Tokyo Year Zero

by David Peace

  I am a stray dog, his house lost and his master gone …

  I swallow. I say, ‘Tell us about Numao…’

  ‘She was a local Nikkō girl,’ he says, opening the file out on the table. ‘On the evening of the second of December last year, she told her family she was going to visit her friend’s house. She never arrived there and she never returned home. Just over one month later, on the third of January this year, her body was found –

  ‘Numao Shizue had been stabbed to death.’

  I put down the chipped chopsticks. I wipe my mouth and I say, ‘I thought Numao was found on the thirtieth of December?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ says Tachibana. ‘Yes, you’re right, of course.’

  I ask, ‘Was there any evidence at all that she’d been raped?’

  ‘None,’ says Tachibana. ‘She was found fully clothed.’

  I lean forward. I push the file away. ‘It’s not Kodaira.’

  Tachibana bows his head. Tachibana nods his head –

  I tell him, ‘Kodaira Yoshio only murders for sex.’

  ‘There are some other cases,’ he tells me –

  I ask, ‘Do you have the files with you?’

  ‘No, they are back at Kanuma.’

  Back at the police station …

  ‘All right,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you. We’ll take a look at them later but, for now, we have two requests to make of you…’

  ‘Please,’ he says. ‘We are here to help you…’

  ‘We’d like to visit a girl named Okayama whose mother is an acquaintance of Kodaira Yoshio. We’d like to talk to her and anybody else who may have met Kodaira up here. Then we’d like to examine the site where the body of Baba Hiroko was found…’

  ‘Of course,’ says Chief Tachibana, getting to his feet now. ‘These places are not far and I have a small truck we can use. I’ll bring it round to the front while you settle up with the inn.’

  I nod my head. I say, ‘Thank you for your help.’

  Tachibana gathers up the files from the table and puts them back in his briefcase. Tachibana then bows and leaves us.

  I wipe my mouth again. I wipe my neck.

  ‘He seems very helpful,’ says Ishida.

  ‘Because he’s afraid,’ I tell him –

  ‘Afraid of what…’

  ‘Does he need a reason?’ I ask him. ‘This is Japan. This is the twenty-first year of Shōwa. The Year of the Dog –

  ‘Everybody is afraid, detective…’

  Now Ishida suddenly asks, ‘What happened to your hair?’

  I rub my scalp. I say, ‘I shaved it a few days ago…’

  ‘But it’s growing back grey,’ says Ishida.

  I touch it again. I shrug my shoulders –

  ‘I almost didn’t recognize you.’

  *

  The truck is ancient and small and there is an old policeman in the driving seat in a frayed and soiled cap. Tachibana gestures for me to sit up in the front on the small seat to the left of the driver while he and Ishida climb into the back where there is some corrugated iron and what look to be carpenter’s tools. The driver starts the truck –

  Now I hold on tight as off we set. No windscreen or hood, the daylight is blinding, my eyes squinting as the sunlight illuminates the Tochigi countryside; this Land of the Living. This Land of Plenty –

  There are mountains. There are trees. There are fields –

  There are leaves and there are flowers here –

  There are rivers and there are streams –

  There are greens and blues here –

  In the Land of the Living –

  There are colours.

  *

  The truck labours up the side of one small mountain and down its other side and then up another until it pulls up outside a detached house that faces out onto the road and we all climb out. There is a dog asleep in the shade of the wall but it is still tethered to a pole –

  It is not a stray, its house not lost, its master here …

  Black and large, better fed than most of the people of Tokyo, I watch its belly rise and fall, its eyes closed, tongue hanging out –

  ‘That lazy dog is a guard dog,’ laughs Chief Tachibana.

  ‘Do you get much burglary round here?’ asks Ishida.

  ‘There are always the Scavengers,’ nods Tachibana. ‘And before that were the Chinks, always escaping from the factories…’

  ‘He’d have been a hunting dog, then,’ says the driver.

