Tokyo Year Zero

by David Peace

  Knapsacks and pockets for black-market cigarettes –

  Detective Fujita and I take out our keisatsu techō, our police notebooks, to identify ourselves at the gate –

  The station and the platform are almost deserted, the Yamate Line train almost empty –

  The sun is climbing, the temperature rising. I wipe my neck and I wipe my face –

  I itch –

  I itch as I stare out of the windows; the elevated tracks of the Yamate Line now the highest points left in most of Tokyo, a sea of rubble in all directions except to the east –

  The docks and the other, real sea.

  The uniforms behind the desk at Shinagawa police station are expecting us, two waiting to lead us down to the docks –

  One called Uchida, the other Murota –

  To the scene of the crime …

  ‘They think it might be a woman called Miyazaki Mitsuko,’ they tell us as we walk, panting and sweating like dogs in the sun. ‘This Miyazaki girl was originally from Nagasaki and had been brought up to Tokyo just to work in the Naval Clothing Department and so she was living in the workers’ dormitory…’

  The sun beating down on our hats …

  ‘Back in May, she was given leave to go back home to visit her family in Nagasaki. However, she never arrived there and she never returned to work or the dormitory…’

  The neighbourhood stinks …

  ‘Most of the workers have actually moved out of the dormitory now as the factory of the Naval Clothing Department is no longer in operation. However, there have been a number of thefts from the buildings and so the caretaker and his assistant were searching and then securing premises…’

  It stinks of oil and shit …

  ‘They went down into one of the air-raid shelters, one that has not been used in a while, and that was when they…’

  It stinks of retreat …

  ‘Found the naked body of a woman…’

  Surrender …

  This neighbourhood of factories and their dormitories, factories geared to the war effort, dormitories occupied by volunteer workers; the factories bombed and the dormitories evacuated, any buildings still standing now stained black and stripped empty –

  This is the scene of the crime …

  The Women’s Dormitory Building of the Dai-Ichi Naval Clothing Department still standing, next to a factory where only the broken columns and the gateposts remain –

  No equipment and no parts –

  The workers have fled –

  This is the scene …

  Two men sit motionless before the abandoned dormitory, sheltering from the sun in the shadow of a cabin-cum-office –

  ‘I really can’t understand it,’ the older man is saying. ‘I really can’t understand it. I really can’t understand it at all…’

  The older man is the caretaker of the dormitory. The other, younger man is the boiler-man. It was the boiler-man who found the body and it is the boiler-man who now points at the two corrugated metal doors to an air-raid shelter and says, ‘She’s down there…

  ‘In a cupboard at the back of the shelter…’

  The sun beating down on our hats …

  I pull back the two corrugated tin doors and then immediately I step back again. The smell of human waste is overwhelming –

  Human piss. Human shit. Human piss. Human shit …

  Three steps down, the floor of the shelter is water –

  Not rain or sea water, the shelter has flooded with sewage from broken pipes; a black sunken pool of piss and shit –

  ‘We could do with Nishi now,’ says Fujita.

  I turn back to the caretaker in his shade –

  ‘When did this happen?’ I ask him –

  ‘In the May air raids,’ he says.

  ‘How did you find the body, then?’ I ask the boiler-man –

  ‘With this,’ he replies, and holds up an electric torch. ‘Pass it over here,’ I tell the boiler-man –

  The boiler-man gets to his feet, mumbling about batteries, and brings the torch over to Fujita and me –

  I snatch it from him.

  I take out my handkerchief. I put it over my nose and my mouth. I peer back down the steps –

  I switch on the torch –

  I shine the light across the black pool of sewage water, the water about a metre deep, furniture sticking up here and there out of the pool. Against the furthest wall a wardrobe door hangs open –

  She is down here. She is down here. Down here …

  I switch off the torch. I turn back from the hole. I take off my boots. I take off my socks. I start to unbutton my shirt –

  ‘You’re never going in there, are you?’ asks the caretaker.

