Tokyo Year Zero (45 page)

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…

The spirits of the dead from my past crimes
Startle me
,
And, while in despair, I spend days
Awaiting my death
Thinking of the kindness bestowed on me
Even to the very end
,
Which causes tears to flow without limit
.

Kodaira Yoshio, 1949

Kodaira Yoshio was executed at the Miyagi Prison in Sendai
Prefecture on the fifth of October, 1949.
He was forty-four years old.
Kodaira Yoshio had confessed to the rapes and murders of ten
women, including Miyazaki Mitsuko and the second woman found
in Shiba Park, Tokyo, in August 1946.
However, this woman has never been identified.
She was aged approximately seventeen to eighteen years and
died on or around the twenty-second of July, 1946 –
Namu-amida-butsu…

David Peace, Tokyo, 2006
The Year of the Dog

Throughout the text, I have followed the Japanese convention in which the family name precedes the personal name.

In the thirteen lucky years I have lived in Tokyo, many, many people have helped me and, in many, many ways, contributed to this book, most of all my family: Izumi, George, Emi, Shigeko and Daisuke.

However, in the preparation and research for the actual writing of this book, I would like to pay particular thanks to the following people for their help, their knowledge and their time:

Firstly, my dear agent William Miller, along with Sawa Junzo, Hamish Macaskill, Peter Thompson, and all the staff of the English Agency Japan. Also Koyama Michio, Hayakawa Hiroshi, Chida Hiroyuki, Yoshida Tomohiro, Hamaguchi Tamako, Nagayoshi Yuki, Edward Seidensticker, Donald Richie, David Mitchell, Mark Schreiber, Michael Gardiner, Justin McCurry, Koizumi Atsuko and Matsumura Sayuri.

In London, I would like to thank Stephen Page, Lee Brackstone, Angus Cargill, Anna Pallai, Anne Owen, Trevor Horwood, and all the staff of Faber and Faber; in Yorkshire, my mother and father; in New York, Sonny Mehta, Diana Coglianese, and Leyla Aker; in Paris, François Guérif, Agnès Guery, Jeanne Guyon, Daniel Lemoine, and all the staff of Payot & Rivages, and Jean-Pierre Deloux; in Milan, Luca Formenton, Marco Tropea, Cristina Ricotti, Marco Pensante, Seba Pezzani, and all the staff of il Saggiatore, and Elio De Capitani; in Munich, Juergen Kill and Susanne Fink of Liebeskind, Markus Naegele of Heyne, and Peter Torberg.

I would also like to thank Shimoyama Susumu of my Japanese publisher Bungei Shunju for his advice and support, and finally, but most of all, my editor Nagashima Shunichiro, who gave me the
confidence and help to finally begin writing this book. Shunichiro provided and translated materials which otherwise would have been beyond me and then diligently and incisively edited both the English and Japanese manuscripts. In short, any qualities this book might have, are his. The faults, as ever, are all mine.

FICTION

An Artist of the Floating World
by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber, 1986)

‘The Camelia’ by Satomi Ton, translated by Edward Seidensticker, from
Modern Japanese Stories
(Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)

Childhood Years
by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, translated by Paul McCarthy (Kodansha International, 1988)

The Essential Akutagawa Ryunosuke
, edited by Seiji M. Lippit (Marsilio Publishers, 1999)

The Girl I Left Behind
by Endo Shusaku, translated by Mark Williams (New Directions, 1994)

A Gray Moon
by Shiga Naoya, translated by Lane Dunlop (Charles E. Tuttle, 1992)

‘The Hole’ by Kuroshima Denji, from
A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings
, edited and translated by Zeljko

Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)

‘The Idiot’ by Sakaguchi Ango, translated by George Saito, from
Modern Japanese Stories
(Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)

The Journey
by Osaragi Jiro, translated by Ivan Morris (Knopf, 1960)

The Legend of Gold and Other Stories
by Ishikawa Jun, edited and translated by William J. Tyler (University of Hawaii Press, 1998)

‘Militarized Streets’ by Kuroshima Denji, from
A Flock of Swirling Crows & Other Proletarian Writings
, edited and translated by Zeljko Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)

Musashi
by Yoshikawa Eiji, translated by Charles S. Terry (Kodansha International, 1981)

Nonresistance City’ by Maruo Suehiro, from
Ultra-Gash Inferno
, translated by James Havoc and Shinkado Takako (Creation Books, 2001)

Occupation
by John Toland (Doubleday, 1987)

One Man’s Justice
by Yoshimura Akira, translated by Mark Ealey (Canongate, 2003)

Palm-of-the Hand Stories
by Kawabata Yasunari, translated by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman (North Point Press, 1988)

‘A Quiet Obsession’ by Kyoka Izumi, from
In Light of Shadows
, edited and translated by Charles Shiro Inouye (University of Hawaii Press, 2005)

