David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

Inspector Kai and I are walking down the stairs of Metropolitan Police Headquarters to one of the reception rooms –

‘There used to be just twenty missing persons a month, before the war. Now we’ve got between two and three hundred…’

To the reception rooms to face the twenty mothers –

‘And forty per cent of them are young women aged fifteen to twenty-five, and they’re just the ones who get reported…’

The twenty mothers looking for their daughters –

‘You watch,’ says Kai. ‘Not one of these mothers will have reported their daughters missing before today.’

A uniformed officer opens the door to the reception room for Inspector Kai and me. Kai and I enter the room. Kai and I introduce ourselves to these twenty mothers before us, these twenty mothers in their last good kimonos with their other daughters or their sisters –

These twenty mothers looking for their lost daughters –

Praying they do not find them here, in this place.

But because the bodies are at Keiō, because the autopsies have yet to be performed, because the search of the area has yet to be completed, because we have yet to formally open the investigation, Inspector Kai and I have nothing to show these twenty mothers, nothing to tell them, so Inspector Kai and I will ask our men to interview these twenty mothers, to take down the descriptions of their daughters, their heights, their weights and their ages, the places they were going, the people they were meeting, the clothes they were wearing, the bags and belongings they were carrying –

On the days they were last seen …

The meals they had eaten –

‘But why?’ they’ll ask –

The scars they carry or the teeth they have lost or any other unique features that might help to eliminate or identify their daughters from among the rotting flesh and bleached bones we found in Shiba Park, but not today –

‘But if not today?’ these mothers ask. ‘Then when?’

Today there is no consolation for these mothers –

‘When?’ they ask, again and again…

The day after the autopsies these twenty mothers must return, these twenty mothers and the one father –

The one father in his last good suit with his hat in his hand who steps from the mothers to ask — ‘May I speak with you?’

*

‘My name is Nakamura Yoshizo and I am a grocer in Kamata. My daughter’s name is Nakamura Mitsuko. She is my only daughter. She graduated from the Aoyama Domestic Science College and she had a number of wartime jobs with the Yasuda and Taito Yokosan companies as well as some volunteer work. But she is my only daughter and so, as the situation worsened in Tokyo last year, my wife and I decided to send Mitsuko to live with her elder brother and his wife in Ibaraki Prefecture. And so, on the twelfth of July last year, she left our home in Kamata to travel to Ibaraki. Mitsuko never arrived at her brother’s house. She was twenty-two years old, but she will be twenty-three now. She is my only daughter, detective.’

‘Did you report Mitsuko missing?’ I ask him –

The father nods. The father says, ‘Of course.’

‘And what did the local police tell you?’

‘That they could find no clue…’

I open my notebook. I lick the tip of my pencil and I ask him, ‘Can you remember what clothes your daughter was wearing on the day she went missing last year?’

‘A pair of brown monpe trousers and a pale yellow blouse.’

‘Can you remember her footwear that day?’ I ask him.

‘A pair of traditional wooden geta sandals…’

‘And can you describe Mitsuko for me?’

Mitsuko’s father takes a deep breath and says, ‘She is one hundred and fifty-five centimetres tall and she weighs about fifty kilograms. She has long hair which she usually wears in two plaits. Mitsuko also wears round silver spectacles.’

In the half-light, no one forgets …

‘Anything else?’ I ask him.

‘On the day she went missing,’ he nods. ‘She was carrying a beige-coloured cotton rucksack…’

‘And what was inside?’

‘A bentō lunch box.’ ‘Anything else?’

Nakamura Mitsuko’s father nods again, wipes the sweat from his face and says, ‘For her twentieth birthday, I gave her an elliptical-shaped ammonite brooch…’

No one forgets …

I stop writing now. I close my notebook. I put away my pencil. I tell him, ‘As you know, the autopsies on the two bodies have yet to be performed. However, one of the victims died very recently and the clothing found on the other does not match that of your daughter, at least on the day she went missing. So it’s doubtful your daughter is one of these bodies…’

The father holds a handkerchief to his face. His shoulders begin to tremble –

‘It was in the newspaper,’ he whispers. ‘About the two unidentified bodies in Shiba Park and so my wife and I thought that we should…’

‘I understand,’ I tell him. ‘And I will contact you if I do find anything…’

He bows his head –

‘Thank you.’

*

The first trunk is packed and ready. Nishi and Shimoda will each take a handle. The second trunk is packed and ready. Kimura and Ishida will each take a handle. The others have got their things together. They have tidied up their loose ends. They have cleared their desks. They are ready to go to Atago. They know there will be no days off now. They know there will be no rest now. They are waiting to go, passing round the newspaper, talking of the latest suicide –

A Rear Admiral Sato Shiro, a fifty-four-year-old former commander of the Japanese Naval Forces in the New Guinea area, committed suicide at his home in Yokosuka at about 5 a.m. yesterday morning after having first murdered his forty-two-year-old wife, his eleven-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter as they were sleeping. The former officer who returned home from New Guinea in January this year had been suffering from a nervous condition and is believed to have been contemplating killing himself and his entire family since the latter part of July …

‘Too many good men,’ say my own men. ‘How many more good men are needlessly going to give their lives in apology…?’

‘While bad men are still lining their pockets…’

‘Too many ceremonies for the dead…’

Turning the page of the paper, talking of the latest fugitive –

Yet another Kempei man on the run —

‘They’ll catch him, you see…’

‘You can’t run forever…’

‘Too many snitches…’

The next two pages of the newspaper, talking of the latest convictions and sentences –

Five men found guilty of mistreating Allied prisoners of war. Evidence showed that as guards at Hakodate Prisoner of War Camp Number One, they had mistreated prisoners and stolen food and clothing from them. The Commission found all five men guilty of crimes against war prisoners and meted out prison sentences ranging from thirty to five years. In the closing hours of the trial, one of the accused, Takeshita Toshio, told the court that former Prime Minister Tojo was responsible for everything and that he and his co-accused were merely conscripted soldiers given orders that they had to obey on pain of death …

‘It’s never-ending; it just goes on and on and on…’

‘They’re not criminals, just soldiers…’

‘Too many trials…’

The bottom corner of the last page of the last newspaper and there is our story; the bodies of two women found in Shiba …

I look at my watch again. Chiku-taku …

I stand up now. They all stand up –

I bow. They all bow –

I say, ‘Let’s go.’

*

Through the doors of Atago police station, Nishi and Shimoda carry the first trunk, Kimura and Ishida carry the second trunk; up the stairs of Atago police station, Nishi and Shimoda carry the first trunk, Kimura and Ishida carry the second trunk; Sanada, Hattori, Takeda, Fujita and I marching behind, through the doors and up the stairs –