David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

In the half-light, she is startled and wakes, clutching her hair. Now she sees a length of her hair has wound itself around my neck –

‘My hair only grows when we sleep together,’ she smiles –

I swallow some more pills. I close my eyes again –

‘But I don’t want to sleep,’ she whispers into my mouth. ‘Why do we have to sleep? Why should lovers ever have to sleep?’

‘A love that never sleeps would send us mad.’

‘We never slept before,’ she says. ‘When sleep was selfish.

When sleep was for the demons. When sleep was for the dead…’

procession, the coffin decorated with the images of snakes, the chief mourner in a hat of coarse hemp as the women howl with the yellow wind through the electric wires. The soil blows, the sun pales as I lie among the corpses. Sixty Calmotin, sixty-one. Chinese officers stuff their mouths with melon under the huge Sun in the Blue Sky flag atop the peeling red-lacquered gate. We watch them from behind our sandbags . Their soldiers in their grey uniforms throng the streets, overturning stalls and stealing goods. We watch them from behind our barbed wire . They chew food as they saunter around the city. We watch them in our khaki uniforms . They spit skin and bones into the faces of the local Chinese. We watch them with our machine guns . They love plunder, they love violence. A shot rings out . They knock over altars, they yank open drawers. Another shot . Beggars and coolies run towards the shots. The Chinks are robbing the Japanese . Women with bound feet and children with plaits flee. The Japs are raping the Chinese . Two grey armoured vehicles speed up the street. The Chinks are murdering the Japanese . Nationalist cavalrymen gallop south through the city. The Japs are murdering the Chinese . Bullets fly from the second-floor windows of Western buildings. Artillery sounds . Barefoot Japanese men run down the streets, their shirts unbuttoned. Cannons fire . Prostitutes pour out of the Yung-hsien-li district. Windows shatter . A woman in red satin falls to the ground. My son said he would cut his own throat! Houses are burnt. Mine too! Refugees cower in halls. A true Japanese man! Men lose their wives. Run! Mothers lose their children. Hide! A wire birdcage lies trampled in the street. No! This is how it starts, among the corpses. Seventy Calmotin, seventy-one. The disarmed soldiers in their grey uniforms groan and cry like animals, their hands tied behind their backs in the barbed-wire stockade. Hundreds of them, sat on the ground before the fixed bayonets of just five of our unit as our artillery thunders on until dawn. Then there is only smoke, now only rumours. Two hundred and eighty Japanese settlers massacred, say the Japanese newspapers. Japanese women stripped naked, treated with unspeakable savagery, and then butchered. Tales of stakes thrust into vaginas, arms broken with clubs, and their eyes gouged out. Houses looted, schools burnt. The mutilated corpses of three Japanese are unearthed in a field northeast of the railway bridge, six more by the water tank. Their ears have been sliced off, their stomachs stuffed with stones. Eighty Calmotin, eighty-one. Now the airplanes appear, dropping black bombs on Chinese districts and the street fighting ends. The air is thick with flies . For two days we drink sake and wander through the city. The stench of rotten apricots . We count the Chinese corpses but soon give up. Dogs wag their tails among the dead . We take photographs but run out of film. Beggars sleep among the bones . We find Chinese families still hiding in their houses. Two hundred and eighty Japanese settlers massacred, say the Japanese newspapers . We separate the men from the women. Japanese women stripped naked, treated with unspeakable savagery, and then butchered . The young from the old. Tales of stakes thrust into vaginas, arms broken with clubs, and their eyes gouged out. Masaki, Banzai! Daddy ,

Tokyo, 87°, cloudy

Night is day. I open my eyes. No more pills . Day is night. I can hear the rain falling. Hide from sight . Night is day. I can see the sun shining. No more pills . Day is night. I close my eyes. The corpses of the dead . Night is day. The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. No more pills . Day is night. The white morning light behind the black Shiba trees. In the long, long grasses . Night is day. The black trees that have seen so much. No more pills . Day is night. The black branches that have borne so much. The dead leaves and weeds . Night is day. The black leaves that have come again. No more pills . Day is night. To grow and to fall and to grow again. Another country’s young . Night is day. I turn away. No more pills . Day is night. I walk away from the scene of the crime. Another country’s dead . Night is day. Beneath the Black Gate. No more pills . Day is night. The dog still waits. Another country . Now night is day.

*

They are all awake now. No Fujita . They are all hungry still. No Fujita . They are all waiting for me. No Fujita . Hattori, Takeda, Sanada and Shimoda yawning and scratching their heads. No Fujita . Nishi, Kimura and Ishida with their notebooks and their pencils out –

No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘By now you all know that the suspect named Kodaira Yoshio has confessed to the murder of Midorikawa Ryuko,’ I tell them. ‘But, unfortunately for us, Kodaira Yoshio claims to know nothing about the second body, our body. Now I don’t believe him…’

No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘But first, we need to find her name…’

No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘Now we know she was alive enough on the nineteenth of July to clip an advertisement from a newspaper,’ I tell them. ‘And we know that Dr. Nakadate estimates she was murdered sometime between the twentieth and the twenty-seventh of July…’

No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘Now remember, investigation is footwork; so let’s take these dates and a description of the suspect Kodaira Yoshio and go back to Shiba to ask if anyone has seen a man like this?’

No Fujita. No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘With a girl dressed like ours?’

No Fujita. No Fujita …

‘Between these dates?’

No Fujita .

*

I take a different route back up to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters. Ton-ton . The air is more humid than ever. Ton-ton . The hammering louder than ever. Ton-ton . I want to wash my face. Ton-ton . I want to wash my hands. Ton-ton . I step inside the Hibiya Public Hall. Ton-ton . I wish I hadn’t. Ton-ton . It is the inaugural convention of the Congress of Industrial Unions. Ton-ton . The now-shabby lobby of this once-grand hall is filled with counter-intelligence agents and military policemen, foreign journalists and Japanese snitches, their paperclips in their lapels and an extra ration of cigarettes. Ton-ton . Young men selling Akahata. Ton-ton . Young men whistling ‘The Red Flag’. Ton-ton . I want to wash my face. Ton- ton. I want to wash my hands. Ton-ton . I walk through the Shinchū Gun armbands and the press-corps badges. Ton-ton . The auditorium is dark and airless, packed with men standing and sweating, either staring or shouting at the large stage. Ton-ton . No cigarettes in here. Ton-ton . No extra rations. Ton-ton . The stage is decorated with banners demanding that workers fight for a forty-hour week, oppose mass dismissals and battle against the remnants and resurgence of militarism and nationalism. Ton-ton . In front of the banners sit a dozen men behind a long table, all of them tall, all of them lean, all of them bespectacled. Ton-ton . They bow deeply before the hall. Ton-ton . They introduce themselves. Ton-ton . They bow again. Ton-ton . They sit back down. Ton-ton . Then the speeches begin. Ton-ton . These tall, lean and bespectacled men unbuttoning their jackets and loosening their ties, clenching their fists and waving their papers –