by David Peace
I go downstairs, out into the street –
People are running, digging –
I should be home …
Hiding things in the dirt –
In their shelters –
Boom! Boom!
The anti-aircraft batteries have begun, the searchlights crisscrossing the sky, catching the planes as the fires start –
People with suitcases now, people on bicycles –
‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’
I smell smoke. I put on my air-raid hood –
‘Red! Red! Incendiary bomb!’
Thousands of footsteps up on the road –
‘Run! Run! Get a mattress and sand!’
The deafening sound from above –
‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’
I fall to the ground, to the earth –
‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’
But there is only silence now –
‘Cover your ears…’
I get back up. I run inside –
‘Close your eyes!’
Up the stairs, into the closet, to gather Yuki up, to carry her out, into the street, the houses ablaze, the corner shop, as the wind rises and the sparks fly, I carry her across the bridge, the canal filled with people, one alley on fire, the next and the next, the crossroads blocked in all four directions with pets and babies, dogs and children, men and women, old and young, soldier and civilian, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, now falling to the ground with every fresh rattle, every new swish, crushing and trampling the very young and the very old, letting go of a hand and losing a child, calling out and turning around, screaming out and turning back, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, crushing and trampling –
I should not be here.
I have to choose which way to go, which way to run; the houses on three sides are now aflame, the people all pushing one way but that way lie no fields, that way lie only buildings –
‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’
I jump down into the ditch by the side of the road with Yuki still in my arms and I smear our hoods and our bedding with black mud and dark water. Now I lift Yuki up again and I carry her out of the ditch, back towards the fire, back into the flames but she is struggling to break free from my arms, desperate to flee –
‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’
‘Forget the fire,’ I whisper. ‘Forget the bombs and trust me. Through these flames is the river, through these flames is life…’
‘Cover your ears! Close your eyes!’
Now Yuki tightens her grip, and she nods her head, as we rush back into the fires, back into the flames –
Back into the war, my war …
*
The chiefs, the inspectors and all their detectives will still be at the restaurant in Daimon; their glasses empty and their songs sung now, they will be flat on their backs and out for the night; only the uniforms here tonight at the Meguro police station –
The uniforms and the suspect –
Kodaira Yoshio…
In their interrogation room, at their table, he sits in his chair –
Kodaira smiling. Kodaira grinning. Kodaira laughing …
‘I heard you were no longer with us, soldier…’
‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘It’s just you and me now…’
But Kodaira Yoshio leans across the table and smiles at me again and says, ‘Bit like an old regimental reunion.’
‘Here’s another reunion for you,’ I say and I pick up my army knapsack and empty the contents onto the table –
All her clothes and all her bones …
‘Recognize these?’ I shout –
Kodaira still smiling …
‘Or these or these?’ I shout again, picking up the yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress and the white half-sleeved chemise, then the dyed-pink socks and the white canvas shoes with their red rubber soles, now her bones –
Kodaira grinning …
‘Well those bones could be anybody’s, soldier…’
But now I take out the other wristwatch from my pocket. I put it down in front of him –
‘And that…’
Kodaira picks up the wristwatch from the table. Kodaira turns it over in his hand. Kodaira reads the inscription on its back –
The inscription that says, Miyazaki Mitsuko …
That screams, Miyazaki Mitsuko …
‘Could that be just anybody’s wristwatch?’ I ask him –
Kodaira laughing …
‘Now you got me, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because I did know a Miyazaki Mitsuko, back when I was working for the Naval Clothing Department near Shinagawa. Lovely thing she was too, pure clear skin and firm fresh body she had…’
Licking his lips …
‘And after I left there, I kept in touch with the old caretaker who ran the place and he did tell me that poor Mitsuko had been found naked and dead in one of the air-raid shelters…’
‘It was you, you dirty fucking animal!’
‘Hold your horses there, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because my old friend told me that she’d actually been killed by a Yobo who used to work there, that it was this Yobo who had desecrated her skin, violated her body; made me sick to think of such a dirty, filthy third-class person fucking a pure Japanese girl like her…’
‘It was you, you fucking monster!’
‘You’re not listening to me, soldier,’ says Kodaira. ‘The Kempeitai caught this Yobo; they caught him, they tried him and they executed him there and then on the spot, that’s what the old caretaker said. Made me proud to be Japanese…’
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Are you deaf, soldier?’ Kodaira laughs now. ‘You got shellshock, have you? It was a Yobo …’
‘It was you…’
Kodaira shakes his head. He puts the watch back down on the table and now he stretches his arms high above his head and says, ‘You know, none of it makes much sense to me…’
I ask him nothing. I say nothing –
‘Take the Kempeitai, or even me, for example; they give us a big medal over there for all the things we did, but then we come back here and all we get is a long rope…’
I still say nothing –
‘Come on,’ he laughs. ‘You were over there; you saw what I saw, you did what I did…’
‘Shut up!’
‘You know, soldier, you really do look like a man I once saw over there in Jinan…’
‘Shut up!’
