11

August 25, 1946

Tochigi Prefecture, 89°, very fine

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

The sound of hammering, the hammering on a door –

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

I open my eyes. I don’t recognize this ceiling –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Now I recognize this room, and this door –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

I get up. No Ishida. I go to the door –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

I don’t open it. ‘Who is it?’

‘The Kanuma police…’

I curse and I curse again …

I slide open the door –

‘I am Tachibana, the chief of police for Kanuma,’ says the small, fat, youngish man who now bows. ‘Pleased to meet you –’

His uniform too tight. His buttons polished too bright …

‘Detective Minami,’ I tell him. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Has he spoken to Tokyo? Has he heard about Fujita?

Tachibana says, ‘I am sorry to have woken you…’

‘Don’t apologize,’ I tell him. ‘It was difficult to sleep with the heat and all the insects. I should have been awake hours ago…’

Tachibana says, ‘We were expecting you in Kanuma but…’

‘My mistake again. I am sorry. I should have called you…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ laughs Tachibana. ‘The telephones are often down; you probably wouldn’t have got through to us.’

He has not spoken to Tokyo, not heard about Fujita …

‘Have you met Detective Ishida yet?’ I ask him –

Tachibana shakes his head. ‘Your colleague?’

He hasn’t met Ishida, not spoken to Ishida …

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘He’s here somewhere…’

‘He might have gone for his breakfast…’

Now I ask Tachibana, ‘How did you know we were here?’

‘Inns are obliged to report all guests,’ laughs Tachibana again. ‘Even guests from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.’

Welcome to the countryside! Welcome to Tochigi!

I smile now and I nod and I say, ‘Of course…’

‘I’ll wait for you in the entrance, inspector.’

I bow again and I excuse myself. I turn back into the room –

The room dark. The windows and the screens still closed –

I close the door. No Ishida. I look at his folded-up futon –

His knapsack gone. I go over to my own bag. I open it –

I root around inside until I find the boxes and bottles –

I count all the pills. Enough. They are still there –

Now I lie back down. I close my eyes again –

I still itch and so I scratch. Gari-gari … I want to forget these dreams …

I sit back up again and I open up my bag again. In the half-light. I root around again until I find my notebook, until I find my pen. I cannot forget these dreams. I must write them down. In the half-light. These dreams, these half-things. I cannot forget. These things I dream, these dreams I remember; all these half-things I remember –

These things that don’t make sense, these things that do …

Now I put my notebook away and I put my pen away –

I go into the small toilet. I piss. I wash my face –

I get dressed. I itch and I scratch again –

Gari-gari. I itch. I scratch. Gari-gari …

I pick up my bag. I leave the room –

I walk down the corridor –

The corridor still dark …

Ishida is here now –

His knapsack …

Ishida sat at the low table in the entrance to the inn, talking with Chief Tachibana, nodding and smiling along to his conversation. They both stand up and bow when they see me and Detective Ishida says, ‘I’m sorry, sir. I went looking for breakfast without you…’

I no longer know who this Detective Ishida is. This man …

‘That’s all right,’ I tell him. ‘I must have needed the sleep.’

Has he spoken to Tokyo? About Fujita? About his orders?

‘I tried to wake you,’ nods Ishida. ‘But you were dead.’

This man I don’t know. This man I don’t recognize …

Now Tachibana asks me, ‘Would you like some breakfast?’

‘They have miso soup,’ says Ishida. ‘You should have it.’

I shake my head. ‘I’m not very hungry, thank you.’

Who is this man who calls himself Ishida?

Tachibana nods. But Tachibana says, ‘You’ve paid for the breakfast. You should eat something while we talk…’

‘I am fine, thank you,’ I tell him but this Chief Tachibana is already on his feet, walking over to the reception desk, banging on the wood and shouting for my breakfast to be brought out –

I don’t look at Ishida. Ishida doesn’t look at me –

No one is who they say they are …

Tachibana comes back over. Tachibana sits back down. Tachibana picks up his briefcase. Tachibana opens it up. Tachibana takes out two thin files. Tachibana places the two files on the table –

One marked Baba Hiroko, the other Numao Shizue –

‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ says the young maid, the same maid as last night, as she puts down a bowl of rice-porridge topped with a thin slice of pickle on the low table before me, then a second bowl of green leaves floating in some miso-flavoured water, and now places a pair of chipped chopsticks beside the two bowls of food –

I suddenly feel very hungry. I apologize to Tachibana and Ishida. I excuse myself as I begin to eat the cold porridge and the pickle, to wash them down with the tepid brown soup and leaves –

I am a stray dog, his house lost and his master gone …

I swallow. I say, ‘Tell us about Numao…’

‘She was a local Nikkō girl,’ he says, opening the file out on the table. ‘On the evening of the second of December last year, she told her family she was going to visit her friend’s house. She never arrived there and she never returned home. Just over one month later, on the third of January this year, her body was found –

‘Numao Shizue had been stabbed to death.’

