Tokyo Redux

by David Peace

  Richard Strauss had replaced the news – thank God – as he carried his clothes through the living-dining-kitchen room into the bathroom, though it was his Cello Sonata Opus 6, of all things; nothing jolly, not these days. He took off his pajama top and began to wash, then put on his undershirt, took off his pajama bottoms, and put on his shorts, wishing that whenever he heard Richard Strauss, whose music he liked, and liked very much, he wasn’t always reminded of that damn quote by Toscanini: To Richard Strauss, the composer, I take off my hat; to Richard Strauss, the man, I put it on again…

  He felt suddenly breathless, his heart riven by palpitations, his eyes watering again. He gripped the edge of the basin, tried to catch his breath, to wait for the palpitations to pass. He blinked, wiped his eyes with his fingers, then blinked again and saw himself in the mirror above the basin. He stared at the reflection of the seventy-four-year-old American man, alone in the bathroom mirror of a fourth-floor apartment in Yushima, Tokyo, and he watched his eyes meet his own, saw his lips move, and heard him say, But you do know why, don’t you, dear? You know damn well why –

  Rei, rei, said the voices of ghosts, the ghosts talking again, the shadows around you again. Rei, rei…

  Go away, he said and closed his eyes. Please.

  But where would we go, what would we do? Wherever you have been, we have been; whatever you have done, we have done; wherever you will go, we will go…

  Eyes closed, he said, Please, no.

  Listen, they said, listen: the telephone is ringing.

  * * *

  —

  You get the call, you heed the call: and you run, yes, you ran, to Frank in his palace, the Whiz in his Rat Palace, the black heart of our white sepulcher, in the middle of the American Century: between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, by the waters of the Reflecting Pool, just a collapsing, crumbling, tin-roofed shanty, in a row of temporary War Department buildings, this is the Rat Palace, the set-up back then: they lead you down its dank corridors, drip-drop, pipes leaking, water falling, drip-drop, lights flickering, vermin scuttling: clickety-click, the rattles in the dark, the scratches from the shadows, clickety-click: they leave you in the Waiting Room, drip-drop, clickety-click, leave you waiting with the women: at two tables, in two chairs, the two women, one fat, one thin, dressed in black, under umbrellas black, one handle taped to a hatstand, one handle taped to a lampstand, drip-drop, clickety-click, they are knitting with black wool, their eyes downcast and never raised: they guard the approach, they keep the gate, the gate to the Director, the door to Frank.

  Minutes click, they drip, pass into hours, then the thin one gets up from her chair, walks straight up to you, still with eyes downcast, still knitting with black wool, she whispers, You are expected. Knock once, then wait.

  And you rise from your chair, and you walk to the door, and you knock once and you wait –

  Come, shouts a voice, his voice, from behind the door, through the wood. Come, it said, and come you come.

  Come in, Don, come in, says Frank, standing behind his desk, walking around his desk, shaking your hand and closing the door, gripping your elbow, sitting you down, in a single chair, before his desk: Frank back behind his desk, sat back on his throne, the piles of paper stacked up on his desk before him, a map of the world pinned up on the wall behind him: pinned and mounted, colored and defaced, mostly blue, partly red, with patches of black, a smudge of yellow.

  Frank picks up a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red from his desk, unscrews the top, and says, Scotch, Don?

  Thank you, you say. Thank you, sir.

  Frank nods, Frank smiles as he pours out the Scotch, as he hands you your glass: Allen speaks very highly of you, Don. He says you’re the man for me, just the man for the job.

  Thank you, sir, you say again.

  Frank offers you a cigarette, lights one for you and one for him, then says, Allen and Jim, they both agree. Tells me you speak the language, and Chinese, studied in Cambridge, England. They say you did a good job in Europe, too.

  That’s very kind of them, sir, you say.

  Franks stubs out his cigarette, gets up from his chair, turns to the map, his palm over the East, the red and the yellow, and says, Kindness cost us half of Korea, going to lose us China. But I’ll be damned if we gonna lose Japan, Don. The blood we spilled, the lives we lost. No goddamned fucking way we gonna lose Japan, Don. Time for goddamn kindness is over – you hear me, Don? You fucking hear me, Don?

