14

August 28, 1946

Tokyo, 79°, rain

Night is day again. I open my eyes. No sleep. Night is day. I can hear the rain falling. No pills. Night is day. I can see the sun shining –

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

I walk out of the sunlight and into the shadow. Investigation is footwork. I walk back up the hill to the scene of the crime. The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times …

The scene of the crime. Hide from sight. The white morning light behind the black Shiba trees. The corpses of the dead. The black trees that have seen so much. In the long, long grasses. The black branches that have borne so much. The dead leaves and weeds. The black leaves that have come again. Another country’s young. To grow, to fall, to grow again. Another country’s dead …

I walk away from the scene of the crime. Another country. To stand beneath the Black Gate. Another century …

In the half-light, I can’t forget…

The day is finally here. Oh so bravely, off to Victory. I leave for the front tomorrow. Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind. My wife and family wake early and head for Shiba Park. Who can die without first having shown his true mettle? In the inner compound of Zōjōji Temple a large crowd has gathered to say goodbye. Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army. They leave the compound and make their way through the crowds of school excursions to stand before the Black Gate. I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags cheering us into battle. My son has a little flag in his hand, my daughter has a little flag in hers. The earth and its flora burn in flames. My parents are here. As we endlessly part the plains. Friends from school, teammates from my high school baseball club, and colleagues with whom I graduated; each holds aloft a big banner, each banner bearing my name, each before the Black Gate. Helmets emblazoned with the Rising Sun. The clock strikes noon, the cries rise as my truck approaches and stops before the Black Gate. And, stroking the mane of our horses. I jump down from the back of the Nissan. Who knows what tomorrow will bring – life? I stare into the crowd, up at the banners and the flags, and I salute. Or death in battle? Now the departure signal sounds –

No one is who they say they are. No one …

Beneath the Black Gate. Another country. Day is night again. Another century. Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky. A different world. Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate. A different time. Branches charred and leaves lost. Another country. In this place, I stand beneath the dark eaves of the gate. A different world. We have seen hell. Another century. We have known heaven. A different time. We have heard the last judgment. In the half-light. We have witnessed the fall of the gods. I can’t forget. Night is day, day is night. In the half-light. Black is white, white is black –

But the good detective knows nothing is random …

Under the Black Gate, the stray dog waits –

The detective knows in chaos lies order …

His house lost and his master gone –

He knows in chaos lie answers …

The stray dog has no feet –

Answers, answers …

The dog is dead.

*

I put my daughter on my back. I take my son by the hand. In the half-light, I lead them down the garden path, down the street to stand in the queue for the post office, in the hope that the government insurance has arrived, in the hope I can cash the last of our bonds.

The queue moves slowly forward. The bench outside becomes free. I sit my daughter and my son down upon the bench next to an old man who stinks of drink. He winks at my daughter and he smiles at my son. Now he turns to me and holds out a withdrawal slip and asks, ‘Will you fill this out for me…?’

I nod. ‘For how much?’

The old man opens his post office savings book and says, ‘Forty yen should do today.’

I write forty yen on the withdrawal slip. Then I copy down the number of his savings account and the address –

Now I fill in the name –

A woman’s name.

I hand the withdrawal slip and the savings book back to the old man and he thanks me.

The queue moves forward again. I pick my daughter and my son up from the bench. We follow the old man inside the post office. The old man presents his withdrawal slip to one of the post office clerks as I do the same at the next window along –

Now we all sit back down to wait.

The old man winks at my daughter and smiles at my son again.

Now the clerk at the payments desk calls out the name –

‘Are you Yamada Hanako?’ asks the clerk.

No one is who they say they are …

‘No,’ says the old man. ‘But she’s my youngest daughter.’

The clerk shrugs his shoulders. He counts out the forty yen. He hands over the cash and says, ‘Better if she comes in person…’

The old man nods, thanks the clerk and now walks past us –

The old man winks at my daughter, he smiles at my son –

‘She can’t come in person,’ he whispers. ‘She’s dead.’

The clerk at the payments desk calls out my name –

The clerk hands over our cash and I thank him.