I put down the chipped chopsticks. I wipe my mouth and I say, ‘I thought Numao was found on the thirtieth of December?’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ says Tachibana. ‘Yes, you’re right, of course.’

I ask, ‘Was there any evidence at all that she’d been raped?’

‘None,’ says Tachibana. ‘She was found fully clothed.’

I lean forward. I push the file away. ‘It’s not Kodaira.’

Tachibana bows his head. Tachibana nods his head –

I tell him, ‘Kodaira Yoshio only murders for sex.’

‘There are some other cases,’ he tells me –

I ask, ‘Do you have the files with you?’

‘No, they are back at Kanuma.’

Back at the police station …

‘All right,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you. We’ll take a look at them later but, for now, we have two requests to make of you…’

‘Please,’ he says. ‘We are here to help you…’

‘We’d like to visit a girl named Okayama whose mother is an acquaintance of Kodaira Yoshio. We’d like to talk to her and anybody else who may have met Kodaira up here. Then we’d like to examine the site where the body of Baba Hiroko was found…’

‘Of course,’ says Chief Tachibana, getting to his feet now. ‘These places are not far and I have a small truck we can use. I’ll bring it round to the front while you settle up with the inn.’

I nod my head. I say, ‘Thank you for your help.’

Tachibana gathers up the files from the table and puts them back in his briefcase. Tachibana then bows and leaves us.

I wipe my mouth again. I wipe my neck.

‘He seems very helpful,’ says Ishida.

‘Because he’s afraid,’ I tell him –

‘Afraid of what…’

‘Does he need a reason?’ I ask him. ‘This is Japan. This is the twenty-first year of Shōwa. The Year of the Dog –

‘Everybody is afraid, detective…’

Now Ishida suddenly asks, ‘What happened to your hair?’

I rub my scalp. I say, ‘I shaved it a few days ago…’

‘But it’s growing back grey,’ says Ishida.

I touch it again. I shrug my shoulders –

‘I almost didn’t recognize you.’

*

The truck is ancient and small and there is an old policeman in the driving seat in a frayed and soiled cap. Tachibana gestures for me to sit up in the front on the small seat to the left of the driver while he and Ishida climb into the back where there is some corrugated iron and what look to be carpenter’s tools. The driver starts the truck –

Now I hold on tight as off we set. No windscreen or hood, the daylight is blinding, my eyes squinting as the sunlight illuminates the Tochigi countryside; this Land of the Living. This Land of Plenty –

There are mountains. There are trees. There are fields –

There are leaves and there are flowers here –

There are rivers and there are streams –

There are greens and blues here –

In the Land of the Living –

There are colours.

*

The truck labours up the side of one small mountain and down its other side and then up another until it pulls up outside a detached house that faces out onto the road and we all climb out. There is a dog asleep in the shade of the wall but it is still tethered to a pole –

It is not a stray, its house not lost, its master here …

Black and large, better fed than most of the people of Tokyo, I watch its belly rise and fall, its eyes closed, tongue hanging out –

‘That lazy dog is a guard dog,’ laughs Chief Tachibana.

‘Do you get much burglary round here?’ asks Ishida.

‘There are always the Scavengers,’ nods Tachibana. ‘And before that were the Chinks, always escaping from the factories…’

‘He’d have been a hunting dog, then,’ says the driver.

Tachibana looks at the dog and laughs again. Then the chief excuses himself as he goes into the house ahead of us –

The old driver lights a cigarette and tells us, ‘A lot of them old hunting dogs are running wild now, in packs…’

Tachibana returns with the mother of the Widow Okayama, who bows and welcomes us as Tachibana introduces us and explains to the old woman why we have come as Ishida and I apologize for the early hour and abruptness of our visit, calling on her unannounced.

The mother of the Widow Okayama bows again and invites us into her house. The mother is very old and her granddaughter is not here today. But the mother is not alone. An old man is sat in the empty fireplace. The mother of the Widow Okayama rents this house from this man. This man named Koito. This man Koito doesn’t usually much like the police and he doesn’t usually much like city folk. The mother of the Widow Okayama doesn’t really remember anyone called Kodaira Yoshio but this man Koito remembers him –

‘I liked Mr. Kodaira because he was born round here, born up in Nikkō. He came here a number of times hunting for supplies –

‘He was a friendly fellow was Kodaira, very friendly. He always had money to buy with or things to exchange, did Kodaira. I introduced him to a number of other people round here, folk I knew would be willing to trade with a local fellow like him…’

I ask him for their names and their addresses –

‘I know it’s not strictly legal,’ he says, looking at Tachibana. ‘But everybody does it. If they didn’t they’d starve…’

I ask him again for names and addresses –

‘Not all as lucky as the likes of you…’

I hate the countryside. I hate it…

I crack my knuckles and I ask him for their names again, their addresses. I ask him one last time and now Koito sighs and begins to list the names, the names of local farmers and their families, every local farmer, every family he can think of, he can remember –

Kashiwagi, Kiyohara, Fujisaki, Yoshimura …

‘How many times did Kodaira come up here?’ I ask him but this man Koito shrugs his shoulders and says he can’t be sure, he didn’t keep a record, did he? Then I turn to the old grandmother –

The grandmother asks again, ‘Who is this Kodaira?’

