Tokyo Year Zero

by David Peace

  ‘They are here! They are here! They are here!’

  Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves …

  Police stop the first truck. Nerves. The driver tells the officers they are heading for the Kakyō Sōkai headquarters. Nerves. The officers make their report to the Shibuya chief. Nerves. The Shibuya chief tells them to let the trucks pass through. Nerves. The first truck is allowed through the checkpoint. Nerves. Then the second. Nerves. Then the third. Nerves. Then the fourth. Nerves. Finally the fifth –

  Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves …

  The fifth truck with its tailgate down. Nerves. The fifth truck with a machine gun mounted in the back. Nerves. The machine gun mounted in the back that now opens fire, that cuts through the night, that sends policemen running, hitting two policemen, cutting them down, other officers scrambling for their own revolvers, firing back –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  Now I see Senju’s men and Tokyo policemen side by side –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  Formosans firing back from the trucks. Formosans falling from the backs of the trucks, bleeding. Formosans lying in the street –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  One, two, three, four, five, six Formosans lying in the street –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  Through the windscreen of a Formosan truck, the driver hit –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  The truck up on the sidewalk. The truck fast into a wall –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  Formosans spilling out of the back of the truck –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  They have iron clubs. They have pickaxes –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang…

  We have revolvers. We have bullets –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  I see Senju Akira with his pistol –

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang …

  One, two, three, four –

  Bang! Bang! Bang …

  Dead Formosans –

  Bang! Bang …

  Five, six –

  Bang!

  *

  There is blood in the entrance to the Shibuya police station. There is blood on the floor of reception. There is blood down the corridor. There is blood on the stairs. There is blood on the walls. There is blood in the cells downstairs. The cells all full. The cells all silent –

  There are men with buckets. Men with mops –

  The Victors will be here at any moment –

  Men with cloths and men with bleach –

  Men with pistols and men with gags –

  The Victors will demand answers –

  ‘They’re here! They’re here!’

  We can hear the engines of the Victors’ jeeps. We can hear their trucks. We can hear them pull up outside the Shibuya police station. We can hear their doors slam. We can hear the Victors’ boots. Now we can see the Victors’ faces –

  Here they come again …

  Through the station doors, the Victors and their Nisei translators, waving their arms and shouting their orders –

  ‘What’s happened here?’ they ask the Shibuya police chief –

  ‘There was an attack by a group of Formosans,’ he says –

  ‘Where are these Formosans now?’ they ask him –

  ‘They have fled in their trucks,’ he tells them –

  ‘Did you make any arrests?’ they ask him –

  ‘Not yet,’ the Shibuya chief tells them –

  ‘You have no suspects in custody?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ he says –

  The Victors look around at the entrance to the Shibuya police station. The sparkling clean entrance to the Shibuya station. The Victors look around at the reception. The sparkling clean reception. The Victors look down the corridor. The sparkling clean corridor. But the Victors don’t look down the stairs. The stairs that were covered in blood. The Victors don’t look at the walls. The walls that were covered in blood. The Victors don’t ask to see the cells downstairs. The cells that are full of men with gags in their mouths, full of other men with pistols in their hands, bloody gags and bloody pistols –

  The Victors don’t see these men with bloody pistols –

  These men with bloody gags in their mouths –

  See nothing. Hear nothing. Say nothing…

  The Victors go back out through the station doors. The Victors get back in their trucks. They get back in their jeeps –

  The Victors start their engines. The Victors leave –

  ‘They’re gone!’

  And now so are we, back down the stairs that were covered in blood, back past the walls that were covered in blood, back to the cells that are still all full, that are still all silent –

  No one can save them now …

  They have stripped the Formosans of their pistols. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their knives. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their staves. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their clubs. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their pickaxes. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their money. No one can save them now. They have stripped the Formosans of their clothes. No one can save them now. Now they will strip these Formosans of one last thing –

  Every man in Shibuya police station down in the cells –

  The rumours of dead Japanese policemen …

  Policemen with guns. Policemen with swords –

  I don’t know why I came down here …

  The cells have been opened –

  I don’t want to watch …

  The beatings begun –

  I don’t want to see …

  Chief Inspector Adachi with his short sword drawn; his lips are moving but no words are forming, tears rolling down his cheeks –

  Adachi brings the blade of his short sword up close to his face. He stares into the blade, bewitched as the blade catches the light –

  His eyes, red spots on white …

  ‘Revenge! Revenge!’

  Blood on the blade …

  ‘Captain!’

  There is fresh blood on the walls and there is fresh blood on the floors, on their knuckles and on their boots, on their shirt cuffs and on their pant legs, tonight the fresh blood is Formosan blood –

  The blood on our hands and the blood on our lips …

  There are lost teeth and bits of their bones –

  We are the Losers. We are the Defeated …

  There are screams and then silence.