  ‘That was my question too,’ laughs Fujita –

  I unbutton my trousers. I take them off –

  ‘There are rats down there,’ says the caretaker. ‘And that water’s poisonous. A bite or a cut and you’ll be…’

  I say, ‘But she’s not going to walk out of there, is she?’

  Fujita starts to unbutton his shirt now, cursing –

  ‘Just another corpse,’ he says –

  ‘You two as well,’ I say to the two uniforms from Shinagawa. ‘One of you inside, one of you holding these doors open…’

  I tie my dirty handkerchief tight around my face –

  I put my boots back on. I pick up the torch –

  Now one, two, three steps down I go –

  Fujita behind me, still cursing –

  ‘Nishi back in the office…’

  I can feel the floor of the shelter beneath the water, the water up to my knees. I can hear the mosquitoes and I can sense the rats –

  The water up to my waist, I wade towards the wardrobe –

  My boots slip beneath the water, my legs stumble –

  My knee bangs into the corner of a table –

  I pray for a bruise, a bruise not a cut –

  I reach the far side of the shelter –

  I reach the wardrobe doors –

  She is in here. In here …

  I glimpse her as I pull at the doors, but the doors are stuck, submerged furniture trapping her within, closing the doors –

  Detective Fujita holds the torch as the uniformed officer and I clear the chairs and the tables away, piece by piece –

  Piece by piece until the doors swing open –

  The doors swing open and, she is here …

  The body bloated in places, punctured in others –

  Pieces of flesh here, but only bones there –

  Her hair hangs down across her skull –

  Teeth parted as though to speak –

  To whisper, I am here …

  Now the uniform holds the torch as Fujita and I take the body between us, cold here, as we carry and then hoist it out of the black water, warm there, up the dank steps, hard here, out –

  Out into the air, soft there, out into the sun –

  Panting and sweating like dogs …

  Fujita, the uniform and I flat on our backs in the dirt, the badly decomposed and naked body of a young woman between us –

  Bloated, punctured, flesh and bones, hair and teeth …

  I use my jacket to wipe myself, to dry myself –

  I smoke a Chrysanthemum cigarette –

  Now I turn to the two men sat in the shade, the caretaker and the boiler-man, and I say, ‘You told these officers that you think this might be the body of a Miyazaki Mitsuko…’

  Flesh and bones, hair and teeth …

  The caretaker nods his head.

  ‘Why did you say that?’ I ask him. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Well, it was always a bit strange,’ he says. ‘The way she left and never came back. Never went home and never back here…’

  ‘But thousands of people have gone missing,’ says Fujita. ‘Who knows how many people have been killed in the raids?’

  ‘Yes,’ says the caretaker. ‘But she left after the first raids on this
place and she never arrived back in Nagasaki…’

  ‘Who says so?’ I ask him. ‘Her parents?’

  ‘They might have been lying,’ says Fujita. ‘To keep their daughter from coming back to Tokyo…’

  The caretaker shrugs. The caretaker says, ‘Well, if she did get back to Nagasaki, she’s as good as dead anyway…’

  I finish my cigarette. I nod at the body in the dirt and I ask, ‘Is there any way you could identify this as her?’

  The caretaker looks at the remains of the corpse on the ground. He looks away again. He shakes his head –

  ‘Not like that,’ he says. ‘All I remember is that she had a watch with her name engraved on its back. It was a present from her father when she moved to Tokyo. Very proud of it, she was…’

  Fujita puts his handkerchief back over his mouth –

  He crouches down again. He shakes his head –

  There’s no watch on the wrist of this corpse –

  I nod back towards the air-raid shelter and say to Detective Fujita, ‘It might still be down there somewhere…’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And it might not be.’

  ‘How about you?’ I ask the boiler-man. ‘Did you know her?’

  The boiler-man shakes his head. He says, ‘Before my time.’

