David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …

I walk out of the sunlight and into the shadow. Investigation is footwork . I walk back up the hill to the scene of the crime. The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times …

The scene of the crime. Hide from sight . The white morning light behind the black Shiba trees. The corpses of the dead . The black trees that have seen so much. In the long, long grasses . The black branches that have borne so much. The dead leaves and weeds . The black leaves that have come again. Another country’s young . To grow, to fall, to grow again. Another country’s dead …

I walk away from the scene of the crime. Another country . To stand beneath the Black Gate. Another century …

In the half-light, I can’t forget …

The day is finally here. Oh so bravely, off to Victory . I leave for the front tomorrow. Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind . My wife and family wake early and head for Shiba Park. Who can die without first having shown his true mettle? In the inner compound of Zōjōji Temple a large crowd has gathered to say goodbye. Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army . They leave the compound and make their way through the crowds of school excursions to stand before the Black Gate. I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags cheering us into battle . My son has a little flag in his hand, my daughter has a little flag in hers. The earth and its flora burn in flames . My parents are here. As we endlessly part the plains . Friends from school, teammates from my high school baseball club, and colleagues with whom I graduated; each holds aloft a big banner, each banner bearing my name, each before the Black Gate. Helmets emblazoned with the Rising Sun . The clock strikes noon, the cries rise as my truck approaches and stops before the Black Gate. And, stroking the mane of our horses . I jump down from the back of the Nissan. Who knows what tomorrow will bring — life? I stare into the crowd, up at the banners and the flags, and I salute. Or death in battle? Now the departure signal sounds –

No one is who they say they are. No one …

Beneath the Black Gate. Another country . Day is night again. Another century . Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky. A different world . Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate. A different time . Branches charred and leaves lost. Another country . In this place, I stand beneath the dark eaves of the gate. A different world . We have seen hell. Another century . We have known heaven. A different time . We have heard the last judgment. In the half-light . We have witnessed the fall of the gods. I can’t forget . Night is day, day is night. In the half-light . Black is white, white is black –

But the good detective knows nothing is random …

Under the Black Gate, the stray dog waits –

The detective knows in chaos lies order …

His house lost and his master gone –

He knows in chaos lie answers …

The stray dog has no feet –

Answers, answers …

The dog is dead.

*

I put my daughter on my back. I take my son by the hand. In the half-light, I lead them down the garden path, down the street to stand in the queue for the post office, in the hope that the government insurance has arrived, in the hope I can cash the last of our bonds.

The queue moves slowly forward. The bench outside becomes free. I sit my daughter and my son down upon the bench next to an old man who stinks of drink. He winks at my daughter and he smiles at my son. Now he turns to me and holds out a withdrawal slip and asks, ‘Will you fill this out for me…?’

I nod. ‘For how much?’

The old man opens his post office savings book and says, ‘Forty yen should do today.’

I write forty yen on the withdrawal slip. Then I copy down the number of his savings account and the address –

Now I fill in the name –

A woman’s name .

I hand the withdrawal slip and the savings book back to the old man and he thanks me.

The queue moves forward again. I pick my daughter and my son up from the bench. We follow the old man inside the post office. The old man presents his withdrawal slip to one of the post office clerks as I do the same at the next window along –

Now we all sit back down to wait.

The old man winks at my daughter and smiles at my son again.

Now the clerk at the payments desk calls out the name –

‘Are you Yamada Hanako?’ asks the clerk.

No one is who they say they are …

‘No,’ says the old man. ‘But she’s my youngest daughter.’

The clerk shrugs his shoulders. He counts out the forty yen. He hands over the cash and says, ‘Better if she comes in person…’

The old man nods, thanks the clerk and now walks past us –

The old man winks at my daughter, he smiles at my son –

‘She can’t come in person,’ he whispers. ‘She’s dead.’

The clerk at the payments desk calls out my name –

The clerk hands over our cash and I thank him.

No one is who they seem to be …

I put my daughter on my back. I take my son by the hand. In the half-light, I lead them up the street, up the garden path, to stand them in the genkan of our house, to watch me as I say goodbye –

I say goodbye, as I turn their shoes to face the door –

‘Please don’t go, Daddy,’ says my daughter –

‘I have to go back to work,’ I tell her –

‘But not tonight,’ says my son –

Now my wife comes out of the kitchen, her face is hot from cooking, her hands brushing water from her trousers –

‘Let your father go to work,’ she says –

I pat their heads. I say, ‘Goodbye…’

‘Please remember us,’ my daughter and my son call after me. ‘Please don’t forget us, Daddy…’

Daddy, Banzai! …

Now I walk down the path, through the gate, up the street –

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …

I do not turn around. I cannot turn around –

But in the half-light, I can’t forget …

I am not going back to work –

No one is who they seem …

Tonight I am going to her.

*

Night is day again. There have been others . In the ruins, in the rain. There have been others . The children watch me, the dogs watch me. There have been others . I smoke a cigarette, I read a newspaper –

SEX MANIAC CONFESSES KILLING FOUR YOUNG WOMEN

Kodaira Yoshio, 41, a sadistic sex maniac who had been under investigation by the Metropolitan Police Board for the raping and strangling to death of Ryuko, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Midorikawa Isaburo of Meguro, Tokyo, on the sixth of August, has confessed to the raping and killing of three other young women in the past one year .

On the fifteenth of July last year, the sex crazy laundry man admitted killing Kondo Kazuko, aged twenty-two years old, in Saitama Prefecture while the young woman was on a food shopping trip to the district. Luring her into a forest with promises of leading her to a good place to buy food, Kodaira violated and killed the unsuspecting young girl .

On the twenty-eighth of September of the same year, Kodaira killed Matsushita Yoshie, aged twenty years, using similar means. The girl’s body was found stripped naked lying in a forest in Kiyose-mura, Kita Tama-gun, the same place where he had committed his previous crime .