Tokyo Year Zero

His skin tight against his skull …

I’m lifting up log after log –

He looms and he leers …

Looking for her clothes –

Kodaira, Kodaira …

Under log after log –

Looms and leers …

This one last log –

Here, here …

Here, buried deep in this pile of neatly chopped logs, one rotting wet pair of brown monpe trousers, one pale yellow blouse much better preserved through last autumn and winter to this spring and this summer, preserved and protected from the seasons and their weather by these neatly chopped logs, piled one on top of another among these well-tended cypress trees, in the midst of this small wood on the side of this small mountain, in this other world, this other country, so very, very far from home, his only daughter here –

This is where Mitsuko died on the twelfth of July, 1945 …

I am still on my hands and on my knees among the logs –

This is where Mitsuko was beaten unconscious …

On my knees and with my hands, I begin to dig –

This is where she was stripped and raped …

To dig and to clean. To clean and to collect –

This is where she was throttled …

To collect all the pieces of her clothing –

This is where she was killed …

To put the pieces in my knapsack –

This is where Nakamura Mitsuko died and then was raped again, again and again, raped and then robbed of her money, her wristwatch, her round silver spectacles and her brooch …

Her elliptical-shaped ammonite brooch …

To take them back to Tokyo –

The gift from a father to …

To take it back –

His only daughter …

Back home.

*

Detective Ishida climbs into the back of the truck and we all bow and thank the daughter and the mother of the Widow Okayama for their help and for their hospitality. Now we drive back down the mountain, then up and down another until we come back out into the valley, the Black River to our right again, the Scavenging Line still to our left –

More lines of people making their way back to the station …

But today there is no talk of city-folk. No talk of Scavengers –

Lines and lines of people with their supplies on their backs …

No talk of potatoes and rice. No talk of fleas and lice –

The bones of one dead girl and the clothes of another …

Today there is only silence in the front and back –

In an old army knapsack upon my knee …

They are looking out for us again, listening out for the sound of Tachibana’s battered old mountain truck coming to a stop outside their quaint old police station, uniforms running out to bow and salute and to welcome us back, Detective Ishida and I bowing, saluting and thanking them again. Then we follow Chief Tachibana up the clean little steps into his station where the two officers who are stood behind the front desk bow and salute and welcome us again –

‘I have another message for Detective Ishida,’ says one of the men. Ishida steps forward and takes the message –

Another message. The final message …

Ishida asking to use their telephone –

‘Leave Minami in Tochigi…’

Police Chief Tachibana leading me away, down the side of the front desk, along the corridor to his office where he talks about train timetables and the journey back to Tokyo and home –

Home. Home. Home. Home. Home. Home …

There is another soft knock on the door now as Detective Ishida steps into Police Chief Tachibana’s office –

Detective Ishida; this man I don’t know …

Tachibana asks, ‘Everything all right?’

‘Everything is fine now,’ says Detective Ishida. ‘Thank you.’

*

The entire police force of Kanuma has accompanied us down to the train station, here to wish us a safe journey and to bid us farewell. Tachibana has even held up the departure of the train for us –

Now his officers bow and then he bows –

Tachibana apologizes for the failings of himself and his men. Then he bows again, thanking us for our hard work and our help –

‘And we hope to work with you again,’ he says –

Detective Ishida and I salute Tachibana and bow to him and thank him for all his hard work and for all the hard work of his men, for all his assistance, for all his generosity and for all his hospitality –

Police Chief Tachibana salutes and bows one last time –

Then, finally, Ishida and I board the Tōbu train –

The Kanuma police clearing a path for us –

The doors close and the whistle blows –

No seats, so Ishida and I are stood –

The locomotive jolts as it starts –

In the small of Ishida’s back …

Ishida and I stood pressed together again, both of us staring through a window without glass, watching Kanuma disappear –

In the small of his back, something cold and metallic …

I try to turn from the window, away from Kanuma –

This other world, this other country …

The carriage packed tight with people and their baggage, the people not meeting our eyes, afraid for their baggage –

We are the police. We are the law …

There is no glass in any of the windows but still there’s no air in this carriage, just the stench of soiled babies –

The stench of human shit …

‘This Tōbu Line train will stop next at Momiyama station,’ begins the conductor. ‘Then Niregi, Kanasaki, Ienaka, Kassemba, Shin-Tochigi, Tochigi…’

Suddenly Ishida says, ‘I want to get off at Ienaka.’

‘Leave Minami in Tochigi. Return to HQ…’

I ask him, ‘Why do you want to do that?’

Something cold and metallic …

‘I want to look over the Baba crime scene again,’ he says. ‘We found so much they had missed at the Ishikawa and Nakamura sites that I think we should look again…’

He walks behind me …

I have a bagful of bones, scraps of clothing on my back –

I curse him…

I nod. ‘If you’re sure that’s what you want to do…’

*

The sun is setting now and soon it will be dark in Ienaka –

The shadows of the mountains lengthening …

Ishida and I pass through these ticket gates for a second time in three days and walk out of the station into the town –

No one is here, no one here at all …

The town is deserted again as I lead Ishida up the slope out of town, past the Beautiful Mountain Inn where we stayed –

He walks behind me. He walks behind me …

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’

I do not answer him because he knows it does not matter, because he knows it could be any woods on any mountain and so up and down we go, up and down again we walk until we come to another narrow road, perhaps the same narrow road up which Kodaira Yoshio led Baba Hiroko on the thirtieth of December, last year –

‘Are you sure this is the place?’ he asks again –

Nishi Katamura, Kami Tsuga-gun …