Dr. Nakadate estimated that the second body in Shiba Park had been killed sometime between the twentieth and the twenty-seventh of July, and the advertisement found in the pocket of her dress was dated the nineteenth of July, so I want to know if Kodaira Yoshio came here again after the nineteenth of last month, if he was here and what he brought, what he brought and exchanged …

I turn back to Koito. I ask, ‘When was his last visit?’

But Koito just shrugs his shoulders again and says he can’t be sure, that he doesn’t keep records, does he? But now I crack my knuckles again and I lean forward and I hiss, ‘Then think!’

‘Her granddaughter would know better than me,’ he says. ‘There may have been times when he was here and I was not, for all I know, and it was her he came to see anyway…’

And the grandmother asks again, ‘Who is this man?’

I need to speak to the granddaughter but they don’t know where she is or what she’s doing though they swear she will be back tonight, that she will be here if we come back tomorrow…

‘We’ll be back then,’ I promise them.

*

The Kashiwagi family lives further up the same mountain. He walks behind me. There is only so far the truck can go so then we walk, Tachibana showing me the way, Ishida walking behind –

He walks behind me. He walks behind me …

Up the mountain and through the heat –

No one is who they say they are …

Through the insects and their teeth –

No one is who they seem …

The Kashiwagi family makes fuel for the hand-warmers that are used in the winter. Last winter was the worst winter on record. The Kashiwagi family made a lot of fuel for hand-warmers last winter. The Kashiwagi family also made a lot of money last winter. And a lot of visitors called upon the Kashiwagi family last winter –

Kodaira called upon the Kashiwagi family last winter –

Baba Hiroko was murdered last winter.

Baba Hiroko was found dead on the third of January this year. Baba Hiroko was last seen alive on the thirtieth of December –

Kodaira was here last winter. Kodaira was here …

The Kashiwagi family is a nervous, sullen family. The Kashiwagi family just sits and stares and offers us no tea or water –

‘Do you remember exactly when Kodaira came here…?’

But the Kashiwagi family does not remember exactly –

‘You remember if it was before or after New Year…?’

The Kashiwagi family does not want to remember –

‘But you remember what he traded…?’

The Kashiwagi family claims not to remember what Kodaira Yoshio traded for their hand-warmer fuel. But the Kashiwagi family is lying because country-folk never forget anything –

I hate the countryside. These country-folk …

Because country-folk remember everything; every last piece of fuel and every last grain of rice; every single coin and every single note they have ever received; every single item accepted in a trade –

I hate them. I hate them all…

That is why their unmarried daughter is fiddling with her wristwatch. That is why she has been fiddling with it since we sat down. That is why I reach across their hearth to grab her wrist –

Why I hold this watch on her wrist up to her face –

‘Is this what friendly Mr. Kodaira gave you?’

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

This watch I now tear from her wrist. This watch I turn over in my hand to the light. This watch with an inscription on its back –

An inscription that states, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

This watch that was not Kodaira’s to trade –

That screams, Miyazaki Mitsuko…

This watch. This watch…

Not theirs to keep –

This watch …

That I stuff into my knapsack as I get to my feet to leave –

Tachibana asking, ‘But who is Miyazaki Mitsuko?’

*

The daylight blinding, my eyes squinting, in this Land of the Living, in this Land of Plenty, before their mountains, before their trees, before their fields, their leaves and their flowers, their rivers and their streams, their greens and their blues, in this Land of the Living –

Before his mountains, his trees, his fields –

I say, ‘Miyazaki Mitsuko was a nineteen-year-old girl from Nagasaki whose naked body was found on the fifteenth of August last year in an air-raid shelter of the Women’s Dormitory Building of the Dai-Ichi Naval Clothing Department near Shinagawa in Tokyo.

‘The autopsy revealed that she had been raped and then murdered around the end of May last year. At that time, Kodaira Yoshio was working at this Women’s Dormitory.

‘The autopsy on Miyazaki was performed by a Dr. Nakadate of the Keiō University Hospital. Dr. Nakadate also performed the autopsies on the body of Midorikawa Ryuko and on the unidentified body found near Midorikawa in Shiba Park. Dr. Nakadate believes that all three women were murdered by the same man; Kodaira Yoshio. As you know, Kodaira Yoshio has already confessed to the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko…’

Tachibana nods. ‘But not to the second unidentified body from Shiba Park?’