No one is who they seem to be …

I put my daughter on my back. I take my son by the hand. In the half-light, I lead them up the street, up the garden path, to stand them in the genkan of our house, to watch me as I say goodbye –

I say goodbye, as I turn their shoes to face the door –

‘Please don’t go, Daddy,’ says my daughter –

‘I have to go back to work,’ I tell her –

‘But not tonight,’ says my son –

Now my wife comes out of the kitchen, her face is hot from cooking, her hands brushing water from her trousers –

‘Let your father go to work,’ she says –

I pat their heads. I say, ‘Goodbye…’

‘Please remember us,’ my daughter and my son call after me. ‘Please don’t forget us, Daddy…’

Daddy, Banzai!…

Now I walk down the path, through the gate, up the street –

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

I do not turn around. I cannot turn around –

But in the half-light, I can’t forget…

I am not going back to work –

No one is who they seem …

Tonight I am going to her.

*

Night is day again. There have been others. In the ruins, in the rain. There have been others. The children watch me, the dogs watch me. There have been others. I smoke a cigarette, I read a newspaper –

I finish the newspaper. There have been others. I finish the cigarette. No mention of Miyazaki Mitsuko. The dogs wait for me. There have been others. The children wait for me. No mention of the second Shiba body. In the rain. There have been others. In the ruins.

*

In the half-light, I can hear the wind against the door, rattling around the roof and under the eaves of her house. But there is no rain, there is no thunder tonight, just the clatter of sandals and the calls of children in the streets outside. I shouldn’t have come here, not tonight. Tonight I should have stayed at home with my wife and children. My wife serving up their dinner of zōsui, my children’s bowls in their outstretched hands, asking their mother for more –

‘Okawari… Okawari… Okawari…’

Yuki stands hands on hips, barefoot on the earthen floor of the hallway, and looks out between the ribbons –

I should not be here, not tonight…

‘But you’ll stay awhile longer?’

I nod and I thank her.

Yuki opens a cupboard. She takes out a saucer of pickled radish and a small aluminum saucepan. She sniffs at the contents of the pan and shrugs. She places it on the charcoal embers –

‘And you’ll eat with me, won’t you?’

I nod again and I thank her again.

She lifts up the lid of the pan –

‘Are you married?’ she asks.

*

Night is still day here. The queues through the gates, the queues to the doors, the queues in the corridors. I have spent too long here. I run through the gates, through the doors and down the corridors. Past the queues, past the patients and past the gurneys to the elevator. Hours, days and weeks. I push the button, I step inside, and I press another button. The doors close and I ride the elevator down in the dark. Weeks, months and years. The doors open –

Here in the half-light, the half-things …

I run past the tiled walls of sinks, of drains, the written warnings of cuts, of punctures, to the mortuary –

She is here. She is here. She is here …

I read the names of the dead –

She is here. She is here …

I pull open the casket –

She is here …

No name –

Here …

I take out her clothes and now I take out her bones –

Half-things in the half-light, the half-things …

I put her clothes in my army knapsack –

Here, here in the half-light …

I put her bones in my bag –

Debts to the dead …

Down the corridor of tiled walls and written warnings, I push the button and I wait for the elevator. I glance into a mirror above a sink. I glance away. Now I glance back into the glass –

‘I almost didn’t recognize you…’

Her bones on my back, I stare into the glass –

No one is who they seem …

I vomit in the sink. Black bile. I vomit again. Brown bile. Four times I vomit. Black bile, brown bile, yellow bile and grey …

I stare into the mirror above the sink –

I scream, ‘I know who I am!’

Now I smash the glass, breaking the mirror into one thousand pieces, one thousand pieces falling, falling to the ground –

Broken and splintered …

‘I know who I am!’

*

I shouldn’t still be here. Not tonight. I should have gone home to my wife and children. But in the half-light, I watch Yuki at dinner. There is still no rain tonight, no sound of thunder, only the wind, louder than the radio now. She finishes her second bowl of rice. She rinses her chopsticks and then her bowl. She puts the utensils back into the cupboard. She puts a hand to her mouth, stifles a belch and laughs –

‘I suppose your wife is much more polite than me?’

My heart aches and my body stinks –

I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari …

Behind the six-panel screen, two pillows placed side by side, she is dressed in a yellow kimono with a dark-blue stripe; the collar is off her shoulder, her hand upon my knee –

I think about her all the time …

I run my hand up her back –

She haunts me …

Her hairbrush in one hand, she leans forward to stare at herself in the three panels of her vanity mirror –

She turns to look at me and smiles –

She has dyed her teeth black –

She drops the brush, ton, and asks, ‘Does this become me?’

