Tokyo Year Zero (39 page)

The bloody mouth from which the gag has been ripped
…

Lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies –

In the night, the grinding of teeth, the weeping of tears
…

It is time to come down from this mountain of lies –

I can hear Ishida crying. I can hear him weeping
…

To come down from this mountain of bones –

In the half-light, I can hear them all
…

It is time to go home.

*

I struggle but manage to get on board at the couplings between two of the carriages. I struggle but manage to get from the couplings into the freight wagon. The freight wagon full of people packed like cattle –

Human cattle. Human cattle. Human cattle
…

There is a woman attacking a rice-ball, another crunching a pickle, little kids crying and old folk snoring, itching and scratching,
gari-gari
, the reek of human piss, the stench of human shit –

Human shit. Human shit. Human shit
…

‘No luck at all,’ someone is saying. ‘Nothing at all…’

‘They’re all so rich now they’ve no need to sell…’

‘They keep the good stuff hidden out of sight…’

‘Or they just ask for whatever they want…’

‘They aren’t satisfied with money…’

‘Some of the older ones want a fuck and if you put some
effort into it and promise to come back again, they’ll give you a quart for a hundred and fifty yen, not bad for ten minutes’ fucking…’

‘You could sell it in Tokyo for two hundred yen…’

‘Your rice and your cunt,’ they laugh,
ha, ha
…

I stare out of the wagon, between the boards –

There is no hindsight. No foresight
…

Just blindness, just darkness –

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

Tokyo, 85°, fine

I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. The bodies rock from side to side with the motion of the train as the dawn begins to pick them out through the holes in the boards and the gaps by the doors. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. There is an old white-haired woman sat across from me, wedged between a younger man and woman. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. The younger man and woman both trying to wake her up now, whispering, ‘Wake up. We’ll soon be in Asakusa. Wake up…’

But there is no movement or answer from the woman –

‘Wake up!’ hisses the other woman. ‘I can’t move my arm.’

The train jumps a joint now. The old woman falls forward –

The man on her left, sensing something is not quite right, lifts up her head to the light. The old woman’s eyes are still closed –

There is froth round her mouth and down her chin –

‘What’s the matter with you?’ asks the man. ‘Wake up!’

The train jumps another joint. The old woman rolls over –

‘She’s dead,’ says the woman to the man. ‘She’s dead…’

Now they both try to push the old woman’s body off them, to push her away, but the woman’s body won’t move because it is held in its place by the weight of the bundle strapped to her back –

The weight of the bundle, the supplies on her back
…

‘Take it off,’ the man is whispering to the young woman as they struggle with the body. But the young woman has had a better idea as they separate the body of the old woman from the bundle on her back, the younger woman opening the bundle and the man doesn’t need telling and now he joins her picking through the ropes and the knots, each of them glancing this way and that to check that no one else is awake, the ropes and the knots now gone, that way and this to make sure no one is watching as they take the polished rice and the sweet potatoes from out of the bundle on the dead woman’s back and hide it in the bundles on their own backs –

This way and that, that way and this
…

I lower my head and I close my eyes –

I turn their shoes to face the door
…

But not for long –

The other bodies in the freight wagon begin to stir now. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. The whispers with them. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. The rumours that the police will be waiting at Asakusa to search the passengers and their bundles for any black-market goods –

People thinking about getting off at Kita-Senju station –

People saying Kita-Senju will be just as bad –

People talking about jumping off –

I have heard enough –

I put my knapsack of bones and fragments of clothes on my back and I jump down from the freight wagon at Kita-Senju station –

But I do not go through the ticket gates at Kita-Senju. I walk up the stairs and down another flight to another platform. Then I stand on the roofless platform and I wait for the train to Ueno –

It is the twenty-seventh of August.
I think
. It is just gone 7 a.m. It is hot and humid and the sky is a dirty grey stain –

I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
…

Gari-gari. Gari-gari
…

Gari-gari
…

This platform for Ueno and Tokyo is not very busy but across the tracks the platforms for Saitama and Chiba are both crowded –

I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. I itch and I scratch –

Gari-gari. Gari-gari. Gari-gari. Gari-gari
…

I hear my train approaching now. I step forward towards the edge of the platform. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. The train pulls in and hundreds of people get off, pushing and shoving. I get on board, the carriage still full of hundreds of people, still pushing and shoving. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. I stand by the door as the train pulls out. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. There is silence inside the carriage. The people are nervous. The people are worried. The people afraid –