  Yes, sir, you say. I hear you, sir.

  Frank stares at you, Frank nods at you. He downs his drink, you down your drink. He pours you another, then one for himself, shakes his head, and says, Country is a goddamn tinderbox, Don. One spark, Don, one fucking spark and the place is gone, Don, the place is fucking lost.

  You drink, you nod, then say, What about SCAP, sir?

  SCAP’s the goddamn problem, Don, why I need you out there, Don. Mac’s too busy playing God with the natives, while his High Priests fight their own little wars, feathering their nests and fucking the locals. Fine with me, Don, all fine with me, ’cept Mac won’t let us anywhere near the goddamn place, hellbent on keeping us out, him and his little guard dog Willoughby. They’ve stood in our way since Day One, Don, slammed the door shut in our faces, Don, keeping us out and in the dark, sharing nothing, doing nothing, while the whole fucking place turns red under their goddamn noses, Don.

  I see, sir, you say, then nod and drink again.

  He fills your glass again, then his own again, stares at you again, and says, Do you, Don, do you really, Don? Because I see it, Don, I fucking see it, because I’ve seen it before, Don, I’ve fucking seen it all before – turning back to the map on the wall, slapping the map with his palm – France, Italy, and Greece, the whole of goddamn Eastern Europe, Don. I’ve had my hands full of this shit for the last three years, my hands full of shit and blood, Don. Argonauts betrayed, nightingales slaughtered –

  From here to Shanghai and back again, we been robbed by gangsters, duped by Commies, but not anymore, Don, not in Japan, Don, not on my watch, Don, not in Japan.

  Yes, sir, no, sir, you say. Of course, sir.

  Frank sits down, downs his drink, then nods and says, We’re deaf, dumb, and blind out there, Don. Deaf, dumb, and blind. You’re going to be our eyes and ears, Don, the mouth that speaks the truth, Don, tells us what the fuck is going on.

  Yes, sir, of course, sir, and so my cover, sir?

  Frank moves the bottle, Frank opens a file, looks down, and reads, DipSec, a vacancy in the Economic Section.

  I see, sir, you say, but then you say, But what about General Willoughby, sir? Won’t he know, sir?

  Frank closes the file, opens his mouth, and laughs, then says, Your grandfather was Bavarian, am I right, Don? You went to school in Cambridge, England, yeah? Baron von Willoughby, he’ll be too busy trying to suck your damn cock, Don, to worry who the fuck sent you and why, right, Don?

  Yes, sir, you say. I see, sir, thank you, sir.

  Frank laughs again, Frank nods again, then Frank stands up again and says, Go down the corridor, go see the doc, then get yourself down to Arlington, on the first flight out to the coast, Don. Not a moment to lose, Don, yeah?

  Yes, sir, you say again, standing up. Thank you, sir.

  Good man, Don. Goodbye, Don.

  You open the door, you close the door: clickety-click, back through the waiting room, down another dank corridor, drip-drop, to another door, to knock and to wait again for –

  Come, sighs a voice, a tired voice, behind another door, through more wood. Come, and come again, you come.

  Opened thirty-six new stations in the last six months, you know, says the old doctor, looking down at the forms on his desk. Anybody with warm blood and a pulse will do – so who are you and where we sending you, son?

  Donald Reichenbach, doc, you say, to Tokyo,
doc.

  The doctor looks up from his forms, his face unshaven, sleeves stained with ink and with blood. He stares at you and says, Well, I hope you last longer than the last man we sent.

  What happened to him, doc, you ask.

  He smiles, he says, Hung himself, so I hear.

  Oh, you say, and then, I see, doc.

  He smiles again, stands up, and says, You’ve not been hearing voices, have you, seeing visions, I trust?

  Not recently, doc, you laugh.

  He does not laugh, does not even smile. He picks up a pair of calipers and a stethoscope, walks toward you in a pair of bedroom slippers, and nods, then says, Strip off down to your shorts and socks then, let me see and hear who you are then, see and hear what we’re shipping out there this time.