*

The chief has reserved the same room in the same recently reopened restaurant near Daimon, the one near the kitchens of the Victors. The chief is treating the whole of the First Investigative Division to a celebratory meal. The whole of the First Investigative Division sitting sleeve against sleeve, knee against knee on the new mats –

There is no Ishida. No Fujita. No Adachi or me …

There is beer and there is food; zanpan from the Victors’ dustbins, the men grateful not to eat zōsui again –

Raising their glasses, taking off their ties, tying them around their foreheads and singing their songs; their songs of endeavour, their songs of courage, their songs of battle –

Their songs of victory –

Case closed!

But there are only the names of three detectives on the interrogation report; Adachi, Kanehara and Kai –

Three names and one signature –

Kodaira Yoshio.

The other detectives from Room #1 and Room #2, the uniforms from Atago, Meguro and Mita, the other detectives and uniforms from Saitama and Tochigi Prefectures –

Dogs starved at their masters’ feet…

Their names are all missing –

Beneath their tables …

But no one cares; everyone still talking about Kodaira Yoshio, about his confession to the murder of Kondo Kazuko, twenty-two years old, of Jujo, Kita Ward, Tokyo, whom Kodaira had met queuing for a ticket at Ikebukuro station on the fifteenth of July last year, whom he took into the woods at Kiyose-mura, Kita Tama-gun, out in Saitama Prefecture, and throttled and raped and then robbed of sixty yen and her paulownia geta clogs –

Death is here…

Everyone still talking about Kodaira Yoshio, about his confession to the murder of Matsushita Yoshie, twenty years old, also of Kita Ward, Tokyo, whom he had met in a queue at Tokyo station on the twenty-eighth of September last year, whom he took into the same woods at Kiyose-mura and throttled and raped and then robbed of one hundred and eighty yen, her handbag, her best black suit jacket and her mother’s umbrella –

Death …

Everyone now whispering about the rumours of purges, about Kempei in hiding, Kempei on the run. Everyone whispering about trials and hangings, Kempei taking new names and new lives, the names of the mad and the names of the dead. Everyone whispering about death and the dead, the dead and their ghosts –

Everyone now whispering about me –

Me and Ishida. Me and Fujita…

Me and Adachi …

In this room of this recently reopened restaurant near Daimon, the whole of the First Investigative Division sitting sleeve against sleeve, knee against knee on these new tatami mats –

On the mountains and mountains of lies …

Chief Kita and Chief Inspector Kanehara –

On those lies upon lies upon lies …

Inspector Kai and Inspector Hattori –

Lies upon lies upon lies …

Their glasses raised, their ties around their foreheads, their songs sung, they look up at me now –

All their lies on my back …

They look up at me like they don’t know who I am, like they cannot see me standing here, standing here before them –

Her bones on my back …

I should not be here –

Debts to the dead …

Now I’m gone.

*

The wind is still blowing as the siren starts up, as the voice on her radio announces that enemy planes are at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula, the sirens louder now, the voice more urgent as Yuki runs to the closet, sliding open the door, diving in among the bedding, heart hammering and eyes wide, listening for the rattle of the incendiary bombs or the swish of the demolition bombs –

First comes the rain, then comes the thunder …

‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ I tell her –

I should not be here, not tonight…

I go downstairs, out into the street –

People are running, digging –

I should be home …

Hiding things in the dirt –

In their shelters –

Boom! Boom!

The anti-aircraft batteries have begun, the searchlights crisscrossing the sky, catching the planes as the fires start –

People with suitcases now, people on bicycles –

‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I smell smoke. I put on my air-raid hood –

‘Red! Red! Incendiary bomb!’

Thousands of footsteps up on the road –

‘Run! Run! Get a mattress and sand!’

The deafening sound from above –

‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I fall to the ground, to the earth –

‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’

But there is only silence now –

‘Cover your ears…’

I get back up. I run inside –

‘Close your eyes!’