  Tachibana looks at the dog and laughs again. Then the chief excuses himself as he goes into the house ahead of us –

  The old driver lights a cigarette and tells us, ‘A lot of them old hunting dogs are running wild now, in packs…’

  Tachibana returns with the mother of the Widow Okayama, who bows and welcomes us as Tachibana introduces us and explains to the old woman why we have come as Ishida and I apologize for the early hour and abruptness of our visit, calling on her unannounced.

  The mother of the Widow Okayama bows again and invites us into her house. The mother is very old and her granddaughter is not here today. But the mother is not alone. An old man is sat in the empty fireplace. The mother of the Widow Okayama rents this house from this man. This man named Koito. This man Koito doesn’t usually much like the police and he doesn’t usually much like city folk. The mother of the Widow Okayama doesn’t really remember anyone called Kodaira Yoshio but this man Koito remembers him –

  ‘I liked Mr. Kodaira because he was born round here, born up in Nikkō. He came here a number of times hunting for supplies –

  ‘He was a friendly fellow was Kodaira, very friendly. He always had money to buy with or things to exchange, did Kodaira. I introduced him to a number of other people round here, folk I knew would be willing to trade with a local fellow like him…’

  I ask him for their names and their addresses –

  ‘I know it’s not strictly legal,’ he says, looking at Tachibana. ‘But everybody does it. If they didn’t they’d starve…’

  I ask him again for names and addresses –

  ‘Not all as lucky as the likes of you…’

  I hate the countryside. I hate it…

  I crack my knuckles and I ask him for their names again, their addresses. I ask him one last time and now Koito sighs and begins to list the names, the names of local farmers and their families, every local farmer, every family he can think of, he can remember –

  Kashiwagi, Kiyohara, Fujisaki, Yoshimura …

  ‘How many times did Kodaira come up here?’ I ask him but this man Koito shrugs his shoulders and says he can’t be sure, he didn’t keep a record, did he? Then I turn to the old grandmother –

  The grandmother asks again, ‘Who is this Kodaira?’

  Dr. Nakadate estimated that the second body in Shiba Park had been killed sometime between the twentieth and the twenty-seventh of July, and the advertisement found in the pocket of her dress was dated the nineteenth of July, so I want to know if Kodaira Yoshio came here again after the nineteenth of last month, if he was here and what he brought, what he brought and exchanged …

  I turn back to Koito. I ask, ‘When was his last visit?’

  But Koito just shrugs his shoulders again and says he can’t be sure, that he doesn’t keep records, does he? But now I crack my knuckles again and I lean forward and I hiss, ‘Then think!’

  ‘Her granddaughter would know better than me,’ he says. ‘There may have been times when he was here and I was not, for all I know, and it was her he came to see anyway…’

  And the grandmother asks again, ‘Who is this man?’

  I need to speak to the granddaughter but they don’t know where she is or what she’s doing though they swear she will be back tonight, that she will be here if we come back tomorrow…

  ‘We’ll be back then,’ I promise them.

  *

  The Kashiwagi family lives further up the same mountain. He walks behind me. There is only so far the truck can go so then we w
alk, Tachibana showing me the way, Ishida walking behind –

  He walks behind me. He walks behind me …

  Up the mountain and through the heat –

  No one is who they say they are …

  Through the insects and their teeth –

  No one is who they seem …

  The Kashiwagi family makes fuel for the hand-warmers that are used in the winter. Last winter was the worst winter on record. The Kashiwagi family made a lot of fuel for hand-warmers last winter. The Kashiwagi family also made a lot of money last winter. And a lot of visitors called upon the Kashiwagi family last winter –

  Kodaira called upon the Kashiwagi family last winter –

  Baba Hiroko was murdered last winter.