  * * *

  —

  Breathe in, said Doctor Morgan. And now hold it, please…

  His socks not touching the floor, Donald Reichenbach sat in his shorts on a towel on the edge of the bed in the small examination room in the International Medical Clinic, breathing in, holding the breath, looking down at the paunch of his belly, the blemishes and the spots, the old scars.

  And now out again, please.

  He sat up straight, shoulders back, pulling in his stomach as he breathed out, his eyes watering again.

  Doctor Morgan removed the ear-tips of the stethoscope. He sat back down in the swivel chair at the narrow desk and said, You’re still not smoking, I hope?

  For my sins, said Donald Reichenbach, sadly.

  How much are you drinking?

  Much less, said Donald Reichenbach.

  Doctor Morgan shook his head, frowned, and said, And how much less is “much less” exactly…?

  No more whisky, just the odd glass of shōchū on a Friday, if that’s still allowed, doc?

  How about beer?

  Don’t mind if I do, said Donald Reichenbach, smiling at his own joke. Hardly counts as drinking now, does it?

  Doctor Morgan sighed: You’re putting on weight again and your blood pressure’s up again. The weight is straining your heart and your lungs.

  I grow old, I grow old, said Donald Reichenbach, smiling at Doctor Morgan. The bottoms of my trousers rolled.

  Doctor Morgan smiled back at the old man in his shorts and socks perched on the edge of the bed and said, Quite, but we can still slow the speed of our exits, if we so choose.

  Both men were around the same age; both had been here around the same length of time.

  But one wouldn’t want to outstay one’s welcome, said Donald Reichenbach. That would be most impolite.

  Doctor Morgan laughed: Don’t be so dramatic, Donald. You’re not yet seventy-five, man. Just look at the Emperor – he’s got almost fifteen years on you. Why do you always have to be so goddamn dramatic about everything?

  Whoever would have thought such a skinny little thing of a man would be such a stayer, said Donald Reichenbach, reaching for his clothes in the plastic basket beside the bed.

  Doctor Morgan laughed again: Oh, come on. He didn’t slit his belly back then, so he’s hardly going to hurry off now, is he? Nothing if not a stayer, our Tennō.

  Donald Reichenbach picked out his T-shirt from the basket and pulled it over his head as he said, How long has he got, do you think? In your expert, professional opinion?

  As long as they need him, I suppose, to get things prepared, everything in order, in its proper place.

  Donald Reichenbach stepped into, then pulled on his pants: They’ve had long enough.

  Oh, come on, said Doctor Morgan again. They’re completely useless at planning ahead, you know that. Always hoping the worst won’t happen, and then, when it does, saying it can’t be helped. Nothing to be done etcetera, etcetera.

  Donald Reichenbach zipped up his flies, buttoned his pants, and fastened his belt: Shikata ga nai.

  It’s rather contagious, said Doctor Morgan, looking at Donald Reichenbach. Highly infectious.

  Donald Reichenbach put on and then began to button up his shirt: You think he’ll see in the new year?

  He’s a survivor, said Doctor Morgan. We all are, those of us who lived through all that. We had to be, didn’t we?

  Not all of us did, doc.

  No, Donald, but we did, and we do.

  Donald Reichenbach turned up his collar, put his tie around his neck, and began to fasten it: I often wonder how on earth we did survive, then why on earth we bothered.

  Did you, said Doctor Morgan. Do you?

  Donald Reichenbach picked up his watch from the bottom of the basket and put it on: Don’t you?

  Every day I sit in this surgery, Donald, I’m reminded of the greatest contradiction of our nature.

  Which is…?

  We are self-destructive creatures, yet hellbent on self-preservation, laughed Doctor Morgan. Eternally so.

  The internal telephone on the narrow desk buzzed once and flashed red, as it always seemed to do after fifteen minutes.

  Donald Reichenbach glanced at his watch, then looked back up at Doctor Morgan and lowered his voice as he said, I’ve been having very bad dreams again.

  The price of sleep, I’m afraid.

  I received a letter from America, from a woman.

  How very disappointing for you, said Doctor Morgan, his turn now to smile at his own joke.

  Now she’s here, she rang this morning, whispered Donald Reichenbach, his eyes watering again. She wants to meet, says she needs to talk.

  About what?

  But that’s it, she didn’t say.