‘No.’

‘And not to this Miyazaki Mitsuko…?’

‘He’s not been asked.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I have not mentioned Miyazaki to either Chief Kita or Chief Inspector Kanehara, who is leading the interrogation team.’

‘But why not?’ asks Tachibana again.

I look at Ishida as I say, ‘Two reasons; the Miyazaki case is officially closed and, secondly, the case file is missing.’

Tachibana is shaking his head, glancing from me to Ishida and back again. ‘Someone was actually charged?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘They were.’

Tachibana asks, ‘Who?’

‘A Korean labourer…’

A Yobo …

‘And so what happened to this Korean labourer?’

‘He was shot and killed resisting arrest…’

‘Shot by whom?’ asks Tachibana. ‘An officer from the Kempei.’

‘Case closed, then?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him, still looking at Ishida; Ishida saying nothing, Ishida asking nothing. ‘Until today…’

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

Her watch in my hand –

Chiku-taku.

*

Beyond another pine grove, beyond more dwarf bamboo, the next house, the next family, the same as the last house, the same as the last family. The grove after that, the house after that, the family after that, the same as the last grove, the same as the last house, the last family –

I look back down the mountainside, at the mainly thatched roofs and the odd tiled one on the odd two-storey house, at the crops in the fields and the leaves on the trees and I wonder where I am, where this place is, this place of plenty, this land of the living –

No dead without name, dead without number …

This place of mountains. This place of rivers –

Piled up high along the riverbanks …

In this place of greens and blues –

No stench of rotten apricots …

In this place of colour where Kodaira came with his many pickings from the dead, with his trophies and his spoils, the trophies and the spoils he had brought to barter –

From the dead…

Every house Kodaira ever visited, every family he spoke to, every thing he traded, every single house, every single family, every single thing he showed them –

His trophies…

But in the next house, the next family, the house after that, the family after that, they sit in shame, sit in silence and they will not remember, will not try –

His spoils …

‘Because so many people come,’ they tell us. ‘So many people, so many things, every day a different person comes, every day with different things…’

So many people…

And in the next house, the next family, the house after that, the family after that, they shake their heads when we say his name, they shake their heads when we describe his face, they shake their heads when we ask for dates, they shake their heads and tell us –

‘So many people come, so many things…’

*

We stand beside the truck and wipe our faces and wipe our necks, the cicadas deafening and the mosquitoes ravenous, the sun high in the sky but there is a darkness here now, in the shadows from the mountains, from the trees and in the fields, darkness and shadow –

The slopes are purple, the leaves black now, the grass grey …

In the rivers that do not flow, the streams that stand still –

There are no currents and there are no fish, only insects …

Tachibana asks, ‘What do you want to do now?’

Insects feasting in the still and stagnant pools …

I look up at the sun then back down at the shadows and I say, ‘Take me to the place where you found Baba Hiroko.’

*

Up the side of another small mountain and down its other side, then up and down another until the truck stops on the narrow road where the woods at the foot of this small mountain look out over a ditch onto a patchwork of fields and ditches, more fields and more ditches, and Tachibana says, ‘These are the woods. This is the place.’

Nishi Katamura, Kami Tsuga-gun, Tochigi …

Tachibana, Ishida, and I climb out of the truck and wipe our faces and wipe our necks and turn away from the fields and the ditches to stare up into the woods on the slope of the mountainside, up into the shadows of the black trunks of the trees –

Their branches and their leaves …

Tachibana points up the slope and says, ‘It’s that way…’

‘But I thought Baba was found in a field?’ I ask him –

‘It seems that she was attacked down here,’ he says. ‘But then her body was dragged from the field up this way…’

Now I follow Tachibana as he climbs up off the narrow road and into the woods, waving away the mosquitoes and the bugs with the file in his hands, Detective Ishida following behind –

He walks behind me. He walks behind me …

Tachibana leads us through the trees to a slight hollow in the side of the mountain; a slight hollow surrounded by fallen logs and filled with broken branches and dead leaves –

He walks behind me, through the trees …

‘This is the place,’ says Tachibana now, handing me the file –

The cicadas are deafening, the mosquitoes hungry …

In this place, in this hollow, I take her case file –

Between the trees, the black trunks of the trees …

I open the file. I take out the photographs –

Their branches and their leaves …

Now I see her in this place –

Her white, naked body …

Her face in this place –

Her beaten face …

Her face –

Black …

In this place, in this hollow, beneath these trees, I close my eyes and I see her face; I see her say farewell to her uncle, with her gifts for her mother; I see her take the Ginza Line to Asakusa; I see her climb with the crowds up the stairs to the second floor of the Matsuya Department Store; I see her join the queue for her ticket –

How long did you stand in that queue? How long did you wait?

