by David Peace
Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out …
Turning our newspapers, thinking about food –
Day in, day out. Day in, day out …
And waiting and waiting –
Day in, day out …
The telephones that can’t ring, the electric fans that can’t turn. The heat and the sweat. The flies and the mosquitoes. The dirt, the dust and the noise; the constant sound of hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I get up from my chair. I go to the window. I raise the blind –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Three floors above Sakuradamon, I look out over Tokyo –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The Palace to my left, GHQ to my right –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Under a low typhoid sky –
Ton-ton …
The Capital City of the Shōwa Dead, the Losers on their hands and knees, the Victors in their trucks and jeeps –
No resistance here.
I hear the door open. I turn round; Kimura is stood there –
Early twenties. Repatriated from the south. Only three months here and no longer the most junior member of our room, Room #2 …
Kimura is staring down the length of table at me; half in contempt, half in deference, a piece of paper in his hands –
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …
My stomach knots, my head pounds –
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …
Kimura holds out the paper marked Police Bulletin and says, ‘Maybe this one’s a murder, Detective Inspector Minami, sir.’
*
There is only one working car for the whole division. It is not available. So we walk again, like we walk everywhere. They promise us cars, like they promise us telephones and guns and pens and paper and better pay and health care and holidays but every day we tear apart old bicycle tires to cut out new soles to hammer onto the bottom of our boots so we can walk and walk and walk and walk and walk –
Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura and me – Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Through the heat, through the flies and the mosquitoes –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
From Metropolitan Police Headquarters to Shiba Park –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Jackets off, hats on. Handkerchiefs out, fans out –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Down Sakurada-dōri and up the hill to Atago –
Ton-ton …
Detective Nishi has the Police Bulletin in his hand. Nishi reads it aloud as we walk: ‘Naked body of unidentified female found at 9:30 a.m. this morning, August 15, 1946, at Nishi-Mukai Kannon Zan, 2 Shiba Park, Shiba Ward. Body reported to Shiba Park police box at 9:45 a.m. Body reported to Atago police station at 10:15 a.m. Body reported to Metropolitan Police Headquarters at 11:00 a.m.….
‘They took their time,’ he says now. ‘It’ll be two hours by the time we see the body. What were they doing at Atago…?’
‘She ain’t going nowhere,’ laughs Detective Hattori.
‘Tell that to the maggots and the flies,’ says Nishi.
‘No cars. No bicycles. No telephones. No telegraphs,’ replies Hattori. ‘What do you expect the Atago boys to do about it?’
Nishi shakes his head. Nishi doesn’t answer him.
I wipe my neck. I glance at my watch again –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
It is almost 11:30 a.m.; only 11:30 a.m. –
Five and a half hours gone, six and a half to go. Then down to Shinagawa, down to Yuki. Three, four hours there and then out to Mitaka. The wife and the children. Eat and then sleep, try to sleep. Back here again for 6 a.m. and another twelve hours –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
If this body isn’t a murder …
‘This way is quicker,’ says Nishi and we pick our way over the hills of rubble and through the craters of dust until we come out on to Hibiya-dōri near Onarimon –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton.
*
Two very young men from the Atago police station are waiting for us in their ill-fitting, dirt-stained uniforms. They bow and they salute, they greet us and they apologize but I can’t hear a word they say –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The uniformed policemen lead us off the road, away from the sound of the hammering, and into the temple grounds –
Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …
There is nothing much left of Zōjōji Temple since it was burnt to the ground in the May air raids of last year –
Branches charred and leaves lost …
The two uniforms lead us through the ashes and up the hill, out of the sunlight and into the shadow; the graves forgotten here, this place is overgrown and its paths lost, the bamboo grass taller than a man and as thick as the insects that cloud the air; this place of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs that run in packs with a new-found taste for human flesh –
In this place of assignation –
Of prostitutes, of suicides –
This place of silence –
This place of death –
She is here …
In this sudden clearing where the tall grass has been flattened and the sun has found her, she is here; lying naked on her back, her head slightly to the left, her right arm outstretched, her left at her side, she is here; her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee, she is here …
Possibly twenty-one years old and probably ten days dead –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …
There is a piece of red material round her neck –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …
This is not a suicide. This is murder –
Namu-amida-butsu …
This case ours –
I curse her…
I look at my watch. Chiku-taku. It is almost noon –
Chiku-taku. It is August 15, 1946 –
The defeat and the capitulation. The surrender and the occupation. The ghosts all here today –
I curse her. I curse myself…
It has been one year.
*
In among the tall weeds, an old man is on his knees, bowing and mumbling his prayers with an axe on the ground before him –
‘Namu-amida-butsu,’ the old man chants. ‘Namu-amida …’
‘This man discovered the body,’ says one of the uniforms.
