Tokyo Year Zero

by David Peace

  Nishi asks, ‘Murdered where?’

  ‘In Kanuma,’ she says. ‘Near to the house where my mother and daughter are living…’

  *

  Detective Nishi and I take Mrs. Okayama to the Meguro police station. We take her upstairs. We sit her in a chair at a table in an interview room. We give her a glass of cold tea. We offer her a cigarette. Then we ask her to tell us again all the things she has told us before. We ask her about her late husband. We ask her about her mother. We ask her about her daughter. We ask her about the house in Kanuma. We ask her for the dates. We ask her for the places –

  Personal things. Private things …

  We ask about her lover. We ask about their sex –

  Dirty things …

  We bow. We thank her. We send her back home. We do not tell her that her former lover is sitting in the very next interview room, smoking our cigarettes and telling us jokes –

  Dirty jokes.

  *

  Kodaira Yoshio is sat at the interview table, enjoying a cigarette and a joke with Chief Inspector Kanehara and Inspector Kai, a dirty joke from a dirty mouth. But Kodaira still notices when Adachi and I take our seats at the back of the room, he still notices the stenographer take a seat, through the smiles and the smoke Kodaira sees it all –

  ‘Come on, Mr. Kodaira,’ Kanehara laughs. ‘Tell us.’

  Kodaira shrugs. Kodaira smiles. ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘The youngest piece of pussy you’ve ever had?’

  Kodaira shrugs again. Kodaira’s smile widens –

  ‘A man like you, you’ve had so much cunt…’

  Kodaira laughing now, shakes his head –

  ‘Don’t be modest, we’re all friends…’

  Kodaira stops laughing and sighs –

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘It’s true I’ve had a lot of pussy and all kinds of pussy at that; Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Russian, French, Australian, American…’

  ‘You’ve had American pussy?’ exclaims Inspector Kai. ‘When did you have some of that?’

  ‘When I was in the Imperial Japanese Navy,’ laughs Kodaira. ‘A whore in every port.’

  ‘Go on then, tell us,’ says Kai. ‘What’s white pussy like?’

  ‘It’s big and fucking hairy,’ laughs Kodaira. ‘Very big.’

  ‘So you prefer a tight pussy?’ asks Kai. ‘Very tight?’

  ‘What true Japanese man doesn’t?’ laughs Kodaira. ‘You like a big huge bucket of a cunt to slop that tiny little cock of yours around in, do you Inspector Kai? Do you…?’

  And we all laugh along with him. We all laugh along with our mouths wet and our cocks hard …

  ‘I prefer to put it in a new pot,’ he winks. ‘A clean pot.’

  ‘So the tighter the pussy, the better?’ asks Kanehara –

  Kodaira raises an imaginary glass and nods his head.

  ‘And so the younger the pussy, the better then?’

  ‘I like the taste of cherry on my cock,’ laughs Kodaira again. ‘What true Japanese man doesn’t like to admire the first buds upon the cherry tree and then watch the blossoms fall…?’

  ‘That’s very poetically put,’ says Kanehara. ‘Very poetic.’

  Kodaira asks, ‘And who here doesn’t agree with me?’

  And we all nod along with him. We all nod along…

  ‘So what is the earliest bud you’ve ever admired?’

  Kodaira looks up at Kanehara and winks at him –

  ‘Come on,’ says Kanehara. ‘You’re teasing…’

  ‘I don’t really like them too young,’ admits Kodaira. ‘You see I’m a man who also likes a bit of chest, a bit of tit to suckle and to chew on, if you gentlemen understand what I mean?’

