David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

Death …

Everyone now whispering about the rumours of purges, about Kempei in hiding, Kempei on the run. Everyone whispering about trials and hangings, Kempei taking new names and new lives, the names of the mad and the names of the dead. Everyone whispering about death and the dead, the dead and their ghosts –

Everyone now whispering about me –

Me and Ishida. Me and Fujita …

Me and Adachi …

In this room of this recently reopened restaurant near Daimon, the whole of the First Investigative Division sitting sleeve against sleeve, knee against knee on these new tatami mats –

On the mountains and mountains of lies …

Chief Kita and Chief Inspector Kanehara –

On those lies upon lies upon lies …

Inspector Kai and Inspector Hattori –

Lies upon lies upon lies …

Their glasses raised, their ties around their foreheads, their songs sung, they look up at me now –

All their lies on my back …

They look up at me like they don’t know who I am, like they cannot see me standing here, standing here before them –

Her bones on my back …

I should not be here –

Debts to the dead …

Now I’m gone.

*

The wind is still blowing as the siren starts up, as the voice on her radio announces that enemy planes are at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula, the sirens louder now, the voice more urgent as Yuki runs to the closet, sliding open the door, diving in among the bedding, heart hammering and eyes wide, listening for the rattle of the incendiary bombs or the swish of the demolition bombs –

First comes the rain, then comes the thunder …

‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ I tell her –

I should not be here, not tonight …

I go downstairs, out into the street –

People are running, digging –

I should be home …

Hiding things in the dirt –

In their shelters –

Boom! Boom!

The anti-aircraft batteries have begun, the searchlights crisscrossing the sky, catching the planes as the fires start –

People with suitcases now, people on bicycles –

‘ Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I smell smoke. I put on my air-raid hood –

‘ Red! Red! Incendiary bomb!’

Thousands of footsteps up on the road –

‘ Run! Run! Get a mattress and sand!’

The deafening sound from above –

‘ Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I fall to the ground, to the earth –

‘ Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’

But there is only silence now –

‘ Cover your ears…’

I get back up. I run inside –

‘ Close your eyes!’

Up the stairs, into the closet, to gather Yuki up, to carry her out, into the street, the houses ablaze, the corner shop, as the wind rises and the sparks fly, I carry her across the bridge, the canal filled with people, one alley on fire, the next and the next, the crossroads blocked in all four directions with pets and babies, dogs and children, men and women, old and young, soldier and civilian, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, now falling to the ground with every fresh rattle, every new swish, crushing and trampling the very young and the very old, letting go of a hand and losing a child, calling out and turning around, screaming out and turning back, hustling and jostling, pushing and shoving, staggering and stumbling, crushing and trampling –

I should not be here .

I have to choose which way to go, which way to run; the houses on three sides are now aflame, the people all pushing one way but that way lie no fields, that way lie only buildings –

‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’

I jump down into the ditch by the side of the road with Yuki still in my arms and I smear our hoods and our bedding with black mud and dark water. Now I lift Yuki up again and I carry her out of the ditch, back towards the fire, back into the flames but she is struggling to break free from my arms, desperate to flee –

‘Black! Black! Here come the bombs!’

‘Forget the fire,’ I whisper. ‘Forget the bombs and trust me. Through these flames is the river, through these flames is life…’

‘Cover your ears! Close your eyes!’

Now Yuki tightens her grip, and she nods her head, as we rush back into the fires, back into the flames –

Back into the war, my war …

*

The chiefs, the inspectors and all their detectives will still be at the restaurant in Daimon; their glasses empty and their songs sung now, they will be flat on their backs and out for the night; only the uniforms here tonight at the Meguro police station –

The uniforms and the suspect –

Kodaira Yoshio …

In their interrogation room, at their table, he sits in his chair –

Kodaira smiling. Kodaira grinning. Kodaira laughing …

‘I heard you were no longer with us, soldier…’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘It’s just you and me now…’

But Kodaira Yoshio leans across the table and smiles at me again and says, ‘Bit like an old regimental reunion.’

‘Here’s another reunion for you,’ I say and I pick up my army knapsack and empty the contents onto the table –

All her clothes and all her bones …

‘Recognize these?’ I shout –

Kodaira still smiling …

‘Or these or these?’ I shout again, picking up the yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress and the white half-sleeved chemise, then the dyed-pink socks and the white canvas shoes with their red rubber soles, now her bones –

Kodaira grinning …

‘Well those bones could be anybody’s, soldier…’

But now I take out the other wristwatch from my pocket. I put it down in front of him –

‘And that…’

Kodaira picks up the wristwatch from the table. Kodaira turns it over in his hand. Kodaira reads the inscription on its back –

The inscription that says, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

That screams, Miyazaki Mitsuko …

‘Could that be just anybody’s wristwatch?’ I ask him –

Kodaira laughing …

‘Now you got me, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because I did know a Miyazaki Mitsuko, back when I was working for the Naval Clothing Department near Shinagawa. Lovely thing she was too, pure clear skin and firm fresh body she had…’

Licking his lips …

‘And after I left there, I kept in touch with the old caretaker who ran the place and he did tell me that poor Mitsuko had been found naked and dead in one of the air-raid shelters…’

‘It was you, you dirty fucking animal!’

‘Hold your horses there, soldier,’ he says. ‘Because my old friend told me that she’d actually been killed by a Yobo who used to work there, that it was this Yobo who had desecrated her skin, violated her body; made me sick to think of such a dirty, filthy third-class person fucking a pure Japanese girl like her…’

‘It was you, you fucking monster!’

‘You’re not listening to me, soldier,’ says Kodaira. ‘The Kempeitai caught this Yobo; they caught him, they tried him and they executed him there and then on the spot, that’s what the old caretaker said. Made me proud to be Japanese…’

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘Are you deaf, soldier?’ Kodaira laughs now. ‘You got shellshock, have you? It was a Yobo …’

‘It was you…’

Kodaira shakes his head. He puts the watch back down on the table and now he stretches his arms high above his head and says, ‘You know, none of it makes much sense to me…’