  Baba Hiroko was found dead on the third of January this year. Baba Hiroko was last seen alive on the thirtieth of December –

  Kodaira was here last winter. Kodaira was here …

  The Kashiwagi family is a nervous, sullen family. The Kashiwagi family just sits and stares and offers us no tea or water –

  ‘Do you remember exactly when Kodaira came here…?’

  But the Kashiwagi family does not remember exactly –

  ‘You remember if it was before or after New Year…?’

  The Kashiwagi family does not want to remember –

  ‘But you remember what he traded…?’

  The Kashiwagi family claims not to remember what Kodaira Yoshio traded for their hand-warmer fuel. But the Kashiwagi family is lying because country-folk never forget anything –

  I hate the countryside. These country-folk …

  Because country-folk remember everything; every last piece of fuel and every last grain of rice; every single coin and every single note they have ever received; every single item accepted in a trade –

  I hate them. I hate them all…

  That is why their unmarried daughter is fiddling with her wristwatch. That is why she has been fiddling with it since we sat down. That is why I reach across their hearth to grab her wrist –

  Why I hold this watch on her wrist up to her face –

  ‘Is this what friendly Mr. Kodaira gave you?’

  Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

  This watch I now tear from her wrist. This watch I turn over in my hand to the light. This watch with an inscription on its back –

  An inscription that states, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

  This watch that was not Kodaira’s to trade –

  That screams, Miyazaki Mitsuko…

  This watch. This watch…

  Not theirs to keep –

  This watch …

  That I stuff into my knapsack as I get to my feet to leave –

  Tachibana asking, ‘But who is Miyazaki Mitsuko?’

  *

  The daylight blinding, my eyes squinting, in this Land of the Living, in this Land of Plenty, before their mountains, before their trees, before their fields, their leaves and their flowers, their rivers and their streams, their greens and their blues, in this Land of the Living –

  Before his mountains, his trees, his fields –

  I say, ‘Miyazaki Mitsuko was a nineteen-year-old girl from Nagasaki whose naked body was found on the fifteenth of August last year in an air-raid shelter of the Women’s Dormitory Building of the Dai-Ichi Naval Clothing Department near Shinagawa in Tokyo.

  ‘The autopsy revealed that she had been raped and then murdered around the end of May last year. At that time, Kodaira Yoshio was working at this Women’s Dormitory.

  ‘The autopsy on Miyazaki was performed by a Dr. Nakadate of the Keiō University Hospital. Dr. Nakadate also performed the autopsies on the body of Midorikawa Ryuko and on the unidentified body found near Midorikawa in Shiba Park. Dr. Nakadate believes that all three women were murdered by the same man; Kodaira Yoshio. As you know, Kodaira Yoshio has already confessed to the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko…’

  Tachibana nods. ‘But not to the second unidentified body from Shiba Park?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And not to this Miyazaki Mitsuko…?’

  ‘He’s not been asked.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I have not mentioned Miyazaki to either Chief Kita or Chief Inspector Kanehara, who is leading the interrogation team.’

  ‘But why not?’ asks Tachibana again.

  I look at Ishida as I say, ‘Two reasons; the Miyazaki case is officially closed and, secondly, the case file is missing.’

  Tachibana is shaking his head, glancing from me to Ishida and back again. ‘Someone was actually charged?’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘They were.’

  Tachibana asks, ‘Who?’

  ‘A Korean labourer…’

  A Yobo …

  ‘And so what happened to this Korean labourer?’

  ‘He was shot and killed resisting arrest…’

  ‘Shot by whom?’ asks Tachibana. ‘An officer from the Kempei.’

  ‘Case closed, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him, still looking at Ishida; Ishida saying nothing, Ishida asking nothing. ‘Until today…’

  Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

  Her watch in my hand –

  Chiku-taku.