I am nervous. I am worried. I am afraid. I am scared
…

There are always police at Ueno station, always searches of clothing and baggage. But I will not go through the ticket gates here. I will change to another platform. I will change to another train –

They will not see me. They will not stop me
…

I will take the Yamate Line to Kanda –

They will not find me. Not catch me
…

The Chūō Line to Shinanomachi –

I will be safe this way
…

But there are police at Shinanomachi station.
I curse
. I am on the platform now.
I curse
. I am walking towards the ticket gate.
I curse
. They are stopping people.
I curse
. They are searching people.
I curse
. I can’t show my notebook.
I curse
. I can’t tell them my name.
I curse
. I am stood in the line for the gates.
I curse
. I am in the queue now.
I curse
. I hand my ticket to the station staff. I keep walking –

‘You there,’ commands the voice of a policeman. ‘Stop!’

I curse and I curse
. I stop.
I curse again
. I turn around –

There are two uniformed policemen. ‘Come here!’

I curse. I curse. I curse. I curse. I curse
…

I bow before them and I ask, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘What have you got in your knapsack?’

I curse. I curse. I curse. I curse
…

‘Just my clothes and things…’

‘Show us then,’ they tell me.

I curse. I curse. I curse
…

‘But it’s just clothes.’

‘Just open it then.’

I curse. I curse
…

‘Really, just…’

‘Open it!’

I curse and I curse but I nod. I take off my knapsack and I start to open it up but one of the officers snatches it from out of my hands. He sets it down on the floor and he starts to go through it –

I can feel the gun in the small of my back
…

‘What is all this?’ he asks now, dropping the pieces of cloth and the fragments of bones onto the floor and standing back up –

Ishida’s gun tucked in my belt
…

The other man bending down to look at the cloth and the bones, now staring back up at me with horror in his eyes –

I have no choice now
…

I take out my
keisatsu techō
, my police notebook, and I hand it to them. I tell them, I’m taking this evidence to the autopsy department at Keiō

No choice
…

But the two policemen are both smiling at me now, their caps
in their hands, wiping their faces and wiping their necks –

‘Why didn’t you just say you were one of us?’

‘I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.’

‘Just show your
techō
next time …’

‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘My mistake.’

‘We’re not looking for policemen,’ they laugh as I walk out of the station with the clothes and the bones in the bag on my back.

*

It is still early but the Keiō Hospital is still busy; queues through the gates, queues to the doors, queues in the corridors. I walk through the gates, through the doors and down the corridors; past the queues, past the patients and past the gurneys to the elevator. I push the button –

I hate hospitals. I hate all hospitals. All hospitals
…

I step inside. I press another button. The doors close –

I have spent too long in hospitals
…

I ride the elevator down in the dark –

I have spent too long here
…

The doors open. Light returns –

In the half-light
…

I walk past the tiled walls of sinks, of drains, the written warnings of cuts, of punctures, down the corridor to the mortuary and the autopsy room. I knock on the door to the office –

‘Yes,’ shouts Dr. Nakadate from inside –

I open the door. I step into his office –

The smell of death, then disinfectant
…

Dr. Nakadate sat at his desk, his face unshaven, his eyes red –

‘What happened to your hair?’ he asks. ‘It’s gone grey.’

‘I almost didn’t recognize you…’

I say, ‘I’ve brought you some souvenirs from Tochigi…’

Dr. Nakadate puts down his pen. He shakes his head –

I put the knapsack down on his desk. I open it up –

I take out the clothes. I take out the bones –

Nakadate looks at them. Then he looks up at me. ‘Kodaira?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘But I think it’s going to be hard to prove, unless he confesses when faced with the evidence we have…’

Dr. Nakadate asks, ‘Why? Where’s the rest of it?’

‘Utsunomiya,’ I tell him. ‘There are three cases but only one
of them was ever treated as a crime. I have asked Utsunomiya to send any remains and any reports they can find here to you.’

‘What are the names of the victims?’ he asks.

