Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

But the story about her girlfriend Mitsuko is even weirder. Adachi isn’t a great fan of Japanese society with all its rules and regulations, but alternative lifestyles don’t inspire him much either. In his eyes, Yori and this Mitsuko are outcasts who need each other’s support and comfort because they’ve nowhere else to turn. Hence the “friends forever” stunt.

“What makes that Mitsuko of yours so sure her father will find her?”

Yori looks up. She has dark seductive eyes – that do nothing for Adachi –, dreamy eyes, ready to turn away from reality and build castles in the sky. Adachi can see how she must have been easy prey for her aggressive young friend.

“Because she left behind a sign he’s certain to react to,” she says.

She tells him about the sign.

Adachi turns pale.

You want my life? You’re too late. Yori beat you to it. I lay in her arms and told her everything while she caressed my hair and kissed me. You can have the dirt and the shit, that’s all you’re worth. You can have the details about my baby, what I did to it. It’ll inspire you no doubt. I told whoever was willing to listen in your Suicide Club crew that I had experienced a phantom pregnancy, diagnosed by a proper doctor, all verifiable and traceable. His name is Kanehari and he performs abortions in his private clinic. I went to see him, heavily pregnant, but for some incomprehensible reason I couldn’t bring myself to allow the child that my father had forced into my womb to be killed by the hands of another. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I had already decided to do the deed myself.

I spent the final days of my pregnancy in the Islamic Dambara Centre, my loose fitting clothes concealing my swollen belly, the world around me a daze. I convinced myself that I hadn’t made a decision, and that was the truth: I hadn’t yet decided how , but in hindsight I’m certain I already knew deep in my heart what I was going to do.

Mother nature helped me: labour started deep in the night, sudden and intense. My waters broke before I realised what was going on. Less than half an hour later I was exhausted. Then came a series of cramps, regular, excruciating. I couldn’t think straight. I followed my animal instincts. I was always alone in the Centre at night. It wasn’t designed to house people on a permanent basis, but they had offered me a provisional roof over my head because I told them there was a danger my husband might try to kill me to restore his honour. I dragged myself to the gloomy square behind the prayer centre where a couple of nearby restaurants kept their garbage bins. The stench of rotting noodles and festering fish remains was unbearable. I crouched to the ground and lifted my hands heavenward. I cursed myself, my father, my miserable existence. And it came. It came so fast, as if it was greedy for life. My hips were broad enough. I didn’t tear. It was as if a wet ball had slipped from my body, accompanied by blood and slime. I can still remember the tension in my neck, as if I was screaming skyward in silence. It was an indescribable moment. Think about it good, you miserable skunk, write it down in your measly novel. It was at once bestial and passionate. I didn’t deliver a child, I spawned a child.

And what a child it was. I saw skin, I saw disfigurement, I saw milk-white eyes. And yet it screeched, its deformed body gasped for air. It was alive, I swear, it was alive.

I grabbed the umbilical cord and twisted it round its neck.

Had I gone insane? No. I wasn’t myself, but I knew what I was doing. I didn’t know why, that was all. Revenge for what my father had done to me? Horror at the little monster I had brought into the world? I’ve read about women who hide their pregnancies, give birth in fear and isolation like animals in the woods, and then kill their offspring or abandon it in some remote place to die of hunger and thirst. I asked myself, as anyone would, how it was possible in the name of God for a woman to do such a thing. Our instinct tells us that motherhood is sacred, that children enrich our lives. I still believe that to be true.

But it doesn’t alter the fact that I twisted the umbilical cord as tight as I could. The creature struggled, wriggled its arms and conjoined misshapen legs. Its eyes bulged and its tiny tongue protruded from its lips. I’d never seen such a painful expression in my life.

And then it was over. I was soaked in sweat, wheezing like a pig, and had clumps of my own hair in my hands. I had to fight to regain my self-composure. I had committed a primal murder, the most horrible murder you can imagine, the greatest outrage imaginable. I knew I would have to pay the price and it was then that I decided – sweating on the outside, as cold as ice on the inside – to split myself in two to limit the damage. One part of me had to decide what to do with the body. It already knew . It was as if someone whispered it in my ear. The other part had to shield my emotions and make sure I didn’t lose my mind, the price most people pay for primal murder.

I went back inside, washed off the blood and the slime, improvised a tampon, put on two pairs of underpants, and gathered up my things. I hid the documents I had brought with me from Hashima that proved my father’s identity between my clothes. I threw everything in a holdall, made my way outside again, picked up the tiny corpse, wrapped it in a towel and popped it in the holdall.

I marched into the city at a determined pace, although my knees were still trembling and I could feel my underwear slowly getting wet. The streets were alive and noisy in spite of the late hour – it was after 2am. Groups of young people were gathered at every corner, hanging around, gesticulating, kicking each other for fun, flaunting their youth, their beauty, their bravado. I didn’t understand any of it. Why had they been given the grapes and me the thorns? I sensed a cold satisfaction, an abnormal melancholy. I had to control myself; otherwise I would have shaken the dead baby in front of their eyes and accused them of devouring the sun and leaving only the night for me. I wanted to shout at the top of my voice for all the world to hear that if I was pushed far enough I could be even worse than my father.

(And you, you should be jealous! You may be a monster, but you’re nothing compared to me. Perhaps the kami were right after all when they whispered in your pathetic confused brain that I was your muse. A seagull follows the wind and gobbles up everything that glistens, whether it be a shard of glass or a diamond.)

I arrived at the Peace Monument. The young people avoid the square at night, I imagine out of some rudimentary sense of respect. The place was deserted. I removed my dead son from the holdall and drew a chrysanthemum on his right heel with a felt-tipped pen. I abandoned my poor, hideous and accursed son at the foot of the monument, knowing full well that he would be found, that the press would get wind of it, and that a picture of his tiny corpse would one day whisper in my father’s face: because of what you did, I curse you with the blood of your own son.

So that’s my story. Satisfied? Ah but you’re right, of course, it isn’t finished. What about the second part of me? It convinced me that I had visited the clinic of Dr Kanehari and dreamt under anaesthetic that I had seen the face of my father, Rokurobei himself no less, hovering above me when I awoke, but that Dr Kanehari told me I had experienced a phantom pregnancy. A story that may be a bit farfetched, but rational and plausible, indispensable to allow me to wander the streets of the city until my message reached my father – I’m here in Hiroshima . Before long he would be standing in front of me and I would do what I had to do.