Tokyo Year Zero

by David Peace

  *

  The gate to my house is closed. I open it. The door is locked. I open it. The house is dark. The house is silent. I stand in the genkan –

  The rotting mats, shredded doors and fallen walls …

  The house still sleeping, always sleeping –

  I wipe my face and I wipe my neck –

  The house smells of children –

  Their shoes face the door …

  It smells of pain –

  ‘I’m home…’

  My wife comes out of the kitchen, her face is stained with soot, her hands brushing dust from her worn monpe trousers –

  She smiles and she says, ‘Welcome home…’

  Home. Home. Home. Home. Home …

  I have brought cherries home, cherries for my children, their stems tied in a necklace around my neck –

  Home. Home. Home. Home …

  I never want to leave again –

  Home. Home. Home …

  I close my eyes –

  Home. Home …

  Now I am –

  Home.

  14

  August 28, 1946

  Tokyo, 79°, rain

  Night is day again. I open my eyes. No sleep. Night is day. I can hear the rain falling. No pills. Night is day. I can see the sun shining –

  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.

  In a similar manner, the maniac admitted killing Abe Yoshiko, aged sixteen years, in Shinagawa, Tokyo, on the ninth of June this year. This girl was also raped.

  In all cases, rape accompanies the killing, and in each instance, the body was hidden or buried under dead leaves about thirty to fifty metres away from the scene of the crime. Each victim was strangled to death by her own haramaki sash.

  The only case in which the murderer knew the victim and the family well was in the instance of Midorikawa Ryuko, the last of his victims, and which was the first clue to the identity of the killer and which eventually led to the arrest of Kodaira. All the rest of his victims were total strangers to the murderer.

  The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board plan to question the sex crazed killer about four further murders; seventeen-year-old Shinokawa Tatsue who was raped and murdered in the basement of the Toyoko Department Store in Shibuya and whose umbrella was found at the home of Kodaira’s wife’s family in Toyama, and the murders of Baba Hiroko, Ishikawa Yori and Nakamura Mitsuko, whose bodies were all found in Tochigi Prefecture near Kodaira’s family home.

  I finish the newspaper. There have been others. I finish the cigarette. No mention of Miyazaki Mitsuko. The dogs wait for me. There have been others. The children wait for me. No mention of the second Shiba body. In the rain. There have been others. In the ruins.

  *

  In the half-light, I can hear the wind against the door, rattling around the roof and under the eaves of her house. But there is no rain, there is no thunder tonight, just the clatter of sandals and the calls of children in the streets outside. I shouldn’t have come here, not tonight. Tonight I should have stayed at home with my wife and children. My wife serving up their dinner of zōsui, my children’s bowls in their outstretched hands, asking their mother for more –

  ‘Okawari… Okawari… Okawari…’

  Yuki stands hands on hips, barefoot on the earthen floor of the hallway, and looks out between the ribbons –

  I should not be here, not tonight…

  ‘But you’ll stay awhile longer?’

  I nod and I thank her.

  Yuki opens a cupboard. She takes out a saucer of pickled radish and a small aluminum saucepan. She sniffs at the contents of the pan and shrugs. She places it on the charcoal embers –

  ‘And you’ll eat with me, won’t you?’

  I nod again and I thank her again.

  She lifts up the lid of the pan –

  ‘Are you married?’ she asks.

  *

  Night is still day here. The queues through the gates, the queues to the doors, the queues in the corridors. I have spent too long here. I run through the gates, through the doors and down the corridors. Past the queues, past the patients and past the gurneys to the elevator. Hours, days and weeks. I push the button, I step inside, and I press another button. The doors close and I ride the elevator down in the dark. Weeks, months and years. The doors open –

  Here in the half-light, the half-things …

  I run past the tiled walls of sinks, of drains, the written warnings of cuts, of punctures, to the mortuary –

  She is here. She is here. She is here …

  I read the names of the dead –

  She is here. She is here …

  I pull open the casket –

  She is here …

  No name –

  Here …

  I take out her clothes and now I take out her bones –

  Half-things in the half-light, the half-things …

  I put her clothes in my army knapsack –

  Here, here in the half-light …

  I put her bones in my bag –

  Debts to the dead …

  Down the corridor of tiled walls and written warnings, I push the button and I wait for the elevator. I glance into a mirror above a sink. I glance away. Now I glance back into the glass –

  ‘I almost didn’t recognize you…’

  Her bones on my back, I stare into the glass –

  No one is who they seem …

  I vomit in the sink. Black bile. I vomit again. Brown bile. Four times I vomit. Black bile, brown bile, yellow bile and grey …

  I stare into the mirror above the sink –

  I scream, ‘I know who I am!’

  Now I smash the glass, breaking the mirror into one thousand pieces, one thousand pieces falling, falling to the ground –

  Broken and splintered …

  ‘I know who I am!’

  *

  I shouldn’t still be here. Not tonight. I should have gone home to my wife and children. But in the half-light, I watch Yuki at dinner. There is still no rain tonight, no sound of thunder, only the wind, louder than the radio now. She finishes her second bowl of rice. She rinses her chopsticks and then her bowl. She puts the utensils back into the cupboard. She puts a hand to her mouth, stifles a belch and laughs –

  ‘I suppose your wife is much more polite than me?’

  My heart aches and my body stinks –

  I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari …

  Behind the six-panel screen, two pillows placed side by side, she is dressed in a yellow kimono with a dark-blue stripe; the collar is off her shoulder, her hand upon my knee –

  I think about her all the time …

  I run my hand up her back –

  She haunts me …

  Her hairbrush in one hand, she leans forward to stare at herself in the three panels of her vanity mirror –

  She turns to look at me and smiles –

  She has dyed her teeth black –

  She drops the brush, ton, and asks, ‘Does this become me?’

  *

  The chief has reserved the same room in the same recently reopened restaurant near Daimon, the one near the kitchens of the Victors. The chief is treating the whole of the First Investigative Division to a celebratory meal. The whole of the First Investigative Division sitting sleeve against sleeve, knee against knee on the new mats –

  There is no Ishida. No Fujita. No Adachi or me …

  There is beer and there is food; zanpan from the Victors’ dustbins, the men grateful not to eat zōsui again –

  Raising their glasses, taking off their ties, tying them around their foreheads and singing their songs; their songs of endeavour, their songs of courage, their songs of battle –

  Their songs of victory –

  Case closed!

  But there are only the names of three detectives on the interrogation report; Adachi, Kanehara and Kai –

  Three names and one signature –

  Kodaira Yoshio.

  The other detectives from Room #1 and Room #2, the uniforms from Atago, Meguro and Mita, the other detectives and uniforms from Saitama and Tochigi Prefectures –

  Dogs starved at their masters’ feet…

  Their names are all missing –

  Beneath their tables …

  But no one cares; everyone still talking about Kodaira Yoshio, about his confession to the murder of Kondo Kazuko, twenty-two years old, of Jujo, Kita Ward, Tokyo, whom Kodaira had met queuing for a ticket at Ikebukuro station on the fifteenth of July last year, whom he took into the woods at Kiyose-mura, Kita Tama-gun, out in Saitama Prefecture, and throttled
and raped and then robbed of sixty yen and her paulownia geta clogs –

  Death is here…

  Everyone still talking about Kodaira Yoshio, about his confession to the murder of Matsushita Yoshie, twenty years old, also of Kita Ward, Tokyo, whom he had met in a queue at Tokyo station on the twenty-eighth of September last year, whom he took into the same woods at Kiyose-mura and throttled and raped and then robbed of one hundred and eighty yen, her handbag, her best black suit jacket and her mother’s umbrella –

  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…