That cold and desperate queue of cold and desperate strangers, pushing and shoving, those desperate, defeated strangers with their desperate, hungry eyes, pushing and shoving –

Is this where you met him? Is this him behind you now… ?

In his ancient winter suit that is far too loose beneath his frayed army coat with its Shinchū Gun armband, his hair tight against his scalp, skin tight against his skull –

Did he offer you a piece of bread? A rice-ball? Candy?

In that cold and desperate queue of cold and desperate strangers, pushing and shoving, this one smiling, friendly man, this one small, friendly act of kindness –

Did you eat it there and then? That one small gift?

Now he asks you where you are going, this smiling, friendly man and between your hurried, grateful mouthfuls, you tell him you are going to visit your mother in Nikkō. He asks you where your mother lives in Nikkō and you tell this smiling, friendly man about the Furukawa Denki apartments. Now he says he once worked for Furukawa and he tells you Nikkō is where he’s from and he tells you he knows a farmer from whom you can buy some very cheap rice, some rice to surprise your mother with, some rice to take back for your uncle in Kyōbashi. And he smiles and he smiles and he smiles, this friendly man with his small acts of kindness and he even makes you laugh, this smiling, friendly man in that cold and desperate queue, among those cold and desperate strangers, this smiling, friendly man he puts an arm around you now to guide you through the crowds, the pushing and the shoving, to shepherd you onto that train, among those cold and desperate strangers, this smiling, friendly man, he helps you to find a place to stand on the train among those desperate, hungry eyes, among the ringworm and the lice, on that train with its windows of cracked plywood and bits of tin through which blow the wind and the snow as the train crosses over the Sumida River and steams up through Kita-Senju, on and on, up and up the Tōbu Line –

Does he press against you now, on that cold, cold train?

All the way up and up the Tōbu Line he smiles and he smiles and he smiles and you laugh and you laugh and you laugh as he talks and he talks and he talks, and it’s like you’ve known him all your life, this smiling, friendly man, like he’s your uncle, this smiling, friendly man, or even the father you lost so young, for you feel so safe in his smile, this one smiling, friendly face on this cold, cold train, among these strangers, these desperate, defeated strangers who stare at you with their hungry eyes and their dried lips, their sunken cheeks and their frayed collars on this cold, cold train that takes forever –

Is his smile too close? Are his hands too free… ?

But now the train is pulling into Kanazaki and he’s telling you this is where you should both get off, that this is the quickest way to the farmer he knows, the farmer with the very cheap rice he’ll sell you, the rice for your mother, the rice for your uncle, and now you’re not so sure because you do not know this place, this land, and it’s getting darker and darker and darker but you’ve eaten his bread, taken his rice-balls and sucked on his candy, and now he takes you by your arm and leads you through these cold and desperate strangers, through the pushing and through the shoving, and off that cold, cold train and onto that cold, cold platform and now the train is gone and the platform is gone and you’re walking through the ticket gates and now the station is gone and soon the town is gone because you are walking and walking and walking away, minute after minute, hour after hour, and now the day is gone and the road is narrow, walking and walking and walking, and the mountains are dark and the fields are lonely and still he smiles and he smiles and he smiles, this smiling, friendly man, but his teeth are pointed now, his eyes hungry now –

Is this when his grip tightens? His words harden… ?

His lips wet and his tongue long, this man is not smiling now, this man is not friendly now, this man with his pointed teeth and his hungry eyes, his wet lips and his long tongue whispering what he wants from you now, in those woods or in that ditch, telling you exactly what he wants from you now and you’re turning away from this man, turning away from him now, on this narrow road, beside these lonely fields, beneath that dark mountain, below those black woods, but he’s pulling you back and he’s slapping your face, punching your face and kicking your legs, and you’re asking him to stop and you’re begging him to stop and you’re pleading with him to stop, but he’s pulling you off that narrow road and away from those lonely fields, up this dark mountain, into these black woods, putting a hand around your neck and another between your legs and you know what he wants and you know what he wants and you know what he wants and you’re trying to tell him to take it and you’re begging him to take it and you’re pleading with him to take it, to take it and then leave you alone, please leave you, please leave you alone but he’s squeezing your throat, he’s squeezing your throat, he’s squeezing your throat, snot in your nose and piss down your legs and shit from your backside, as he squeezes your throat tighter and tighter, the mountain darker and darker, the woods blacker and blacker –