Up the stairs, into the closet, to gather Yuki up, to carry her out, into the street, the houses ablaze, the corner shop, as the wind rises and the sparks fly, I carry her across the bridge, the canal filled with people, one alley on fire, the next and the next, the crossroads blocked in all four directions with pets and babies, dogs and children, men and women, old and young, soldier and civilian, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, now falling to the ground with every fresh rattle, every new swish, crushing and trampling the very young and the very old, letting go of a hand and losing a child, calling out and turning around, screaming out and turning back, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, crushing and trampling –

I should not be here.

I have to choose which way to go, which way to run; the houses on three sides are now aflame, the people all pushing one way but that way lie no fields, that way lie only buildings –

‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I jump down into the ditch by the side of the road with Yuki still in my arms and I smear our hoods and our bedding with black mud and dark water. Now I lift Yuki up again and I carry her out of the ditch, back towards the fire, back into the flames but she is struggling to break free from my arms, desperate to flee –

‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’

‘Forget the fire,’ I whisper. ‘Forget the bombs and trust me. Through these flames is the river, through these flames is life…’

‘Cover your ears! Close your eyes!’

Now Yuki tightens her grip, and she nods her head, as we rush back into the fires, back into the flames –

Back into the war, my war …

*

The chiefs, the inspectors and all their detectives will still be at the restaurant in Daimon; their glasses empty and their songs sung now, they will be flat on their backs and out for the night; only the uniforms here tonight at the Meguro police station –

The uniforms and the suspect –

Kodaira Yoshio…

In their interrogation room, at their table, he sits in his chair –

Kodaira smiling. Kodaira grinning. Kodaira laughing …

‘I heard you were no longer with us, soldier…’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘It’s just you and me now…’

But Kodaira Yoshio leans across the table and smiles at me again and says, ‘Bit like an old regimental reunion.’

‘Here’s another reunion for you,’ I say and I pick up my army knapsack and empty the contents onto the table –

All her clothes and all her bones …

‘Recognize these?’ I shout –

Kodaira still smiling …

‘Or these or these?’ I shout again, picking up the yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress and the white half-sleeved chemise, then the dyed-pink socks and the white canvas shoes with their red rubber soles, now her bones –

Kodaira grinning …

‘Well those bones could be anybody’s, soldier…’

But now I take out the other wristwatch from my pocket. I put it down in front of him –

‘And that…’

Kodaira picks up the wristwatch from the table. Kodaira turns it over in his hand. Kodaira reads the inscription on its back –

The inscription that says, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

That screams, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

‘Could that be just anybody’s wristwatch?’ I ask him –

Kodaira laughing …

‘Now you got me, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because I did know a Miyazaki Mitsuko, back when I was working for the Naval Clothing Department near Shinagawa. Lovely thing she was too, pure clear skin and firm fresh body she had…’

Licking his lips …

‘And after I left there, I kept in touch with the old caretaker who ran the place and he did tell me that poor Mitsuko had been found naked and dead in one of the air-raid shelters…’

‘It was you, you dirty fucking animal!’

‘Hold your horses there, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because my old friend told me that she’d actually been killed by a Yobo who used to work there, that it was this Yobo who had desecrated her skin, violated her body; made me sick to think of such a dirty, filthy third-class person fucking a pure Japanese girl like her…’

‘It was you, you fucking monster!’

‘You’re not listening to me, soldier,’ says Kodaira. ‘The Kempeitai caught this Yobo; they caught him, they tried him and they executed him there and then on the spot, that’s what the old caretaker said. Made me proud to be Japanese…’

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘Are you deaf, soldier?’ Kodaira laughs now. ‘You got shellshock, have you? It was a Yobo …’

‘It was you…’

Kodaira shakes his head. He puts the watch back down on the table and now he stretches his arms high above his head and says, ‘You know, none of it makes much sense to me…’

I ask him nothing. I say nothing –

‘Take the Kempeitai, or even me, for example; they give us a big medal over there for all the things we did, but then we come back here and all we get is a long rope…’

I still say nothing –

‘Come on,’ he laughs. ‘You were over there; you saw what I saw, you did what I did…’

‘Shut up!’

‘You know, soldier, you really do look like a man I once saw over there in Jinan…’

‘Shut up!’

‘Why?’ laughs Kodaira again. ‘It couldn’t have been you, could it, soldier? He was Kempei and he was a corporal.’

‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’

‘And his name wasn’t Minami…’

‘Shut up! Shut up! ’

‘I think it was Katayama…’

‘I know who I am,’ I shout. ‘I know! I know who I am!’

