Tokyo Year Zero

Father. Father…

My children do not run to greet me. My children do not smile when they see me. They stand before me now but do not speak –

Their heads shaved. Their eyebrows shaved –

‘Are you well?’ I ask each of them –

Heads bowed, they both nod –

I lift their faces to mine, lift their little faces to the light, and Masaki looks up at me now and smiles, but Sonoko still can’t look up, she still cannot smile, her eyelids swollen and her features distorted –

I force open her eyelids with my fingers –

Her eyes inflamed and festering –

The eyes of a dead fish –

Pinkeye.

I turn to my wife. ‘When did you last take her to the doctor?’

‘But I think her eyes are getting a little better,’ says my wife. ‘Two days ago, they were so swollen and so inflamed that she could not see anything at all. So I took her to the doctor then and…’

‘Maybe it’s a bacterial infection, not pinkeye?’

‘That’s what I said to the doctor.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘It’s just pinkeye.’

‘Just pinkeye!’ I shout. ‘Just look at her. She still can’t see. She could be permanently blinded! She could be blinded forever!’

‘I know,’ says my wife. ‘But the doctor said be patient.’

‘Doctors make mistakes,’ I say. ‘They usually do.’

‘But what should I do?’ asks my wife. ‘Tell…’

I ask, ‘Which doctor did you take her to?’

‘To our usual doctor,’ replies my wife.

I look at my watch. ‘I’ll take her…’

‘Take her where?’ asks my wife –

‘To a different doctor I know.’

‘What about the money…’

‘Forget the money!’

*

Through the doors of the Atago police station. Up the stairs of the Atago police station. My shirt is stuck to my back. My trousers wet behind my knees. I walk along the corridor. I walk past the banner, two metres tall and fifty centimetres wide in bright-red stitching:

Special Investigation Headquarters.

I should have collected all my belongings and made these arrangements yesterday. I would then have saved myself this –

This sudden silence. This sudden blindness –

There have been complaints about you…

But at least Hattori is not here this morning; probably up at Headquarters for the morning meeting with Kai, Kanehara, Adachi and the chief. But I’m not going to ask Takeda, Sanada, Shimoda, Nishi, Kimura or Ishida, I’m not going to ask them –

I hate them. I hate them all…

Ishida looks up. Now Ishida asks, ‘Are you here for me?’

Ishida has his orders…

‘It’s a bit early yet,’ I tell him. ‘And I’ve some things to do before we leave for Tochigi, so I’ll meet you at the ticket gate of the Asakusa Tōbu station at three o’clock this afternoon…’

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku…

Ishida nods. Ishida says, ‘I’ve been told to buy the tickets…’

‘Well, I hope they’ve given you the money, then.’

Ishida nods again. ‘I’ve enough for three days.’

‘I won’t be needing a return ticket,’ I laugh –

But no one else laughs. No one even smiles…

Ishida just asks, ‘How much rice should I bring with me?’

‘Rice?’ I ask him. ‘Surely we’ll be bringing rice back?’

‘I heard we’ll not find an inn unless we take rice.’

‘Do you have any rice, detective?’ I ask him –

Ishida whispers, ‘I have a little at home…’

‘Then bring enough for both of us,’ I say and I turn to go –

‘Why should he take any rice for you?’ asks Kimura –

I turn back round. I ask him, ‘What did you say?’

‘I said, why should he bring any rice for you,’ repeats Detective Kimura. ‘You’re not his boss any more, are you?’

‘Maybe not now,’ I tell him. ‘And maybe not in this room. But on that train and in Tochigi, I’ll still be the senior officer…’

‘Senior officer? Really?’ snorts Detective Kimura now. ‘Well, I’d save my rice if I were you, Detective Ishida…’

I walk over to Detective Kimura and I pick up one of the telephones on the desk, one of the telephones that cannot ring, and I smash it into the side of Kimura’s face and then, as he cries out and reaches up to hold his face, I punch him in his gut and I bend his left hand back until he howls out in pain and begs me to stop as I slap him and slap him and slap him, again and again and again across his face and then I push him back onto his desk and I watch him roll onto the floor and now I lean over him and I tell him, ‘And I’d learn some manners and I’d learn some respect if I were you, Detective Kimura.’

Now I walk over to Detective Sanada and I say, ‘You said something very interesting yesterday, Detective Sanada. You said Masaoka Hisae told you that Kodaira always had gifts on him…’

Detective Sanada sweating. Detective Sanada nodding –

‘You said he had ladies’ gifts; jewellery, watches and…’

Detective Sanada nodding and saying, ‘Umbrellas.’

‘That was good work,’ I tell him. ‘Because after you said that, when I was up at Headquarters, I heard that we are going to wash another unsolved case as a possible Kodaira Yoshio job —’

I am not their head. I am not their boss…

‘Shinokawa Tatsue, seventeen years old, found raped and strangled in the basement of the Toyoko Department Store in Shibuya on the sixteenth of January this year. However, the autopsy estimated she’d been dead since late October or early November last year –

‘And guess what?’ I ask. ‘Her umbrella had been stolen.’

Again, there is no applause. But I don’t want any…

‘So if any of you want to impress your new boss,’ I tell them. ‘I suggest you go back to Masaoka, back to the Widow Okayama and back to all the other people who knew Kodaira, his family and his workmates, and you try to trace all these gifts he kept giving away –

‘Because somewhere out there in Shibuya or Shinagawa, in Toyama or Tochigi, are the belongings of our own Shiba body –

‘Excuse me,’ I tell them. ‘Your Shiba body…’

No applause. Just silence. Just blindness…

I walk over to my desk now, my former borrowed desk, and I open the drawer ready to tip out the entire contents into my old army knapsack. But the drawer of my desk is empty –

My desk has already been cleared –

I curse and I curse and I curse…

‘Inspector Hattori took all your things up to Headquarters,’ says Ishida. ‘He didn’t think you’d be coming back here again.’

I hate him. I hate him. I hate them…

I say nothing. There is nothing to say. I leave –

I hate them. I hate them…

Down the corridor. Down the stairs –

I hate them all…

Detective Nishi is standing on the steps outside Atago police station. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi must have ducked out of the room while I was beating the shit out of Detective Kimura, while I was lecturing the hell out of the rest of them. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi is waiting for me. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi wants another word, a last and final word. I am looking in a mirror. But Detective Nishi still looks like shit. I am looking in a mirror. Nishi still looks like he hasn’t slept. I am looking in a mirror. Nishi telling me, ‘I had nothing to do with any of it…’