Return to Hiroshima

by Bob Van Laerhoven

  51

  Hiroshima – the Suicide Club squat –

  Kabe-cho – Mitsuko and Reizo – March 14th 1995

  “Do you know what’s so tragic?” says the voice behind me. “I’ll tell you: my ego is bigger than my talent. I was determined to keep the information I received about you to myself, but I had to write it down, no way about it. Well, it looks as if I screwed up.”

  I turn. Reizo looks grey and sickly in this light, slumped, as if his bones are crumbling as we speak. It’s not so much the pistol in his left hand, pointing in my direction, but his posture and bulging eyes that makes me think: Yori was wrong; he’s played the misunderstood crazy genius for so long it’s taken over his mind.

  “I was twelve when I first read Mishima,” Reizo continues, talkative as ever. “I knew there and then that I had to surpass him or die. Hardly a thought for a kid of twelve, don’t you think? What else could the kid do? The insanity of Hamlet was his only option.”

  “Hamlet’s insanity was feigned, Reizo.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “How refined of you; how smart. You clearly read a lot on that island of yours. I like people who read. But then you should also know that you ultimately become what you’re pretending to be.”

  I try to figure out where the conversation is leading and what he has in mind, but I draw a blank.

  “You shuttle back and forth between reality and pretence and the show finally gets the better of you,” Reizo continues. “I thought of becoming a classical actor for a while. Our teacher used to insist that we put on the mask we were going to use in rehearsal before we arrived for class, that we had to become one with it, a complete transmutation. I was the best at it. But my storm god was a demon. Eventually, it took me by the throat.” Reizo grabs the mask of the storm god Raijin and holds it out in front of him like a lucky charm. “My feigned madness is worse than real madness. It’s a struggle for power, sublime, I’d even dare to call it divine. The best lunatics, feigned or real, never let anything get in their way.”

  I notice how much he’s enjoying the rhetoric. Words for him are like brightly coloured magic stones. But he doesn’t use them to conjure new realities, he uses them to conjure new selves.

  “I know what you think,” he blurts, self-satisfaction still written all over his face. “You think I’m a junkie, and worse, a talentless windbag. I agree with the junkie part...” He clenches his fist and pounds his heart. “... but I’m not sure how I should react to the talentless windbag charge. I said earlier that I’d like to get to know you better. You said ‘later’ when I asked about your life, as if I was a child fishing for candy. But I think your nosing about in my little basement office has introduced a touch of urgency into our relationship.”

  I say nothing. I can’t fathom him. I try to figure out the best way to overpower him and escape.

  Reizo grins. “I’ve had a fruitful afternoon, Mitsuko. Look at me: tossed around like a ragdoll by the daughter of a sort of god. Don’t say I’m wrong. The daughter of a powerful yakuza by the name of Rokurobei. I hope the undersecretary of the Brotherhood whose tongue I loosened with a fistful of drugs was telling the truth about you. Otherwise I would be very disappointed. Odd creatures, the people I work with, but handy all the same. They think I believe in their hocus pocus, but it’s nothing more than an interest in the phenomenon of sects. There are sects everywhere in Japan, thousands of them, and all because we’re two-faced, hide our true selves. Don’t you agree?” Reizo concludes with a self-satisfied grin. He waves his pistol in the air and strikes a self-mocking pose, although the pompous grandeur of a novice kabuki actor is simmering under the surface. “Beaten shitless by our Mitsuko here while the members of my club stood by and watched. What an honour!”

  “How do you know?”

  “What? About the beating?” He laughs. “I felt it.”

  “That I’m Rokurobei’s daughter.”

  He pretends he didn’t hear me. There’s something unresolved about him, an inner conflict. “But you have to realise, Mitsuko, that modern Japanese people like us aren’t much into that old gods and ghosts routine. We might invoke a kami here or a kami there, but it’s just habit. All we really want, as we stumble along and lean on society’s Zimmer for support, all we want is to fill our cup, right here right now, and forget who we really are. All those stories about a demon called Rokurobei are hopelessly – how should I put it? – out of date.”

