Tokyo Year Zero (14 page)

The old Mitsubishi Town
…

Here most of the modern steel and concrete buildings are still standing, just the odd ones gutted here and there; here where the
Victors rule from their offices and their barracks; here in the new heart of Occupied Tokyo –

Same as the old heart
…

Now Kimura, Nishi and I cut under the tracks of Tokyo station to Kanda –

Here, less than a mile from the Emperors old and new, few of the wooden buildings are still standing. There were train yards here once. Family businesses. Bicycle shops. Homes. Now there are only burnt-out ruins and makeshift shelters, rare clusters of old timber houses that were spared and sudden alleys of one-storey offices that have sprung up among the fields of weeds and mountains of ashes, the braziers and lanterns, the guitars and girls, the songs and shouts –

‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’

From the alleyways and the doorways with their permed hair and painted faces, they coo and they call, luring and then leading their catches back to the shabby little buildings where their foreign names and Japanese prices are written on placards or posters –

Off-limits. Off-limits. Off-limits. Off-limits
…

The Salon Matsu is just another shabby little building stained with dirt among all the other shabby little buildings stained with dirt, an unlit pink neon sign the only new thing here. I slide open the cracked glass door. There is a young Korean man sat in the
genkan
, before a split
noren
curtain. The Korean has a pageboy haircut and spectacles, loud-coloured trousers and a grey undershirt –

He sees us. He stands up. He starts to speak –

‘Shut up!’ I tell him. ‘Police raid!’

I tell Kimura to wait with the Korean in the
genkan
and then I lead Nishi through the split curtain into the kitchen-cum-waiting room where three Japanese women are sat with their blouses wide open and their skirts up round their thighs, fanning themselves –

They look up at us. They sigh. They roll their eyes –

‘What do you want this time?’ asks the oldest –

I tell her, ‘We’re from Tokyo Metro HQ.’

‘So what?’ she says. ‘We’ve paid.’

I offer her a cigarette. She takes it. I light it for her. I ask her, ‘Are you the
mama
here then?’

‘So what if I am?’ she asks, and then she winks and says, ‘You after a free ride?’

I take out the envelope. I take out the clipping from the
Asahi
. I
show her the advertisement. I ask her, ‘Are you still hiring?’

‘Why?’ she laughs. ‘You’re too ugly even for here.’

The other girls laugh. I hand out more cigarettes –

I ask her, ‘Do you do the interviews yourself?’

‘Why?’ she asks again. ‘So what if I do?’

‘Come on, play the game,’ I tell her. ‘Answer the questions and then we can all go home.’

She snorts. She says,
‘Home?
Where’s my
home?
This is my
home
, officer. You like it?’

‘Listen,’ I tell her. ‘The body of a young girl was found up in Shiba Park, up behind Zōjōji. It had been there a while and it is impossible to identify…’

Now they are listening to me, smoking my cigarettes, sweating like pigs and fanning their thighs; the pictures in their heads, the pictures behind their eyes –

The Dead
…

‘This advertisement was in one of her pockets, so we are here to see if you can identify her, help us put a name to her body…’

‘So how did she die?’ asks one of the girls –

The picture in her head, behind her eyes
…

‘Raped and then throttled,’ I say –

The pictures of the Dead
…

There is silence here now, behind the split curtain in this kitchen-cum-waiting room, silence but for the giggles and the groans from upstairs rooms, the panting and the pounding –

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

‘Who says she came here first?’ asks the
mama
. ‘Poor thing might have been on her way here when…’

‘That’s what I’ve come to find out, to talk to you about…’

‘But you haven’t given us a description,’ she says. ‘How would I know if she was here or not?’

I ask her again, ‘So do you do the interviews yourself?’

‘Not just me,’ she says. ‘Me and Mr. Kim do them.’

‘Is that him outside?’ I ask her. ‘Mr. Kim?’

‘He’s a Kim,’ she laughs. ‘But not him.’

‘Where’s the real Mr. Kim then?’

‘He’ll be here tomorrow.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Recruiting.’

‘Where?’