  *

  Beyond another pine grove, beyond more dwarf bamboo, the next house, the next family, the same as the last house, the same as the last family. The grove after that, the house after that, the family after that, the same as the last grove, the same as the last house, the last family –

  I look back down the mountainside, at the mainly thatched roofs and the odd tiled one on the odd two-storey house, at the crops in the fields and the leaves on the trees and I wonder where I am, where this place is, this place of plenty, this land of the living –

  No dead without name, dead without number …

  This place of mountains. This place of rivers –

  Piled up high along the riverbanks …

  In this place of greens and blues –

  No stench of rotten apricots …

  In this place of colour where Kodaira came with his many pickings from the dead, with his trophies and his spoils, the trophies and the spoils he had brought to barter –

  From the dead…

  Every house Kodaira ever visited, every family he spoke to, every thing he traded, every single house, every single family, every single thing he showed them –

  His trophies…

  But in the next house, the next family, the house after that, the family after that, they sit in shame, sit in silence and they will not remember, will not try –

  His spoils …

  ‘Because so many people come,’ they tell us. ‘So many people, so many things, every day a different person comes, every day with different things…’

  So many people…

  And in the next house, the next family, the house after that, the family after that, they shake their heads when we say his name, they shake their heads when we describe his face, they shake their heads when we ask for dates, they shake their heads and tell us –

  ‘So many people come, so many things…’

  *

  We stand beside the truck and wipe our faces and wipe our necks, the cicadas deafening and the mosquitoes ravenous, the sun high in the sky but there is a darkness here now, in the shadows from the mountains, from the trees and in the fields, darkness and shadow –

  The slopes are purple, the leaves black now, the grass grey …

  In the rivers that do not flow, the streams that stand still –

  There are no currents and there are no fish, only insects …

  Tachibana asks, ‘What do you want to do now?’

  Insects feasting in the still and stagnant pools …

  I look up at the sun then back down at the shadows and I say, ‘Take me to the place where you found Baba Hiroko.’

  *

  Up the side of another small mountain and down its other side, then up and down another until the truck stops on the narrow road where the woo
ds at the foot of this small mountain look out over a ditch onto a patchwork of fields and ditches, more fields and more ditches, and Tachibana says, ‘These are the woods. This is the place.’

  Nishi Katamura, Kami Tsuga-gun, Tochigi …

  Tachibana, Ishida, and I climb out of the truck and wipe our faces and wipe our necks and turn away from the fields and the ditches to stare up into the woods on the slope of the mountainside, up into the shadows of the black trunks of the trees –

  Their branches and their leaves …

  Tachibana points up the slope and says, ‘It’s that way…’

  ‘But I thought Baba was found in a field?’ I ask him –

  ‘It seems that she was attacked down here,’ he says. ‘But then her body was dragged from the field up this way…’

  Now I follow Tachibana as he climbs up off the narrow road and into the woods, waving away the mosquitoes and the bugs with the file in his hands, Detective Ishida following behind –

  He walks behind me. He walks behind me …

  Tachibana leads us through the trees to a slight hollow in the side of the mountain; a slight hollow surrounded by fallen logs and filled with broken branches and dead leaves –

  He walks behind me, through the trees …

  ‘This is the place,’ says Tachibana now, handing me the file –

  The cicadas are deafening, the mosquitoes hungry …

  In this place, in this hollow, I take her case file –

  Between the trees, the black trunks of the trees …

  I open the file. I take out the photographs –

  Their branches and their leaves …

  Now I see her in this place –

  Her white, naked body …

  Her face in this place –

  Her beaten face …

  Her face –

  Black …

  In this place, in this hollow, beneath these trees, I close my eyes and I see her face; I see her say farewell to her uncle, with her gifts for her mother; I see her take the Ginza Line to Asakusa; I see her climb with the crowds up the stairs to the second floor of the Matsuya Department Store; I see her join the queue for her ticket –

  How long did you stand in that queue? How long did you wait?

  That cold and desperate queue of cold and desperate strangers, pushing and shoving, those desperate, defeated strangers with their desperate, hungry eyes, pushing and shoving –