“You mean Irukandji?”
Beate sighed. “Could be. A jellyfish. Poisonous. I didn’t believe him. I told you: there was a girl, a Japanese girl…”
Less than a minute later, the young Belgian was on a gurney being wheeled at top speed into emergency.
“You’re the one who brought the patient in,” the senior doctor repeats. Perhaps that’s the only English he can manage?
“Yes, anyone would have done the same,” says Beate. She’s aware that she sounds grumpy. “I told you... there was a girl with us who clearly knew the guy. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’m just a tourist. Can I go now?” The senior doctor and his assistant exchange a few words, seem nervous. The young doctor steps forward and makes a shallow bow. His English is much more acceptable: “The police have already been informed, madam. I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for them.”
33
Hiroshima – Suicide Club squat –
Kabe-cho – Mitsuko’s sleepless night –
morning, March 14th 1995
The clouds hung low and dark over my father’s boat. We were at sea, heading in the direction of Takahama from Hashima Island. It was June 13th 1994. I’ll never forget it. The rising sun was doing its best to tear holes in the clouds creating pools of dazzling white light. I was holding on to the rails and my knuckles were white too. That morning, the day after Crow fell over the balustrade, my father forced me to get into the boat. I hadn’t slept a wink that night, felt dizzy and lightheaded, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Crow was like a long forgotten dream that returns to haunt you from time to time in fragments.
An elderly disciple was at the helm, his gaze fixed on the horizon. The waves seemed viscous and metallic. The morning sun etched swathes of Hashima black. The concrete wall surrounding the island varied in height. From this distance Hashima looked just like Gunkan, the giant warship with which the island is always compared. My father appeared from the cabin and pointed one of his unnaturally long fingers towards the island.
“What do you think? That I like living there?” He turned to look at me, a movement that always reminded me of a salamander twisting its supple neck. His black eyes were like glass. “Someone with my blood? My lineage? Locked up on an island everyone thinks is abandoned, a forgotten rubbish dump in the middle of the sea?”
When I was thirteen, my father became obsessed for a while with the discovery that the government had dumped nuclear waste in the deepest mineshafts under Hashima at the end of the 1970s, five years after the mines had been closed and the island evacuated. The shafts had then been filled with a thick layer of cement, but that hadn’t prevented him from wandering around the abandoned city for days on end, once the most densely populated place on the planet, now “the city of ghosts”, staring at his Geiger counter. I followed him like a puppy. Sometimes I heard the thing crackle like crazy. My father would shake his head. I did exactly the same and it felt good.
In my teens my father was my idol. I knew we were different. We were the New Humans, the future. We had to be careful, because the old human race was small-minded and vindictive. They would kill us if they found out about us. We had to multiply first before we could seize power.
In hindsight, my faith in this transparent and infantile lies makes me blush with shame. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. My father’s stories and the romantic teenage world I inhabited were a perfect match. I looked at photos of girls in magazines. I compared them with my image in the mirror. I couldn’t understand why a new human like myself could be uglier than an old human. Perhaps the future was going to be so harsh and rough that people would need to be thick-skinned, tanned and tall like me just to survive.
“And you,” my father continued. “It’s time you faced up to who you are.”
“I’m the victim of the way you live your life,” I said, surprised at my daring, but a chill had entered my bones that stirred me to hostility. “It’s time I...” I couldn’t finish my sentence. I had always thought that his rage would never touch me. I was his favourite, and in spite of his unbending character he had always indulged me.
My father was a creature of the night. I rarely saw him like this, in the light of day. After so many years I must have grown accustomed to his appearance and mine. But the sight of his long neck and his Adam’s apple jumping angrily up and down still filled me with fear and trembling. My father tried to swallow his rage. “You’ve nagged me for years to be able to live somewhere else, to have contact with other people. My answer was always the same: when the time is ripe. You’re not capable of living in the outside world. I am your protector and in exchange I demand obedience. And what do I get instead? A daughter who eavesdrops on her father to find out what he’s planning. Why didn’t you just ask?”
His reference to the mini-camera surprised me. I tried not to answer. He paid no attention to my answers when he was in this kind of mood. But I couldn’t let go of his remark: you’re not capable of living in the outside world. Resentment dug itself deeper and deeper inside me. My own father found me too ugly, too clumsy, too stupid to be allowed to mix with other people.
He pointed to the mainland. “One day that will be your home. You’ll be a person with authority. You’ll change the course of your country’s history. Show yourself worthy!”
In spite of my anger I tried a little girl manoeuvre: “I’m so lonely, father.”
Bad choice. It made him angrier. “Korean prisoners of war died like flies to dig the mineshafts and apartment buildings on that godforsaken lump of rock I’ve called home for the last fifteen years. I, a refined spirit of nature, have been doomed to live in a place where the souls of the dead maraud through the streets at night in search of revenge. And you speak of loneliness?”