  And we all nod along with him again …

  ‘So, generally, sixteen years old or so would be my limit…’

  ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that,’ says Kai –

  But Kodaira doesn’t answer him. Kodaira stares at Kai and then around the room; Kodaira has stopped laughing now. Kodaira has stopped smiling now. Now Kodaira whispers, ‘But a man could have any age he wanted in China. Any age at all…’

  ‘And did you take any age you wanted?’ I ask him –

  And Kodaira turns to look at me. And Kodaira recognizes me. And Kodaira laughs and tells me, ‘You were there, detective. I’m sure you saw what I saw. I’m sure you did what I did…’

  No one laughing along, no one nodding now …

  Adachi is on his feet. Adachi says, ‘Enough of this shit –’

  Kodaira turns away from me. Kodaira looks at Adachi –

  ‘You knew a fifteen-year-old girl called Abe Yoshiko. Abe Yoshiko hung around the barracks where you work. Abe Yoshiko and three of her friends were selling their cunts to the Shinchū Gun for leftovers and scraps. You fucked Abe Yoshiko and gave her scraps. On or around the ninth of June this year, you raped her, you strangled her and then you hid her body under a burnt-out truck in the scrapyard of the Shiba Transportation Company, didn’t you…?’

  Kodaira shaking his head, Kodaira whispering to himself –

  ‘We have witnesses,’ says Adachi. ‘We have statements.’

  Kodaira nodding his head now, Kodaira muttering –

  ‘Be the man you are,’ shouts Adachi. ‘And confess!’

  Kodaira is still. Now Kodaira says, ‘Then I did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ asks Adachi. ‘Tell us every detail.’

  ‘I killed Abe,’ he says. ‘But I didn’t rape her.’

  ‘Really?’ asks Adachi. ‘Tell us why not?’

  Kodaira laughs, ‘She was too young.’

  *

  ‘Excellent work, Inspector Minami,’ says Adachi. ‘Excellent work.’

  ‘If there’s something you want,’ I tell him. ‘Just ask me.’

  ‘You know what I want,’ he whispers. ‘I told you last night; I want to talk to Fujita; to talk to him about the murder of Hayashi Jo.’

  ‘I told you,’ I say. ‘Fujita’s gone and I don’t know where.’

  ‘Really?’ he says. ‘I thought a good night’s sleep might have cleared your head, might have helped you remember who your real friends are; might have helped you to see things more clearly, see things my way, the clever way, the right way, the only way…’

  ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night and I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘That’s a great shame,’ he says. ‘A very great shame.’

  ‘It might well be a great shame but it’s also the truth.’

  ‘No, it’s a great shame because it means you’re going to have to go down to the Shimbashi Market and ask your new friend Senju Akira if he knows where his old friend Fujita might have gone…’

  I curse him and I curse him and I curse him …

  ‘If you want to know, then you go and ask Senju.’

  ‘But Senju Akira’s not my friend, he’s yours.’

  I curse him and now I curse myself…

  ‘But why would Senju know anything?’

  ‘You’re right,’ smiles Adachi. ‘Senju might know nothing, but he’ll know a lot more after he’s finished reading the letter…’

  I curse and I curse and I curse and I curse …

  ‘What letter?’ I ask. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The letter about Fujita,’ he smiles. ‘About you.’

  I curse and I curse and I curse …

  I stare at him. I ask him again, ‘What letter?’

  ‘Can’t you guess, Inspector Minami?’ laughs Adachi now. ‘The letter Hayashi Jo left in the drawer of his desk; the letter about Detective Fujita and Nodera Tomiji and their plot to kill Matsuda Giichi; the letter that states Hayashi told you about this plot…’

  ‘I’m a dead man then,’ I say. ‘It’s a death sentence.’

  ‘Who says you don’t always get what you want?’

  ‘Senju will kill me,’ I say. ‘I can’t go to him.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ he says. ‘You’ll be
fine.’

  ‘He’ll kill me and you know it.’

  Adachi takes an envelope from his jacket pocket. Adachi holds it up and laughs, ‘Only if he was to actually read the letter…’

  I want to kill him, here and now, in the upstairs corridor of the Meguro police station, stab him, again and again –

  Blood on the blade …

  Adachi pats my face. ‘Remember who your real friends are, corporal. And remember, I want Fujita!’

  *

  I should not have come back in here. I need a drink. I should not have sat down at this table. I need a cigarette. I should have gone straight to Senju. I need some pills. I should have gone back to Atago. I need to see Ishida. I should have gone to see my family. I need that file. I should have gone back to Yuki. I need some sleep. Anywhere but back in here, here sat at this table, here before Kodaira Yoshio –

  Kodaira Yoshio leans across the table and smiles at me again and says, ‘Like I say, never heard of a Tominaga Noriko, soldier.’

