Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

“Is that a threat, chief commissioner?”

“I’m protecting you, inspector, try to get that into your head.”

Takeda marches along the corridor, a burning sensation in his chest, an overpowering rage as old as he can remember. It’s un-Japanese, but it’s stronger than himself. He turns on his heels, retraces his steps, opens the door to Takamatsu’s office and hears himself say stubbornly and squarely: “With all due respect, chief commissioner, I still think this is an important line of inquiry and that it needs investigation.”

Only a fool would say this new direction was accidental. Reizo Shiga knows that he’s supposed to be surprised, but all he feels is intense satisfaction. He arrived in the temple tired and gloomy after his nocturnal literary experiment with the Belgian – which failed because of that coward Yori – but now he senses a surge of adrenaline clearing his mind. What he’s about to hear could work to his advantage, as long as he’s careful.

Together with the other disciples, Reizo listens with a straight face to the undersecretary who had followed the usual prayer to the Blessed One with some staggering news. Shiga might seem serene on the outside, but inside the chaos is mounting. He’s always known the truth: his alpha waves are so powerful he’s capable of working miracles . The giant of a woman who calls herself Mitsuko did not find her way to the sad remains of his Suicide Club by accident. Mitsuko must have been drawn to the club by his alpha waves. The undersecretary of the Brotherhood has just instructed each disciple to be on his lookout for a woman. Mitsuko answered perfectly to the undersecretary’s description. He underlined the vital importance of his charge: “The command comes from the Blessed One in person. The woman is probably in Hiroshima. Whoever finds her must report back immediately and can expect to be invited to an audience with the Blessed One.” It was as if a powerful yet invisible gust of wind had raged through the sanctuary’s prayer room. One novice was stupid enough to ask a question: “Is she impure and a danger to the Brotherhood?”

The undersecretary pouted, stormed through the rows of disciples and bowed stiffly from the hips in front of the novice who had posed the question: “Tell me, little brother. In the short time you have been taken up with kindness in our midst, have you amassed so much alpha-potential that you can see into the mind of the Blessed One? Or are you simply arrogant, intent on providing the Most High’s every command with your own commentary?” The boy, a bespectacled academic type, blushed and bowed his head as deeply as he could. The undersecretary looked around the room. “If you work hard at self-improvement a day will come when you will acquire telepathic insight into the plans of the Blessed One. Until that day, you must follow one single motto: obedience, obedience, obedience! I want you to scour the streets of Hiroshima with courage and determination. Search in groups of two; explore every corner of the city. If a group spots this woman, one brother should immediately report back while the other continues to follow her. Think about it: whoever finds her will be granted an audience with the Blessed One himself. A privilege novices like you can only dream of. Perhaps the Blessed one will reveal his astral powers, walk through a wall, levitate? Try to imagine what that might mean for your alpha-potential!”

A collective sigh runs through the room. The eyes of the other novices are glazed. Reizo Shiga bows his head to camouflage the glint in his. As he watches the video recording of the Blessed One instructing the novices on how to generate the power to levitate, his thoughts scurry back and forth like a pack of hunting dogs. He tries to concentrate on the screen, listen to the Blessed One as he explains how much energy levitation requires, watch as the Blessed One undresses and sits in the lotus position wearing nothing but a loincloth. The eyes of the Blessed One, half blind in the polluted earthly dimension, but pools of light and energy in the higher dimensions where he spends most of his time, close as he bows is head and his long black hair falls over his face. His body quakes, his breathing becomes a rhythmic grunting. The Blessed One’s body judders up and down, faster and faster, the waves of energy surging through it more impressive by the minute. At a given moment, when he’s a metre above the ground, it happens: the Blessed One raises his head, appears to freeze in midair, stares at the novices, and slowly falls, as if weightless, to the floor. Although he knows that this is only the first step towards levitation, Reizo Shiga is disappointed. Did he witness a transgression of the established laws of nature, or a cheap trick used by yogi to give the impression they are levitating when in fact they are simply jumping up and down on the spot?

He looks around the room surreptitiously. The faces of the others, waxen in the light of the video screen, appear narrower, excessively smoothed by absolute admiration and docility. A couple of the faces belong to ex-members of the Suicide Club who only two months earlier had followed Reizo Shiga with the same blind faith as now the Blessed One. Shiga senses a desire for revenge bubble to the surface. He glances furtively at the undersecretary, who is also staring at the screen, expressionless, like a sheep. How can a senior member of the Brotherhood with reputedly superior alpha powers not sense Reizo Shiga’s blasphemous thoughts?

Reizo Shiga feels his body tingle. The answer is simple: his alpha-potential is unfathomable; it’s been there all his life; nothing else can explain it. If he develops that potential, no matter how, he’ll be able…

The thought suddenly comes to him that Mitsuko must be very precious to the Blessed One, if even novices are being sent out to look for her. As sacred tea is distributed, made from the hair of the Blessed One to help speed the novices to a higher astral plane, Reizo Shiga is unable to suppress a new thought: why, why can’t the Blessed One find Mitsuko himself if his astral powers are so advanced?

After the swirling colours that made him feel sick and the piercing noises sharp as razors, came blackness. Xavier Douterloigne has lost control of time and space in his head. He’s eight years old and imagines he’s back in Ypres, at the industrial poultry farm run by his grandfather on his mother’s side. Thousands of chickens are scurrying around on the floor of the dull grey poultry house. Their cheeping grates in Xavier’s ears. He chases after them, excited, determined to catch one, caress it, cuddle it. The rubber boot on his left foot lands on a yellow stain. It wriggles, crumples, oozes blood, slime. Xavier begins to sweat. He feels the pain of the crushed chick under his boot. He’s carried the pain of that childhood incident all this time and now it’s got him by the throat. It catapults him through time, arms and legs outstretched as if he’s on a cross, until all movement ceases.

That’s how Anna must have felt.

When fate struck its final blow, Anna was wearing a dress as yellow as a cornfield.

And it was his fault.

Did it really happen? My father raping me? Did it really happen? Doesn’t a woman with a phantom pregnancy live in a world of her own making, a world she thinks is real?