I read the name of the father.
His full name.
82
Hiroshima – in a taxi on its way to the Righa Royal Hotel –
Takeda and Becht – night, March 15th 1995
“Do you believe in fate?” Takeda asks the German photographer in the taxi. He’d left his police car behind on his way to the gay bar. It would be too easy to trace. Beate Becht turns to look at him. The inspector avoids her gaze and stares out of the window. In spite of his excellent English, he had used the Japanese word unmei. But he was sure she understood.
She sees his taut jaw muscles and tries to make her answer sound noncommittal: “People always say that reality is a hundred times more surprising than the imagination. It’s a cliché, of course.”
The inspector nods almost imperceptibly. “Strange that this sad merry-go-round started in my imagination,” he says with an oblique smile. “With my infamous intuition. If I hadn’t told Takamatsu that the deaths of both Shiga senior and Shiga junior in bank raids decades apart couldn’t be a coincidence none of this would have happened.”
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” says Beate. She can’t think of anything else to say and it leaves her feeling stupid and awkward.
The inspector leans forward, lets his shoulders hang. The man isn’t finished yet, Beate thinks, but his resilience is being pushed to the limit.
“I’ve always known that a moment like this would come,” says Takeda. He continues before Beate has the chance to respond: “When they would lock me out, when everyone would see that my skin isn’t the same as everyone else’s.” His eyes veer to the right, surprisingly bright and vulnerable in the light of the neon advertisements outside. “Do you understand?”
Beate nods. Her mouth is dry. “I’ve had much the same feelings all my life,” she says, without explanation.
He stares at her long and hard. She reminds him of a watchdog: big, heavy, alert.
“Would it be an insult if I told you I’ve lived more in the last two days than in the last six months?” she asks.
He raises his eyebrows.
“Not because the situation excites me,” she hastens to add, “but because it’s forced me to make choices, and to feel.” She places the emphasis on the last word. She’s angry with herself, but also emotional and confused. She thinks: I hate the way Japanese men size women up. He’s probably no exception. But for some incomprehensible reason she feels for him.
“I cheated on her,” says Takeda. He pushes his chin forward. “Several times a month. In rabuho, those hotels you book by the hour. I paid for sex. It was something I had to do.” He turns to her: “When I was young I thought the word “love” meant something. Now, I’m not sure.”
His words throw her off balance. She knows that Japanese men never talk about such things. Not under normal circumstances. She wonders if he can read her thoughts when he adds: “I never told her. I didn’t want to hurt her. But now I think she knew all along.”
The inspector peers out of the window at the jagged contours of the Righa Royal Hotel looming up in the darkness.
Just before they step out of the car, Beate Becht says with a voice as cold as ice, as if she’s accusing him of something: “I think I’m falling in love with you.” She laughs nervously. Typical me, she thinks. I always know when to press the shutter release... but that’s it.
83
Hiroshima – Funairi Hospital – Xavier Douterloigne
and two nurses – night, March 15th 1995
Xavier Douterloigne isn’t sure where he is. It’s a kind of no-man’s-land. He’s too tired to lift a finger or raise an eyelid. He’s weighted down with sadness like an overloaded barge on a mist covered river. The pain is everywhere, every centimetre of his body. It makes him want to burst open. But it’s concentrated in his head. This is what it must feel like when you set yourself on fire. There’s only room for one thought in this prison of pain, and he holds on to it like grim death: he has to keep the promise he made to Anna at Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres when he was thirteen. Xavier opens his mouth to tell her he’s determined to keep his promise. He cocks his ears to listen to her response, but the roar of the fire burning inside him gets louder, too loud to...
“Quick, call a doctor.”
“Do you think? He’s coming out of the coma, isn’t he?”
“Or dying.”
