‘I’ve never lost! Never been defeated! And I never will be!’
‘So what are you going do?’ I ask him –
‘You kill one of mine,’ says Senju –
‘I’ll kill ten of yours, I swear!’
I look up at the night sky above us all. There are no stars out tonight. I shake my head again. I bow to him. I start to walk away –
‘See you later, detective,’ he shouts. ‘Don’t forget…’
Nishi and Kimura following behind me –
‘Because I never forget,’ he says –
‘I never forget a debt; not to the living and not to the dead.’
*
Men talk about the dead in their sleep. Men remember the dead in their sleep. Their fathers, their mothers, their wives and their lovers. Their family and friends, their colleagues and comrades. There are over one million urns containing the ashes of the war dead still unclaimed by their bereaved families. These urns contain the ashes from all ranks of the military and naval war dead. The First and Second Demobilization Bureaus who are responsible for the issuance of death notices and for the care of the dead say that many of the ashes have been transferred to their institution in a haphazard fashion and they are increasingly unable to verify whether all the ashes and remains of the war dead in their care actually belong to those of military personnel. The Bureaus are also encountering numerous difficulties in returning the ashes of the dead to their relatives who have often moved from their former addresses or had them destroyed. Moreover, the absence of claimants is usually as a result of death –
Their stomachs empty, their dreams lost…
Up until this June, the Demobilization Bureaus also received a grant of fifteen yen for taking care of each individual urn. However, since June, these institutions have been deprived of this grant. Lack of these finances has made it impossible for the institutions to order the construction of new boxes for depositing the ashes. Presently, new boxes are still being made out of lumber in stock but the day will soon come when the ashes of the war dead will have to be returned to their relatives in ordinary plain brown wrapping paper –
They are hungry, they are starving…
Men talk about the dead in their sleep. Men remember the dead in their sleep; their fathers, their mothers, their wives and their lovers; their family and friends, their colleagues and comrades. Men talk about ghosts and demons in their sleep –
Their masters gone…
I have sat in this borrowed chair with my head on this borrowed desk through the rest of the night. I have closed my eyes but I have not slept. I open my eyes but I do not wake. I read their reports. I read old newspapers. Now the dawn is coming up but it still feels old. Dead. Like the last light at the beginning of a long night. Lost and dead. Not a new morning. No new mornings here. I sit up in my borrowed chair. I look around. No Fujita. I close my eyes again –
Tonight I will sleep. Tonight I will sleep. Tonight I will…
I open them. I look up at the uniform standing over me –
The uniformed officer has a telegram in his hand.
*
Four officers from Takanawa are unbuttoning their uniforms. The mosquitoes circle. The four officers strip down to their underwear. The mosquitoes attack. The four officers jump into the Shiba Canal. The water stinks. The four officers swim over to the wooden door floating in the canal. The water black. The four officers guide the door towards the side of the canal where we are all stood. In the sun. The chief nods. In the heat. The four officers turn over the door. I curse. The body of a drowned man, naked and bound to the door –
Hayashi Jo naked and bound to the back of the door…
Bound with his hands and feet nailed to the door –
His hands and feet then nailed to the door…
The door then thrown into the canal –
Hayashi face down in the water…
His mouth and lungs full –
He drowns as he floats…
Bound and nailed –
I kneel before him. I say, ‘Hayashi Jo of the Minpo paper.’
*
Was it Senju or Fujita? Nobody knows his name. Everybody knows his name. Fujita or Senju? Nobody cares. Everybody cares. Senju or Fujita? The day is night. The night is day. Fujita or Senju? Black is white. White is black. Senju or Fujita? The men are the women. The women are the men. Fujita or Senju? The brave are the frightened. The frightened are the brave. Senju or Fujita? The strong are the weak. The weak are the strong. Fujita or Senju? The good are the bad. The bad are the good. Senju or Fujita? Communists should be set free. Communists should be locked up. Fujita or Senju? Strikes are legal. Strikes are illegal. Senju or Fujita? Democracy is good. Democracy is bad. Fujita or Senju? The aggressor is the victim. The victim is the aggressor. Senju or Fujita? The winners are the losers. The losers are the winners. Fujita or Senju? Japan lost the war. Japan won the war. Senju or Fujita? The living are the dead. The dead are the living. Fujita or Senju? I am alive. I am dead –
Senju or Fujita? Fujita or Senju?
I am one of the lucky ones.
*
Two dead and eight injured down at Shimbashi; the body in the Shiba Canal; it has been a bad night and a bad morning. And the Victors want answers; the Victors have summoned the chief to the Public Safety Division. Now the chief wants answers; now the chief has summoned us all back to Metropolitan Police Headquarters –
The heads of all sections. The heads of all rooms…
‘There will be no gang wars,’ says the chief. ‘I’ll ask for the closure of all the markets. I’ll ask for Eighth Army reinforcements from GHQ. But there will be no gang wars in Tokyo…
‘They think they can do what they want,’ the chief continues. ‘But they don’t appreciate the help we give them. They don’t appreciate the protection we give them. They don’t appreciate the trouble we spare them. And all I ask for is peace.’
‘But it’s not our local gangs who started this,’ says Kanehara. ‘It’s the Formosans and the mainland Chinese muscling in…’
‘And the Koreans,’ adds Inspector Adachi –
‘And the Americans are protecting them,’ says Kanehara. ‘They let these immigrant people do what they want while they punish the ordinary tekiya who are just trying to run their stalls…’
‘And we can’t step in,’ says Adachi. ‘Because if the police are seen to step in on the side of the Japanese against the Formosans or the Koreans then we risk being purged for mistreating immigrants and reverting to our old Japanese ways, ignoring human rights and abandoning democratic freedoms but, if not us, if not the police, then who is there left but the gangs themselves to protect the human rights and democratic principles, the lives and livelihoods of the tekiya?’
‘Divide and conquer,’ says Kanehara. ‘Divide and rule.’
‘And I know all that and I will tell them that,’ says the chief. ‘But you tell your men in the gangs that they’ll have to choose…’