Now Kodaira leans across the table towards me. Now he puts his hands on mine. Now he says, ‘Forget it, corporal…’

No one is who they say they are …

‘But I know who I am,’ I hiss. ‘I know…’

No one is who they seem …

‘It was a different world,’ says Kodaira. ‘A different time.’

*

A century of change takes place in one night of fire; neighbourhoods bombed to the ground, their people burnt to death; where there were factories and homes, where there were workers and children, now there is only dust, now there is only ash, and no one will remember those buildings, no one will remember those people –

No one will remember anything …

Things that happened last week already seem as though they happened years, even decades before. Things that happened only yesterday, no longer even register –

This is the war now …

There are severed legs and there are severed heads, a woman’s trunk with its intestines spilt, a child’s spectacles melted to its face, the dead in clusters, pets and babies, dogs and children, men and women, old and young, soldier and civilian, each one indistinguishable from the other –

The smell of apricots …

Each burnt, each dead –

This is my war now …

The air warm and the dawn pink. The smell of apricots. Black piles of bedding, black piles of possessions strewn on either side of the road. The stench of rotten apricots. Their black bicycles lie fallen, their black bodies huddled together. The smell of apricots. Black factories and black bathhouses still smouldering –

That stench of rotten apricots …

The all-clear signal now –

I should not be here …

The orders to assemble at various elementary schools, the orders to avoid certain other schools. The smell of apricots. I stagger and I stumble on, Yuki still in my arms. I should not be here. I want to leave her, I want to go home, but I cannot. The stench of rotten apricots. I stagger and I stumble, through the black columns of survivors, their black bedding on their backs, their black bicycles at their sides. I should not be here. I stagger and I stumble on until we reach the Sumida River, the river now black with bodies. The smell of apricots. I carry Yuki across the black bridge. I should not be here. I stagger and I stumble past soldiers clearing the black streets, shifting the black bodies into the backs of their trucks with hooks. The stench of rotten apricots. I stagger and I stumble as the black flesh tears, the black bodies fall apart. I should not be here. Until the air is no longer warm, the dawn no longer pink. Just the smell of apricots …

Until I can look no more, I stagger and I stumble –

I should not be here. I should not be here …

Until hours, maybe days later, I carry her up the stairs of a deserted block of apartments in Shinagawa –

I should not be here …

Until I lay her down on the pale tatami mats of a second-floor room, frayed and well worn, the chrysanthemum wallpaper limp and peeling. Here in the half-light. I take the bottle out of my pocket. I unscrew the cap of the bottle. I take the cotton wool out of the neck of the bottle. I begin to count the pills –

I should not be here …

One Calmotin, two. I count and I count. I take out a second bottle. I count out the pills. Thirty-one Calmotin, thirty-two. I count and I count. I take out the third bottle. Sixty-one Calmotin, sixty-two. I count and I count. The fourth bottle and then the fifth –

One hundred and twenty-one Calmotin …

I should not be here, on my knees –

This is surrender …

I should not be here –

This is defeat …

*

Potsu-potsu, the rain is still falling, the hot fat drops on the kettles and the pans; potsu-potsu it falls in its terrible rhythm on the crockery and the utensils; potsu-potsu on the clothes and the shoes; potsu-potsu on the cooking oil and the soy sauce –

No ‘Apple Song’ here tonight –

Potsu-potsu it falls on the corrugated tin roof which covers the stairs up to Senju Akira’s office –

Potsu-potsu, potsu-potsu …

Heavier and heavier –

Zā-zā, zā-zā…

I clutch my knapsack. I start to shuffle backwards towards the door, on my hands and on my knees –

Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Senju laughing at me now as he asks, ‘You didn’t bring me back any souvenirs from Tochigi then? Not very thoughtful…’

‘I am very sorry,’ I tell him and I bow again –

But now Senju has said too much …

On my hands and on my knees –

He has said too much …

I get off my knees. He has said too much. I open my old army knapsack. Get off your knees! I take out the 1939 army-issue pistol. He has said too much. I raise it. Get off your knees! I aim and I point it at Senju Akira. He has said too much. Senju sat cross-legged before the long low polished table. Get off your knees! Bare-chested, with his trousers unbuttoned at the waist. He has said too much. Revolvers and short swords lain out on the table before him –

Get off your knees! Get off your knees!