‘Where? Where? Where?’ she laughs and rolls her eyes. She puts out her cigarette. She picks up a mirror. She primps her perm –

I think about her all the time. I think about her all the time
…

‘Ninety per cent of all the girls that come through our door have come from the International Palace,’ she says. ‘Now that doesn’t mean your dead girl did, but it doesn’t mean she didn’t…’

I turn to Detective Nishi. I tell him, ‘Please describe the body and the clothing of the victim for this lady.’

But Detective Nishi is miles away, lost between the breasts and thighs of these girls. Now Nishi blushes, reaches for his notebook and stammers, ‘The victim was approximately seventeen or eighteen years old with shoulder-length permed hair, wearing a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, a white half-sleeved chemise, dyed-pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles…’

‘We’re all corpses then,’ laughs the
mama
. ‘All ghosts…’

‘It could be anyone,’ says another one of the girls –

Made of tears. Made of tears. Made of tears
…

‘She’s all of us,’ says the
mama
. ‘Every woman in Japan.’

Tokyo, 87°, moonless & cloudy

The three of us leave the Salon Matsu, leave Kanda and walk back towards Headquarters. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. This time we walk back along the other side of the tracks, the Nihonbashi side, on the opposite side to the old Imperial Palace and the new. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. This side we don’t have to show our notebooks –

There are no Victors here. No white stars. No lights at all –

From Sotobori to the Yaesu entrance of Tokyo station –

Five trucks in a row. Five trucks full of Formosans –

But not all Formosans, some are Japanese…

Kimura looks at Nishi. Nishi looks at me –

No radio. No telephone. No car…

‘Boss?’ shouts Nishi. ‘What are you doing, Boss? Boss?’

I am walking towards the five trucks. I am taking out my police notebook. I am holding up my ID. I am approaching the passenger door of the first truck. I’m reaching up and opening the door of the truck and shouting, ‘I want you out of these trucks now!’

But now I’m looking up at a submachine gun –

Skin to the metal, metal to the skin…

Fingers on the trigger of the gun –

Bullet through my skin…

I am waiting to die –

Praying…

But the bullet never comes; not yesterday, not today and not tomorrow; not over there and not back here –

I can’t die. I can’t die…

It’s not a bullet to the gut that sends me sprawling back across the ground, it’s a boot to the gut as the trucks speed away down Sotobori-dōri towards Shimbashi –

Towards Senju Akira –

I’m already dead
.

*

By the time I have got back to my feet, by the time Kimura, Nishi and I have started to run, by the time we have reached Headquarters, by the time we have repeated and reported our story four or five times, by the time we have been given a telephone that works, by the time we have requested reinforcements, by the time the reinforcements have been raised, by the time the reinforcements have been deployed, by the time we all get down to the Shimbashi Market –

It’s too late…

The Formosan trucks have been and gone –

The shots have been fired –

The blood spilled –

The battle over –

For now –

‘Kuso
Formosan shits,’ Senju’s men, the former Matsuda men, all cursing.
‘Kuso
American shits.
Kuso
police shits.
Kuso
Formosan shits.
Kuso
American shits.
Kuso
police shits.
Kuso
…’

‘Kuso … Kuso … Kuso … Kuso…’

Two dead. Eight injured –

But not Senju Akira –

Never Senju –

Senju with a short sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, his sleeveless white undershirt and the top of his
haramaki
spotted with fresh blood –

‘Lucky I was elsewhere on business,’ says Senju. ‘A stray bullet here, a stray bullet there and then where would we be?’

Senju takes off his American sunglasses now –

Senju stood before his men, before his troops; the Sho gun of Shimbashi beneath the night sky, outside his emergency field headquarters; the emperor of all he surveys –

‘Where would you be, detective?’

I shrug my shoulders but I do not reply to him. I say nothing –

Nishi, Kimura and half of Atago are here with me tonight –

I am here as a policeman tonight. I am not here to beg…

More to the point,’ continues Senju. ‘Where
were
the police? Nowhere, that’s where. These Koreans, Formosans and Chinese, they try to walk all over us and where are you? Nowhere…

‘And what do you do? Nothing …’ he sighs –

I curse him. I curse him. I curse him…

‘Nothing but beg…’

The stall-holders of the New Life Market, all risen from their sleep, roused from their dreams, are lining up to give Senju their support and their supplies for the coming war, bowing as they offer him their best sake, meat and polished white rice –