As black as your hair that will never turn grey …

Now you open your eyes and you know you are still living, lying on your back on broken branches and dead leaves in a hollow in these woods, you have survived, you are one of the lucky ones, freezing and bleeding on these branches and these leaves, but you have survived, you are lucky and now you raise yourself up from the branches and the leaves, but this is when you know you have not survived, you are not one of the lucky ones, when you see him sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, staring at you and smoking a cigarette, this once smiling, friendly man who now finishes his cigarette and gets up off the trunk of this fallen tree, walking towards you over broken branches and dead leaves as he unbuttons his trousers again –

You try to speak but you cannot speak, you cannot scream …

Because this once smiling, friendly man has your scarf in his hands and he is pulling it tighter and tighter as the mountain turns darker and darker, the woods blacker and blacker again –

Freezing and bleeding and choking here …

Here on these broken branches and these dead leaves, here in this hollow, in these woods, on this mountainside –

As he fucks you again and again …

Beside those lonely fields –

Again and again …

Kodaira fucks the dead.

*

I hate the countryside. He walks behind me. I hate the countryside. Back down the slope. I hate the countryside. Back to the truck. I hate the countryside. Ishida walks behind me. I hate the countryside. Ishida says nothing. I hate the countryside. I say nothing. I hate the countryside. Tachibana says nothing. I hate the countryside …

I hate the countryside. I hate the country-folk –

By these ditches. In this terrible place …

There is nothing else to say.

*

Down the side of another mountain and into a valley, we follow the signs for Kanuma, a river to our right and a railway line to our left –

Lines of people making their way back towards the station …

‘Local people call it the Scavenging Line these days,’ shouts Chief Tachibana from the back of the truck. ‘Because the only people who ever use the trains on that line now are city people from Tokyo, up here to scavenge after our rice and our sweet potatoes…’

Lines of people with their supplies on their backs …

‘They’ve turned them into freight trains,’ agrees the driver. ‘No panes of glass in the windows, old boards for doors…’

Lines of people with their backs bent double …

‘Difficult to tell what’s human and what’s luggage…’

Lines of people under the setting sun …

‘The early morning trains are the worst, packed…’

Lines of people all reduced to this …

‘Infested as well, with fleas and with lice…’

Lines of people, beaten to this …

And on and on they drone, on and on about city-folk; how it was city-folk who had brought all these problems onto Japan, how it was all the fault of city-folk, but now city-folk demand and expect the country-folk to help them and look after them when it was city-folk who had brought this mess on Japan, the city-folk who got us into this mess, and on and on they drone, on and on about city-folk –

I hate the countryside and I hate the country-folk …

But I’m not listening to them. I am looking out for Kanuma police station. They are looking out for us too. The Kanuma police –

They are waiting for us. They are waiting for me …

They are watching for us. They are listening out for the sound of Tachibana’s battered old mountain truck coming through the town towards their quaint old rural police station –

We are here. I am here …

The driver pulls up right outside the pristine police station, right outside the eight pristine police officers who have lined up in the sinking sun to greet us, to bow, to salute and welcome us to Kanuma police station. Detective Ishida and I bow back and salute and thank them and then we follow Chief Tachibana up the clean little steps and into his police station where two officers behind the front desk bow and salute and welcome us again to their station –

‘I have a telegram from Tokyo for a Detective Ishida,’ announces one of the two men. Ishida quickly steps forward –

I curse! I curse! I curse! I curse! I curse! I curse!

Ishida takes the telegram from the officer behind the desk. Ishida steps to one side to open and read the telegram –

My heart is pounding. My heart is pounding …

But Tachibana is taking me down the side of the front desk, leaving Ishida to his telegram, and leading me along a corridor to his office, telling me the local history of Kanuma –

I curse him! I curse him! I curse him!

Police Chief Tachibana sitting me down and promising me tea, searching for the other files, the other dead women he feels might have been murdered by Kodaira Yoshio –

Other women, other deaths …

There is a soft knock on the door now as Detective Ishida steps into the room, excusing himself –

Eyes blank, eyes dead …

‘Here we are,’ says Chief Tachibana, handing me two thin files across his desk. ‘In the face of any initial evidence to the contrary both these deaths were originally recorded as ikidaore, accidental deaths due to injury or disease, mainly because of the deterioration of the corpses. But, to be honest, I’ve always felt that there might have been more to their deaths than simple accident or disease and now, with this Kodaira suspect you have in Tokyo…’

I open the top file as he speaks, Ishikawa Yori…

‘Thirty years old and the wife of a tailor, Ishikawa was an evacuee living at Imaichimachi, Kami Tsuga-gun. She was last seen on the twenty-second of June last year, waiting for a train at Shin-Tochigi station and then travelling on a bus from Tochigi station to Manako station, which is near to where her body was found. We believe that Ishikawa died some time towards the end of June last year but her body was not discovered until…’

‘The tenth of September,’ I read –

‘Yes, the tenth of September,’ continues Chief Tachibana. ‘Thank you. An old farmer had gone up into the woods at Manako-mura to pick leaves to smoke as a tobacco substitute and that’s when he found the body, or the skeleton as it was by that time…’

‘But it was never treated as murder?’ asks Ishida.