  ‘But you knew Abe and you knew her friend Masaoka?’

  ‘Yes, I knew Masaoka and yes, I knew Abe Yoshiko.’

  ‘Tominaga Noriko was one of their group…’

  He laughs. ‘There was no group, soldier.’

  ‘But they were all fūten together…’

  Kodaira Yoshio sighs and stretches his arms high above his head and then he says, ‘It was just the two of them, soldier…’

  ‘There were four of them,’ I say. ‘A gang of them.’

  ‘Only time I ever saw groups of fūten was in China,’ he says. ‘But you’d know as much about them as I do, soldier…’

  I should not have come. I should not have sat at this table –

  I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …

  ‘Back in Jinan,’ he laughs. ‘I once saw a man who looked a lot like you. But he was Kempei and his name wasn’t Minami.’

  *

  I itch and I itch. Kodaira country. I scratch and I scratch. Kodaira country. I walk and I walk. Kodaira country. I sweat and I sweat. From Meguro towards Shimbashi. Kodaira country. The route takes me close to the Takanawa police station. Kodaira country. Near to Shinagawa. Kodaira country. This is where the initial investigation into the murder of Abe Yoshiko was based. Kodaira country. The next police station, the one before Atago, is the Mita police station –

  Kodaira country. Kodaira country. Kodaira country …

  I change my direction. I change my course –

  Kodaira country. Kodaira country …

  I go up the steps and through the doors of the Mita police station. I show my TMPD identification at the front desk. I ask to see the duty sergeant; an old man and a suspicious man, suspicious of Headquarters and suspicious of me –

  My country now, not his …

  I tell him who I am, why I’m here and what I want –

  ‘You’re from Headquarters,’ he says. ‘So I’ve no choice but to give you his name. But I tell you this, though I no longer know his address, I wouldn’t give it to you even if I did because you lot ruined his life once and no doubt you’d do it again…’

  ‘Then just tell me his name,’ I say. ‘And I’m gone.’

  The sergeant looks away as he spits, ‘Murota…’

  I turn away now, itching and scratching, gari-gari, as I walk back through the doors, back down the steps and back outside –

  I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I itch and I scratch –

  It is dark now. It is late now. But I am near.

  *

  I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. My arms and my legs. I turn their shoes to face the door. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. My back and my front. I turn their shoes to face the door. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. My scalp and my groin. I turn their shoes to face the door. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. My nails blood, my hands blood –

  Death is everywhere. Death is everywhere …

  I take the scissors from her dresser. I see black lice. I take the cover off her mirror. I see brown lice. I begin to cut. I see yellow lice. I cut the longer hairs on my head. I see grey lice. I cut the longer hairs on my body. I see white lice. Then I take the razor from her dresser. I see black lice. I open up the blade. I see brown lice. I dip the blade in the bowl of water by her bed. I see yellow lice. I have no soap but still I shave. I see grey lice. I shave off my hair. I see white lice. The hair on my head. I see black lice. The hair on my body. I see brown lice. Hair by hair. I see yellow lice. Every last strand. I see grey lice. In my scalp. I see white lice. In my groin. I see black lice. The skin beneath is red. I see brown lice. The skin beneath is raw –

  I see yellow lice, I see grey lice, I see white lice…

  The razor in my hand, the blade dull now –

  Death is everywhere. Death is everywhere …

  Black lice. Black lice. Black lice –

  Death follows us as we follow death …

  Yuki is awake. Her eyes open –

  But we’re already dead …

  9

  August 23, 1946

  Tokyo, 87°, slightly cloudy

  I turn their shoes to face the door. No Calmotin. No alcohol. No sleep. No dreams. No air. No breeze. I am out of luck. Everything is falling apart. I turn their shoes to face the door. No Calmotin. No alcohol. No sleep. No dreams. No air. No breeze. I am out of luck. Everything falling apart. I turn their shoes to face the door, three times I turn their shoes to face the door. No Calmotin. No alcohol. No sleep. No dreams. No air. No breeze. No luck. Everything falling apart again, over and over and over, again and again and again –