‘It was you,’ I tell him. You who ordered Ishida to kill me. You who ordered Ishida to steal that file because Fujita told you it would buy Adachi’s silence. Because you knew Adachi would find out. You knew he would find out it was you; you who introduced Fujita to Nodera; you who set them up to kill Matsuda, your own boss, your mentor, the man you called brother; it was you…

‘You who ordered the hit on Matsuda…’

Now Senju looks up at me and smiles –

Senju laughing at me again now –

He, he, he, he! Ho, ho, ho, ho …

‘Suddenly you’re a brave man, are you? With your grey hair and your stench of death, suddenly you’re a hero again, are you? Suddenly, back from the dead. Go on then, corporal…’

The 1939 army-issue pistol pointed at him –

‘Corporal what …? What’s your name…?’

The 1939 army-issue pistol aimed at him –

‘What is it this week, corporal…?’

The army-issue pistol in my hand –

‘Who are you today, cor–’

I pull the trigger. Bang!

His forehead shatters –

I am off my knees …

I can hear feet coming. I pick up the file and the papers, the money and the drugs. Feet up the stairs, through the doors –

Through the doors, and I shoot again –

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The first one falls, the other turns –

I run to the door and I shoot –

Bang! Bang!

The man falls down the stairs as I follow him –

As I step over the bloodstained patterned shirt. Zā-zā, zā-zā. As I stamp on the American sunglasses. Zā-zā, zā-zā…

Now I run. Now I run away again –

Zā-zā, zā-zā. Zā-zā, zā-zā…

Run to the station –

Zā-zā, zā-zā…

The rain coming down in sheets of sheer white water, bouncing back off the train tracks and the umbrellas on the platform. Zā-zā, zā-zā. Now the headlights of the Shinjuku train appear and the pushing begins, the shoving begins. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I push my way forward and I shove my way on board. Zā-zā, zā-zā…

He said too much. He will say no more …

Now the doors close and the train starts. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. Pushed and shoved as we crawl along the tracks through the rain. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. But I cannot see this train at all. Zā-zā, zā-zā. Now I do not itch and I do not scratch. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I close my eyes –

Zā-zā, zā-zā. Zā-zā, zā-zā…

I am not here.

*

My hat pulled down and my jacket stretched over, I run down the road to the restaurant, half-way between the station and my house –

The one lantern swinging in the rain and the wind –

Ha, ha, ha, ha! He, he, he, he! Ho, ho, ho, ho!

I pull back the sheet that acts as a door and the jokes, the smiles and the laughter stop dead. Dead. No jokes. No smiles. No laughter. Everyone has gone. There is no one here –

No one but the man behind the counter –

No one is who they say they are …

‘Welcome home, corporal,’ says Chief Inspector Adachi –

‘This is not my home,’ I tell him. ‘This is not my home! ’

But Adachi nods. Adachi says, ‘This is all you have.’

‘Stop!’ I shout and scream, ‘You’re lying!’

‘They shipped you home from China in a strait-jacket,’ he says. ‘And they would have locked you up in Matsuzawa with your father, if it hadn’t been for me and Chief Kita.’

‘I don’t want to hear this!’ I shout.

‘I took you in as a favour to Kita and then, after the surrender, he repaid us both with these jobs –’

‘Stop!’ I shout again –

‘With these names –’

I can’t forget…

But I am not listening to Adachi now. Now I am ripping apart the walls of this shack. Now I am tearing off the roof –

And now in the light, here in the bright and shining light, Adachi is gone; this man is Captain Muto again –

‘And I am all you have,’ he says –

‘They are coming for you.’

And I can hear them. They are coming for me. Door to door. They are coming for me. I can hear them. They are coming for me. Kita is coming, the Victors are coming. They are coming for me …

Now Captain Muto puts down a razor on the counter –

I should not be here, not tonight. I should be home …

Next to the razor, the bottles of Calmotin –

‘Sweet dreams, Corporal Katayama.’

*

She is lying naked on the futon. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her head is slightly to the right. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her right arm outstretched. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her left arm at her side. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. My come drying on her stomach and on her ribs. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. She says –

‘Marry me, please marry me…’

Now she brings her left hand up to her stomach. She dips her fingers in my come. She puts her fingers to her lips. She licks my come from her fingers and she asks –

‘Does this become me?’

