class carriages for the unprivileged Losers. Quick! We come to the second-class hard-seat carriage, reserved for the privileged Losers like us, our carriage –

Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick!

I glance back down the platform –

No one chasing after us…

Ishida and I board the train –

No one here waiting…

The conductor has kept two seats for us opposite each other; Ishida facing back towards the third-class carriages where the passengers are packed in, sitting, standing and hanging off the steps while I am facing forward to the Victors’ carriage, the two reserved carriages for Victors Only which, for once, are full of GIs returning to their Tochigi postings from leave in Tokyo –

The whistle blows…

A conductor in a shabby brown Tōbu uniform stands guard on the connecting door to the first of the Victors’ carriages, a steady stream of Japanese people still trying to steal a seat through there –

Each time the conductor in his shabby suit stops them –

The locomotive starts to move. The wheels start to turn…

‘For Americans only,’ the conductor tells them –

We are pulling out of the Asakusa Tōbu station…

I wait for one of them to argue back with him –

We are crossing the Sumida River now…

But the Japanese all retreat silently –

I am getting away, getting away…

The laws of victory and defeat –

I have escaped. For now…

The wheels that turn and turn again.

*

I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. The first part of the journey, to Sugito, is not long but the train is slow and the carriage is hot. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. Ishida and I do not speak. We close our eyes –

Please let my daughter’s eyes be open now…

But I do not sleep. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I listen to the railway announcements and the running feet as we stop at stations, then the short, sharp whistle of the locomotive. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. From station to station, whistle to whistle –

Kita-Senju. Soka. Kasukabe…

Until the train finally pulls into the Tōbu Sugito station and we fight our way out of the carriage and onto the platform. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. Then we cross the bridge to the other platform to wait for the Tōbu Nikkō Line train –

To Kodaira country…

It is a two-hour wait on another platform crammed from end to end with men and women, their children and their belongings. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. Many with screaming babies strapped to their backs, others with the silent bones of the dead in boxes around their necks, returnees from Manchuria, refugees in their own country. I itch and I scratch –

Gari-gari…

Ishida and I find a small space at one end of the platform in which to crouch down with our knapsacks to wait, to wait and to wait, to itch and to scratch, gari-gari. Ishida still doesn’t speak and I still don’t talk, so again we both close our eyes, we both close our eyes until I sense the people on the platform moving, rising and picking up their children and their belongings, their babies and their bones at the approach of a train, the sound of a whistle and the sight of steam –

Every station. Every train. Every station. Every train…

The people on the platform trying to board the train before it has stopped, before its passengers can get off, pushing and shoving, shouting and arguing, onto the steps, through the windows –

Every station. Every train. Every station…

There are no reserved seats on this train. Every man, woman and child for themselves. Ishida and I get onto the footplate at the end of one of the carriages and we push our way inside –

Every train in the land…

Ishida and I stand crushed in the passageway outside the toilet, the toilet itself filled with an entire family and their possessions, as the train jolts forward, this train that once carried only tourists and day-trippers to such sights as the Shinkyō Bridge and the Tōshōgū Shrine, Lake Chūzenji and the Kegon Falls, this train that now carries only the starving and the lost –

The lucky ones.

I stand wedged between Ishida and a young girl. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I try to turn my head to see out of the window, to find some air and to watch for the stations, but all I can see are lice crawling over the scalp of the young girl in front of me, in and out of her hair they crawl, burrowing and then surfacing, surfacing and then burrowing again, in and out of her hair. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari.

Maybe thirty minutes later, the train jolts over joints and begins to slow down once again. But there is no announcement –

I turn to Ishida. I ask him, ‘Where are we now?’

Ishida strains to see. He says, ‘Fujioka.’

In the small of Ishida’s back…

The train shudders to a stop in the station. People push and shove again, shouting and arguing as they struggle to get on and off –

In the small of his back, something cold and metallic…

I move away from Ishida. I itch and I itch. I move away from the young girl and her lice. I stand by a window, finally able to breathe, to scratch myself, gari-gari, gari-gari, gari-gari…

The locomotive begins to pull out of the station. Ishida moves closer to me. Now Ishida stands beside me again –

The sun is setting. It is getting dark…

Detective Ishida tells me we should get off the train at Shin-Kanuma station, that we should be there in another hour or so, that he knows the way to the Kanuma police station, that he has already looked it up on a map, that they will be expecting us, that they will have reserved an inn for us for tonight –

They will be waiting for us…

But I have also looked at maps. I have looked at maps of my own. I tell him we’re not getting off the train at Shin-Kanuma station, that we are not going to Kanuma police station –

Not to their inn. Not tonight –

Where they’ll be waiting…

‘Ienaka,’ I tell him. ‘That’s where we’ll get off.’