  ‘He only started here this June,’ says the caretaker. ‘And Miyazaki was last seen around here at the end of May.’

  I ask, ‘Can you remember the exact dates?’

  He tilts his head to one side. He closes his eyes. He screws them up tight. Then he opens his eyes again and shakes his head –

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But I lose track of the time…’

  I can hear an engine now. I can hear a jeep …

  I turn round as the vehicle approaches –

  It is a military police vehicle –

  It is the Kempeitai.

  The jeep stops and two Kempei officers get out of the front, both wearing side-arms and swords. They are accompanied by two older men sporting the armbands of the Neighbourhood Association –

  I want to applaud them. The Kempeitai. I want to cheer –

  No one wants a case. Not today. Not now …

  This body was found on military property; this is their dominion, this is their body, this is their case.

  Detective Fujita and I step forward. Fujita and I bow deeply –

  These two Kempei officers look very much like Fujita and I; the older man is in his late forties, the other in his late thirties …

  Detective Fujita and I introduce ourselves to the men –

  I am looking in a mirror. I am looking at myself…

  We apologize for being on military property –

  But they are soldiers, we’re just police …

  There are briefer reciprocal bows –

  This is their city, their year …

  The younger officer introduces the older man as Captain Muto and himself as Corporal Katayama –

  I am looking in a mirror …

  I bow again and now I make my report to the two Kempei officers, the two men from the Neighbourhood Association still standing close enough to hear what I am telling them –

  The times and dates. Places and names …

  I finish my report and I bow again –

  They glance at their watches.

  Now Captain Muto, the older of the two Kempei officers, walks over to the corpse stretched out in the dust. He stands and he stares at the body for a while before turning back to Fujita and me –

  ‘We will need an ambulance from the Keiō University Hospital to transport this body to the hospital. We will need Dr. Nakadate of Keiō to perform the autopsy on the body…’

  Detective Fujita and I both nod –

  This is their body, their case …

  But Captain Muto turns to the two uniforms now and says, ‘You two men return to Shinagawa and request that the Keiō University Hospital send an ambulance immediately and that Dr. Nakadate is made available to perform the autopsy.’

  Uchida and Murota, the two uniforms, both nod, salute and then bow deeply to the Kempei man –

  Fujita and I both curse –

  No escape now …

  Now Captain Muto gestures at the caretaker and then the boiler-man and asks us, ‘Which of these men work here?’ ‘They both do,’ I reply.

  Captain Muto points to the boiler-man and shouts, ‘Boiler-man, you go get a blanket or something similar and as many old newspapers as you can find. And do it quickly as well!’

  The boiler-man runs off inside the building.

  The older Kempei officer glances at his watch again and now he asks the caretaker, ‘Do you have a radio here?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nods. ‘In our cabin.’

  ‘There is to be an Imperial broadcast shortly and every citizen of Japan has been ordered to listen to this broadcast. Go now and check that your radio is tuned correctly and in full working order.’

  The caretaker nods. The caretaker bows. The caretaker goes off to his cabin, passing the boiler-man as he returns with a coarse grey blanket and a bundle of old newspapers –

  The younger Kempei man now turns to Fujita and me and tells us, ‘Lay that body out on these newspapers and then cover it with this blanket ready for the ambulance…’

  Fujita and I tie our handkerchiefs back over our mouths and our noses and set to work, laying the newspapers and then the body out, partially covering it with the blanket –

  This is not our case any more …

  But now the boiler-man nervously approaches the younger of the Kempei officers. The boiler-man’s head is bent low in apology, first mumbling and then nodding, pointing here and there in answer to the questions the officer is asking –

  The conversation ends.

  Now Corporal Katayama strides over to his senior colleague and says, ‘This man says there have been a number of thefts from our property and that he suspects these robberies to have been committed by the Korean labourers billeted in that building over there…’

  The younger Kempei man is pointing to a scorched three-storey building on the opposite side of the dormitory –

  ‘Are these workers under any kind of supervision?’ asks the older man. ‘Or are they just free to come and go?’