  “If only you could write as you talk,” I say.

  Reizo turns his head lightly, stiffly, like a swallow, and points the pistol at my abdomen. My stomach muscles tense automatically. Will the bullet burn like fire or be cold as a mountain stream?

  52

  Hiroshima – restaurant Sawa No Tsuru –

  Robatayaki – Takeda, Beate, Yori – March 14th 1995

  Tenchou-san, owner of the Sawa No Tsuru restaurant is so proud of his new high-tech toilets that he’s reintroduced the old custom of requiring customers to take off their outdoor shoes before using them. Inspector Takeda exchanges his shiny shoes for a pair of rubber slippers and goes inside. He’s confused. The man in him who fears and respects the rules is irate: why did he agree to the German photographer’s suggestion that they both have dinner with the suspect to hear her account of things before taking her to the station? The man he became after commissioner Takamatsu’s reprimand senses a degree of freedom to make his own decisions and not fret too much about the consequences. The old Takeda would never have agreed to Becht’s proposal. The new Takeda is fiercely enjoying the anxiety he’s putting himself through. Surely it can’t be mere coincidence that the young man Yori claims was responsible for the attempted murder of the Belgian with a poison jellyfish is in fact a nephew of the dead ceo of the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank? If the girl was telling the truth, Reizo Shiga doesn’t get on with his parents, who don’t approve of his drug abuse and excessive lifestyle. How can he use this information to his advantage? When is the right moment to go over commissioner Takamatsu’s head and share his theory about the bank raid with a more senior police official? Takeda is so deep in thought that he doesn’t pay much attention to the refurbished toilets, the subdued lighting, the background music – just loud enough to mask embarrassing noises. All he notices is that the urinals are higher than before, in line with western norms.

  He also doesn’t pay any attention to the two men who came in behind him.

  53

  Hiroshima – the Suicide Club squat –

  Kabe-cho – Mitsuko and Reizo – March 14th 1995

  Reizo grins and relaxes his trigger finger. He’s seen my fear, he’s enjoying it.

  “How did you know who I am?” I repeat.

  “Fate is this world’s only true god. This morning, at a meeting of the Brotherhood, an organization I belong to, we were given orders to look for you. This afternoon, after our little altercation in the storeroom and the pleasant conversation that followed, in which I tried in vain to worm more information out of you, I paid a visit to the undersecretary of the organization. He knows a lot of things, and that looser Reizo Shiga, poor bastard, a mere novice in the Brotherhood, hasn’t a clue half the time. But alas, our pathetic undersecretary is also a secret junky like me. Like me he has to keep it from the others, but birds of a feather and all that. And junkies will do anything for a fix, even tell tales out of school. As soon as I knew exactly who you were, it dawned on me that my first impressions of you weren’t far off the mark: you’re a godsend for my book.”

  So he already knew that they were looking for me. That explains all the questions. I still don’t know what he’s up to. Why the cat and mouse? Does he plan to turn me in to my father? He’s had every opportunity and I’m sure my father has offered a substantial reward.

  “We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” says Reizo, still grinning. “And look who found you!”

  “Who is ‘we’?
”

  He narrows his eyes. “You don’t know the Brotherhood?”

  “Let me guess: under the leadership of a guru they call The Blessed One?”

  He grimaces. “Do you know what foreigners think is so crazy about us? That our language has thirty different ways to say ‘no’.”

  He’s still playing games. I try to push my anxiety out of the way. He called me “the daughter of a sort of god” just then. He was clearly jeering at me, but he wasn’t being sarcastic. I don’t know how much time I have before he makes a move, but if I let him think he’s in charge he might make a mistake.

  “Deny it as much as you like. I saw that guru of yours on Hashima. He’s one of my father’s Yuzonsha.” My words appear to cheer him even more. His body language tells me he doesn’t know as much as he’d have me believe. He probably thinks that he’ll come closer to realising his goals – whatever they might be – if he has more information.

