Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

“What are you going to do now?” the police doctor continued. “Takamatsu is expecting a report on the attempted murder of the Belgian tourist before the end of the week. Don’t arouse his suspicions.”

“I’ll be there and he’ll have his report,” says Takeda. “I appreciate your help, my friend, more than you know.”

Adachi’s gaze softens: “Outsiders need to help one another in this anthill we live in, Akio. But remember: a goldfish that jumps out of its bowl into the sea shouldn’t think it’s a shark.”

Both men start to laugh. Adachi is well known for contorting old sayings and putting on a wise face in the process.

“And the women?” Adachi continues. “The onna is a hibakusha .”

“I only noticed when she said ‘the dragon bit me’ and showed me her hand. She was always wearing gloves.”

“She’s a bit young to be using such an expression. Must be second generation.”

“I guess so. Her boyfriend is mixed up in this whirlpool of events somewhere.”

“Reizo Shiga, the nephew of the murdered bank manager? Are you going to have him traced?”

“Yes. The other woman, the German…”

“Sorry to interrupt,” says Beate Becht to Takeda’s back. Takeda turns. The German may have a timid personality, but she appears determined. She doesn’t seem to have much interest in Adachi’s sparsely furnished living room, mostly red and white, Scandinavian. Adachi is proud of his taste in interior design and likes to be complimented on it. But Becht only stares at Takeda.

“Mr Takeda,” she says. “This situation is pretty strange, don’t you think? Are you hiding something from me?”

“What makes you think that, miss Becht?”

“First: the two men who were with you in the toilet ran out of the place as if the devil was on their heels.”

Takeda raises an eyebrow. “And second?”

The photographer takes a deep breath: “When you came back from the toilet where the men, according to you, were having an argument, you didn’t only seem agitated, you’re zip was still open.”

Takeda raises his eyebrow even further.

Becht clears her throat: “I can’t imagine that someone like you – how should I put it? – would return from the toilet in such a state because of some banal argument that didn’t involve you.”

Dr Adachi, who had lived in America for a number of years when he was young and spoke excellent English, explodes with laughter.

When I see how nimble Reizo is with the sword I realise I’ve underestimated him. At the same time I feel reassured. What he’s doing is more of a circus act than a threat. But the fact that he’s using a shinken – a sword sharpened and ready for battle – is still unnerving. Reizo traces a complex figure of eight in the air. The point of the shinken stops at my left nipple. He is calm. I can see it in his eyes through the mask. He’s different when he’s wearing a disguise. Reizo has blond hair and listens to American death metal music, but when it comes to the crunch he can’t let go of the old patriarchal traditions.

“Aren’t you afraid of my father?” I ask, surprised at the hoarseness of my voice.

“At this moment I’m afraid of no one.” I’m having a hard time understanding this boy. There’s clearly something seriously wrong with him put I can’t put my finger on it. It’s clear he’s drugged at the moment.

Perhaps he can see my hesitation: “I’ve suffered all my life. It took me years to come to terms with being different , being special . My only ambition is to create a universe in a book form that reduces reality to rubble. I want to be a deconstructivist role model.” What’s all this drivel about? He’s determined to be unpredictable, contradictory, affected and a genius all at once. Words are all he needs; inner cohesion isn’t important as long as the content is mysterious enough. I think I can smell what ails him: Reizo’s experience of the world is based on signs he alone can interpret. He drinks himself into a stupor on his own words, just like Hitler and Mussolini. It’s Reizo’s way of controlling the world. It transforms him into a character you can’t pin down. If I’m to have any chance of escape I’ll have to find a way to meet him in his own world.

“You sound like my father,” I say. I try to inject admiration into my voice. I’m convinced his short term memory is damaged. He wasn’t afraid of me back in the storeroom, in spite of the beating I gave him this morning. I hope he doesn’t remember that I wasn’t exactly faltering about his writing talent. “My father says the human race is on its way out, that it’s time for a new version. You should meet him. You both have a lot in common.”

I had the impression earlier that he was in awe of my father. Now he just shrugs and slips the sword back into its sheath with elegant taito . I’m certain he’s good enough to draw it again in an instant so I keep my arms at my side. The mask gives his face a glassy, impassive look. I presume it also gives him the self-assurance he would otherwise have to feign by fencing with words. “I guess your father should have done this more often,” he says. I feel a sudden smack on the side of my head, hard, dizzying, as he hits me with the sheath of his sword. I want to throw myself at him, but the sheath stabs my stomach. I gag, bile fills my mouth, and I fall back, shaking my head in astonishment. What did I do wrong?

“I don’t need your father,” he says. “I need your life.”

He takes off the storm god mask and winks at me as if we’ve just shared a good joke.

Desolation takes hold of Takeda as he leaves Dr Adachi’s apartment and starts the engine of his patrol car. The way he looks at the world has completely changed in less than a couple of days. Takeda reflects on what Yori had to say about Reizo Shiga. And about what his mother once said: “The Japanese will do anything to bring structure to their lives, society, reality. But the same structure conceals phenomenal forces of insanity and unbridled lack of control the likes of which you can’t find elsewhere.” The expression on her face at the time made him remember her words. That and the word unbridled , a curious word when you think about it. As if the Japanese were like horses, bridled, restrained, until the moment the reins are suddenly severed.

Perhaps his mother had been right. Takeda has spent his entire life proving his mother wrong. When he was a teenager, he despised her because she had been a japwhore . She invented the word herself. She would have been better off dead, the target of one or other Japanese bullet. Then he would never have been born… then there would’ve been no nameless sadistic soldier to father him or a mother who could barely conceal her disgust when she looked at him. Takeda changed his attitude later in life and pretended to be proud of his origins. But deep inside he still wrestled with the fear that his father’s genes might surface one day.

A tap on the window on the driver’s side made him jump.

Beate Becht is standing next to the car in the sober black miniskirt she put on for the restaurant.

“So what are we looking at?” asks the German. “A Japanese variant of the Red Army Fraction or just a couple of goons? By the way, thanks for being so honest back in the restaurant, inspector, and for your concern. But I don’t really have anything to do with this case, do I.”