  ‘I heard that they were under guard until the end of May,’ says the boiler-man. ‘Then the younger and stronger ones were taken to work in the north but the older, weaker ones were left here.’

  ‘And do they do any kind of work?’

  ‘They are meant to help us with the repairs to the buildings but they are either too sick or there are not enough materials available, so usually they just stay in there…’

  Captain Muto, the older Kempei officer, who still keeps looking at his watch, now abruptly waves at all of the surrounding buildings and shouts, ‘I want all these buildings searched!’

  Fujita and I have finished laying out the body on the newspapers. Now I glance at Fujita. I am not sure if Captain Muto means for us to search or not. Fujita doesn’t move –

  But now the Kempei captain barks –

  ‘You two take this dormitory!’

  Not our case any more …

  Fujita and I both salute him. Fujita and I both bow to him. Then we march off towards the building –

  I am cursing. Fujita cursing … ‘Nishi back in the office…’

  Detective Fujita takes the top floor. I take the second floor. The knotted wooden floorboards of the corridor squeak. Knock-knock. Door to door. Room to room. Every room exactly the same –

  The tatami mats, frayed and well worn. The single window and the blackout curtain. The thin green walls and the chrysanthemum wallpaper, limp and peeling –

  Every room empty, abandoned.

  The very end of the corridor. The very last room. The very last door. Knock-knock. I turn the handle. I open the door –

  The same old mats. The single window. The same blackout curtain. The thin walls. The same peeling paper –

/>   In another empty room.

  I walk across the mats. I pull back the curtain. The sunlight illuminates a partially burnt mosquito coil on a low table –

  The stench of piss. The stench of shit –

  Human piss and human shit …

  I open the closet built into the wall and there, among a heap of bedding, crouches an old man, his face buried in a futon –

  I crouch down. I say, ‘Don’t be afraid…’

  Now he turns his head from the bedding and looks up at me; the old man’s face is flat and his lips are chapped and parted, showing broken yellow dirt-flecked teeth –

  He stinks of piss and of shit –

  The old man is a Korean –

  I curse and I curse …

  He is a Yobo –

  ‘Congratulations!’

  I look round; Corporal Katayama, the younger Kempei officer, is stood in the doorway, Fujita behind him, shaking his head –

  ‘Bring him downstairs!’ orders the Kempei man –

  I stare at this Corporal Katayama –

  I am looking into a mirror … ‘Quickly!’ he barks.

  The old man buries his head back in the bedding, his shoulders shaking, mumbling and moaning –

  ‘I didn’t do anything! Please…’ His breath foul and rotten –

  I take him by his shoulders and start to pull him from the bedding, from the closet, the old man wriggling and struggling –

  ‘I didn’t do anything! Please, I want to live!’ ‘Help him!’ the corporal orders Fujita –

  Fujita and I drag the old man from the closet, from the room, by his shoulders, by his arms, then out into the corridor, back along the floorboards; we have an arm each now –

  The man’s trunk and legs aslant –

  His feet are trailing –

  The Kempei officer marching behind with his sword in one hand, kicking at the soles of the old man’s feet, striking him with his sword to hurry him along –

  Down the stairs –

  Into the light …

  ‘That’s him!’ cries the boiler-man now. ‘That’s him!’

  ‘Get me two spades now!’ shouts the older Kempei officer and the caretaker runs back inside his cabin-cum-office –

  ‘You two, bring the suspect over here.’

  Fujita and I march the old Korean man over to Captain Muto in the shade of the other dormitory –

  Into the shadows …

  The caretaker comes back with the two spades. Captain Muto takes one of the spades from the caretaker and hands it to the boiler-man. He nods at a patch of ground that might once have been a flowerbed, then perhaps a vegetable patch, but now is nothing but hard, packed soil stained black –