David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

OFF-LIMITS — VD. OFF-LIMITS — VD …

More smaller signs, hundreds of them, dabbed in red paint the closer we come, thousands of them, on the fences, on the gates:

VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD VD …

The Victors’ truck goes through the open barbed-wire gates and sounds its horn as it pulls into a small, dusty courtyard, a crowd of men and women pouring out of the buildings to greet us –

I have been here before, seen these places before …

Little Japanese men in white waiters’ tunics without trays, tall Japanese women in Western dresses without stockings, all beaming and bowing to us, clapping and calling out to us –

These places, these buildings, these women …

‘All clean, all clean, all clean…’

‘Very clean, very clean…’

‘All cheap…’

Now the tall women lead the driver and Larry, Moe and Curly off towards one of the dormitory buildings, the Victors’ hands already up their skirts, leaving just the little men in their white waiters’ tunics standing with Nishi and me in the dirt of the yard –

I am ashamed to be a policeman, ashamed to be Japanese …

I ask to speak to the manager and the waiters disappear –

I am ashamed to be Japanese, ashamed to be me …

The Japanese manager steps out of another of the buildings. The manager straightens his tie. The manager flattens his greasy hair. He bows. He hands me his heavy, embossed meishi —

The manager is another oily little man –

Just another tame collaborator …

I tell him why we are here. I tell him about Shiba Park. I tell him about a murdered girl aged seventeen to eighteen years old. She is better off dead . I tell him about a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress and a white half-sleeved chemise. She is better off dead . I tell him about a pair of dyed-pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. She is better off dead . I tell him about the Salon Matsu. She is better off dead …

The manager shakes his head but he wants to help us because we came here in a Victors’ truck. Because he thinks we have connections to the Shinchū Gun. Because he thinks we have influence. Because he thinks we can help him to get this place reopened –

This place I have seen before. I have been before … He takes us on a tour.

He takes us to the infirmary –

If she was here, then she’s better off dead …

In the infirmary. A huge, bare room lined with tatami mats. Twelve girls lie perspiring on the floor under thick comforters –

They all hide their faces from us, all but one –

I squat down. I smile. ‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen years old.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Six months now.’

‘And before that?’

‘I was a clerk.’

‘Why do you stay here?’

‘I owe them money.’

‘How much do you owe them?’

‘Ten thousand yen.’

‘Ten thousand yen? What for?’

‘The clothes I’ve bought.’

‘Bought from where?’

‘The shop here.’

‘What about your family? Do they know where you are?’

‘I haven’t any,’ she says. ‘They died in the air raids.’

‘You do know that this place is off-limits now?’

She nods her head. She says, ‘Yes.’

‘Because General MacArthur has banned prostitution?’

She shakes her head. She says, ‘I didn’t know that.’

I nod. I squeeze her hand. I look into her eyes. I start to tell her she should leave here and go back home. But then I stop –

‘We are her only home now,’ says the manager.

He resumes our tour. He takes us to the clinic –

If this was where she was bound …

In the clinic. The girls are examined once a week. In the chairs. Every week. Each chair has a tiny curtain to conceal the faces of the girls from the doctor. Two shallow pools in which each girl must bathe every other day. Every other day, every single week –

‘Very clean,’ says the manager –

She’s better off dead …

He takes us on a tour. He takes us to the dining room –

In the dining room. Here the girls are fed. In shifts –

‘Two good meals a day,’ boasts the manager.

He resumes our tour. He takes us to the ballroom –

In the ballroom. There are a hundred Japanese girls. In Occidental gowns. Nothing underneath. Beneath red paper streamers that hang in the heat from the ceiling. They dance with each other to scratched and deafening records relayed through a battery of amplifiers. Back and forth across the floor in downtrodden heels or scruffy school plimsolls. They push each other. To the distorted American jazz. In the ballroom. Back and forth –

‘They are all very pretty, aren’t they?’ says the manager. ‘But inside they are all very sad and they are all very lonely because General MacArthur won’t let them make friends with GIs any more and so the GIs are homesick and lonely too…’

She’s better off dead …

He takes us on a tour. He takes us to the girls’ rooms –

The girls’ rooms. In the two-storey barracks. Fifty cubicles to a building. Each tiny room separated by a low partition. Thin curtains or sheets for doors. Each entrance with a sign written in a child’s crayon, a sign that says, Well Come, Kimi. Well Come, Haruko …

Well Come Mitsuko. Yori. Kazuko. Yoshie. Tatsue …

Well Come Hiroko. Yoshiko. Ryuko. Yuki …

Inside each small cubicle is a futon and a comforter, a little make-up mirror on the floor, the odd yellowing photograph. The air humid and heavy with the smell of antiseptic –

Better off dead. Better off dead …

At the top of each stairway is one long, narrow room with a painted sign beside the door which says, in English and in Katakana, PRO Station; this is where the Victors get their prophylactics –

The smell of antiseptic. The taste of antiseptic …

Beside this room are two smaller rooms without windows where the girls rest after each visit from the Victor –

Antiseptic. Antiseptic. Antiseptic …

The tour has finished now –

The sights all seen –

Better off dead .

Back outside the two-storey barracks, the manager leads us down one of the covered passageways between the buildings to the company store where the girls buy their cheap cosmetics and their shoddy clothes on borrowed money at expensive prices –

The store is empty. The store is dead –

My heart empty. My heart dead …

‘Now you must meet the officers of our union here,’ says the manager. ‘It is a real union. It is very democratic. Very democratic. Please tell your American bosses this.’

The manager disappears inside the company store but quickly returns, bringing out with him three young women –

Two in Western suits. One in a kimono –

‘These ladies are the officers of the Women’s Protective League,’ he tells us. ‘This is the president, Kato Akiko, a former geisha. This is Hasegawa Sumiko, the vice-president and a former typist. This is Iijima Kimi, a former dancer.’

The three women smile. The three women bow.

I order the manager to leave.

‘We are from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police,’ I tell them. ‘We are trying to identify the body of a young girl found recently in Shiba Park. We have reason to believe she may have worked here. We would be very grateful for your cooperation…’