I squat down beside the old man. I swat at a mosquito with my hat. I miss. I wipe my neck. I say, ‘It’s hot today, isn’t it?’
The old man stops his chanting. The old man nods.
‘This man is a lumberjack,’ says the uniform.
‘And you found the body?’ I ask the man.
The old man nods his head again.
‘Found her just like this?’
He nods his head again.
‘Are you sure you didn’t find any of her clothes, a bag or a purse or anything else near her?’
He shakes his head.
‘You haven’t stashed away her things to sell later, have you? Not put away some of her things to come back for?’ Again, he shakes his head. ‘Not her ration card?’
The old man looks up at me now. The old man says, ‘No.’ I nod and I pat him on his back. I apologize to him and I thank him. I put my hat back on and I stand up again –
I see her out of the corner of my eye …
Detectives Hattori, Takeda, Sanada and Shimoda are sat down in the shade of the trees with their Panama hats in their hands, fanning and wiping themselves, swatting at flies and mosquitoes –
In the shade with the Shōwa Dead …
The two uniformed policemen from Atago shifting from foot to foot, foot to foot; Detectives Nishi
and Kimura still stood over the body, still staring at her, waiting for me –
In this City of the Dead …
I walk over to the body –
She is here …
‘I knew it,’ Kimura is saying. ‘Knew it’d be murder.’
‘And she’ll have been a whore,’ agrees Nishi.
‘I doubt that,’ I tell him, tell them both.
‘But this place is notorious for prostitutes,’ says Nishi. ‘We know the ones from Shimbashi bring their men up here…’
I stare down at the body, the pale grey and decaying body, the legs parted, raised and bent at the knee –
‘This woman was raped,’ I tell them both. ‘Why would you rape and then murder a prostitute?’
‘If you had no money,’ says Kimura. ‘There are a lot of destitute and desperate men…’
‘So just rape her and leave her, beat her if you must, but she’s not going to tell anyone.’
‘Unless she knew him,’ says Nishi. ‘Knew his name…’
‘We need to find her name,’ I tell them now, tell them all, my men and the two men from Atago. ‘And we need to find her clothes and any other belongings she might have had with her.’
‘Just a moment!’ barks out a voice from behind me, and everyone jumps to attention, to bow and to salute –
I turn round. I know this voice. I bow and I salute. I know this face well. I greet Chief Inspector Adachi –
Adachi or Anjo or Ando or whatever he calls himself this week; he has changed his name and he has changed his job, his uniform and his rank, his life and his past; he is not the only one …
Now no one is who they say they are …
No one is who they seem to be …
Behind him stand Suzuki, the First Investigative Division photographer, and two men in white coats from the Keiō University Hospital with a light, wooden coffin –
They are all sweating.
Adachi points at Suzuki and tells everyone, ‘Move out of the way and let this man get on with his work, then these other two can get this body out of here.’
Everybody steps back into the taller grasses, among the taller trees, to watch Suzuki load his film and start his work –
Click-click-click. Click-click-click …
I look at my watch –
Chiku-taku …
12:30 p.m. –
Everything is lost; there will be a meeting of all the section heads of the First Investigative Division; there will be verbal and written reports; there will be the assignment of command, the delegation of responsibility, the division of labour, of investigation and of evaluation; more lost hours in more hot rooms …
‘Bad luck, your room pulling this one,’ laughs Adachi. ‘Twenty-one days straight. No time off. You all stuck down here in Atago, knowing you’ll never solve the case, never close it, knowing no one cares but knowing it’s yet another failure on your record…’
‘It’ll be just like the Matsuda Giichi case then,’ I say.
Inspector Adachi leans closer into my face now –
No one is who they say they are …
‘That case is closed, corporal,’ he spits.
No one who they seem to be …
I take a step back. I bow my head. I apologize.
‘You’re two men short,’ says Adachi –
I bow again. I apologize again.
‘Where’s Detective Fujita?’
Another bow, another apology.
‘That’s not an answer,’ says Adachi. ‘Just an admission.’
*
The photographer has finished his work. The ground beneath her is crushed and darker. The two men from Keiō Hospital have lifted up the body. The ground is infested with insects. The men from Keiō have lifted the body into the wooden coffin. She is stiff and refuses to bend. The two uniforms from Atago were called to help and the arms were folded, the lid fitted and secured with ropes and knots, bound. She is resisting the box. The two men from Keiō Hospital have taken her back down the hill. She is no longer here …
Now I take out my watch again –
Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …
It is almost 3 p.m. –
I am stood on the top of a wall behind the ruined Tokugawa tombs, looking up the hill and out over a sea of bamboo grass and zelkova trees, islands of fallen stone lanterns and broken down graves; I am searching for her clothes or her bag, when suddenly I see it –
I jump down from the top of the wall into the long, long grasses and I wade through the dead leaves and weeds towards it –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …
The white cloth grinning through the long, long grasses –
Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …
White cloth around white bones –
Namu-amida-butsu …
I curse myself again!