84
Hiroshima – Suicide Club squat –
Kabe-cho – Reizo Shiga – night, March 15th 1995
Reizo Shiga wakes with a start from one of those unbridled nightmares that had plagued him since childhood. His nose is swollen and throbbing, his mouth full of sticky saliva from the dose of gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid he took after locking Mitsuko up in the metro service tunnel and trying to write. The ghb hadn’t produced the desired effect on time so he treated himself to a little crack to speed up the process. Reizo isn’t a fool. He knows the combination is dangerous. He feels agitated, as he always does after a dose of ghb and the short deep sleep that inevitably follows, but he’s having a hard time getting his thoughts straight. When he sees the men in the main room he thinks at first they’re members of the Suicide Club. Then he realises they’re armed. Reizo tries to figure out what’s going on. There’s no staggering stab of anxiety, the kind he used to feel when he had to go to school or prepare for an exam, just the irritation of your average junky completely caught up in his own little world. These men don’t have the right to disturb him. He sees a giant lurching towards him and thinks for an instant that he’s still stuck in his ghb trip. The giant has horns, the nose of a pig, yellow eyes and upturned tusks, a creature of nightmares. The men have torches and their light makes the coarse hair sticking up between the giant’s horns appear glossy, like a woman’s hair. Reizo starts to get nervous when he sees that the man is wearing the Noh mask of the storm god Raijin, just as he himself had worn it to harass Mitsuko a couple of hours earlier. It dawns on him that the men must have been in his basement cubby-hole, where he did his writing. The feeling of defeat in his chest surprises him. He hangs his head when he realises that two of the men are pointing their guns at him.
“Reizo Shiga?” The voice behind the cypress mask with its ambivalent undertone drops a contemptuous octave: “The junky Reizo Shiga?”
Reizo rubs his nose. He suddenly remembers the depression that took hold of him after he failed the university entrance exam. “The writer Reizo Shiga,” he says.
The man grabs Reizo’s battered nose and twists it hard.
85
Hiroshima – in a taxi on its way to Denny’s Diner
next to a videogame centre in the Hakushima district –
Takeda and Becht – night, March 15th 1995
Takeda tries to stay calm as they head for Denny’s Diner in a taxi. The situation is evolving so fast he has a feeling he’s lost his grip on reality. His wife’s murder doesn’t seem to have hit home completely.
Takeda ponders about what happened: Adachi gave him chief commissioner Takamatsu’s mobile number back in the gay bar. Takeda punched in the number and treated the chief commissioner to a few carefully rehearsed threats. He revealed that he had official documents at his disposal that could expose the identity of the Oyabun called Rokurobei, the man who had given orders for the attack on Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank. Much of the conversation was one-way. This was Takeda’s chance to say what he wanted and he refused to let himself be interrupted. The chief commissioner didn’t even squeak when Takeda accused him of being a member of a criminal organisation that was responsible for his wife’s death. Instead, he asked unruffled what Takeda wanted in exchange for the documents.
“I want my name cleared and my share of the takings.”
“What takings, inspector?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Takamatsu. Don’t try to tell me the attack on the bank was only to get
rid of the ceo. You don’t happen to have the golden Buddha from the Abukama-do caves back at your apartment by any chance? Or other Golden Lily war treasures?”
A lengthy silence followed.
“I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement,” said Takamatsu. “Meet me at my place.”
Takeda laughed. “So you can kidnap and torture me to make me tell you where I’ve hidden the documents? I prefer something a little more anonymous.” Takeda gave the chief commissioner the address of Denny’s Diner in the Hakushima district, a family restaurant, part of an American chain, that serves yoshoku, western dishes with a Japanese touch. The lights in the place are blinding and the serving staff smiles even worse. Takeda threw in a final warning for good measure: “Just in case you’re planning to kill a bunch a people – let’s say an entire restaurant – to cover up the elimination of one single person: I’ve hidden the documents in a very safe place.”
“Always true to form, inspector Takeda,” said Takamatsu cool and collected.
Click.