  “My father won’t like it if he finds out you’ve been writing about me.” I point to the computer. “He likes to keep himself to himself.”

  Reizo takes the bait. “Who is your father?”

  “Would you write about him if you knew?” My question clearly hit the wrong button. He sticks out his tummy and pouts like an angry child.

  “You think you can mock me because you’re the daughter of some big mafia cheese. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. I have talent in abundance, but the drugs hold me back. If I gave up the dope I’d be able to write a masterpiece that would astonish the world.”

  “That’s what you want to believe. You’ll do anything to accomplish that goal. But that means you’re still not sure of yourself.”

  The transformation is astounding. He suddenly seems older, withdrawn. I sense Reizo has made a decision. For him there’s no way back.

  “No,” he says. “You’ll do anything.” He lurches towards me and I toss the heavy folder I’m holding in his direction. It takes him by surprise and he tries to avoid it. The corner of the cardboard cover hits the bridge of his nose. I push him aside and slip between the filing cabinets. I hear a shot. The bullet ricochets against metal, a deafening bang followed by a whistling sound. I run, keep running, and it’s only when I realise I’m running along a dark tunnel that I realise I made a mistake.

  I didn’t head for the stairs.

  I’m in the cellars under the building.

  I’m scared of basements. Always have been.

  Since that time on Hashima.

  54

  Hiroshima – restaurant Sawa No Tsuru –

  Robatayaki – Takeda, Becht, Yori – March 14th 1995

  He hears leather soles squeaking on the polished wooden floor. They haven’t changed into the rubber slippers by the toilet door. Inspector Takeda registers the information automatically. Kids these days have no manners, he thinks. He sees their vague reflection in the stainless steel strip above the urinal. One of them is waving something in the air and they’re heading towards him. Takeda turns, hoists his elbows to face level in a split second and lunges forward. A club whistles past his right shoulder and lands with a thud against the stainless steel wall. Takeda rams his right elbow into the voice box of the closest attacker. The man staggers backwards gasping for air. The second attacker pushes him aside and collides with Takeda as the inspector hurtles towards him. He’s small and stinks of garlic. He tries a head butt. Takeda blocks it with his forearm and forces the man into reverse. He spots the first attacker slip through the door. The second pulls a knife but doesn’t attack. His eyes dart back and forth. The man tries to divert him, stabs at Takeda’s throat. In spite of his weight, the inspector is still light on his feet. He swerves out of the way and just misses grabbing his attacker’s arm. The man turns and hares towards the toilet door. Takeda runs after him into the corridor.

  Those first attackers, the Iranians.

  They weren’t after the German photographer after all.

  55

  Hiroshima – in the tunnels under the Suicide Club squat –

  Mitsuko and Reizo – March 14th 1995

  When compared with the cellar where Reizo keeps his writing desk, the tunnel I’m in appears relatively new. The walls are greyish-white and there seems to be a source of light somewhere towards the end. There’s only silence behind me, although I was certain Reizo was following me. I continue along the corridor: a network of cellars, a mixture of smells, caustic soda and spices, briny, reminiscent of the sea. I emerge into a vaulted junction with a grill above letting in just enough daylight to make out a couple of barrels and a shapeless pile of garbage in the right hand corner. The smell of rubber is nauseating. Cellars are rare in Japan because of the danger of earthquakes. I stop. Can I go back? I’m certain Reizo won’t be afraid to use his weapon if he catches me. All I can hear is my own racing pulse, yet I sense an approaching sound, an invisible quivering of something huge coming in my direction. The quivering becomes a terrifying drone, gets louder and louder, then thunders past me and slowly fades to an almost imperceptible quiver. The sound came from behind a metal door in the right hand wall. I realise I’m in one of the Astram storage bays, Hiroshima’s almost entirely surface metro, which was built the year before when the city hosted the Asian Games. I saw some of the construction work on television and remember the first train’s maiden trip, the chain of rubber tyres flanking either side, and the reported high speeds. Only two stations are built underground because the region is mountainous and mostly unstable. They must have started to dig out the service tunnels from the cellars beneath the Suicide Club squat. I take a quick look at the garbage in the corner. Discarded tyres and strips of rubber. I try the metal door. Locked. I walk towards the pile of rubber. Perhaps I can use it to... out of the darkness Reizo appears, marching towards me with the mask of the storm god Raijin covering his face. He has a katana, a classical sword, in his right hand.

