Mo Hayder - The Devil of Nanking aka Tokyo

‘I do know. They were starving.’

‘Yes. Yes. Starving. Terrible. But then something happen. Something amazing for my mother. Suddenly the yakuza markets start.’

‘The black-markets.’

‘No one in Tokyo call them black. They call them blue. The Blue Sky markets.’ She smiled up into the air, opening her hands as if describing the sun coming up. ‘Blue Sky because it the only place in Tokyo there no clouds. The only place in Tokyo there food.’ She looked out of the window, past the Marilyn swing. It was a rainy evening: the neon of Yotsuya Sanchome was spitting and fizzing, throwing little spurts of light down into the wet street hundreds of feet below. The skyline was shimmery, indistinct in the rain, as if it was a fairytale illustration. ‘Biggest market was over there.’ She pointed out into the night. ‘In Shinjuku. Brightness over Shinjuku.’

I’d read about the Mafia-run market in Shinjuku. I’d always imagined it to be an incredible sight in bombed-out Tokyo – the sign was supposed to have been made from hundreds of lightbulbs: it would have been visible from miles around, blazing above the charcoaled city roofs, like a moon over a petrified forest. The stalls sold tinned whale, seal sausages, sugar, and there must have been the atmosphere of a street festival, with lanterns hanging from the trees and charcoal-burners hissing and men propped against stalls, drinking kasutori and spitting on the ground. In those days kasutori was the only substitute for sake you could find in Tokyo – the third glass, they said, made you blind, but who cared? What did a little blindness matter when everyone was dying?

‘Strawberry mother love Blue Sky market. She always go with other children to see the car of yakuza boss. It the only car you ever see in Tokyo in those days and Blue Sky a place like heaven to her. She buy clothes and bread and zanpan stew.’ Strawberry paused and looked at me sideways. ‘Grey-san know what zanpan stew is?’

‘No.’

‘Leftover stew. Made from what the GI Joe don’t eat. From GI Joe kitchen. There not many meat in zanpan. If yakuza put extra meat into zanpan they can ask more money. It all about ca-ching ca-ching.’ She mimed cash going into a till. ‘Ca-ching ca-ching! So the yakuza go inland, to Gumma and Kanagawa, and steal meat from farmers…’ She raised her eyes to me. Suddenly she looked very small and young, sitting there with her hands folded penitently on the table.

‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

‘ Zanpan.’ Her voice lowered to a whisper. Her car-enamel-red lipstick winked and glistened. ‘That’s what I want to tell Grey-san. Strawberry mother find something strange in zanpan from Brightness over Shinjuku market.’

‘Strange?’ The word came out in a whisper.

‘Grey-san know who running Brightness over Shinjuku? The Fuyuki gang.’

‘And what did your mother find in the stew?’

‘Fat that taste bad. Not normal. And bones.’ Her voice was almost inaudible now. She was sitting forward, her eyes gleaming at me. ‘Long bones. Too long for pig, too thin for cow.’ I thought I saw something like sadness in her eyes, as if she was seeing images she was ashamed of. Behind her, out of the window, Marilyn swung to and fro, flitting in front of the video screen that glowed on the opposite building.

‘What sort of animal would have bones like that?’ I said.

She narrowed her eyes and gave me a tight, sarcastic smile. ‘In Blue Sky market you can buy anything. You can buy oshaka.’

Oshaka. I knew the word from somewhere. Oshaka…

Strawberry was about to speak when the crystal lift chimed its arrival and, just as if we’d been demon-conjuring, we turned to see one of the aluminium doors standing open, and hovering in the lobby, in her awkward, hunched way, her head averted slightly so that the glossy hair covered it, the unmistakable figure of the Nurse. She was dressed in a fawn-coloured raincoat and matching leather gloves, and she was clearly waiting for someone to come to her.

Moved by an almost physical force, Strawberry shot to her feet, colouring shockingly under her makeup. ‘ Dame! ’ she hissed. ‘Did you know she was coming?’

‘No.’ I didn’t take my eyes off the Nurse, but leaned across the desk to Strawberry, whispering urgently. ‘What did you mean oshaka? What’s oshaka?’

‘Ssh.’ She gave a shudder and shifted around inside her coat as if ice had been poured down her back. ‘Don’t talk so loudly. Shut up now. It’s not safe.’

Fuyuki had sent the Nurse to choose girls for another party at his apartment. The news got round the club in no time. I sat at the gilded desk, my head pounding, watching the Nurse speaking softly to Mama Strawberry, who stood with her head bowed, her face dark and bitter as she jotted down the names. At one point the Nurse pointed into the club and muttered something. Strawberry’s little gold pen halted, poised in mid-air above the notepad. Her eyes drifted towards me and, for a moment, it seemed she would say something. Then she must have changed her mind, because she bit her lip and wrote another name on the list.

‘You’re chosen,’ Jason said, sliding up to the desk. It wasn’t closing time, but he had undone his bow-tie and there was a cigarette between his fingers. He was looking thoughtfully at the Nurse. ‘Another party. And it couldn’t be better for us.’ When I didn’t respond he murmured, ‘Look at the heels she’s wearing. Do you know what I’m saying?’ His eyes were on her feet and legs, taking in her tight skirt. ‘She’s giving me serious ideas, weirdo. Something you’re really going to love.’

He slipped away from the table and caught up with the Nurse at the crystal lift as she was waiting to leave. He stood close to her, his face near hers. She was unusually still while she listened to him. I stared at her long gloved hands.

‘You think he going to put his hand in Ogawa’s skirt?’ Mama Strawberry said, sidling up to me, her eyes on Jason, her mouth close to my ear. I could smell the tequila on her breath. ‘You make a bet with me, Grey. You bet when he put his hand in Miss Ogawa’s skirt what he gonna find. Eh?’ She clutched drunkenly at my arm for balance. ‘Eh? You ask Strawberry, Jason gonna find a chin chin in her panties. You ask Strawberry – Ogawa look like a man.’

‘Strawberry. What was the meat in the zanpan?’

She tightened her hold on my arm. ‘Don’t forget,’ she hissed. ‘It’s all rumours. You don’t repeat.’

Nanking, 20 December 1937

First we delivered the dumplings to Shujin, then the three of us left the alley. We went through the early-morning streets, keeping a vigilant eye on all the barricaded doors. Nanking, I thought, you are a ghost town. Where are your citizens? Cowering in silence, tucked away inside the shuttered houses? Hiding in animal pens and under floors? The snow fell silently on us, settling on our caps and jackets, floating softly down to flake and lie yellow over the old goat dung in the gutters. We didn’t see another soul.

‘Look at this.’ Within ten minutes we had reached a side road that led to Zhongyang Road. The boy held out his hand and indicated a row of blackened houses. They must have been burned recently because smoke still rose from them. ‘This is him. The yanwangye. This is what he does when he’s searching.’

Liu and I exchanged a look. ‘Searching?’

‘For women. That’s his habit.’

We opened our mouths to speak, but he silenced us with a finger to his lips. ‘Not now.’

He crept off then, leading us further down the street, eventually stopping outside a factory’s industrial double doors, its galvanized tin roof higher than two houses. I’ve walked past that building a hundred times and never troubled before to wonder what it was. We gathered around, stamping our feet and slapping our hands together to bring the blood back, casting wary glances up the street.