Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

A knock at the door. The woman who comes in is in her mid-twenties. Takeda always chooses the same age category. Many other Japanese men prefer younger prostitutes. Enjo kosai is popular in Japan: eighteen-year-olds, dressed up like school girls complete with pleated miniskirts, servicing older men. Young women are made out to be the pinnacle of pleasure, and they bring in a fortune. Takeda’s mother was twenty-five when she fell pregnant with him. Nothing is said. There’s no need. The woman does what she was taught to do. She undresses, her head turned away slightly in feigned modesty. She then takes him in her mouth with a look of fear on her face. She’s learnt that this makes men feel powerful and strong. When Takeda enters her, she winces as if he’s too big for her. That’s what Japanese men like. Takeda is slow to respond. Her body is too sinewy for his taste. He makes her go down on hands and knees and penetrates her from behind, trying to act out his favourite fantasy. His mind refuses to cooperate. He hesitates, can’t quite grasp what’s wrong.

Suddenly, he pulls back, chases her off the bed. The prostitute is baffled. She’d understand if he were drunk. Inspector Takeda pays her and motions her to hurry. They get dressed in silence with their backs to each other. The woman slips out of the door, relieved that her client didn’t get violent.

Takeda isn’t drunk, but he might as well have been. He’s intoxicated by something that anyone else, anyone other than a policeman, would call inspiration.

He’s determined to get home as quickly as possible.

You call me Rokurobei, as dictated by tradition since the founding of the Yuzonsha . Like the legendary demon from the noble Kami family, my task has been to bring you prosperity and good fortune. That is what I have done. For forty years, I have made sure that you are among the most powerful men in Nippon. I have summoned you today to assess your level of makoto . You know the meaning of the word in Japanese: it encompasses an immaterial value that translates into righteousness, which is something very different from honesty. The ancient Chinese definition is even more interesting: ‘the word that was kept and thus came to life.’

“I gave you my word in all righteousness many years ago, and have waited all this time for it to germinate. Your wealth and power may have made you weak and unstable. But my tamashii , the soul I have been given, has the power to turn you back into the men you were in your youth.

“Remember that a male Rokurobei is rare. A nature spirit of my eminence wants first and foremost to shine, to prove his worth. With greater maturity, however, success and self-fulfilment make way for more altruistic goals. At that moment a Rokurobei has no choice but to follow unmei , his fate.

“As a people, we are not individualists like the Westerners. We think and act as a group. We think and act as a nation. My fate and yours are therefore the same. In the next hour, I intend to reveal my plans to you. First, I want to explain the steps necessary to take Nippon to the absolute top of the software industry. Even though our technical innovations and our industry are renowned the world over, we do not make enough use of computers ourselves. Ten years ago, our Tandy 100 was the first laptop on the market, but only a third of our business people today have a computer of their own. Computers cost twice as much here as they do in the United States. Keyboards are not suited to our language, and as a consequence to our way of thinking. The ancients didn’t call Japanese ‘the language of the devil’ for nothing. Our writing system is the most complex on the planet. We use more than 4,000 kanji , and in order to employ these symbols in all their subtlety and elegance, we need over half a megabyte of computer memory for the characters alone. Our language was made to be drawn and painted, to do justice to the subtle and multifaceted meanings conveyed by our kanji . Communication is vital for a people with a highly developed sense of community. But when the Japanese try to communicate through computers they feel awkward and misunderstood.

“We can turn this around, however. Language is an essential part of intelligence. If computers understand language, their intelligence increases significantly. For this reason I have ordered the development of new software that will shortly enable computers to recognise the network of meaning underlying our language, allowing them to think with us. Once this first hurdle has been taken, we can overcome the next. Western scientists have warned that artificial intelligence will surpass the human intellect in the foreseeable future. Computers double their performance every eighteen months, while human evolution has stagnated. If we are to keep up with the artificial mind we are creating, we need to alter the genetic make-up of our brains and bodies. At the moment, modifications to the body seem to be more readily within our reach. By deactivating the gene that regulates myostatin, we can strengthen and improve the human body. Modifications to the mind are more difficult, but not impossible. By increasing the complexity of our DNA, we can develop the brainpower needed to meet the challenge of artificial intelligence.

“All these possibilities are within our grasp. But global and national forces are preventing the experiments necessary to carry out this vision of the future. What has happened to our country? Our current emperor’s father dishonourably renounced his status as arahitogami , a deity become human, after the Second World War. He denied being the embodiment of the divine natural spirit, thus insulting the Japanese people and damaging our souls.”

I distinctly remember the way my father turned his head. It swung round like the head of a large predatory bird. He stepped away from podium and suddenly his enormous face was filling my screen. He laughed. His canines, filed sharp and carefully set with small gems, gleamed in the bright light of the spotlights behind him.

One rapid movement, then grey, dancing pixels.

Had he sensed the miniature camera?

He had removed it before his speech was over, but I’d heard enough.

My father wanted to be the creator of a new arahitogami , a divine emperor the likes of whom Japan had never seen before.

Xavier Douterloigne soon realises that the Japanese boy in front of him is high. Or drunk. Or both. His affected behaviour makes him look like an actor in a French play.

Xavier wouldn’t have been too worried – even though he’s realised that he’s dealing with Reizo, Yori’s boyfriend – if Yori hadn’t told him the story about the stabbing. Then there’s the sweet-and-sour breath Reizo is blowing into his face, his rigid stare and pouting lips, and the duct tape tying Xavier’s hands behind his back. The second boy is slumped on the floor of the van, hands dangling between his knees. He’s tall and lean, and grinning with a malicious delight that’s making Xavier nervous.

“I wanting make suicide as long as remember,” Reizo says in pitiful English. “In Nippon, making suicide is artistic, yes? But shortly I think that shit. First immortality with novel, then everyone knowing when I do the suicide.” His clumsy sentences have a smug ring to them. Xavier realises that he’s going to need all his experience as a diplomat’s son. There’s a cunning gleam in Reizo’s eyes, as if he’s calculating the effect he’s having on Xavier.