‘Difficult,’ says Tachibana. ‘Because of the state of the body and also, of course, there are many animals in these woods.’

I pick up the second file. There is no name on this second file. I hold up the second file. I ask Tachibana, ‘And this one?’

‘Even more difficult,’ says Tachibana. ‘The owner of a small mountain at Kiyosu-mura, again this is Kami Tsuga-gun, he’d gone up onto the slopes to prune away some of the branches around his cypress trees and he came upon a perfect skeleton. This was only last month and we think the body may have been there for over a year.’

I ask, ‘Did you find out anything else about the body?’

‘Yes,’ says Tachibana. ‘The autopsy was conducted in Utsunomiya and although we were unable to determine the exact cause of death we do believe it to have been the body a young woman aged approximately twenty to twenty-five years…’

‘But again you had it listed as ikidaore?’

‘Yes,’ he says again. ‘Ikidaore.’

‘Why?’ I ask him. ‘You find many such bodies, do you?’

Tachibana nods. Tachibana says, ‘In the last three or four years, yes. Older people particularly, they come out here from Tokyo to scavenge and they get lost in the woods. They have never been out here before. In the summer, some simply collapse of exhaustion. Others, in the winter, lose their way and freeze in the night…’

‘But these two weren’t old,’ says Ishida. ‘You often get young women walking in your woods, dropping down dead, do you?’

‘They were younger, yes,’ says Tachibana. ‘But we do get younger ones, but for different reasons. Only two days ago, for example, in some other woods, we found the body of a twenty-three or twenty-five-year-old woman. Dead about one month and animals had been there but we know it wasn’t murder. It was suicide.’

‘How do you know?’ asks Ishida. ‘If animals…’

‘Well, this one had at least left us a suicide note.’

‘What did it say?’ I ask. ‘This suicide note?’

‘That she had lost all her relatives during the war. That she was completely alone. That she saw no point in living any more –

‘She was from Tokyo too,’ he says. ‘Mitaka.’

Please let my daughter’s eyes be open now.

*

Below another dark mountain, with its overhanging eaves and the shade of its hearth, this inn seems much grander than the one we stayed in last night. This place in the shadows. At the foot of the mountain, with its pond and its bridge in the garden round the back, this inn seems much older but is better maintained. This place from the past. This inn still accepts Ishida’s rice but they are able to offer us a hot bath in their bathhouse and the room we are shown seems much bigger and cleaner too, with its fresh mats and its rosewood table, the tasteful alcove and the red camellia in a celadon vase. This place from another century, this place from another country …

Because of the chief of the Kanuma police, because of Tachibana. He tells us he will join us for the evening meal. He promises there will be fresh food, and even some sake –

In this other country, in this other century …

Tachibana tells us to enjoy our baths, that the water will be hot now. Then he leaves us alone, Ishida and me –

In this place, so very far from home …

Ishida and me in this beautiful room, alone and silent –

No talk of messages from Tokyo. No talk at all…

Until Detective Ishida says, ‘Please take your bath first.’

*

The inn has been built around the garden and the room we have been given is at a right angle to the long plank walkway which separates the bathhouse from the main building. Sara-sara. It would also be possible to reach the bathhouse by crossing the small garden and the bridge over the pond, but I choose to walk across the planks, oak and zelkova trees to my right, the magnolia and camellia bushes in the garden on my left, listening to the sound of running water. Sara-sara. There is a room of toilets and basins before the door to the bathhouse. Sara-sara. The taps in the basins are all running and I can smell the scent of heated bathwater. Sara-sara. I open the door to the bathhouse and I step into the changing room. Sara-sara. It is dark and windowless in here, the only light coming from a small lamp in one of the corners. Sara-sara. The bathtub must be on the other side of the second door. Sara-sara. I unbutton my shirt. Sara-sara. I take it off. Sara-sara. I unbutton my trousers. Sara-sara. I take them off. Sara-sara. I am ashamed of this shirt and these trousers. Sara-sara. This shirt and these trousers that my wife has tended and mended, stitched and re-stitched. Sara-sara. I take off my undershirt. Sara-sara. I take off my undershorts. Sara-sara. I fold and pile up these clothes. Sara-sara. I place them in one of the changing-room baskets. Sara-sara. I never want to wear these clothes again. Sara-sara. I pick up one of the clean white bathing cloths. Sara-sara. I go through the second door and I close it behind me. Sara-sara. The room is filled with steam. Sara-sara. The only windows are narrow and high in one of the walls and admit little light. Sara-sara. The bathtub though is big and raised. Sara-sara. I pick up a small wooden bucket. Sara-sara. I climb up the three small steps to the bath. Sara-sara. I fill the bucket with water from the tub. Sara-sara. Now I crouch down and tip the bucket of hot water over my body. Sara-sara. I find the soap and the brush and I begin to scrub myself clean. Sara-sara. Then I take another bucket of water and I rinse myself. Sara-sara. Now I climb the small steps for a third time. Sara-sara. Now I get into the bath. Sara-sara. I put my cloth upon the edge of the wooden tub and stretch myself out. Sara-sara. The water is hot. Sara-sara. The water is pure. Sara-sara. I do not itch. Sara-sara. I do not scratch. Sara-sara. I fold the bathing cloth into a small pillow. Sara-sara. I rest the back of my neck on the edge of the tub. Sara-sara. I close my eyes. Sara-sara. I listen to the sound of the running water. Sara-sara …