I am here as a policeman…

‘Because if I’ve got money, if I’ve got cigarettes, if I’ve got alcohol or some special food in, then I can always find a policeman, I can always count on meeting one or tripping over one grovelling around on his hands and his knees, begging for sleeping pills…’

And I curse myself…

‘The Formosans are hardly walking all over you,’ I tell him. ‘They just want stalls in your New Life Market, just like they had stalls in your old Black Market, but you won’t give them any…’

But Senju is not listening. Senju is just speaking –

‘They act like the Victors but they won nothing! Beat no one! They didn’t fight and they didn’t win. They just got lucky! Lucky to be allowed over here and lucky to still be here…’

‘There weren’t only Formosans in those trucks,’ I tell him. ‘There were Japanese too; I know because I saw them myself.’

‘When you were taking their money to keep away?’

‘No one wants another war,’ I tell him. ‘Not now.’

‘Another
war?’ spits Senju. ‘It’s the
same
war…’

I shake my head. ‘GHQ will close you down.’

‘See?’ he laughs. ‘It’s always the same war!’

‘Then the Formosans will have won it.’

‘The Formosans win?’ laughs Senju again. ‘Never, and I’ll tell you why, detective. Thousands of people depend on this market. If I let the Formosans or the Yankees close me down or drive me out then this market will die and if this market dies then so will the thousands of people who depend on it and depend on me…’

‘If they close you down,’ I say. ‘You’ve lost.’

‘Never! Never! Never!’ shouts Senju. ‘I have never lost. I have never been defeated and I never will be. Not by the
kuso
Formosans! Not by the
kuso
Koreans! Not by the
kuso
Chinese! Not by the
kuso
Yankees and not by the
kuso
police and the likes of you!

‘I’ve never lost! Never been defeated! And I never will be!’

‘So what are you going do?’ I ask him –

‘You kill one of mine,’ says Senju –

‘I’ll kill ten of yours, I swear!’

I look up at the night sky above us all. There are no stars out tonight. I shake my head again. I bow to him. I start to walk away –

‘See you later, detective,’ he shouts. ‘Don’t forget…’

Nishi and Kimura following behind me –

‘Because I never forget,’ he says –

‘I never forget a debt; not to the living and not to the dead.’

*

Men talk about the dead in their sleep. Men remember the dead in their sleep. Their fathers, their mothers, their wives and their lovers. Their family and friends, their colleagues and comrades. There are over one million urns containing the ashes of the war dead still unclaimed by their bereaved families. These urns contain the ashes from all ranks of the military and naval war dead. The First and Second Demobilization Bureaus who are responsible for the issuance of death notices and for the care of the dead say that many of the ashes have been transferred to their institution in a haphazard fashion and they are increasingly unable to verify whether all the ashes and remains of the war dead in their care actually belong to those of military personnel. The Bureaus are also encountering numerous difficulties in returning the ashes of the dead to their relatives who have often moved from their former addresses or had them destroyed. Moreover, the absence of claimants is usually as a result of death –

Their stomachs empty, their dreams lost…

Up until this June, the Demobilization Bureaus also received a grant of fifteen yen for taking care of each individual urn. However, since June, these institutions have been deprived of this grant. Lack of these finances has made it impossible for the institutions to order the construction of new boxes for depositing the ashes. Presently, new boxes are still being made out of lumber in stock but the day will soon come when the ashes of the war dead will have to be returned to their relatives in ordinary plain brown wrapping paper –

They are hungry, they are starving…

Men talk about the dead in their sleep. Men remember the dead in their sleep; their fathers, their mothers, their wives and their lovers; their family and friends, their colleagues and comrades. Men
talk about ghosts and demons in their sleep –

Their masters gone…

I have sat in this borrowed chair with my head on this borrowed desk through the rest of the night. I have closed my eyes but I have not slept. I open my eyes but I do not wake. I read their reports. I read old newspapers. Now the dawn is coming up but it still feels old. Dead. Like the last light at the beginning of a long night. Lost and dead. Not a new morning. No new mornings here. I sit up in my borrowed chair. I look around. No Fujita. I close my eyes again –

Tonight I will sleep. Tonight I will sleep. Tonight I will…

I open them. I look up at the uniform standing over me –

The uniformed officer has a telegram in his hand.

