Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

The doctor coughs. “What kind of a question is that?”

“I suggest you answer.”

“Yori told me that she and Mitsuko were roughly the same age, early twenties.”

“Mitsuko is forty-one.”

“Does this sort of idiotic crap entertain you? If I’m to die, at least tell me the truth.”

“Mitsuko was born on Hashima, that at least is true. Her mother gave birth to her in 1954. Throughout the pregnancy, I was convinced there would be something wrong with her because of my faulty genes. It was nine months of agony. I wanted to spare my child the humiliation I had endured in my youth, whatever the cost. The old network of patriots known as Unit 731 was still active in those days. I engaged former military doctors who had performed certain tests in Manchuria and ordered them to transform my daughter into a superwoman.” The mafia boss’s face seems pensive, is if he still doesn’t understand what went wrong.

Adachi clears his throat: “A superwoman? If present day science isn’t capable of such a thing, why should I believe it was possible back then?”

Rokurobei narrows his eyes. “We thought it was possible, doctor. In fact we were convinced of it because Unit 731 had reported a major breakthrough to the military leadership during the war. The doctors had adapted an ancient Chinese method. Anthropologists use the word emperor for Chinese leaders stemming from the pre-Xia period thousands of years ago, but the character that is used to refer to these leaders actually means ‘demigod’. They were renowned for their unparalleled skills and their incredible, inhuman lifespan. The Unit 731 doctors had poked around in Manchurian mythology during the war and concluded that the ancients had used a special preparation of montmorillonite to pass on their legendary lifespan and supernatural powers to their offspring.”

“Green clay.” Adachi can’t help laughing, in spite of the situation.

“Have you forgotten how humans were created? The gods fashioned us from clay.” Adachi finds it hard to understand why the man is going to so much trouble to tell him this far-fetched story when he’s about to die.

“Female and male babies were treated according to the Huang-Di method in which green clay, montmorillonite, played a major role. The doctors who treated Mitsuko combined it with hormone cocktails. It all had to be done before she reached six months. We were convinced it would work.”

“Why are you telling me this nonsense?”

“Because it’s the truth, doctor, no matter how incredible that may seem.”

Adachi grins, but the increasing pain in his body turns his grin into a grimace: “You know what they call the serpent neck, don’t you? The Lord of Lies. Very appropriate if you ask me.”

“I’m a born liar, I admit it. But even a born liar needs the truth now and then. Isn’t it sad that the truth can sometimes appear more deceitful than a lie?”

Adachi doesn’t answer, simply shakes his head as if he’s talking to an irrational child.

“I repeat: Mitsuko is in her forties. The Huang-Di worked: her body aged slower than that of an ordinary person. But the method hadn’t been perfected. Mitsuko grew big and strong, but there was something amiss with her brain. The combination of hormones and montmorillonite had caused the cells in her brain to multiply out of control. The method was devised for the ancients, doctor. They were much closer to themselves and to nature than we are. Modern human beings are apparently unable to cope with the magic of earlier days. You don’t believe me? That’s up to you. But sooner or later science will try to create a demigod once again. It’s part of us, doctor. We’re hardwired to reach beyond ourselves.”

“You can lie as much as you like, but the fact remains that the deformed son you sired by your daughter is in cold-storage in my morgue.”

“Did you notice it had been embalmed?”

Adachi nods.

“It was my firstborn. Mitsuko took it from the island,” says Norikazu. “My son was embalmed at the end of 1945 in a secret military complex on Okunoshima Island. I commanded it myself. The dry air in the mine on Hashima helped keep the body intact. I was almost sixteen in those days, doctor Adachi. The child was sired with a Chinese pinyin, a female prisoner of war, one of hundreds assembled as material for medical and psychological experiments. I was curious about her. She was roughly my age and she reminded me of someone I had been very close to. But I also despised her. As a sixteen-year-old I was extremely nationalistic, arrogant, proud. The Japanese race was unsurpassed and I was its future. I was completely convinced of it.”

Norikazu leans towards the doctor, their faces almost touching as is his wont. “You can’t imagine the life I’ve led. You would need the imagination of a novelist, and even then you would fail. The things I’ve done can only be described as inhuman. But I don’t share your human nature, doctor. The divinity of the emperor is a malady that plagues our soul, Adachi, a need that will haunt us forever, both the Japanese people and the imperial family. My younger brother Akihito, the first emperor without official divine status, tolerates the life I lead as long as I continue to use my underground organisations to work for its restoration. Behind that deadpan, super-respectable mask of his, Akihito hates the politicians and the lip service they pay to democracy in this country of ours. We’re not democrats and we never will be. Our emperor is forever an akitsu mikami, a superior human being in whom the divine status of the spiritual world is represented to perfection. That’s the way it has always been, and it’s never going to change.”

The ropes tighten further round Adachi’s body. The police doctor’s face has turned red and he is wheezing. His eyes close, open, close, open. Norikazu throws open his jacket to reveal a knife in a sheath. “Tell me where Mitsuko is and you’ll die quickly, I give you my word.” The man laughs, his bizarre, sharpened teeth reminiscent of a cartoon shark. “That sounds so old-fashioned and I’m painfully aware of it. But if we don’t stick to the old-fashioned values what have we left, Adachi? Where is our contempt for death? Isn’t honour a value worth dying for?”

The doctor coughs. “Spare me the melodrama, Norikazu.”

The yakuza removes his uv goggles. Now their faces are almost touching. Pinpricks of light and darkness dance across his eyes. “I presume your behaviour is intended to convince me that you’re not afraid of dying, good doctor.”

“I’m afraid of the pain,” says Adachi.

“Then save yourself from it.”

“I don’t know where your ‘mythical’ daughter is. You have Yori, but you can ask her as much as you like, she won’t be able to help you. Yori ran away from a squat used by a group of kids called the Suicide Club. Mitsuko moved in with them shortly before Yori left. Yori stole her belongings, including your birth certificate and the notes written by the imperial physician who treated you. That’s all we know. How many times do I have to repeat it?”

“Takeda?”

“I saw him yesterday. He went to the meeting with Takamatsu. After that, he was supposed to follow me here but he didn’t.” Adachi says nothing about Takeda’s plans to go to Becht’s hotel room.

“You know that Takeda betrayed you?”

“If that’s another lie intended to make me talk then I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Takeda said to Takamatsu: I’m not alone. That got our cunning commissioner thinking. And his first suspect was you, the eccentric inspector’s only friend. When I heard from Takamatsu that you had prepared the corpse of the baby found under the Peace Tower for autopsy, out of the blue, after days of waiting, I knew enough.”