  They will drive their bodies out of the city, out beyond Kokubunji, beyond Tachikawa. They will turn their bodies into ash out among the trees of the Musashino plain. Then they will drive back into the city with the morning light. They will hose down the backs of their trucks. They will set fire to their arrest sheets. They will destroy the custody records. Then they will rewrite history –

  Their history. Your history. My history. Our history …

  They will tell lie upon lie, lie after lie, until they believe lie upon lie, lie after lie, until they believe there were no custody records. There were no arrest sheets. There were no beatings in the cells. There were no murders in the cells. There were no bloody bodies in the backs of their trucks. There are no ashes and bones out among the Musashino trees. They will tell lie upon lie, lie after lie after lie –

  The caretaker and the boiler-man pick up their spades …

  Until everyone believes these lies upon lies –

  Pick up their spades and begin to heap the dirt …

  These lies that everyone tells themselves –

  Heap the dirt back into the hole …

  Until everyone believes this history –

  Back into the hole,
over the man …

  This history we teach ourselves –

  Over the man, faster and faster …

  Until I too believe these lies –

  Faster and faster, as they …

  Until I believe this history –

  As they bury his cries …

  My lies. My history.

  *

  Masaoka has heard the screams. Masaoka has heard the silence. Now Masaoka is ready to talk. Now Masaoka is ready to tell us whatever we want to hear. Now she will say whatever we want her to say –

  But I am screaming now. Inside. I am shaking. Outside –

  ‘There were four of us,’ she is saying. ‘Yoshiko, Tominaga Noriko, Shishikura Michiko and me. But after what happened to Yoshiko, then we all went our own separate ways…’

  I am shaking. I am repeating, ‘Aged approximately eighteen years old, wearing a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, a white half-sleeved chemise, dyed-pink socks and a pair of white canvas shoes with red rubber soles…’

  Red rubber soles …

  I am asking, ‘Does this sound like Tominaga or Shishikura?’

  ‘It could be Tominaga Noriko,’ says Masaoka. ‘It might be Tominaga. It could be her. Then again, it could be anyone. But…’

  I stare at Masaoka Hisae and I ask her, ‘But what?’

  ‘But I heard that Tominaga is missing,’ she says.

  I sit forward. I repeat, ‘Tominaga is missing?’

  ‘Since sometime in June,’ she says. ‘But…’

  I am still staring at Masaoka. ‘But what …?’

  ‘But you hope it’s her and I hope it isn’t.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I tell her, but Masaoka Hisae is looking past me now, looking over my shoulder to the door –

  Chief Inspector Adachi standing in the doorway. Inspector Adachi asking me, ‘What does she know?’

  ‘Not much,’ I tell him, still looking at Masaoka Hisae –

  Shadow and sweat running in rivers down her face …

  ‘Take this woman home then,’ Chief Inspector Adachi tells Detective Nishi and then he says to me, ‘Let’s walk…’

  *

  Down another backstreet, up another alleyway, under another lantern, at another counter, Adachi orders the drinks, ‘Whatever you have that won’t send us insane or leave us blind or dead in the morning!’

  Send us insane. Leave us blind. Dead in the morning…

  The master puts two glasses of clear liquid on the counter –

  ‘Cheers,’ says Adachi as he raises his glass to mine –

  And then adds, ‘But you look terrible, inspector…’

  ‘I feel terrible,’ I tell him. ‘Worse than terrible.’

  ‘Because of tonight? The Formosans?’

  ‘No, but it didn’t help much…’

  ‘It’s the way things are,’ says Adachi. ‘The way things are.’

  ‘Well then, I suppose I just don’t like the way things are.’

  ‘And you think I do?’ asks Adachi. ‘You think I do?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘But you’re surviving and I’m not.’

  ‘You’re still here,’ he says. ‘You’ve not run.’

  ‘Where would I go? What would I do?’

  ‘There’s always the next life…’

  Another life. Another name …

  ‘No thanks,’ I tell him. ‘Twice is too many times for me. Much too many times…’

  Adachi drains his glass. Adachi offers me a Lucky Strike. Now Adachi asks, ‘Have you seen Detective Fujita yet?’

  I take his cig. I take his light. I tell him, ‘Yes.’

  He orders two more drinks. He asks, ‘And?’

  I finish my first drink. I say, ‘He’s gone.’

  He raises his second glass. ‘Gone?’

  I say, ‘And he’s not coming back.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘And do you always believe everything people tell you, Inspector Minami?’

  ‘Not always, Chief Inspector Adachi. But this time I believed what he said, yes.’

  ‘People say all kinds of things, especially these days.’

  ‘Not Fujita,’ I tell him. ‘He’s not coming back.’

  Adachi puts out his cigarette. Adachi takes another drink. Adachi asks, ‘Do you think Fujita killed Hayashi Jo?’

  I put out my cigarette. I say, ‘I don’t know. Not any more.’