  Doctor Morgan stood up and said, Donald, dear, you’re an institution, a Tokyo landmark, a sight to be seen and be met. Of course she wants to meet the Great Translator.

  Other people’s words, sniffed Donald Reichenbach. Ten, twenty years from now, it’ll all be done by computers.

  Doctor Morgan glanced at his watch and said, And so not worth reading, nor, then, worrying about.

  Like my own poetry and prose, sighed Donald Reichenbach. Rejected, and not even politely.

  Doctor Morgan had opened the door: Donald, dear, you’re turning into your mother – didn’t you say her heart had only enough room for her own miseries and sorrows?

  You don’t understand, said Donald Reichenbach, taking out his handkerchief, dabbing his eyes. I’ve got a very bad feeling, a terrible, terrible feeling…

  Doctor Morgan patted Donald Reichenbach on his shoulder. He helped him to his feet, pushing him toward the doorway, the exit and out, laughing as he said again, Donald, dear, for as long as I’ve known you, since the day we first met, you’ve always had a very bad feeling, a terrible feeling.

  * * *

  —

  Dread-filled and fearful, the flight makes you anxious, makes you nervous, and this is just the beginning: the beginning of the journey, the process: the flight from Washington to Los Angeles is routine, and scheduled; the flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo is not routine, not on any schedule. It leaves in the middle of the night, the American night, in the middle of the century, the American Century, from an airstrip on the edge of the airport: twenty-three passengers walk out to the airstrip with their luggage, report to a hut surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by a sentry: the hut dark, the gate locked, you set down your suitcase, your briefcase in the dirt and you look at the watch on your wrist, you bite at the nails of your fingers.

  Don’t worry, the sentry tells you. Them flying bastards only come along when they’re good and ready. You best just sit yourself down on your bags and wait.

  You take off your hat, toss it down on the suitcase, take out a pack of cigarettes from your raincoat, then a cigarette from the pack, search your coat, then your jacket for a light: you find the light, light the cigarette, then look up into the night sky, blow smoke up toward the stars, watch it drift across the moon,
the summer moon, and wait.

  Ten cigarettes, one hour later, the captain, the sergeant, and two other crew arrive at the gate to the hut: the captain, the sergeant, they crack jokes with the sentry, jokes about the passengers sat on their bags by the gate, then they go inside the hut, switch on the light, and then later, ten, twenty minutes later, they tell the sentry to let you bastards in now, all in now.

  You stub out your cigarette in the dirt, pick up your hat, put it on, then pick up your suitcase, your briefcase and walk through the gate, into the hut: you sit down on a narrow bench, listen to the mandatory safety briefing from the captain:

  Now see here, you bastards, the C-54 is a mighty good aircraft. But even the best aircraft in the world sometimes have to ditch, and the journey you’re going on is mostly over water, over sea. Now I never heard of no C-54 ditching, but if she does go down, this is what you bastards do: you grab hold of anything yellow, because all of the life-saving gear is painted yellow, and everything yellow will float. That’s all you bastards need to know, all you bastards need to remember –

  Everything yellow will float.

  You pick up your suitcase, your briefcase, follow the captain, the crew, your fellow travelers out of the hut, through the gate, along the perimeter of the airport to the airstrip, where the Douglas C-54 Skymaster is crouched, waiting.

  You leave your suitcase with the other cases on the airstrip beneath the plane, then walk up the steps to the door: at the top of the steps you stop, put your hand on the brim of your hat, grip the brim of your hat tight, turn around, and look for the land, but the land is dark, dark and lost in the pitch of the night, you look up for the stars, but the stars are gone, gone and hidden away in the night: you turn back to the doors of the aircraft, take off your hat, step inside the plane: this C-54 is a troop carrier, with only benches, not seats: you sit down on one of the canvas benches along one of the sides of the plane, two straps hanging down behind you: you turn to your left, nod to the man on your left, you pull the strap down over your left shoulder and fasten it tight, then you turn to your right, nod to the man on your right, pull the other strap down over your right shoulder and fasten it tight: you put your hat on your briefcase, your briefcase on your knees, then pull the strap from the left and the strap from the right together and fasten them tight, then, your back against the metal hull of the plane, you wait.