86
Hiroshima – the Suicide Club squat – Kabe-cho –
Reizo Shiga and Rokurobei – night, March 15th 1995
When the giant lets go of his nose, a searing burst of pain careens through Reizo’s entire body. But the pain of humiliation is even greater.
“People call me Rokurobei,” says the giant. “It’s not my real name, but over the years I’ve come to identify with it.”
It takes a while for Reizo Shiga’s penny to drop. “If the masks are anything to go by you are a lover of Noh,” the man continues. “I prefer Shakespeare myself. The strangest and most besotted things happen in his plays... so true to life.” The man leans forward. The eyes behind the mask glisten with scorn. “But I couldn’t resist the temptation to borrow the identity of the storm god. If Shakespeare had known him he would have been crazy about him. He was in a state of awe about everything supernatural. Ironic isn’t it that Japanese men and women of your generation claim they don’t believe in the old spirits anymore, yet they’re all completely addicted to comic strips in which the supernatural is central. Ho hum... But as a writer you must surely have heard of shingao, tell me, Reizo Shiga?”
Reizo doesn’t answer. He saves face, in spite of his aching nose, by staring at the man unflinchingly.
“In the old days it literally meant: eat your face,” the masked man continues unperturbed. “It was presumed you would wipe out your own everyday face and replace it with the incarnated spirit of the mask you were wearing. What do you think, Reizo? Could that be true?”
Reizo’s voice cracks, but his words are far from a terrified whisper: “Let me put on the storm god mask and I’ll tell you.”
Rokurobei slaps his thighs with delight. His minions grin. “Look what we have here... a real man with karisuma!”
The underlying insult carried by the word charisma is crystal clear. But Reizo’s face remains rigid.
“But we’re not here to talk about culture. Your uncle Tomio Shiga lost his life recently in a bank raid. Did he try to contact you before he died, in whatever fashion?”
Surprised by the abrupt change of subject, Reizo tries to think on his feet. He was expecting a different question: where is my daughter? He’s standing face to face with the father of Mitsuko, the man she said would come for his blood when he left her behind in the metro service tunnel. But the drugs have left him indifferent. He realises that the man is unaware that his daughter is close by. Rokurobei is here for something else. Reizo grins obliquely. “My uncle, the magnanimous bank executive whose plan to save the Japanese economy was touted in the newspapers day in day out? A man like that isn’t likely to want anything to do with the black sheep of the family.” The figure before him moves in closer. Reizo observes that his neck is unnaturally long. He’s wearing a support collar that appears to be made of silver. “Is that so?” says Rokurobei. “A classical dilemma. Should I believe you? You could be telling the truth, I suppose, but I grew up with absolute values, do you get my drift? When I catch even a whiff of doubt I’m on my guard. Shortly before he died, your good uncle threatened me. He said the Shiga clan would be my downfall. And you’re part of that clan, whether you like it or not.”
The spirit of the young junkie isn’t to be tamed: “I don’t care if you’re on your guard. Why target me? I’m a member of the Brotherhood and that makes me a part of your...”
“I know you’re a member of the sect,” says Rokurobei. “But who told you I was a man of influence in Aum Shinrikyo?”
“I’m highly placed in the Brotherhood. I know things.”
“You’re lying. You’re a novice.”
“I’m one of yours!”
The man sighs. “That sounds so delightfully old fashioned. Are you a ronin, boy? Is that what you think you are? A mercenary in my employ? Let me give you some advice: open your eyes and look around. In a world of crisis and recession, fidelity and a person’s word are worth as much these days as a rat’s ass. Especially in Japan.” He looks round the room. “That’s even more true for someone like you, who lives the life of a rat.”
Reizo’s sense of honour lifts him out of himself: “So I’m old fashioned. My word counts.”
A lengthy silence follows. “So it would appear,” says the man, his tone polite. “Bushi no ichigon, neh?”
Reizo straightens his back. “I give you my word as a samurai, that’s true.”
“Mmm, I can trust the word of a samurai. But the word of a junkie?”
