Tokyo Year Zero (32 page)

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 –