David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

‘But I also told them that we would never lie down, that we would never back down in the face of threats and intimidation from the Formosans and Koreans…’

Bang. Bang. Bang…

‘Never. Ever…’

Bang. Bang…

Now Senju aims the gun in my face. Now Senju asks me, ‘What do you think of that then, detective?’

Bang…

‘Hayashi Jo is dead,’ I tell him. ‘They pulled him out of the Shiba Canal early this morning.’

Bound and nailed…

Senju lowers the revolver. He smiles. ‘That’s lucky for you.’

‘How’s it lucky for me?’ I ask. ‘There’ll be an inquiry.’

‘But it’s lucky you gave me the name of a dead man.’

‘He wasn’t a dead man when I gave you his name.’

‘So you say now,’ laughs Senju. ‘So you say.’

‘But if I knew he was dead, why would I give you his name?’

Senju raises the revolver again. Senju says, ‘Because dead men don’t say very much, do they, Detective Inspector Minami?’

I curse him. I curse myself. And I curse my dependence…

I bow before him. I apologize to him. I tell him, ‘Hayashi was nailed to a door. I thought you might have killed him.’

‘So you came down here to arrest me, did you, detective?’

I bow to him again. I apologize to him again. I shake my head and tell him, ‘No. I came down here for the Calmotin.’

Senju reaches under the table. Senju brings out a small box –

‘And here you are,’ he says. ‘Sweet dreams, detective.’

I apologize again. I thank him. I take the box.

Senju Akira throws some banknotes across the table at me. Now Senju says, ‘But I still need a name, detective. Understand?’

I nod. I bow again. I apologize again. I thank him again –

‘A name from the living, not the dead…’

I start to shuffle backwards across the mats but then I ask, ‘What are you going to do about the market? About the Formosans?’

‘They tell me they’ve not finished with me,’ laughs Senju.

‘And what did you tell them?’ I ask. ‘What did you say?’

Senju raises the gun again. ‘I just told them the truth –

‘I told them I’ve not even begun yet…’

*

We have not found her name . I stay away from Atago police station. I stay away from Room #2. We have not talked to her family . My men will not be eating good food. My men will not be raising their glasses. We have not connected her to Kodaira . They will not be taking off their ties. They will not be singing their songs of victory. We have not got a confession . They will be asleep at their borrowed desks. Their stomachs will still be empty, their dreams still lost –

Our case not closed. Our case never closed…

I push my way off the train. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari . I go through the ticket gate at Mitaka. I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I follow the telegraph poles down the road to my usual restaurant, half-way between the station and my house –

But in the half-light, I can’t forget…

‘There have been more men looking for you,’ says the master. ‘They’ve been in here almost every night…’

No one is who they say they are…

I shrug my shoulders. I take off my hat. I order yakitori and a whisky. I put the glass to my lips. I knock it back –

No one is who they seem to be…

‘In here every night asking questions…’

It burns. I cough. I order another –

‘About your wife and children…’

I leave it. I leave the bar –

I walk and then I run –

I run up the road –

The house is dark. The house is silent. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. I take out my key and I open the door. The rotting mats . The house smells of boiled radish. The shredded doors . The house smells of DDT. The fallen walls . The house smells of pain –

The pain I have brought them. The pain I have left them…

I place the money and the food in the genkan —

The money and the food; the blood money…

I step back outside. I close the door again –

The blood money and the blood food…

I turn away. I walk away –

The tears in my eyes…

I hear the door open –

Tears of blood…

I start to run, to run away, away again.

*

I think about her all the time. Her head slightly to the right. In a white half-sleeved chemise . I think about her all the time. Her right arm outstretched. In a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress . I think about her all the time. Her left arm at her side. In her pink socks . I think about her all the time. Her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee. Her white canvas shoes with red rubber soles . I think about her all the time. My come drying on her stomach and on her ribs –

‘I look like bones,’ says Yuki, in the half-light –

In the half-light. I open the box of Calmotin –

I swallow some pills. In the half-light –

The dead are the living, the living are…

In the half-light. I close my eyes –

‘ Does this umbrella become me…?’

‘I can’t remember the umbrella,’ I tell her. ‘But I remember your hair, your freshly dressed chignon tied up in threads.’

‘And you followed me,’ she smiles. ‘You followed me.’

Another flash of lightning. Another clap of thunder…

‘You were afraid,’ I say. ‘You reached for my hand.’

‘Worried you were lost. Worried you would lose me.’

She turns down the alleyway, crosses the little bridge over the ditch and waits for me before the reed awnings of her row-house…

‘You returned my umbrella then beat the rain from my coat.’

‘Your Western clothes were really very wet,’ she laughs –

The thunder is in retreat now but the rain falls harder still, bouncing off the buildings and our bodies in a shower of stones…

‘You were worried about my clothes, so you invited me in.’

‘I was only being polite,’ she says. ‘What else could I do?’

She leads me into a back room screened off by a lattice of unpolished wood and a curtain of long ribbons and little bells…

‘You wiped your bare feet while I untied my foreign shoes.’

‘But you wouldn’t take your coat off,’ she laughs again –

And sits me down at the long charcoal brazier as she then begins to make tea, her left knee drawn up to her left breast…

‘Was that well-water?’ I ask her again. ‘Or tap-water?’

‘You were more worried about typhoid than syphilis,’ she says. ‘Is that why you never drink the tea in my house…?’

Now she wipes oil from her forehead with a piece of clear paper and then goes off through the curtains to the wash basin…

‘You would have been twenty-three or twenty-four,’ I say. ‘And the skin on your face had been spoilt and dulled by cosmetics.’

‘But my lips were red,’ she says. ‘And my eyes were clear.’

I can still see her through the ribbons, beyond the bells, bowing to wash her face, her kimono pulled back over her shoulders, her shoulders and breasts even whiter than her face…

‘You were always alone,’ I say. ‘Weren’t you afraid?’

In the half-light, she does not answer me. In the half-light –

Her face to the wall. To the paper. To the stains –

In the half-light, Yuki sleeps. In the half-light –

‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’

I cover my ears. I close my eyes –

‘ Cover your ears! Close your eyes!’