  At that moment a metro train whistles in the distance.

  Its sound is as piercing as the spontaneous howl of laughter I let out at the ridiculous sight of the young madman.

  56

  Hiroshima – Dr Adachi’s apartment near the Peace Tower –

  Takeda, Becht and Yori – March 14th 1995

  Rumours have been doing the police corps rounds of late, persistent rumours. Some are saying that a number of disgruntled officers have established links with extreme right organisations that are using the economic crisis to push through their particular vision of society. In their understanding of things, Japan isn’t made to be a parliamentary democracy. They’re determined to get back to the old aristocratic Japan with its strict hierarchical structures, and to do so by force if necessary. Hiroshima, officially the City of Peace, is a yakuza stronghold, crawling with criminal fraternities, often with extreme ideologies. Inspector Takeda is convinced, nonetheless, that there’s more to the case he’s investigating than common gangsterism. He knows the yakuza wouldn’t hesitate to set a couple of goons on a police officer and try to take him out, but only if it was worth their while. He also knows that people are more inclined to kill in the name of an ideology or religion than for simple profit. The two attackers were foreigners like the first; this time Malaysian he thinks. Did chief commissioner Takamatsu arrange with the yakuza for two teams of killers to eliminate him? Is that conceivable? The second pair was less professional than the first, although the club Takeda found in the toilet had been weighted with lead. One blow to the neck would have finished him. Takeda had to make a quick decision and that is what he did. He told Tenchou-san that a couple of men had started a fight in the toilets and that when he tried to intervene they took to their heels. He didn’t want to arouse Becht’s suspicions unnecessarily. He had initially thought that she was the target of the attacks, but the second attack had changed his mind. To be on the safe side, however, he didn’t want Becht to go back to her hotel room, not yet. So he tol
d her that his bosses wanted her to stay in a safe house for a while until they knew more about what was going on. Takeda and a colleague would keep an eye on her. He added that Yori could join her until he had tracked down Reizo Shiga and compared his version of the facts with hers. Becht protested. Why not just guard her hotel room? Takeda informed her that no one would be able to find her in a safe house and gently warned her that further protest wouldn’t be appreciated. He could have her arrested if he had to, under suspicion of aiding and abetting. He had expected her to object, appeal to her status as a foreigner, but she didn’t. Her interest in Yori, who had followed their exchange in silence in the hope that she would understand the gist of it in spite of her limited English, was clear to see. A whisper of jealousy took Takeda by surprise, but he put it down to infantile reflex. His next thought surprised him even more: he remembered bouts of jealousy as a boy, because he felt awkward, clumsy, unrefined, a half-blood, someone who didn’t really belong anywhere. The idea took him unawares. He had refused to pay attention to his life and his own emotions for years. It was like a map dotted with white unexplored regions and minefields everywhere.

  The inspector turns into the road leading to Ujina harbour. He glances in the rear-view mirror at the two young women in the back of his black and white police car, a Subaru Legacy. Takeda’s sticking his neck out by going it alone and he knows it. On one side of the quiet street, with its overhead carpet of electrical cables – typical of Hiroshima – there’s a monument erected at the end of the nineteenth century to commemorate Japan’s victory in the war against China. The monument was renamed the Peace Tower in 1947 to appease the American occupier. Takeda thinks the change of name is ridiculous: anyone looking at the warlike eagle perched on top of the monument isn’t likely to imagine that this magnificent lump of stone has anything to do with peace. It’s all about pride and dominance.