David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

Begging him, pleading with him …

‘In the continued absence of Detective Fujita, I’m promoting Detective Hattori under the supervision of Chief Inspector Adachi.’

‘And what happens to me when I get back…?’

Pleading for a second chance …

‘Until this situation is clarified, you will be assigned to a local police station upon your return from Tochigi…’

‘And so what about my transfer…?’

Begging for a second chance …

‘There will be no transfer…’

No second chance .

*

There is no route back to Atago today. In the half-light . I walk down the stairs into the bar. They are following me . There are only two other customers at the counter; the same middle-aged woman, now dressed in brown, smelling of local perfume and smoking Golden Bat cigarettes; the same old man in his dark suit, taking out his pocket watch and winding it up and putting it away again, then taking it out and winding it up and putting it away again, then –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

The woman opens her purse. The woman places chocolates on the bar. The woman says, ‘Please help yourself…’

But they taste bitter. They taste of ash –

The bakudan explodes in my belly –

The man shows me the watch –

It still says twelve o’clock –

But in the half-light –

His watch has no hands and we both have no feet.

*

Through the doors of the borrowed police station. I have a shaved head. Up the stairs of the borrowed police station. I have a bandaged hand. To the borrowed second-floor room. I have a pair of bloody knees. Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura and Ishida. I have a broken heart. They are all here and they already know –

I am not the head of the room. I am not their boss …

Now they all look away. They all hide their eyes –

Their eyes full of questions. Eyes full of doubts …

Eyes full of whispers, rumours and complaints …

I have nothing to say to any one of them –

I hate them. I hate them. I hate them all …

I walk over to Takeda’s borrowed desk and I bow and I thank him for all his hard work and for all his help. I walk over to Sanada’s borrowed desk and I bow and I thank him for all his hard work and for all his help. I walk over to Shimoda’s desk and I bow and I thank him for all his hard work, for all his help –

I hate them all. I hate them all …

I stand before Nishi’s desk and I bow and I thank him for all his hard work and for all his help and I wish him luck. I turn to Kimura and I bow and I thank him for all his hard work and for all his help and I wish him luck. Then I bow and I thank Ishida for all his hard work and I wish him luck –

I will see him again …

I walk over to Detective Hattori’s desk and I bow low and I congratulate him on his promotion and I wish him luck in his promotion and with the investigation and I thank him for all his hard work and all his help –

I hate him …

Finally, I stand before them all and I bow deeply and I apologize to them for my lack of leadership, my lack of organization, my inability to command, my inability to delegate and my absences –

‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘And I hope to earn your forgiveness.’

*

It is night now. They are following me . It is hot still. They are following me . I have places to visit, people to see before we leave for Tochigi tomorrow afternoon. They are following me . The sound of a balladeer and his guitar trails me up the hill as I walk away from Shibuya station. They are following me . I don’t recognize the words of the song, I don’t recognize the music. They are following me . I stop at the mouth of the dark alley. They are following me . I glance back down the hill. They are following me . I sit down on a broken wall. They are following me . I take off my hat and I fan myself –

They are following me. They are still following me …

I put on my hat and I stand back up. I walk down the alley and I knock on the door. I slide it open and I make my apologies –

‘But I have some good news,’ I tell her –

Tominaga Noriko’s landlady looks up from another shabby low table in another shabby little room in another shabby little house in another shabby neighbourhood –

‘Noriko’s not dead.’

There are questions and doubts in her red eyes now, questions and doubts among the tears, the tears she has wept since she glanced up at the clothing lain out on that autopsy table –

‘The clothes were not hers,’ I tell her –

Hope among the questions now, hope among the doubts, hope that cries, ‘Really? So Noriko is still alive?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I saw her today.’

Hope that asks, ‘Is she coming back, then? Back here?’

‘I don’t know,’ I tell her. ‘But I don’t think so…’

No more questions, no more doubts and no more hope now, only rage and only grief that shouts and screams out –

‘Then she’s still dead to me, detective!’

*

The Shimbashi New Life Market is back in business. But among the kettles and the pans, the crockery and the utensils, among the clothes and the shoes, the cooking oil and the soy sauce, among the fruit and the vegetables, the sardines and the second-hand suits, the coffee and the silk, in their patterned shirts and their American sunglasses, Senju’s men are still licking their wounds, still counting their dead –

Sharpening old blades and swearing new oaths –

Exchanging sake cups with any old soldier –

‘Let’s all sing the Apple Song’

These are desperate times…

But defiant times –

‘Let them come in their hundreds,’ Senju Akira is telling me. ‘Let them come in their thousands. For I am assembling the largest organization of patriotic Japanese men this country has seen since the end of the war. Then let the Chinese, the Koreans and the Formosans try to take away what has been left us, the little that has been left us by the many that sacrificed themselves before us –

‘For I tell you this, in the centuries to come, generations of Japanese, generations who will be living only because of our stand, these generations will hear tales of the things we did to protect our fellow countrymen and save the Japanese nation and they will shed tears for us under the cherry blossoms and raise their glasses under the full moon and pray for our souls at Yasukuni, honouring us as the true keepers of the Japanese spirit…’

I have no time for this –

Chiku-taku …

I bow lower on the tatami. I say, ‘I am very sorry to trouble you at a time like this…’

‘I am always happy to see an old friend,’ says Senju now. ‘And I was worried about you, detective. I’d begun to think you might be avoiding me. I’d even begun to think that maybe we weren’t really friends, that maybe you only came to see me when you wanted something from me, when you wanted money or wanted drugs…’

‘I do need money,’ I tell him. ‘And I do need Calmotin.’

‘That’s very honest of you, detective,’ says Senju. ‘And also very refreshing in such duplicitous and deceitful times as these –

‘I admire your honesty, Inspector Minami…’

I bow. I thank him. I start to speak but –

‘But did you just come with a shopping list, detective?’

I bow again. I apologize again. I tell him, ‘It isn’t easy for me. There’s an investigation into the murder of Hayashi…’

‘You sound surprised?’ laughs Senju. ‘It’s your job, isn’t it?’