  She is beside me now, beside me now, beside me now …

  I cannot keep my eyes open but, when I close my eyes, I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep because I cannot stop thinking about her. I think about her all the time –

  She is beside me now. She is beside me now …

  I think about her all the time –

  She is lying beside me now …

  Her head slightly to the right. In a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress. Her right arm outstretched. In a white half-sleeved chemise. Her left arm at her side. In dyed-pink socks. Her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee. In white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. My come drying on her stomach and on her ribs. In white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. She brings her left hand up to her stomach. In dyed-pink socks. She dips her fingers in my come. In a white half-sleeved chemise. She puts her fingers to her lips. In a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress. She licks my come from her fingers. In that yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress …

  She is beside me now, beside me now, beside me now –

  I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …

  I smash my fist into her three-panelled vanity mirror –

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

  I shout into her mirror, again and again –

  No one is who they say they are …

  ‘Who are you? Who are you?’

  *

  Through the doors of the borrowed police station. Ishida. I have a shaved head. Ishida. Up the stairs of the borrowed police station. Ishida. I have a bandaged hand. Ishida. To the borrowed second-floor room where Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi and Kimura have him; Ishida with a black eye, a bloody mouth and handcuffed wrists. Ishida. Ishida looking at the floor, staring at his boots –

  ‘What’s going on? What have you done to him?’

  ‘You told us to keep him here,’ says Hattori.

  ‘I didn’t tell you to beat and handcuff him.’

  ‘We had no choice, did we?’ says Hattori.

  ‘What do you mean, you had no choice?’

  ‘He was going to run,’ says Takeda.

  ‘Just like Fujita,’ says Hattori –

  Fujita. Fujita. Fujita…

  I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I walk over to Ishida. I raise his face from the floor. I ask him, ‘Where have you been,
detective?’

  Ishida sucks the air in between his teeth but does not answer –

  ‘We think he went to see Detective Fujita,’ says Takeda –

  ‘We reckon he knows where Fujita is,’ agrees Sanada –

  ‘And knows why Fujita has gone,’ hisses Hattori –

  ‘But he won’t tell us anything,’ says Shimoda –

  ‘So I say we should turn him over to Chief Inspector Adachi,’ says Hattori now. ‘He’d soon make him talk…’

  ‘Why turn him over to Chief Inspector Adachi?’ I ask him. ‘What would Chief Inspector Adachi want with Ishida?’

  ‘The Chief Inspector was here looking for him,’ says Hattori. ‘Looking for Ishida, asking about Detective Fujita –’

  I curse him and I curse him and I curse him …

  ‘When was Chief Inspector Adachi here?’

  ‘Yesterday evening,’ says Hattori. ‘When you weren’t.’

  I curse him and I curse myself…

  They are mumbling now. They are muttering now –

  I am the head of the room! I am the boss …

  ‘Enough!’ I shout. ‘I want your reports now!’

  They stop mumbling. They stop muttering –

  Eyes full of dissent and eyes full of hate …

  And they make their reports about Tominaga Noriko’s landlady. And they make their reports about Masaoka Hisae –

  ‘But there was one other thing,’ says Detective Sanada. ‘Masaoka told us that Kodaira Yoshio always had gifts on him…’

  ‘You mean like food,’ I ask him. ‘Like kaidashi?’

  ‘As well as food,’ says Detective Sanada. ‘Proper gifts for ladies like jewellery, watches, umbrellas, you know…?’

  ‘Thank you, detective,’ I say. ‘Now I want you all back out on the streets today, back round Shiba and back round the park, back with the descriptions of Tominaga Noriko and Kodaira Yoshio…’

  Investigation is footwork. Investigation is footwork …

  ‘What about Ishida here?’ asks Detective Hattori.

  ‘Leave him to me,’ I say. ‘You just get to work.’

  But Hattori doesn’t move. ‘What about Fujita?’

  ‘Get to work, detective!’ I shout –

  But, for just one moment, Hattori still doesn’t move. None of them move; Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi or Kimura; their eyes full of questions and doubts, full of dissent and hate –