Tokyo Year Zero

‘In the May air raids,’ he says.

‘How did you find the body, then?’ I ask the boiler-man –

‘With this,’ he replies, and holds up an electric torch. ‘Pass it over here,’ I tell the boiler-man –

The boiler-man gets to his feet, mumbling about batteries, and brings the torch over to Fujita and me –

I snatch it from him.

I take out my handkerchief. I put it over my nose and my mouth. I peer back down the steps –

I switch on the torch –

I shine the light across the black pool of sewage water, the water about a metre deep, furniture sticking up here and there out of the pool. Against the furthest wall a wardrobe door hangs open –

She is down here. She is down here. Down here …

I switch off the torch. I turn back from the hole. I take off my boots. I take off my socks. I start to unbutton my shirt –

‘You’re never going in there, are you?’ asks the caretaker.

‘That was my question too,’ laughs Fujita –

I unbutton my trousers. I take them off –

‘There are rats down there,’ says the caretaker. ‘And that water’s poisonous. A bite or a cut and you’ll be…’

I say, ‘But she’s not going to walk out of there, is she?’

Fujita starts to unbutton his shirt now, cursing –

‘Just another corpse,’ he says –

‘You two as well,’ I say to the two uniforms from Shinagawa. ‘One of you inside, one of you holding these doors open…’

I tie my dirty handkerchief tight around my face –

I put my boots back on. I pick up the torch –

Now one, two, three steps down I go –

Fujita behind me, still cursing –

‘Nishi back in the office…’

I can feel the floor of the shelter beneath the water, the water up to my knees. I can hear the mosquitoes and I can sense the rats –

The water up to my waist, I wade towards the wardrobe –

My boots slip beneath the water, my legs stumble –

My knee bangs into the corner of a table –

I pray for a bruise, a bruise not a cut –

I reach the far side of the shelter –

I reach the wardrobe doors –

She is in here. In here …

I glimpse her as I pull at the doors, but the doors are stuck, submerged furniture trapping her within, closing the doors –

Detective Fujita holds the torch as the uniformed officer and I clear the chairs and the tables away, piece by piece –

Piece by piece until the doors swing open –

The doors swing open and, she is here …

The body bloated in places, punctured in others –

Pieces of flesh here, but only bones there –

Her hair hangs down across her skull –

Teeth parted as though to speak –

To whisper, I am here …

Now the uniform holds the torch as Fujita and I take the body between us, cold here, as we carry and then hoist it out of the black water, warm there, up the dank steps, hard here, out –

Out into the air, soft there, out into the sun –

Panting and sweating like dogs …

Fujita, the uniform and I flat on our backs in the dirt, the badly decomposed and naked body of a young woman between us –

Bloated, punctured, flesh and bones, hair and teeth …

I use my jacket to wipe myself, to dry myself –

I smoke a Chrysanthemum cigarette –

Now I turn to the two men sat in the shade, the caretaker and the boiler-man, and I say, ‘You told these officers that you think this might be the body of a Miyazaki Mitsuko…’

Flesh and bones, hair and teeth …

The caretaker nods his head.

‘Why did you say that?’ I ask him. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Well, it was always a bit strange,’ he says. ‘The way she left and never came back. Never went home and never back here…’

‘But thousands of people have gone missing,’ says Fujita. ‘Who knows how many people have been killed in the raids?’

‘Yes,’ says the caretaker. ‘But she left after the first raids on this place and she never arrived back in Nagasaki…’

‘Who says so?’ I ask him. ‘Her parents?’

‘They might have been lying,’ says Fujita. ‘To keep their daughter from coming back to Tokyo…’

The caretaker shrugs. The caretaker says, ‘Well, if she did get back to Nagasaki, she’s as good as dead anyway…’

I finish my cigarette. I nod at the body in the dirt and I ask, ‘Is there any way you could identify this as her?’

The caretaker looks at the remains of the corpse on the ground. He looks away again. He shakes his head –

‘Not like that,’ he says. ‘All I remember is that she had a watch with her name engraved on its back. It was a present from her father when she moved to Tokyo. Very proud of it, she was…’

Fujita puts his handkerchief back over his mouth –

He crouches down again. He shakes his head –

There’s no watch on the wrist of this corpse –

I nod back towards the air-raid shelter and say to Detective Fujita, ‘It might still be down there somewhere…’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And it might not be.’

‘How about you?’ I ask the boiler-man. ‘Did you know her?’

The boiler-man shakes his head. He says, ‘Before my time.’

‘He only started here this June,’ says the caretaker. ‘And Miyazaki was last seen around here at the end of May.’

I ask, ‘Can you remember the exact dates?’

He tilts his head to one side. He closes his eyes. He screws them up tight. Then he opens his eyes again and shakes his head –

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But I lose track of the time…’

I can hear an engine now. I can hear a jeep …

I turn round as the vehicle approaches –

It is a military police vehicle –

It is the Kempeitai.

The jeep stops and two Kempei officers get out of the front, both wearing side-arms and swords. They are accompanied by two older men sporting the armbands of the Neighbourhood Association –

I want to applaud them. The Kempeitai. I want to cheer –

No one wants a case. Not today. Not now …

This body was found on military property; this is their dominion, this is their body, this is their case.

Detective Fujita and I step forward. Fujita and I bow deeply –

These two Kempei officers look very much like Fujita and I; the older man is in his late forties, the other in his late thirties …

Detective Fujita and I introduce ourselves to the men –

I am looking in a mirror. I am looking at myself…

We apologize for being on military property –

But they are soldiers, we’re just police …

There are briefer reciprocal bows –

This is their city, their year …

The younger officer introduces the older man as Captain Muto and himself as Corporal Katayama –

I am looking in a mirror …

I bow again and now I make my report to the two Kempei officers, the two men from the Neighbourhood Association still standing close enough to hear what I am telling them –

The times and dates. Places and names …

I finish my report and I bow again –

They glance at their watches.

Now Captain Muto, the older of the two Kempei officers, walks over to the corpse stretched out in the dust. He stands and he stares at the body for a while before turning back to Fujita and me –