David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

Her sunburnt skin and her short skirt …

The frayed hem of her skirt hiked up, the woman sits on a crate with one leg crossed over the other –

‘Are you just going to stare up my skirt, old man?’ she asks. ‘Or are you going to buy a potato…?’

I blush now and I look away.

The woman uncrosses her legs and stands up. She wipes her face and she wipes her neck. She looks at me and she laughs –

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘They’re just two yen.’

I take out the money and I hand it to her –

‘Help yourself,’ she laughs now.

I pick up a sweet potato and I begin to walk away. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari . I glance round at the woman but she has already sat back down on her crate, one leg crossed over the other –

Her sunburnt skin and her short skirt …

And now I see him; I see him among the crowds, among the stalls; caked black in rags and filth, his face and his hands covered in blisters and boils, the boy is weeping pus and tears. I keep walking through the crowds, through the stalls. I glance back again. I see him again, among the crowds, among the stalls, caked black in rags and filth, covered in blisters and boils –

He walks behind me …

I keep walking. I am hungry and I am starving. I need a drink and a cigarette. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari . I turn a corner and I turn another. I glance back over my shoulder but I cannot see him. Now I stop walking. I sit down in another ruin, among another pile of rubble. I bite into the potato –

It is cold, it is old …

But it still tastes hot, it still tastes fresh to me. Now a shadow falls across my face and hands and I look up. The boy is stood before me, caked black in rags and filth, covered in blisters and boils, just centimetres before me –

He points …

His belly distended, his bones protruding, he smells of rotten apricots. Now he raises his hand and he points his finger at me –

His yellow eyes, stained a deep, dark and bloody red …

I start to break the sweet potato in half, to give him one half, but the boy snatches the whole potato out of my fingers and now, with his other hand, he throws dirt and dust into my face –

Dust into my eyes as he turns and he runs –

Runs away weeping and laughing –

Tears and pus, Ha, ha, ha, ha …

Daddy, Banzai!

*

I knock on the door of the old wooden row house in Kitazawa, not far from the Shimo-Kitazawa station. There is no answer. I knock again. There is still no answer. I try the door. It is not locked. I open it. There is silence. I step inside the genkan . The kitchen is deserted –

I call out, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Murota? Excuse me…?’

But there is still no answer, still only silence –

I take off my boots. I step inside the house. I walk across the old tatami mats. I go through the shabby curtain that partitions the downstairs. Nothing but stale air and shadows –

Nothing but shadows here …

I go up the steep, narrow wooden stairs. There are two rooms, one at the back and one at the front of the house. The room at the front is the larger one. There is a chest of drawers stood in one corner on the dirty mats. I open the drawers. They are empty. The window in the back room has been left open. There are mosquitoes here. There is also a closet but, again, it is empty –

Nothing but shadows now …

I go back down the wooden stairs. Back through the shabby curtain. I stand in the kitchen. There are mosquitoes here too. The smell of old meals. Murota Hideki and the woman who called herself Tominaga Noriko are long gone –

No one who they seem …

I sit down at the low wooden table on the old worn tatami. I take out one of the two wristwatches from my pocket. I turn it over in my hand. I hold it up to the light. I read its inscription –

Tominaga Noriko …

I place the watch on the low wooden table –

I take out my notebook of rough paper –

I lick the tip of my pencil stub –

In the half-light …

I write, over and over –

I write my name –

Over and over –

My name .

*

The sky has turned a darker shade of grey now. Not you . The air is heavy with dread and heat. Not you . The branches and their leaves hang low. Not you . The street stalls have all been covered over with straw mats. Not you . Men and women squat among the rubble, watching the sky and fanning themselves. Not you . Jeeps and trucks roll past with their huge white stars on their doors, their canvas canopies rolled up. Not you . Men with white faces and men with black faces sat in the backs of the jeeps and the trucks. Not you . They have guns in their hands or guns on their knees. It was not you . They are smiling and they are laughing. It was not you …

It was not you we were waiting for …

*

They are searching for me, on the trains and at the stations, but I have found them first, back here where they least expect me, back here at the Atago police station. I stand across the road and I watch and I wait, I watch and I wait. I watch them come and I watch them go and I wait. I wait until I see Detective Nishi and now I move –

Nishi on his own coming down the road –

Ten quick steps and I’m behind him –

The pistol pressed into his ribs –

Eyes in the back of my head –

‘This way,’ I tell him and force him to turn around, to turn back and walk across the road, to stand him up against the trees, here among the weeds and the garbage, the black metal drums full of ashes and remains, an army-issue pistol pressed into his belly –

He looks like shit, like he still hasn’t slept –

I am looking in a mirror, in a mirror …

‘Where is everyone?’ I ask him –

Nishi stares at the pistol stuck in his stomach. Nishi says, ‘They’re all celebrating, aren’t they?’

‘Celebrating what?’

‘A case closed.’

‘Which one?’

‘Kodaira.’

‘So they couldn’t even wait for me to get back from Tochigi. They couldn’t even wait to see the evidence I found, to read my report. They couldn’t care less about all the others, could they?’

There have been others. There have been others …

‘But they’ve been looking for you, you know that don’t you?’ he tells me now, still staring down at the pistol stuck in his stomach. ‘You should go to Daimon. You should go and join the party. Talk to Chief Kita, but you should go now before it’s too late…’

‘Shut up!’ I tell him. ‘It’s already too late.’

Nishi shakes his head. ‘No, it’s not.’

Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! …

‘Shut up!’ I hiss again. ‘And just answer my questions…’

Now Detective Nishi bows his head. Now he nods –

‘What happened to Detective Fujita?’ I ask him.

‘Nishi looks up. You don’t know?’

I push the pistol deeper into his gut. ‘Just tell me!’

‘They found his body in the Shiba Canal,’ says Nishi. ‘Hands and feet nailed to the back of a door, drowned face down, just…’

‘Just like Hayashi Jo,’ I say for him –

Nishi nods again and says, ‘Yes.’

‘And whose case is it?’ I ask –

‘Chief Inspector Adachi’s.’

I curse him. I curse him …

‘And so who does your great inspector think killed Fujita?’

‘The chief inspector thinks that Fujita was somehow involved with Nodera Tomiji in the murder of Matsuda Giichi, that Hayashi Jo tried to blackmail Fujita and so Fujita killed him to silence him, that Boss Senju then somehow found out about it and had Fujita killed.’