Tokyo Year Zero (43 page)

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 –