I am sleeping not waking, I am waking not sleeping –

Sara-sara. Sara-sara. Sara-sara. Sara-sara. Sara –

The sound of the running water has stopped –

I hear the door open. I feel the air change …

I open my eyes but there is only steam –

I think I see the figure of a woman …

I cannot stand. I cannot breathe –

The figure of a woman facing away from me, staring into a mirror that is not there, she is dressed in a yellow kimono with a dark-blue stripe, its skirts dripping onto the tiles of the floor, her hair tied up with silk threads which expose her pale neck …

The water is cold. The water is black –

The woman holds a hairbrush in one hand as she leans forward to stare at herself in the mirror, suddenly turning to face me now, dropping the hairbrush to the floor, ton, she puts her hands to her face and covers both her eyebrows –

‘Does this become me?’

*

Ishida looks up startled and embarrassed when I come back from the bath. He is sat cross-legged on the floor of the room by the table. He has already changed into the same yukata provided by the inn that I am now wearing. He quickly stuffs something back into his knapsack and shoves it under the table. Now he picks up a towel from the mat –

‘Excuse me,’ he mumbles, telling me he’ll take his bath now.

I listen to his feet trail off down the corridor. I wait a moment before I look out the door to make sure he has gone. Now I pull his bag out from under the table to see what he’d been so quick to hide –

And here it is, lying on the top inside his knapsack; his underwear and a needle. Detective Ishida had been hunting fleas in his underwear with a needle, piercing and spearing flea after flea on the end of the needle. But the old army pistol is still here too –

The old army pistol at the bottom of his knapsack –

I fight back the visions. I fight back the tears …

Here waiting for something, there waiting for someone.

*

It is dark and it is silent outside when Tachibana joins us for dinner. Tachibana has changed out of his uniform and into an evening kimono. Tachibana summons two maids who serve the food in our room on three small lacquered butterfly-legged tables, the food as good as he promised; bonito, smoked eggs, soba, and a bowl of fishcake in a cold soup of grated arrowroot. Ishida and I eat it up like a pair of hungry dogs. The sake is equally fine and we lap that up until Ishida begins to worry about the expense of all this food and all this drink, but Police Chief Tachibana just claps his big hands –

‘It’s my inn,’ he laughs. ‘And you’re my guests…’

And after the dinner, after the two maids have cleared away the tables but left us with three fresh bottles of sake, Tachibana suddenly gets to his feet and begins to dance, this small, fat, youngish man whose eyes are now old and hard as he performs the violent, jerky dance of a warrior, lungeing at Ishida with an invisible sword –

This dance from the shadows, this dance from the past …

Then, just as suddenly, his violent, jerky dance is over and Tachibana is sat back down, his face still red and angry –

In the half-light, no one is who they seem …

Filling our cups and offering up a toast –

From the past and from the shadows …

‘To Japan and to the Emperor…’

*

We have pissed and we have washed our faces. I switch off the electric bulb and now, in the dark of the room, before I say goodnight, I ask him, ‘What was the message they gave you back at the station?’

Ishida is silent for a time before he says, ‘What message…?’

‘The one you got when we arrived at Kanuma police station.’

Ishida says, ‘It was just from Inspector Hattori. That’s all.’

‘And what did Inspector Hattori have to tell you?’ I ask –

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘He just wants any leads we find…’

‘What do you mean, he wants any leads we find?’

‘He wants me to telephone or telegram him…’

‘Telephone him about what?’ I ask again –

‘Just if we find any new leads, that’s all.’

‘There was no other request or news?’

‘That was all the message said.’

‘Goodnight, then,’ I tell him –

But now, in the dark and in the silence of this room, Detective Ishida asks me, ‘Do you think we are the only guests in this inn?’

‘I don’t know,’ I tell him. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s nothing,’ he says. ‘I’m just tired…’

‘No, tell me,’ I say. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I just don’t like it here,’ he says. ‘I wish we’d never come.’