David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

The caretaker nods. The caretaker bows. The caretaker goes off to his cabin, passing the boiler-man as he returns with a coarse grey blanket and a bundle of old newspapers –

The younger Kempei man now turns to Fujita and me and tells us, ‘Lay that body out on these newspapers and then cover it with this blanket ready for the ambulance…’

Fujita and I tie our handkerchiefs back over our mouths and our noses and set to work, laying the newspapers and then the body out, partially covering it with the blanket –

This is not our case any more …

But now the boiler-man nervously approaches the younger of the Kempei officers. The boiler-man’s head is bent low in apology, first mumbling and then nodding, pointing here and there in answer to the questions the officer is asking –

The conversation ends .

Now Corporal Katayama strides over to his senior colleague and says, ‘This man says there have been a number of thefts from our property and that he suspects these robberies to have been committed by the Korean labourers billeted in that building over there…’

The younger Kempei man is pointing to a scorched three-storey building on the opposite side of the dormitory –

‘Are these workers under any kind of supervision?’ asks the older man. ‘Or are they just free to come and go?’

‘I heard that they were under guard until the end of May,’ says the boiler-man. ‘Then the younger and stronger ones were taken to work in the north but the older, weaker ones were left here.’

‘And do they do any kind of work?’

‘They are meant to help us with the repairs to the buildings but they are either too sick or there are not enough materials available, so usually they just stay in there…’

Captain Muto, the older Kempei officer, who still keeps looking at his watch, now abruptly waves at all of the surrounding buildings and shouts, ‘I want all these buildings searched!’

Fujita and I have finished laying out the body on the newspapers. Now I glance at Fujita. I am not sure if Captain Muto means for us to search or not. Fujita doesn’t move –

But now the Kempei captain barks –

‘You two take this dormitory!’

Not our case any more …

Fujita and I both salute him. Fujita and I both bow to him. Then we march off towards the building –

I am cursing. Fujita cursing … ‘Nishi back in the office…’

Detective Fujita takes the top floor. I take the second floor. The knotted wooden floorboards of the corridor squeak. Knock-knock. Door to door. Room to room. Every room exactly the same –

The tatami mats, frayed and well worn. The single window and the blackout curtain. The thin green walls and the chrysanthemum wallpaper, limp and peeling –

Every room empty, abandoned.

The very end of the corridor. The very last room. The very last door. Knock-knock . I turn the handle. I open the door –

The same old mats. The single window. The same blackout curtain. The thin walls. The same peeling paper –

In another empty room.

I walk across the mats. I pull back the curtain. The sunlight illuminates a partially burnt mosquito coil on a low table –

The stench of piss. The stench of shit –

Human piss and human shit …

I open the closet built into the wall and there, among a heap of bedding, crouches an old man, his face buried in a futon –

I crouch down. I say, ‘Don’t be afraid…’

Now he turns his head from the bedding and looks up at me; the old man’s face is flat and his lips are chapped and parted, showing broken yellow dirt-flecked teeth –

He stinks of piss and of shit –

The old man is a Korean –

I curse and I curse …

He is a Yobo —

‘Congratulations!’

I look round; Corporal Katayama, the younger Kempei officer, is stood in the doorway, Fujita behind him, shaking his head –

‘Bring him downstairs!’ orders the Kempei man –

I stare at this Corporal Katayama –

I am looking into a mirror … ‘Quickly!’ he barks.

The old man buries his head back in the bedding, his shoulders shaking, mumbling and moaning –

‘I didn’t do anything! Please…’ His breath foul and rotten –

I take him by his shoulders and start to pull him from the bedding, from the closet, the old man wriggling and struggling –

‘I didn’t do anything! Please, I want to live!’ ‘Help him!’ the corporal orders Fujita –

Fujita and I drag the old man from the closet, from the room, by his shoulders, by his arms, then out into the corridor, back along the floorboards; we have an arm each now –

The man’s trunk and legs aslant –

His feet are trailing –

The Kempei officer marching behind with his sword in one hand, kicking at the soles of the old man’s feet, striking him with his sword to hurry him along –

Down the stairs –

Into the light …

‘That’s him!’ cries the boiler-man now. ‘That’s him!’

‘Get me two spades now!’ shouts the older Kempei officer and the caretaker runs back inside his cabin-cum-office –

‘You two, bring the suspect over here.’

Fujita and I march the old Korean man over to Captain Muto in the shade of the other dormitory –

Into the shadows …

The caretaker comes back with the two spades. Captain Muto takes one of the spades from the caretaker and hands it to the boiler-man. He nods at a patch of ground that might once have been a flowerbed, then perhaps a vegetable patch, but now is nothing but hard, packed soil stained black –

‘Dig a hole,’ he says.

The caretaker and the boiler-man begin to dig up the ground, the caretaker already sweating and saying, ‘He made a peephole to spy on the women workers as they bathed…’

The boiler-man wiping his skull, then his neck and agreeing, ‘We caught him and we beat him but…’

‘But he kept coming back…’

‘He couldn’t keep away…’

Captain Muto points at a spot just in front of where the two men are digging. The captain orders Fujita and me to stand the old Korean man in front of the deepening hole –

The old man just blinking –

His mouth hanging open.

Fujita and I push the Korean towards the spot, his body weaving back and forth like rice-jelly. I tell him, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Just stand over here while we sort this out…’

But the old Korean man looks at each of us now –

The two Kempei officers, the Neighbourhood Association officials, the caretaker, the boiler-man –

Detective Fujita and me –

The dead body lain on the newspapers, the dead body partially covered by the blanket –

‘ I am here …’

Then the Korean glances back at the freshly dug ground, at the hole that the caretaker and the boiler-man are digging, and now he tries to run but Fujita and I grab him and hold him, his body shaking, his face contorted as he cries out, ‘I don’t want to be killed!

‘I didn’t do anything! Please, I want to live!’

‘Shut up, Yobo!’ says someone –

‘But I didn’t do anything…’

‘So why did you just try to escape, Yobo?’ asks Captain Muto. ‘In Japan, innocent men don’t run away.’ ‘Please don’t kill me!

Please!’

‘You lying Yobo bastard!’

‘Shut up!’ shouts the younger Kempei officer now and he points over to the body beneath the blanket, the body lain out in the dirt and the sun by the corrugated metal doors to the air-raid shelter, and he asks the old Korean man, ‘Did you rape that woman?’

And the old Korean man glances again at the body on the newspapers, the body beneath the blanket –