I’m taken aback by the amount of emotion in his words. Anger, but also frustration and sorrow. I had never associated my father with sorrow. He was right, of course. Nights on Hashima had a melancholy power that often left me longing for death. As a young girl I used to wander through the empty halls and corridors. I sometimes sensed I was being followed by a tiny figure, much smaller than me, with a doll in her right hand, eyes like a hawk, and the reddest mouth you could imagine. A doomed soul perhaps, but I wanted to be her.
He stepped towards me, pointed to the island: “There really are ghosts over there. And sometimes, you, my daughter, are one of them.”
I stuck to my guns and pretended I hadn’t heard him.
“I have a plan; we can move to Nagasaki right away.” There, it was out. There was no way back. “We can say that we’re descended from hibakusha, that we suffered genetic damage because of the bomb,” I rattled.
I still don’t know why, but my remark threw him into a rage. He lifted his huge deformed hand and I was convinced he was about to slap my face. “Silence, I tell you. Enough! You live in your own world. You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
I realise now that I couldn’t imagine anyone doing me any harm in those days, not even my father. Perhaps my hysteria was a terrified response to the sudden awareness that he was capable of more than I thought. Or was it an explosion of accumulated anger? An entire lifetime concentrated into a single instant? Before I knew it I was screaming: “I’m your prisoner! I’d rather die than live another day like this!”
His black eyes narrowed. I saw the tension in his body, but I couldn’t stop myself. “It’s your fault my mother jumped to her death in the sea!”
To my surprise he started to laugh. “Mitsuko, poor Mitsuko, is that what you really think?” He took me by the shoulders and whispered in my ear: “Don’t you remember what you did to gentle Mayumi? And to your mother?”
Me? My throat closed as if he was squeezing it with his hands. He looked at me, his face like a lump of stone ready to crush me. Before I had the chance to speak he said: “Don’t you remember what you did to the boy you called
Crow?”
The Lord of Lies. That was all I could latch onto, the only thought that made sense. I pushed his hands from my shoulders and staggered backwards. His enormous body blocked every escape. He thrust himself against me and whispered: “If I’m Rokurobei, then you’re Harionago. Think about that before you open your mouth again.”
Harionago? The female demon of death with her barbed hair? I had longed for love all my life. How dare he compare me with that bloodthirsty harpy who drove disease and epidemic into the world just to be sure she had enough souls to catch in her net. He was the one who had robbed me of everything I loved. Blood rushed to my head. “If I’m Harionago, then you would be the first to join me in hell and there would be nothing you could do about it!”
An electric shock ran from my belly to my head when he grabbed me by the throat. I’d seen him loose control before. But always with other people. I invariably had the chance to disappear, look away, pretend it wasn’t happening. In spite of the years of denial, I suddenly realised I knew exactly what he did when he lost control. I couldn’t breathe, felt dizzy, my chest heaved.
“Father,” I whispered.
His hands were already gone, but before I had the chance to breathe again he did something incomprehensible. He tore my furisode, the pretty long-sleeved kimono he liked to see me wear. He lunged forward, bit my neck, restrained me with one hand and loosened his belt with the other. As he penetrated me, burning, dry, grinding, his eyes closed, his face distorted, I watched the island behind us ablaze in the morning sun. It didn’t last long, didn’t hurt much... it was a dream and only certain details etched themselves in my mind: his Adam’s apple as he threw back his head, his strangely curved penis as he pulled out of me, spattering seed on my belly, the way he pinched his eyes tight as if he was in pain. I felt as if I had been yanked out of my own body, as if I was hovering above it all. My mind was painfully clear, but it no longer seemed attached to my body, my existence.
All his life my father had been free to indulge his every urge without concern for reasons or consequences. Who, after all, would dare stand in the way of Rokurobei, this natural manifestation, half god half human? He was ignorant of the boundary between good and evil, and had no idea what either meant.
But his reaction, disgraceful as it was, also revealed that he could feel pain, perhaps even doubt himself. He had never touched me in such a manner before, or shown any signs of desire. When I think about it, I’m sure he didn’t do it because he desired me, but because it was the only way to vent his fury. He was faced with a choice: kill your daughter or rape her. He chose the latter.
As I lay on the deck trying to cover my body with my torn clothes, he charged towards the wheelhouse, broke the helmsman’s neck like a match, and threw his body overboard. He took the helm, didn’t deign to look at me or say a word. I needed no explanation: I knew why he wanted no witnesses to what he had done.
We returned in silence to the lump of rock that had been my prison for as long as I can remember.
34
Hiroshima – metropolitan police headquarters –
Fukuyamakita – Takeda and commissioner Takamatsu –
morning, March 14th 1995
“What’s got into you, inspector Takeda?” Chief commissioner Takamatsu is standing at his desk, hunched dramatically, leaning on the tips of his fingers. “Why waste my time with these absurd theories?”
“Take a look at the facts one more time, commissioner, if you don’t mind. In 1948, the Teikoku Bank in Tokyo was raided in a bizarre attack. A man identifying himself as a Ministry of Health official informed the manager that a deadly epidemic had engulfed the area. Management and staff were asked to drink what they thought was an antidote. They did what they were told and they were all poisoned. An unusual modus operandi, don’t you think? Stranger still was the fact that the robbers only took a small sum of money. What did the federal police discover yesterday at the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank?”
