IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, it is Wednesday 4 February, and I am standing outside the Seibo Hospital with all the other reporters and all the photographers. In the Fictional City, we are watching the survivors leave the hospital, watching them bow and thank the nurses and the doctors, their arms full of presents, full of flowers. In the Fictional City, all the other reporters are shouting out –
‘Mr Yoshida! Mr Tanaka! Miss Akuzawa …
‘Miss Murata! Over here, Miss Murata …’
Her eyes searching through the shouts of all the reporters, searching through the flashes of all the photographers –
‘Miss Murata! Over here, Miss Murata …’
Her lips smiling through the shouts and through the flashes, her eyes searching, lost and not smiling –
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ says Matsuda, the photographer from the Yomiuri. ‘She’ll be on every front page tomorrow …’
And now the police are leading her away through the crowds, taking her away to their car, with her arms full of presents, full of flowers, and I am walking away among all the other reporters and the photographers, with our heads full of stories, full of fictions –
‘Lucky she’s so good-looking,’ laughs Matsuda, tapping his camera, winking at me. ‘Sell more papers for us …’
In the Fictional City, back at my desk in the Yomiuri building, I stare at Matsuda’s photographs and I write another story:
POISON SURVIVORS LEAVE HOSPITAL
Happy over their narrow escape with death, the four lucky survivors of the Teikoku Bank ‘Poison Holdup’ case were discharged as fully recovered from the Seibo Hospital, Wednesday. Shown as they received presents from congratulating friends are: (Left to right) Acting Manager Yoshida Takejiro, 44, Miss Murata Masako, 22, and Tanaka Norikazu, 20. They revisited the scene of the crime to reconstruct what had taken place for the police investigators. The first inkling of the tragedy was made known when the attention of passers-by was attracted by the beautiful Miss Murata who, despite her rapidly failing consciousness, had bravely managed to drag her agonized body into the street.
I stop writing. I start reading. I stop reading–
‘I know only through luck have I survived so many friends… But night after night, in dream after dream, I hear these friends saying of me: “Those who survive are stronger.”
‘And I hate myself. I hate myself…’
I stand up. I put on my coat.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, it is night again, night again as I walk her streets, as I hear her stories, from Nihonbashi up to Hongo, from Hongō and onto Kasuga-dōri, along Kasuga-dōri then down Shinobazu-dōri, down Shinobazu-dōri and onto Mejiro-dōri, along Mejiro-dōri onto Yamate-dōri, Yamate-dōri to Shiinamachi –
But I do not go to the scene of the crime, I go to her house, Murata Masako’s house. In this Fictional City, in its long, long night, I stand across the street from her house. Is she awake? Her house is dark. Or is she sleeping? The lights off. Dreaming? The curtains closed. Dreaming that dream again?
‘And I hate myself. I hate
The footsteps in the shadows, the grip on my shoulder, the voice at my back, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’
I try to turn, the grip too tight –
‘Don’t move, just talk!’
‘I’m a journalist,’ I say. ‘From the Yomiuri.’
The hand inside my coat, inside my jacket, my pocket now my wallet. The grip relaxed, a torchlight on –
I spin round, shove him in his chest, snatch back my wallet and now say, ‘Who are you?’
The man smiles, the man before me, in his hat and in his cape, and he bellows, ‘I am Shimizu Kogorō, Occult-Tantei. Head of the Nagasaki branch of the Mejiro Security Association …’
Across the street, her house is no longer dark, the lights on and the curtains open, a face at the window –
Her face at the window, afraid.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in a dancehall on the Ginza, with its heavy drapes and broken ventilation, its bad perfume and cheap pomade, through the cigarette smoke on the sticky floor, young men in zoot suits and aloha shirts are cheek-to-cheek with the hostesses and their cracked faces, their acne-scars, dancing to a swing band in the reflecting lights, in this dancehall on the Ginza, in this Fictional City, I am waiting for a character, waiting for their story, looking at the door and fiddling with my watch, but tonight he does not show, tonight he stands me up, no character, no story, not tonight, but here in the cigarette smoke, tonight in the reflecting lights, I open my notebook and I read through my pencil-marks, for there is always a character, always a story somewhere in the Fictional City.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, a new day, a new story, another story for another day; there is always another day, there is always another story in the Fictional City:
NEIGHBOURHOOD INVESTIGATIVE HQ
A local organization named Mejiro Chian Kyōkai Nagasaki Shibu has founded a ‘Civil Investigative Headquarters’ because ‘the locals will be upset unless the [Teigin] case is solved quickly,’ said the Chief of the HQ, Mr Shimizu.
The HQ is located in the office of the Nagasaki Shrine, and their investigation is mostly focused on the killer’s tracks. They summon those who had been in the vicinity of the crime scene, and who had hurried to rescue the victims, as well as local children who may have also witnessed the crime. Shimizu and his team plan to gather up all these testimonies and give their reports to Mejiro Police Station.
Each member of the Interview Team runs a separate district of the neighbourhood and witnesses are summoned to the Nagasaki Shrine HQ, even in the night, to be questioned by these amateur cops. For now, Chief Shimizu ignores his own business and devotes himself entirely to the investigation, twenty four hours a day. ‘I take 5 or 6 Hiropon injections per day but, what-the-heck, I’ll do beyond my best till we get him,’ said Mr Shimizu, and he will not disband the HQ until the killer is caught.
However, one local housewife complained, ‘I really wish the killer would be caught very soon, or he [Mr Shimizu] will be back to ask us for another donation to his association!’
In the Fictional City, I put my head down on my desk, I close my eyes, and I pretend to sleep.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I knock on her door and I try to open it, but her door is locked and so I knock again, and I wait –
‘Who is it?’ she says from behind the door.
‘It’s Takeuchi,’ I say. ‘From the Yomiuri.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Well, I just wondered if you’d come for a coffee with me.’
‘Why?’ she asks.
‘Well, actually I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I suppose I just wanted to see you, to see how you are, not for a story. Just…’
The lock turns now. The door opens –
Miss Murata Masako stares at me –
I ask, ‘Do you remember me?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I remember you, Takeuchi Riichi of the Yomiuri, in your white coat, pretending to be a doctor.’
I bow and I say, ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘So you want to take me for coffee as an apology, is that it?’
I smile and I say, ‘Well, maybe. Yes …’
‘OK, then,’ she says and, in the genkan to her house, she reaches for her coat and puts it on, then steps out of a pair of sandals and into a pair of shoes, and finally she ties a scarf around her face, over her hair, and says, ‘Come on, then.’