Dressed in her yellow and dark-blue striped kimono, I smile, ‘It more than becomes you…’

The pills all gone …

‘Marry me…’

I pick up the razor. Nobody knows my name. Everybody knows my name. I open up the razor. Nobody cares. Everybody cares. I untie the kimono. The day is night. The night is day. The yellow and dark-blue striped kimono. Black is white. White is black. It falls open. The men are the women. The women are the men. The razor in my right hand. The brave are the frightened. The frightened are the brave. I lower my right hand. The strong are the weak. The weak are the strong. I lower the razor. The good are the bad. The bad are the good. The blade touches my skin. Communists should be set free. Communists should be locked up. I lift up my cock with my left hand. Strikes are legal. Strikes are illegal. The blade is cold. Democracy is good. Democracy is bad. My mouth is dry. The aggressor is the victim. The victim is the aggressor. My stomach aches. The winners are the losers. The losers are the winners. My heart aches. Japan lost the war. Japan won the war. I start to cut. The living are the dead –

I cut and I cut and I cut and I cut and I cut…

Until the dead are the living. I cut …

I am one of the survivors!

Until the walls of her room are stained red with blood, the tatami mats soaked black, and now her walls are gone, her mats are gone, and I am running through the streets –

One of the lucky ones!

Down these streets that are no streets, past shops that are no shops. In this city of the dead –

The Shōwa Dead…

Their voices calling to me, their hands reaching out to me. The Shōwa Dead. The master of my usual restaurant. The Shōwa Dead. The friend from elementary school. The Shōwa Dead. The old man in the bar. The Shōwa Dead. My teammates from my high school baseball club. The Shōwa Dead. The woman at the streetcar stop. The Shōwa Dead. The colleagues with whom I graduated. The Shōwa Dead. The children, the children –

In the City of the Dead –

The Shōwa Dead…

They call me –

Home.

*

Running down my street, running towards my house. In the half-light, I can’t forget. The dirt on my knees, the blood on my hands –

The sun setting in the west, rain threatening –

The sides of the road littered with corpses on mats, men and women, young and old, soldiers and civilians, their eyes blank or closed, their flesh rotting and their bones dust –

The stench of rotten apricots …

But there are no cars upon my street, the bridge collapsed into the river, all the restaurants destroyed and the farms abandoned –

Endless burnt fields, burnt fields of ash and weeds –

I cannot tell which of these houses is mine –

I cannot see for the tears in my eyes –

Now I remember. I remember …

I have been away for too long –

I remember. I remember …

I have failed my wife –

Now I remember …

My children.

But then I recognize the gate to my house, now I recognize the path to my house. I open the gate, I go up the path –

Now I open the door to my house –

Their shoes face the door …

I stand in the genkan –

‘I’m home…’

Home …

My wife and my children step out of the half-light, their airraid hoods are scorched, the bedding on their backs is black, their faces blistered and their eyes sunken, but they are alive –

I rush towards them, my arms around them –

I fall to my knees as I bring them close –

‘I thought you were dead,’ I cry –

‘I thought I had lost you…’

But now they push me away, they step back into the shadows as they raise their fingers and point at me –

The rain falling on me now …

‘We’re already dead…’

Now there is no roof and there are no walls, only ashes, no mats and no screens, only ashes, no furniture and no clothes, only ashes, no genkan and no door, only ashes –

Their shoes are cinders …

My right hand trembles, my right arm, now my legs –

For I have no wife, I have no children, only ashes –

Masaki, Banzai! Sonoko, Banzai! …

I have no son and I have no daughter –

Daddy, Banzai! Banzai! …

I have no home. I have no family –

Daddy, Banzai!

I have no heart –

Banzai! …

In this House of Oblivion, I am death.

*

Through the buildings in disrepair and the grounds untended, the gates gone and the trees cut down, they are coming; past the faded paint and the worn linoleum, the stained uniforms and the grubby offices, they are coming; through the sounds of screams and sobs, the smells of DDT and disinfectant, they are coming now –

To the Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane –

They are coming now. They are coming …

Down these corridors and up these stairs, up these stairs and along another long corridor of locked metal doors, they are coming now; through locked metal doors into the secure wards, into the secure wards and down more corridors, they are coming now; down more corridors to the secure rooms, they are coming now –

They are here! They are here! They are here!