*

Four officers from Takanawa are unbuttoning their uniforms.
The mosquitoes circle
. The four officers strip down to their underwear.
The mosquitoes attack
. The four officers jump into the Shiba Canal.
The water stinks
. The four officers swim over to the wooden door floating in the canal.
The water black
. The four officers guide the door towards the side of the canal where we are all stood.
In the sun
. The chief nods.
In the heat
. The four officers turn over the door.
I curse
. The body of a drowned man, naked and bound to the door –

Hayashi Jo naked and bound to the back of the door…

Bound with his hands and feet nailed to the door –

His hands and feet then nailed to the door…

The door then thrown into the canal –

Hayashi face down in the water…

His mouth and lungs full –

He drowns as he floats…

Bound and nailed –

I kneel before him. I say, ‘Hayashi Jo of the
Minpo
paper.’

*

Was it Senju or Fujita?
Nobody knows his name. Everybody knows his name.
Fujita or Senju?
Nobody cares. Everybody cares.
Senju or Fujita?
The day is night. The night is day.
Fujita or Senju?
Black is white. White is black.
Senju or Fujita?
The men are the women. The
women are the men.
Fujita or Senju?
The brave are the frightened. The frightened are the brave.
Senju or Fujita?
The strong are the weak. The weak are the strong.
Fujita or Senju?
The good are the bad. The bad are the good.
Senju or Fujita?
Communists should be set free. Communists should be locked up.
Fujita or Senju?
Strikes are legal. Strikes are illegal.
Senju or Fujita?
Democracy is good. Democracy is bad.
Fujita or Senju?
The aggressor is the victim. The victim is the aggressor.
Senju or Fujita?
The winners are the losers. The losers are the winners.
Fujita or Senju?
Japan lost the war. Japan won the war.
Senju or Fujita?
The living are the dead. The dead are the living.
Fujita or Senju?
I am alive. I am dead –

Senju or Fujita? Fujita or Senju?

I am one of the lucky ones.

*

Two dead and eight injured down at Shimbashi; the body in the Shiba Canal; it has been a bad night and a bad morning. And the Victors want answers; the Victors have summoned the chief to the Public Safety Division. Now the chief wants answers; now the chief has summoned us all back to Metropolitan Police Headquarters –

The heads of all sections. The heads of all rooms…

‘There will be no gang wars,’ says the chief. ‘I’ll ask for the closure of all the markets. I’ll ask for Eighth Army reinforcements from GHQ. But there will be no gang wars in Tokyo…

‘They think they can do what they want,’ the chief continues. ‘But they don’t appreciate the help we give them. They don’t appreciate the protection we give them. They don’t appreciate the trouble we spare them. And all I ask for is peace.’

‘But it’s not our local gangs who started this,’ says Kanehara. ‘It’s the Formosans and the mainland Chinese muscling in…’

‘And the Koreans,’ adds Inspector Adachi –

‘And the Americans are protecting them,’ says Kanehara. ‘They let these
immigrant
people do what they want while they punish the ordinary
tekiya
who are just trying to run their stalls…’

‘And we can’t step in,’ says Adachi. ‘Because if the police are seen to step in on the side of the Japanese against the Formosans or the Koreans then we risk being purged for mistreating
immigrants
and reverting to our old Japanese ways, ignoring human rights and
abandoning democratic freedoms but, if not us, if not the police, then who is there left but the gangs themselves to protect the human rights and democratic principles, the lives and livelihoods of the
tekiya?’

‘Divide and conquer,’ says Kanehara. ‘Divide and rule.’

‘And I know all that and I will tell them that,’ says the chief. ‘But you tell your men in the gangs that they’ll have to choose…’

He is fighting for
his
rights, fighting for
his
freedoms…

‘Either open war,’ says the chief. ‘Or open markets.’

*

They will find Hayashi’s name. They will visit Hayashi’s address. They will talk to Hayashi’s family. They will visit Hayashi’s office. They will talk to Hayashi’s colleagues. They will find Hayashi’s stories. They will read Hayashi’s stories. They will talk to Hayashi’s contacts. They will find Hayashi’s notes. They will read Hayashi’s notes. They will talk to Hayashi’s snitches and they will tell them –

They will tell them my name and they will come for me –