Tokyo Year Zero

I bow again. I apologize again.

‘Where’s Detective Fujita?’

Another bow, another apology.

‘That’s not an answer,’ says Adachi. ‘Just an admission.’

*

The photographer has finished his work. The ground beneath her is crushed and darker. The two men from Keiō Hospital have lifted up the body. The ground is infested with insects. The men from Keiō have lifted the body into the wooden coffin. She is stiff and refuses to bend. The two uniforms from Atago were called to help and the arms were folded, the lid fitted and secured with ropes and knots, bound. She is resisting the box. The two men from Keiō Hospital have taken her back down the hill. She is no longer here …

Now I take out my watch again –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

It is almost 3 p.m. –

I am stood on the top of a wall behind the ruined Tokugawa tombs, looking up the hill and out over a sea of bamboo grass and zelkova trees, islands of fallen stone lanterns and broken down graves; I am searching for her clothes or her bag, when suddenly I see it –

I jump down from the top of the wall into the long, long grasses and I wade through the dead leaves and weeds towards it –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …

The white cloth grinning through the long, long grasses –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …

White cloth around white bones –

Namu-amida-butsu …

I curse myself again!

Another body …

A second body wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles; a second body ten metres from the first; a second body now nothing but bones –

Tangled up in the weeds and leaves …

I curse her and I curse this place –

I curse and I curse again …

This place of shadow, of forgotten graves and lost paths, of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs and human flesh, of prostitutes and suicides in this place of assignation –

This place of silence. This place of death –

In this place of defeat and capitulation. This place of surrender and occupation. This place of ghosts –

The body now nothing but bones …

In this place of no resistance.

*

It takes three hours for us to report the finding of the second body to Metropolitan Police Headquarters. I stare at her white half-sleeved chemise. Three hours for them to send Suzuki back here to photograph the second body. I stare at her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress. Three hours for the Keiō University Hospital to send out another ambulance to take away the second body. I stare at her pink socks. Three hours for my men to seal off the crime scene and the immediate area around the second body. I stare at her white canvas shoes. Three hours for us to requisition the necessary uniformed men from the Atago, Meguro and Mita police stations in order to secure the area where the bodies were found. Their red, red rubber soles. Three hours sweating and swatting, itching and scratching, gari-gari, while I stand and I stare at this second body –

Her flesh far from here, carried in the mouths of others …

I stare at the bleached white bones of her fingers –

I stare at the bleached white bones of her hands –

Her wrists and her forearms and her elbows –

The bleached white bones of her face –

The permed hair. The yellow teeth –

Her last, contorted smile …

The shadows have lengthened now, the tall grasses and zelkova trees closer here.

*

The good detective visits the crime scene one hundred times. I have walked away from that place. The good detective knows nothing is random. I have walked out of the shadow and into the sunlight. The good detective knows in chaos lies order. I have walked back down the hill and into the temple grounds. In chaos lie answers …

But there is nothing left of the Zōjōji Temple –

Huge scorched trees, their roots to the sky …

Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate –

Branches charred and leaves lost …

In this lonely place, I stand beneath the dark eaves of the gate and I watch the ambulance drive away –

We have seen hell, we have known heaven, we have heard the last judgment and we have witnessed the fall of the gods … Under the Black Gate, a stray dog pants –

But I am one of the survivors …

His house lost, his master gone –

One of the lucky ones …

In the Year of the Dog.

*

It is another long, hot walk back to Metropolitan Police Headquarters, a walk made worse by the dirt and the dust from the trucks and the jeeps with their big white stars and their big white teeth –

The constant, constant sound of hammering –

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

I knock on the door to Chief Kita’s office. I open it. I apologize. I bow. I enter. I take my seat at the table –

Chief Kita sits at the head of the table with his back to the window, its frame still buckled from the bombs; Chief Kita, the kachō of the whole of the First Investigative Division, an old but lean man with a deeply tanned face, a close-shaven head and hard, unblinking eyes; Chief Kita, the best friend my father ever had –

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …

To his right, Chief Inspector Kanehara with Adachi –

But in the half-light, I can’t forget…

To his left Inspector Kai, leader of the First Team, and me; Inspector Minami now, leader of the Second Team –

No one is who they seem to be …

The report for the Public Safety Division is on the table. It has been translated into English, probably by Kanehara, and then typed up. It is passed round the table for all our signatures and seals –

I take out my pen. I stare at the report –

It could be Das Kapital …

The typed Roman characters –

Mein Kampf…

I sign it.

The report is returned to Chief Inspector Kanehara. Now Chief Kita nods at me and I begin my report; I repeat the timetable of the discovery and reporting of the first body; I detail the state and environment of the first body on our arrival; I recount my initial interview with the lumberjack; I defer then to Adachi who reports the timetable involving the photographer and the ambulance –

‘My initial deduction upon seeing the body was that a murder had been committed. Therefore, I ordered Inspector Minami and his men to conduct a thorough search of the immediate area surrounding the body. It was during the course of this search that Inspector Minami himself discovered the second body, which was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body.’

‘Detective Inspector Minami, please…’

‘As Chief Inspector Adachi has said, the second body was approximately ten metres from the site of the first body. The second body was badly decomposed and largely skeletal, but it appears to be the body of a young woman. However, unlike the first body, it was not naked but wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. Initial inspection and experience would suggest that death occurred between three and four weeks ago but of course that will be precisely determined by the autopsy. It is clear though that the two women did not die at the same time.’