*

Ienaka is about fifteen kilometres before Kanuma. Ienaka is the closest station to the house where the mother and daughter of the Widow Okayama live. Ienaka is also near to the field in which the body of Baba Hiroko was found on the third of January –

But it is night now. It is dark here…

Ishida and I pass through the ticket gates and walk out of the station into the deserted town. No markets here –

No one waiting for us here…

Nothing here but the silhouettes of dark mountains and the hints of hidden trees looming up over the town and leering down at us as I squat down to open my knapsack and take out my notebook, Ishida beginning to mumble about the lateness of the hour, about it being too late to call on the mother and daughter of the Widow Okayama, too late to visit the field in which Baba Hiroko was found, too late to find an inn for the night –

Everything too late…

‘Here it is,’ I tell him and show him the address of an inn in my notebook and its location on my map. Now I lead Ishida up the slope out of town towards the address. We find it easily –

The Beautiful Mountain Inn…

The detached hotel faces the road and there is still a light on in the porch, moths smashing into the glass which covers the bulb, mosquitoes biting into our foreheads and our necks as we open the door to the inn and apologize to the maid for the late and abrupt nature of our unannounced visit, offering her some of the rice Detective Ishida has brought from his home –

Dark outside, dark inside…

The maid scurries off with the rice and our papers and returns with an older woman who thanks us for the rice and copies down our details. The woman tells us that we are too late for an evening meal, that these days they need a day’s notice to buy and prepare meals, that we are also too late to use the bath, that they heat the bath water only when they have a day’s notice and then only once a day –

No bath. No late night snacks. No sake. No beer…

‘But there will be breakfast,’ she tells us.

The older woman then instructs the younger maid to show us to our room, our room which the woman assures us is the best room that they have, and so we follow the young maid down a dim and humid corridor of unlit alcoves and shuttered windows –

Now the maid unlocks and slides open a door –

Now the maid switches on the light –

And I wish she had not…

The screens have been shredded to strips and the tatami are crawling with bugs, the mosquitoes eating us raw as Ishida and I sit down at a low table beneath a small electric bulb to count the cockroaches, the maid putting out our futons and our bedding, apologizing for the smell and the temperature but assuring us it is better, much better, to keep the windows closed at this time of year –

‘Thank you,’ we say as she bows to wish us goodnight.

*

In insect silence, they gather in the genkan of our house to watch me leave. This is defeat. They watch me put on my boots. This is defeat. They follow me out of the door of our house. This is defeat. They follow me down the garden path of our house. This is defeat. They stand at the gate to our house. This is defeat. They watch me walk away from our house and they wave. This is defeat. They watch me walk down our street and they wave. This is defeat. Every time I turn around. This is defeat. Every time I turn around. This is defeat…

‘Please remember us. Please don’t forget us, Daddy…’

For my wife, for my daughter and for my son –

Defeat. Defeat. Defeat. Defeat…

For my father and for my mother –

Defeat. Defeat. Defeat…

For my elder brother –

Defeat. Defeat…

This defeat that lasts for every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year –

I am one of the survivors…

This is surrender. This is occupation –

One of the lucky ones…

This is defeat.

*

We have washed our faces and we have pissed. We have taken off our trousers and taken off our shirts. We have said goodnight and switched off the electric bulb. Now I lie awake and wait for Ishida to fall asleep. Until I hear his breathing begin to slow –

Until I hear him sleeping deeply now –

It is oven hot and pitch black…

I turn slowly and quietly onto my chest. I move off my futon and onto the tatami mats. I crawl with the bugs and the cockroaches across the floor, across the room towards his knapsack. Now I ease open the bag and I search around inside –

Something cold, metallic…

I take out the gun. It is a 1939 army-issue pistol. It is loaded. Now I raise the pistol in the dark. I aim and I point it at Ishida –

I could kill him here. I could kill him now…

But I lower the pistol. I put the gun back inside his knapsack. I close the bag. I crawl back across the floor, back across the tatami to my own futon and my own knapsack. Now I open the bag –

I have to sleep. I have to sleep…

I take out the pills that Senju gave me. Not Calmotin tonight. Senju had no Calmotin. But Senju has a hoard –

Veronal. Muronal. Numal…

Senju always has a stock –

I do not count.