The commissioner stares at inspector Takeda long and hard. Takeda begins to think he’s unwilling to give an answer or that he hasn’t understood this abrupt twist in his argument. His superior sits, leans back and says in a deceptively gentle tone: “The amount of money stolen has yet to be determined. It appears that nothing has been taken from the safes. It probably has to do with bonds and securities.”
“That only supports my conviction, commissioner. In 1948, the police arrested an artist by the name of Hirasawa Sadamichi. After attempting suicide he confessed to the raid on the Teikoku Bank. But his written statement was full of holes when it came to the modus operandi of the robbery. Taro Shiga, the manager of the bank who had also taken poison and died, is referred to in American books as “Prince Chichibu’s WWII banker”. According to the Americans, the prince had an important role to play in the disappearance of Japanese war treasures after the capitulation and...”
The chief commissioner interrupts his subordinate: “Inspector Takeda, have you been drinking? Are you suffering from one or other venereal disease that has affected your mind?”
Takeda is taken aback by the abruptness of the interruption, but is intent on saving face come what may. “The poison used during the raid on the Teikoku Bank, respected commissioner, was acetone cyanohydrin, a gas we used a great deal during the war. And the ceo of the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank in Tokio who died during the raid was Tomio Shiga, the son of Taro Shiga. This can’t be mere coincidence.”
“What are you trying to say, inspector?”
“When I heard that Tomio Shiga was among the victims his name stuck in my mind. A great many contemporary American historians are convinced that his father Taro Shiga was the true target of the strange “bank raid” because he knew where the clandestine operation to secure Japan’s war treasures after the capitulation had located its spoils. The operation was called Kin no yuri, the Golden Lily, and was among the activities of Unit 731. Luck would have it, chief commissioner, that I had the opportunity to investigate Unit 731 earlier in my career.”
“Unit 731 is a fairytale for children who like to read mangas,” the chief commissioner interrupts in the same curt tone.
“I have reason to believe otherwise.” Takeda bites his lip. In his determination to get Takamatsu on his side he has to be careful not to go too far and expose his past. That would be a disaster. He clears his throat and continues. “I think Unit 731 actually existed and that operation Golden Lily is not a fairytale. I’m also inclined to believe that a portion of Japan’s war treasures has yet to be found and that someone is determined to get his hands on them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tomio Shiga knew more than he was willing to reveal and that he died for his silence just like his father decades earlier.”
The commissioner shakes his head as if he’s talking to a retarded child: “And you, inspector Takeda, want me to take this infantile fantasy of yours to the head of the National Guard and make myself immortally ridiculous? Have you perhaps become obsessed by such fables and by the twisted convolutions of your own mind?”
The inspector folds his hands behind his back, his right fist in his left. He’s relieved that he said nothing to the commissioner about the secret Unit 731 he had heard about from a man he had believed for a short time to be his father. Since that encounter, which took place twenty-two years earlier, Takeda had continued to search for information on Unit 731 and the book he had recently bought by the American scholar Hal Gold had been very informative.
“Tomio Shiga, commissioner, may have been killed because he knew something about operation Golden Lily, something he refused to divulge, or because he had revealed too much. If you ask me the bank raid was just an excuse to blur Shiga’s death. I also think my theory is worth investigating.” As Takeda is formulating his conclusion one more time he can see in the expression on the chief commissioner’s face that he’s gone too far. Imaginative lines of investigation don’t tend to be appreciated in the Japanese
police force. But he still finds the harshness of chief commissioner Takamatsu’s reaction difficult to understand. He only knows that he can’t turn back, nor does he want to. The same obstinacy that haunted Takeda’s younger years tightens around his chest like a band of steel.
The chief commissioner joins his hands. ‘Fine, inspector, you refuse to let go of this insanity? Well, your foolishness demands serious measures. As of now you are off the case.”
Takeda stands at Takamatsu’s desk, his back straight. What had he expected? He can’t remember. Anything but this.
“You should be grateful I don’t have you demoted,” the chief commissioner concludes with an icy glance. Takeda opens his mouth, but is able to control himself. Takamatsu puts on his glasses, lifts a sheet of paper from his desk and throws it at Takeda. “You’re on a new case. It should give you the chance to relax those overstressed brain cells. We were contacted this morning by the people at Funairi Hospital. Apparently someone tried to kill a foreigner, a Belgian. An unusual weapon, if I’m not mistaken. With your language skills and your penchant for exotic theories, it should be right up your street.”
The paper lands on the floor. Takeda has to bend down to pick it up. He straightens himself, red blotches on his cheeks.
“At your command, sir.”
Takeda is almost at the door when he hears Takamatsu’s voice behind him. “You’re familiar with the National Guard, inspector? They don’t like the local police disturbing their investigations with insane conspiracy theories involving the imperial family. You would do better to keep your mouth shut about those fantasies of yours, Takeda. You can curse me now, but one day you’ll be grateful.”
“Is that a threat, chief commissioner?”
“I’m protecting you, inspector, try to get that into your head.”
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