David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

I take out my handkerchief. I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I push my hair back out of my eyes. I look at my watch –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

It is 10 a.m.; it is only 10 a.m. –

Just four hours gone, eight still to go, then down to Shinagawa, down to Yuki. Three, four hours there and then out to Mitaka, to my wife and my children. Try to take them some food, bring them something to eat, anything. Eat and then sleep, try to sleep. Then back here again for 6 a.m. tomorrow …

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

Another twelve hours in this oven …

I wipe the sweat from my shirt collar. I wipe the sweat from my eyelids. I look down the length of the table. Three men on my left, two men on my right and the three empty chairs –

No Fujita. No Ishida. No Kimura …

Five men wiping their necks and wiping their faces, scratching after lice and swiping away mosquitoes, ignoring their work and turning their newspapers; newspapers full of the First Anniversary of the Surrender, the progress of reform and the gains of democracy; newspapers full of the International Military Tribunal, the judgment of the Victors and the punishment of the Losers –

Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out …

Turning our newspapers, thinking about food –

Day in, day out. Day in, day out …

And waiting and waiting –

Day in, day out …

The telephones that can’t ring, the electric fans that can’t turn. The heat and the sweat. The flies and the mosquitoes. The dirt, the dust and the noise; the constant sound of hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering, hammering and hammering –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

I get up from my chair. I go to the window. I raise the blind –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Three floors above Sakuradamon, I look out over Tokyo –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

The Palace to my left, GHQ to my right –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Under a low typhoid sky –

Ton-ton …

The Capital City of the Shōwa Dead, the Losers on their hands and knees, the Victors in their trucks and jeeps –

No resistance here .

I hear the door open. I turn round; Kimura is stood there –

Early twenties. Repatriated from the south. Only three months here and no longer the most junior member of our room, Room #2 …

Kimura is staring down the length of table at me; half in contempt, half in deference, a piece of paper in his hands –

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …

My stomach knots, my head pounds –

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot …

Kimura holds out the paper marked Police Bulletin and says, ‘Maybe this one’s a murder, Detective Inspector Minami, sir.’

*

There is only one working car for the whole division. It is not available. So we walk again, like we walk everywhere. They promise us cars, like they promise us telephones and guns and pens and paper and better pay and health care and holidays but every day we tear apart old bicycle tires to cut out new soles to hammer onto the bottom of our boots so we can walk and walk and walk and walk and walk –

Hattori, Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura and me — Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Through the heat, through the flies and the mosquitoes –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

From Metropolitan Police Headquarters to Shiba Park –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Jackets off, hats on. Handkerchiefs out, fans out –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

Down Sakurada-dōri and up the hill to Atago –

Ton-ton …

Detective Nishi has the Police Bulletin in his hand. Nishi reads it aloud as we walk: ‘Naked body of unidentified female found at 9:30 a.m. this morning, August 15, 1946, at Nishi-Mukai Kannon Zan, 2 Shiba Park, Shiba Ward. Body reported to Shiba Park police box at 9:45 a.m. Body reported to Atago police station at 10:15 a.m. Body reported to Metropolitan Police Headquarters at 11:00 a.m.….

‘They took their time,’ he says now. ‘It’ll be two hours by the time we see the body. What were they doing at Atago…?’

‘She ain’t going nowhere,’ laughs Detective Hattori.

‘Tell that to the maggots and the flies,’ says Nishi.

‘No cars. No bicycles. No telephones. No telegraphs,’ replies Hattori. ‘What do you expect the Atago boys to do about it?’

Nishi shakes his head. Nishi doesn’t answer him.

I wipe my neck. I glance at my watch again –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

It is almost 11:30 a.m.; only 11:30 a.m. –

Five and a half hours gone, six and a half to go. Then down to Shinagawa, down to Yuki. Three, four hours there and then out to Mitaka. The wife and the children. Eat and then sleep, try to sleep. Back here again for 6 a.m. and another twelve hours —

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

If this body isn’t a murder …

‘This way is quicker,’ says Nishi and we pick our way over the hills of rubble and through the craters of dust until we come out on to Hibiya-dōri near Onarimon –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton .

*

Two very young men from the Atago police station are waiting for us in their ill-fitting, dirt-stained uniforms. They bow and they salute, they greet us and they apologize but I can’t hear a word they say –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

The uniformed policemen lead us off the road, away from the sound of the hammering, and into the temple grounds –

Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …

There is nothing much left of Zōjōji Temple since it was burnt to the ground in the May air raids of last year –

Branches charred and leaves lost …

The two uniforms lead us through the ashes and up the hill, out of the sunlight and into the shadow; the graves forgotten here, this place is overgrown and its paths lost, the bamboo grass taller than a man and as thick as the insects that cloud the air; this place of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs that run in packs with a new-found taste for human flesh –

In this place of assignation –

Of prostitutes, of suicides –

This place of silence –

This place of death –

She is here …

In this sudden clearing where the tall grass has been flattened and the sun has found her, she is here; lying naked on her back, her head slightly to the left, her right arm outstretched, her left at her side, she is here; her legs parted, raised and bent at the knee, she is here …

Possibly twenty-one years old and probably ten days dead –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …

There is a piece of red material round her neck –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …

This is not a suicide. This is murder –

Namu-amida-butsu …

This case ours –

I curse her …

I look at my watch. Chiku-taku . It is almost noon –

Chiku-taku . It is August 15, 1946 –

The defeat and the capitulation. The surrender and the occupation. The ghosts all here today –

I curse her. I curse myself …

It has been one year.

*

In among the tall weeds, an old man is on his knees, bowing and mumbling his prayers with an axe on the ground before him –

‘Namu-amida-butsu,’ the old man chants. ‘Namu-amida …’