‘Why?’ laughs Kodaira again. ‘It couldn’t have been you, could it, soldier? He was Kempei and he was a corporal.’
‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’
‘And his name wasn’t Minami…’
‘Shut up! Shut up! ’
‘I think it was Katayama…’
‘I know who I am,’ I shout. ‘I know! I know who I am!’
Now Kodaira leans across the table towards me. Now he puts his hands on mine. Now he says, ‘Forget it, corporal…’
No one is who they say they are …
‘But I know who I am,’ I hiss. ‘I know…’
No one is who they seem …
‘It was a different world,’ says Kodaira. ‘A different time.’
*
A century of change takes place in one night of fire; neighbourhoods bombed to the ground, their people burnt to death; where there were factories and homes, where there were workers and children, now there is only dust, now there is only ash, and no one will remember those buildings, no one will remember those people –
No one will remember anything …
Things that happened last week already seem as though they happened years, even decades before. Things that happened only yesterday, no longer even register –
This is the war now …
There are severed legs and there are severed heads, a woman’s trunk with its intestines spilt, a chi
ld’s spectacles melted to its face, the dead in clusters, pets and babies, dogs and children, men and women, old and young, soldier and civilian, each one indistinguishable from the other –
The smell of apricots …
Each burnt, each dead –
This is my war now …
The air warm and the dawn pink. The smell of apricots. Black piles of bedding, black piles of possessions strewn on either side of the road. The stench of rotten apricots. Their black bicycles lie fallen, their black bodies huddled together. The smell of apricots. Black factories and black bathhouses still smouldering –
That stench of rotten apricots …
The all-clear signal now –
I should not be here …
The orders to assemble at various elementary schools, the orders to avoid certain other schools. The smell of apricots. I stagger and I stumble on, Yuki still in my arms. I should not be here. I want to leave her, I want to go home, but I cannot. The stench of rotten apricots. I stagger and I stumble, through the black columns of survivors, their black bedding on their backs, their black bicycles at their sides. I should not be here. I stagger and I stumble on until we reach the Sumida River, the river now black with bodies. The smell of apricots. I carry Yuki across the black bridge. I should not be here. I stagger and I stumble past soldiers clearing the black streets, shifting the black bodies into the backs of their trucks with hooks. The stench of rotten apricots. I stagger and I stumble as the black flesh tears, the black bodies fall apart. I should not be here. Until the air is no longer warm, the dawn no longer pink. Just the smell of apricots …
Until I can look no more, I stagger and I stumble –
I should not be here. I should not be here …
Until hours, maybe days later, I carry her up the stairs of a deserted block of apartments in Shinagawa –
I should not be here …
Until I lay her down on the pale tatami mats of a second-floor room, frayed and well worn, the chrysanthemum wallpaper limp and peeling. Here in the half-light. I take the bottle out of my pocket. I unscrew the cap of the bottle. I take the cotton wool out of the neck of the bottle. I begin to count the pills –
I should not be here …
One Calmotin, two. I count and I count. I take out a second bottle. I count out the pills. Thirty-one Calmotin, thirty-two. I count and I count. I take out the third bottle. Sixty-one Calmotin, sixty-two. I count and I count. The fourth bottle and then the fifth –
One hundred and twenty-one Calmotin …
I should not be here, on my knees –
This is surrender …
I should not be here –
This is defeat …
*
Potsu-potsu, the rain is still falling, the hot fat drops on the kettles and the pans; potsu-potsu it falls in its terrible rhythm on the crockery and the utensils; potsu-potsu on the clothes and the shoes; potsu-potsu on the cooking oil and the soy sauce –
No ‘Apple Song’ here tonight –
Potsu-potsu it falls on the corrugated tin roof which covers the stairs up to Senju Akira’s office –
Potsu-potsu, potsu-potsu …
Heavier and heavier –
Zā-zā, zā-zā…
I clutch my knapsack. I start to shuffle backwards towards the door, on my hands and on my knees –
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
Senju laughing at me now as he asks, ‘You didn’t bring me back any souvenirs from Tochigi then? Not very thoughtful…’
‘I am very sorry,’ I tell him and I bow again –
But now Senju has said too much …
On my hands and on my knees –
He has said too much …
I get off my knees. He has said too much. I open my old army knapsack. Get off your knees! I take out the 1939 army-issue pistol. He has said too much. I raise it. Get off your knees! I aim and I point it at Senju Akira. He has said too much. Senju sat cross-legged before the long low polished table. Get off your knees! Bare-chested, with his trousers unbuttoned at the waist. He has said too much. Revolvers and short swords lain out on the table before him –
Get off your knees! Get off your knees!