‘These bones here were taken from the scene where the body of a woman named Ishikawa Yori was found in September last year. The Kanuma police believe Ishikawa died in June. Then, at a second site, I found these pieces of clothing which I believe belong to a girl called Nakamura Mitsuko, who was reported missing last July. Just last month, Kanuma police found a skeleton which I believe to be hers, though I have not seen the autopsy report. However, I am going to take these pieces of clothing to her family to try to confirm her identity. The third case is that of a young woman named Baba Hiroko who was murdered in January this year…’

Nakadate stops writing. Nakadate nods.

‘You know about that one?’ I ask. ‘Then I can also tell you that we found no evidence to connect Kodaira to a fourth case, that of a Numao Shizue and which had been forwarded to us by Nikkō.’

‘You’ve been very busy, detective,’ says Dr. Nakadate now. ‘Don’t tell me that you’re after a promotion…?’

‘So you heard what happened to me?’

‘Yes,’ says Nakadate.

‘Who told you?’

‘Chief Kita himself,’ he says.

‘When did you see him?’

‘When I took him the Miyazaki Mitsuko autopsy report.’

‘You told me you were going to wait a few days…’

‘I’m very sorry,’ he says. ‘But I had no choice.’

I have no choice. I have no choice
…

‘There’s always a choice,’ I hiss –

‘Not this time,’ says Nakadate. ‘The Public Safety Division came here asking to see all reports involving the Kempeitai…’

‘So you gave them the Miyazaki autopsy report?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘I gave it to Chief Kita.’

‘And what did Chief Kita say?’

‘He already knew about it.’

‘But he hadn’t connected it to Kodaira?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Nakadate.

‘Did Chief Kita say what he was going to do about it?’

‘He said they would question Kodaira about it.’

‘What about Chief Inspector Adachi?’

‘What about him?’

‘Did Chief Kita say anything about Chief Inspector Adachi and the Miyazaki case?’

‘No.’

‘Did the Public Safety Division ask you about Adachi?’

‘No.’

‘So what did they ask you about then?’

‘Kempeitai cases,’ he tells me again.

‘About me?’ I ask him –

Nakadate nods –

‘What…?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ he says again. ‘But they have statements. They have witnesses, detective. There was nothing I could do…’

I had no choice. I had no choice. I had no choice
…

In the corridor of tiled walls and written warnings, I push the button and I wait for the elevator to come. Dr. Nakadate bows. Nakadate apologizes again. He wishes me luck and then he asks –

Finally he asks, ‘What will you do now?’

‘I have debts to pay,’ I tell him –

‘You owe them nothing…’

‘Not to the living,’ I say. ‘Debts to the dead.’

*

The last streetcar hit a youth and a woman jumped in front of a train so the streetcar is late and the trains have stopped and so I am stood in the queue next to a woman of about fifty in a pair of brown
monpe
work trousers similar to the rotten pair in the knapsack on my back. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. To my left is a youth of about fifteen or sixteen. There is a tear in the shoulder of the coarsely woven factory uniform he is wearing and beneath the visor of his army cap his eyes are closed and his jaw hangs open, his body swaying slowly back and forth in the morning heat, back and forth. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. Back and forth, back and forth until, just as it seems he’ll fall forward flat onto his face, the youth pulls himself up –

‘Is he drunk or is he sick?’ asks the woman –

‘Probably just tired and hungry,’ I say.

The woman leans across me. She puts a hand on the youth’s
shoulder. She asks him, ‘Are you all right? Where are you going?’

The youth does not answer. The woman asks him again –

This time the youth says, ‘I’m going to Ueno.’

‘Then you’re on the wrong side,’ says the woman. ‘You need to go and wait on the other side of the road for Ueno. Over there…’

The youth stares at the streetcar stop on the other side of the road. But he does not move. Under his cap, he closes his eyes –

‘Over there,’ says the woman again. ‘Can you see?’

Now the youth’s jaw hangs open again.

‘You’re on the wrong side,’ the woman persists –

But still the youth doesn’t open his eyes.

‘This bus won’t take you to Ueno…’

The youth sways back and forth again.

Now she turns to me. ‘He’s going the wrong way.’

I nod. I say, ‘But it makes no difference.’

*

I walk down the street to the Nakamura house but keep on past it and do not stop until I reach the corner. Then I stand there and I stare back at the house, the bad news I bring in the knapsack on my back. Now I turn and I walk back down the street towards the house. I stop in front of the latticed door to the entrance. I reach up to open it but it is locked and will not move. I knock on the doorframe but no one comes. I knock again, louder this time, calling out in apology –