Reizo isn’t immediately sure how to react to this insult. Jump to his feet and challenge mister know-it-all to a duel, man to man? But his initial rage has been replaced by a paralysing indifference. A boundless fatigue takes hold of him. For years, the drugs had filled his dreams with visions of terrifying creatures creeping up on him, leering at him. Now that Rokurobei, the “serpent’s neck” as the demon was once called, is standing in front of him, large as life, the same drugs make him shrug his shoulders.
“Your uncle had information about a secret that is very important to me. I need to be sure no one else knows about it, even someone who calls himself old fashioned.”
Why is Rokurobei telling him all this? Reizo looks him in the eye and sees his answer: he belongs to the Shiga clan and he’s doomed to die. People didn’t just kill adversaries in ancient Japan. It was important to eliminate your enemy, but just as important to get rid of his family and his blood brothers. Otherwise you could count on a dagger or a sword in your gut sooner or later. His mouth dries up and he finds it hard to breathe. But he’s determined to stay calm and unmoved on the outside, whatever the cost.
“I’m told you’re keen on Mishima,” the serpent’s neck continues.
Reizo says nothing.
“Or rather, you want to outstrip Mishima.”
Reizo looks at the floor. He’s surprised at the clarity in his mind, a gift of the ghb, a clarity almost as intoxicating as any drug can be. It’s a sudden state of grace, of insight into his life and his motivations, something he’s never experienced before. Reizo remembers the anxiety attacks, and the shame that followed them. Speed made him reckless, but it also transformed the darkness into a place of monsters, all of them waiting for him, all of them wanting something from him. But if he confronted them with courage, they would turn and walk away, grey shadows. It all left him surprised and confused. Heroin made him grind his teeth, then it brought a white light that filled the world with breathtaking meaning. After that the illumination withdrew, leaving the darkest pit imaginable in its wake.
“Teach me something, Reizo Shiga,” says the storm god condescendingly. “Tell me about Mishima’s philosophy.” Reizo has a feeling the man knows he’s been parading Mishima all his life without ever having read him properly. He tries to think of an appropriate response. He’s never finished any of Mishima’s novels. It was the elitist author’s life
that fascinated him most. Filled with shame, sadness and rebellion, he finally says: “You’re born as a worm, suffer a miserable life of anxiety and paranoia that prevents you from revealing the golden light inside you to others, and then you die, sobbing for your wasted, useless life.”
“A little stilted perhaps, but well put,” says Rokurobei. “And bungled together in too much of a hurry, boy. Mishima’s philosophy was simple, to the point, attractive and true. In Bunka Beiron he wrote: the emperor of Japan is the source of Japanese culture, and thus defending the emperor is the same as defending Japanese culture.”
“The Japanese emperor no longer exists,” says Reizo Shiga.
“True, very true,” says Rokurobei. “But the emperor, boy, we are all that divine being. And our culture has always revered the beauty of cruelty. A man like myself can’t exist without that dramatic beauty. Surely someone like you can understand that.”
Reizo has a feeling that these are the man’s final words. He toys with the idea of bargaining with Mitsuko’s life. But if these killers find her prison, he’s sure to die, and probably a more painful death than they originally planned for him.
Rokurobei leans closer. He seems to be interested in the expression on Reizo’s face. Reizo hangs his head, but his hands fly up unexpectedly, fast and furtive, and tear away the mask.
87
Hiroshima – in a taxi on the way to Denny’s Diner –
Takeda and Becht – night, March 15th 1995
Takeda runs through their plan one last time. He peers at Beate Becht out of the corner of his eye. She’s hardly said a word since her declaration of love in front of the hotel. Did she mean it, or was she just messing around, trying to be provocative? She seems the serious type. Takeda likes her. She’s smart and seems to enjoy the unexpected. But at the same time she’s too eager, as if she’s trying to prove something. Takeda would like to get to know her better, but the temptation scares him.
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