  ‘So you think he might have? You think he had reason?’

  I shrug my shoulders. I say, ‘Him and everybody else.’

  Adachi drains his second drink. ‘Even you, then?’

  I turn to look at Adachi. I ask him, ‘Why me?’

  Adachi smiles. Adachi laughs. ‘You’ve got blood on the cuffs of your shirt. You’ve got blood on the legs of your trousers…’

  I smile now. I laugh. I say, ‘And so have you…’

  ‘But mine is fresh blood, corporal.’

  *

  I have come again to this place. Black bile again. I have walked out of the light and into the shadow. Brown bile again. Into the temple grounds. Yellow bile again. But there is nothing here. Grey bile again. Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate. Black bile. Beneath the dark eaves of the Black Gate, I close my eyes. Brown bile. Under the Black Gate, I can hear a stray dog panting. Yellow bile. His house is lost, his master gone. Grey bile. In the ruin of the Black Gate, in the Year of the Dog, I stare at its feet. Black bile, brown bile, yellow bile and grey. I vomit and I vomit and I vomit and I vomit –

  Cover the mirrors! Cover the mirrors!

  This dog has no feet.

  *

  In the half-light, Yuki stands up. In the half-light, she picks up an unlined summer kimono draped over the rack by the mirror. In the half-light, Yuki changes into the summer kimono, a pattern printed low upon its skirt. In the half-light, she knots the red and purple striped undersash. In the half-light, Yuki sits back down beside me. In the half-light, she takes a cigarette from the package on the dresser. In the half-light, Yuki lights it. In the half-light, she hands it to me –

  ‘It was like a fairy tale,’ she smiles. ‘The way we met…’

  ‘Yes,’ I laugh. ‘A chance meeting in a sudden shower.’

  ‘A love story from the older traditions,’ she says, but Yuki is not smiling now, she is not laughing, she is crying now –

  ‘There is tobacco smoke in my eyes,’ she lies –

  ‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

  Now she lies back down next to me and she stares up into my eyes. Now she touches her finger to my nose and says, ‘Don’t sleep.’

  But there is no more sleep because there is no Calmotin –

  But I want to sleep, though I won’t. I want to forget today, though I won’t. I want to forget yesterday. The day before. This week. Last week. This month. Last month. This year. Last year. Every single year I have ever lived, but I won’t forget because I can’t forget. But here, here at least, here I can sometimes forget. For an odd hour –

  In her arms. I can forget. Between her thighs. I can forget …

  The many things I have left behind. The things I have lost –

  I have failed you. I have failed you. I have failed you …

  The many things I have seen. The things I have done –

  Hour after hour. Day after day. Week after week …

  The blood on the walls. The blood on the floor –

  Month after month and year after year …

  The blood on the cuffs of my shirt –

  But in the half-light, I can’t forget…

  On the legs of my trousers –

  I am sorry. I am sorry …

  Here, in the half-light –

  I have failed you all…

  In the half-light.

  8

  August 22, 1946

  Tokyo, 90°, very fine

  Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

  It is dawn now and
the first trains have already been and gone. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. There is no shadow here. No respite from the heat. I am standing at the end of my own street, watching the gate to my own house –

  Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

  I walk down the street to my own house. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I open the gate to my own house. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck again. I go up the path to my own house. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I open the door to my house. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. I stand in the genkan of my own house –

  Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

  The house is silent. The mats are rotting. The house still sleeping. The doors in shreds. I place the envelope of money and the bundle of food on the floor of the reception room. The walls are falling in. The house smells of my children –

  Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

  I turn their shoes to face the door –

  Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

  I turn away and I walk away, itching and scratching, gari-gari, wiping my face and wiping my neck, as I start to run, to run away.

  *

  Tominaga Noriko’s last known address was in Ōimachi, near to where Abe Yoshiko’s body was found. Near to where Kodaira Yoshio works. Kodaira country. Near to where Miyazaki Mitsuko was murdered. Near to where Yuki lives. My country …

  Tominaga Noriko’s landlady invites me into her house and then up the stairs to Tominaga Noriko’s rented little room at the end of the second-floor passage, next to a bathroom –

  ‘I dust,’ she says. ‘But, other than that, it’s just as she left it.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I ask her. ‘Why don’t you rent it out again?’

  ‘The same reason I reported her missing, I suppose.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask her again. ‘Just another tenant …?’

  The landlady goes over to the small window and opens it. She shakes her head. ‘But Noriko wasn’t just another tenant, you see…

  ‘She’d lost both her parents and her younger sister in the March air raids, her elder brother still missing in China…

  ‘I have no one either now, you see. My husband is long dead and my sons are both dead too, one killed in the south early on and one killed in the north. My eldest was married but he had no children, his wife already remarried. I don’t begrudge or blame her, these are the times we live in, but I have no one now but this house which was spared and the people who live here…