The Saga of Dazai Osamu
by Phyllis I. Lyons (Stanford University Press, 1985)

‘Sakurajima’ by Umezaki Haruo, translated by D. E. Mills, from
The Catch and Other War Stories
, edited by Saeki Shooichi (Kodansha International, 1981)

The Scavengers
by Kafu Nagai, translated by Edward Seidensticker (Stanford University Press, 1965)

Self Portraits
by Dazai Osamu, translated and introduced by Ralph F. McCarthy (Kodansha International, 1991)

‘Shitamachi’ by Hayashi Fumiko, translated by Ivan Morris, from
Modern Japanese Stories
(Charles E. Tuttle, 1962)

Soldiers Alive
by Ishikawa Tatsuzō, translated by Zeljko Cipris (University of Hawaii Press, 2003)

‘The Sound of Hammering’ by Dazai Osamu, translated by James O’Brien, from
Crackling Mountain and Other Stories
(Charles E. Tuttle, 1989)

A Strange Tale from East of the River
by Kafu Nagai, translated by Edward Seidensticker (Stanford University Press, 1965)

Tales of Moonlight and Rain
by Ueda Akinari, translated by Hamada Kengi (Columbia University Press, 1972)

This Outcast Generation
by Takeda Taijun, translated by Shibuya Yusaburo and Sanford Goldstein (Charles E. Tuttle, 1967)

Wheat and Soldiers
by Hino Ashihei, translated by Ishimoto Shidzue (Farrar & Rinehart, 1939)

Where are the Victors?
by Donald Richie (Charles E. Tuttle, 1956; republished as
This Scorching Earth
, 1986)

A Wife in Musashino
by Ōoka Shōhei, translated by Dennis Washburn (University of Michigan, 2004)

NON-FICTION

Embracing Defeat
by John Dower (W. W. Norton, 1999)

Geisha, Harlot, Strangler, Star
by William Johnston (Columbia University Press, 2005)

Japan at War: An Oral History
by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook (The New Press, 1992)

Japan Diary
by Mark Gayn (Charles E. Tuttle, 1981)

Japan’s Longest Day
by the Pacific War Research Society (Kodansha, 1968)

Keiji Ichidai: Hiratsuka Hachibei no Shōwa Jiken-shi
by Sasaki Yoshinobu (Sankei Shimbunsha; Nisshin-Hodo Shuppanbu, 1980)

Nippon no Seishin Kantei
, edited by Fukushima Akira, Nakata Osamu, Ogi Sadataka, Uchimura Yushi and Yoshimasu Shufu (Misuzu Shobo, 1973)

The Other Nuremberg
by Arnold C. Brackman (William Morrow, 1987)

Oyabun: Nippon Outlaw Retsudan
, edited by Jitsuwa Jidai Henshubu (Yosensha, 2005)

The Phoenix Cup: Some Notes on Japan in 1946
by John Morris (The Crescent Press, 1947)

The Police in Occupation Japan
by Christopher Aldous (Routledge, 1997)

Senso to Kodomotachi
(Nihon Toshokan Centre, 1994)

Shocking Crimes of Postwar Japan
by Mark Schreiber (Yenbooks, 1996)

Shōwa
by Tessa Morris-Suzuki (Methuen, 1984)

Tokyo Rising
by Edward Seidensticker (Charles E. Tuttle, 1990)

Tokyo Underworld
by Robert Whiting (Vintage, 1999)

Typhoon in Tokyo
by Harry Emerson Wildes (Macmillan, 1954)

Valley of Darkness
by Thomas R. H. Havens (University Press of America, 1986)

War, Occupation and Creativity
, edited by Marlene J. Mayo and J. Thomas Rimer with H. Eleanor Kerkham (University of Hawaii Press, 2001)

The Yakuza
by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro (University of California Press, 2003)

FILMS

Drunken Angel
(Kurosawa Akira, Toho, 1948)

Gate of Flesh
(Suzuki Seijun, Nikkatsu, 1964)

Senso to Heiwa
(Yamamoto Satsuo and Kamei Fumio, Toho, 1947)

Story of a Prostitute
(Suzuki Seijun, Nikkatsu, 1965)

Stray Dog
(Kurosawa Akira, Shintoho, 1949)

Ugetsu
(Mizoguchi Kenji, Daiei, 1953)

Under the Flag of the Rising Sun
(Fukasaku Kinji, Toho, 1972)

SONGS

‘Ringo no Uta’ (the Apple Song), sung by Namiki Michiko, on Nippon Columbia, was the hit song of 1945-46 in Japan

‘Roei no Uta’ (the Bivouac Song), with lyrics by Kozeki Yuji and music by Yabuuchi Kiichiro, on Victor Records, was the winning entry in a 1937 nationwide patriotic songwriting contest

Plus the collected works of Les Rallizes Denudes, The Stalin, Ningen-isu, Sigh and Church of Misery