Dr. Nomura before the locked metal door –

Before the bolted metal hatch –

‘Here we are,’ he says.

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 back into their eyes –

Pairs of brown eyes and pairs of blue …

These men have looked into my eyes before –

My unblinking eyes and my shaven head –

Now I step away from the hatchway –

I sit back cross-legged on my cot –

In my shapeless gown of yellow and dark-blue striped Chinese silk, with my close-shaven head and my unblinking eyes –

The blood-flecked scroll on the wall above my cot –

‘It is time to reveal the true essence of the nation.’

A colour postcard of the Itsuku-shima Shrine –

My hands folded in my bandaged lap –

I am one of the survivors …

‘Have you seen enough?’ asks Nomura –

The men step away from the hatch –

‘We’ve seen enough,’ says Chief Kita. ‘Thank you, doctor.’

Dr. Nomura closes the hatch. Dr. Nomura bolts it –

The walls are white, but the cell is dark now –

In the half-light, the half-things move –

I close my eyes and I begin to count again; one hundred and twenty Calmotin, one hundred and twenty –

One of the lucky ones.

of every province through which we pass. Dato Nippon Teikokushugi! Trenches dug at six-metre intervals, strewn with hats, leather belts and birdcages. This is not conquest, this is emancipation! The unburied bones of the Chinese dead stand like sticks stuck in the soil. The Light from the East. Brown thighbones shine in the sunlight, vertebrae glisten. Bright Peace. The flies swarm, the air stinks. I lie among the corpses. One hundred and twenty Calmotin, one hundred and twenty-one. The Chinese couple are streaked with dirt, their faces expressionless. The interpreter spits out the match and shouts at the man. The garlic stench, the metallic words. The woman answers the question. The interpreter strikes her. The woman staggers. The interpreter nods. Kasahara and I march the couple to the outskirts of the village, the red sky reflected in the willow-lined creek. The trees are still tonight, the farmhouses abandoned. The couple stare into the waters of the creek, the clusters of wild chrysanthemums, the corpse of a horse, its saddle tangled in weeds. Kasahara draws his sword and I draw mine. The man and the woman drop to their knees. His hands clasped together, her frantic metallic pleas. The blade and then the silence again. Blood flows over their shoulders but neither head falls. The man’s body tilts to the right and topples into the wild chrysanthemums. Masaki, Banzai! I help the woman’s body into the creek, the muddy soles of her feet turned up to the sky. Daddy, Banzai! In the village by the riverbank, lined by willow trees, the group of young able-bodied men poses in front of a half-destroyed house. Our captain in the centre, he rests his hands on the heads of two small children. No tears for the rivers and mountains of their land, no sadness for their father and mother no longer here. I see your little figure, waving a little flag in your little fist. His body among the chrysanthemums, her feet turned up to the sky. Daddy cherishes that picture forever in his mind. By the riverbank, lined by willow trees. In a half-destroyed house, I lie among the corpses. Thousands of them, millions of them. One hundred and thirty Calmotin, one hundred and thirty-one. The sunlight streams in through the windows of the carriage, gaiters hang from the overhead baggage net. A child unsheathes a toy sword. Banzai! One hundred and forty Calmotin, one hundred and forty-one. In the House of Oblivion, there are no flags. Ton-ton. Death is a man from Tochigi. Ton-ton. There are no songs. Death is a man from Tokyo. Ton-ton. Death is a man from Japan. Ton-ton. There are only drums. Death is a man from Korea. Ton-ton. Death is a man from China. Ton-ton. Drums of skin, drums of hair. Death is a man from Russia. Ton-ton. Death is a man from Germany. Ton-ton. Beaten by thighbones. Death is a man from France. Ton-ton. Death is a man from Italy. Ton-ton. Beaten by children. Death is a man from Spain. Ton-ton. Death is a man from Great Britain. Ton-ton. Banging the drum, after we’re gone. Death is a man from America. Ton-ton. There are no exits, in the House of Oblivion. Ton-ton. Death is a man. Ton-ton. Cut off your cock! Masaki, Banzai! Death is a man. Ton-ton. Tear out your heart! Daddy, Banzai! Death is a man. Banzai! One hundred and fifty Calmotin…