Another body …
A second body wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles; a second body ten metres from the first; a second body now nothing but bones –
Tangled up in the weeds and leaves …
I curse her and I curse this place –
I curse and I curse again …
This place of shadow, of forgotten graves and lost paths, of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs and human flesh, of prostitutes and suicides in this place of assignation –
This place of silence. This place of death –
In this place of defeat and capitulation. This place of surrender and occupation. This place of ghosts –
The body now nothing but bones …
In this place of no resistance.
*
It takes three hours for us to report the finding of the second body to Metropolitan Police Headquarters. I stare at her white half-sleeved chemise. Three hours for them to send Suzuki back here to photograph the second body. I stare at her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress. Three hours for the Keiō University Hospital to send out another ambulance to take away the second body. I stare at her pink socks. Three hours for my men to seal off the crime scene and the immediate area around the second body. I stare at her white canvas shoes. Three hours for us to requisition the necessary uniformed men from the Atago, Meguro and Mita police stations in order to secure the area where the bodies were found. Their red, red rubber soles. Three hours sweating and swatting, itching and scratching, gari-gari, while I stand and I stare at this second body –
Her flesh far from here, carried in the mouths of others …
I stare at the bleached white bones of her fingers –
I stare at the bleached white bones of her hands –
Her wrists and her forearms and her elbows –
The bleached white bones of her face –
The permed hair. The yellow teeth –
Her last, contorted smile …
The shadows have lengthened now, the tall grasses and zelkova trees closer here.
*
The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. I have walked away from that place. The good detective knows nothing is random. I have walked out of the shadow and into the sunlight. The good detective knows in chaos lies order. I have walked back down the hill and into the temple grounds. In chaos lie answers …
But there is nothing left of the Zōjōji Temple –
Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …
Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate –
Branches charred and leaves lost …
In this lonely place, I stand beneath the dark eaves of the gate and I watch the ambulance drive away –
We have seen hell, we have known heaven, we have heard the last judgment and we have witnessed the fall of the gods … Under the Black Gate, a stray dog pants –
But I am one of the survivors …
His house lost, his master gone –
One of the lucky ones …
In the Year of the Dog.
*
It is another long, hot walk back to Metropolitan Police Headquarters, a walk made worse by the dirt and the dust from the trucks and the jeeps with their big white stars and their big white teeth –
The constant, constant sound of hammering –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
I knock on the door to Chief Kita’s office. I open it. I apologize. I bow. I enter. I take my seat at the table –
Chief Kita sits at the head of the table with his back to the window, its frame still buckled from the bombs; Chief Kita, the kachō of the whole of the First Investigative Division, an old but lean man with a deeply tanned face, a close-shaven head and hard, unblinking eyes; Chief Kita, the best friend my father ever had –
I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …
To his right, Chief Inspector Kanehara with Adachi –
But in the half-light, I can’t forget…
To his left Inspector Kai, leader of the First Team, and me; Inspector Minami now, leader of the Second Team –
No one is who they seem to be …
The report for the Public Safety Division is on the table. It has been translated into English, probably by Kanehara, and then typed up. It is passed round the table for all our signatures and seals –
I take out my pen. I stare at the report –
It could be Das Kapital …
The typed Roman characters –
Mein Kampf…
I sign it.
The report is returned to Chief Inspector Kanehara. Now Chief Kita nods at me and I begin my report; I repeat the timetable of the discovery and reporting of the first body; I detail the state and environment of the first body on our arrival; I recount my initial interview with the lumberjack; I defer then to Adachi who reports the timetable involving the photographer and the ambulance –
‘My initial deduction upon seeing the body was that a murder had been committed. Therefore, I ordered Inspector Minami and his men to conduct a thorough search of the immediate area surrounding the body. It was during the course of this search that Inspector Minami himself discovered the second body, which was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body.’
‘Detective Inspector Minami, please…’
‘As Chief Inspector Adachi has said, the second body was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body. The second body was badly decomposed and largely skeletal, but it appears to be the body of a young woman. However, unlike the first body, it was not naked but wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. Initial inspection and experience would suggest that death occurred between three and four weeks ago but of course that will be precisely determined by the autopsy. It is clear though that the two women did not die at the same time.’