‘It was you,’ I tell him. You who ordered Ishida to kill me. You who ordered Ishida to steal that file because Fujita told you it would buy Adachi’s silence. Because you knew Adachi would find out. You knew he would find out it was you; you who introduced Fujita to Nodera; you who set them up to kill Matsuda, your own boss, your mentor, the man you called brother; it was you…
‘You who ordered the hit on Matsuda…’
Now Senju looks up at me and smiles –
Senju laughing at me again now –
He, he, he, he! Ho, ho, ho, ho …
‘Suddenly you’re a brave man, are you? With your grey hair and your stench of death, suddenly you’re a hero again, are you? Suddenly, back from the dead. Go on then, corporal…’
The 1939 army-issue pistol pointed at him –
‘Corporal what …? What’s your name…?’
The 1939 army-issue pistol aimed at him –
‘What is it this week, corporal…?’
The army-issue pistol in my hand –
‘Who are you today, cor–’
I pull the trigger. Bang!
His forehead shatters –
I am off my knees …
I can hear feet coming. I pick up the file and the papers, the money and the drugs. Feet up the stairs, through the doors –
Through the doors, and I shoot again –
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The first one falls, the other turns –
I run to the door and I shoot –
Bang! Bang!
The man falls down the stairs as I follow him –
As I step over the bloodstained patterned shirt. Zā-zā, zā-zā. As I stamp on the American sunglasses. Zā-zā, zā-zā…
Now I run. Now I run away again –
Zā-zā, zā-zā. Zā-zā, zā-zā…
Run to the station –
Zā-zā, zā-zā…
The rain coming down in sheets of sheer white water, bouncing back off the train tracks and the umbrellas on the platform. Zā-zā, zā-zā. Now the headlights of the Shinjuku train appear and the pushing begins, the shoving begins. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I push my way forward and I shove my way on board. Zā-zā, zā-zā…
He said too much. He will say no more …
Now the doors close and the train starts. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. Pushed and shoved as we crawl along the tracks through the rain. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. But I cannot see this train at all. Zā-zā, zā-zā. Now I do not itch and I do not scratch. Zā-zā, zā-zā. I close my eyes –
Zā-zā, zā-zā. Zā-zā, zā-zā…
I am not here.
*
My hat pulled down and my jacket stretched over, I run down the road to the restaurant, half-way between the station and my house –
The one lantern swinging in the rain and the wind –
Ha, ha, ha, ha! He, he, he, he! Ho, ho, ho, ho!
I pull back the sheet that acts as a door and the jokes, the smiles and the laughter stop dead. Dead. No jokes. No smiles. No laughter. Everyone has gone. There is no one here –
No one but the man behind the counter –
No one is who they say they are …
‘Welcome home, corporal,’ says Chief Inspector Adachi –
‘This is not my home,’ I tell him. ‘This is not my home! ’
But Adachi nods. Adachi says, ‘This is all you have.’
‘Stop!’ I shout and scream, ‘You’re lying!’
‘They shipped you home from China in a strait-jacket,’ he says. ‘And they would have locked you up in Matsuzawa with your father, if it hadn’t been for me and Chief Kita.’
‘I don’t want to hear this!’ I shout.
‘I took you in as a favour to Kita and then, after the surrender, he repaid us both with these
jobs –’
‘Stop!’ I shout again –
‘With these names –’
I can’t forget…
But I am not listening to Adachi now. Now I am ripping apart the walls of this shack. Now I am tearing off the roof –
And now in the light, here in the bright and shining light, Adachi is gone; this man is Captain Muto again –
‘And I am all you have,’ he says –
‘They are coming for you.’
And I can hear them. They are coming for me. Door to door. They are coming for me. I can hear them. They are coming for me. Kita is coming, the Victors are coming. They are coming for me …
Now Captain Muto puts down a razor on the counter –
I should not be here, not tonight. I should be home …
Next to the razor, the bottles of Calmotin –
‘Sweet dreams, Corporal Katayama.’
*
She is lying naked on the futon. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her head is slightly to the right. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her right arm outstretched. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her left arm at her side. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. Her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. My come drying on her stomach and on her ribs. Her eyebrows shaved, her teeth black. She says –
‘Marry me, please marry me…’
Now she brings her left hand up to her stomach. She dips her fingers in my come. She puts her fingers to her lips. She licks my come from her fingers and she asks –
‘Does this become me?’
Dressed in her yellow and dark-blue striped kimono, I smile, ‘It more than becomes you…’
The pills all gone …
‘Marry me…’
I pick up the razor. Nobody knows my name. Everybody knows my name. I open up the razor. Nobody cares. Everybody cares. I untie the kimono. The day is night. The night is day. The yellow and dark-blue striped kimono. Black is white. White is black. It falls open. The men are the women. The women are the men. The razor in my right hand. The brave are the frightened. The frightened are the brave. I lower my right hand. The strong are the weak. The weak are the strong. I lower the razor. The good are the bad. The bad are the good. The blade touches my skin. Communists should be set free. Communists should be locked up. I lift up my cock with my left hand. Strikes are legal. Strikes are illegal. The blade is cold. Democracy is good. Democracy is bad. My mouth is dry. The aggressor is the victim. The victim is the aggressor. My stomach aches. The winners are the losers. The losers are the winners. My heart aches. Japan lost the war. Japan won the war. I start to cut. The living are the dead –