I write forty yen on the withdrawal slip. Then I copy down the number of his savings account and the address –
Now I fill in the name –
A woman’s name.
I hand the withdrawal slip and the savings book back to the old man and he thanks me.
The queue moves forward again. I pick my daughter and my son up from the bench. We follow the old man inside the post office. The old man presents his withdrawal slip to one of the post office clerks as I do the same at the next window along –
Now we all sit back down to wait.
The old man winks at my daughter and smiles at my son again.
Now the clerk at the payments desk calls out the name –
‘Are you Yamada Hanako?’ asks the clerk.
No one is who they say they are …
‘No,’ says the old man. ‘But she’s my youngest daughter.’
The clerk shrugs his shoulders. He counts out the forty yen. He hands over the cash and says, ‘Better if she comes in person…’
The old man nods, thanks the clerk and now walks past us –
The old man winks at my daughter, he smiles at my son –
‘She can’t come in person,’ he whispers. ‘She’s dead.’
The clerk at the payments desk calls out my name –
The clerk hands over our cash and I thank him.
No one is who they seem to be …
I put my daughter on my back. I take my son by the hand. In the half-light, I lead them up the street, up the garden path, to stand them in the genkan of our house, to watch me as I say goodbye –
I say goodbye, as I turn their shoes to face the door –
‘Please don’t go, Daddy,’ says my daughter –
‘I have to go back to work,’ I tell her –
‘But not tonight,’ says my son –
Now my wife comes out of the kitchen, her face is hot from cooking, her hands brushing water from her trousers –
‘Let your father go to work,’ she says –
I pat their heads. I say, ‘Goodbye…’
‘Please remember us,’ my daughter and my son call after me. ‘Please don’t forget us, Daddy…’
Daddy, Banzai!…
Now I walk down the path, through the gate, up the street –
I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember …
I do not turn around. I cannot turn around –
But in the half-light, I can’t forget…
I am not going back to work –
No one is who they seem …
Tonight I am going to her.
*
Night is day again. There have been others. In the ruins, in the rain. There have been others. The children watch me, the dogs watch me. There have been others. I smoke a cigarette, I read a newspaper –
SEX MANIAC CONFESSES KILLING FOUR YOUNG WOMEN
Kodaira Yoshio, 41, a sadistic sex maniac who had been under investigation by the Metropolitan Police Board for the raping and strangling to death of Ryuko, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Midorikawa Isaburo of Meguro, Tokyo, on the sixth of August, has confessed to the raping and killing of three other young women in the past one year.
On the fifteenth of July last year, the sex crazy laundry man admitted killing Kondo Kazuko, aged twenty-two years old, in Saitama Prefecture while the young woman was on a food shopping trip to the district. Luring her into a forest with promises of leading her to a good place to buy food, Kodaira violated and killed the unsuspecting young girl.
On the twenty-eighth of September of the same year, Kodaira killed Matsushita Yoshie, aged twenty years, using similar means. The girl’s body was found stripped naked lying in a forest in Kiyose-mura, Kita Tama-gun, the same place where he had committed his previous crime.
In a similar manner, the maniac admitted killing Abe Yoshiko, aged sixteen years, in Shinagawa, Tokyo, on the ninth of June this year. This girl was also raped.
In all cases, rape accompanies the killing, and in each instance, the body was hidden or buried under dead leaves about thirty to fifty metres away from the scene of the crime. Each victim was strangled to death by her own haramaki sash.
The only case in which the murderer knew the victim and the family well was in the instance of Midorikawa Ryuko, the last of his victims, and which was the first clue to the identity of the killer and which eventually led to the arrest of Kodaira. All the rest of his victims were total strangers to the murderer.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board plan to question the sex crazed killer about four further murders; seventeen-year-old Shinokawa Tatsue who was raped and murdered in the basement of the Toyoko Department Store in Shibuya and whose umbrella was found at the home of Kodaira’s wife’s family in Toyama, and the murders of Baba Hiroko, Ishikawa Yori and Nakamura Mitsuko, whose bodies were all found in Tochigi Prefecture near Kodaira’s family home.
I finish the newspaper. There have been others. I finish the cigarette. No mention of Miyazaki Mitsuko. The dogs wait for me. There have been others. The children wait for me. No mention of the second Shiba body. In the rain. There have been others. In the ruins.
*
In the half-light, I can hear the wind against the door, rattling around the roof and under the eaves of her house. But there is no rain, there is no thunder tonight, just the clatter of sandals and the calls of children in the streets outside. I shouldn’t have come here, not tonight. Tonight I should have stayed at home with my wife and children. My wife serving up their dinner of zōsui, my children’s bowls in their outstretched hands, asking their mother for more –
‘Okawari… Okawari… Okawari…’
Yuki stands hands on hips, barefoot on the earthen floor of the hallway, and looks out between the ribbons –
I should not be here, not tonight…
‘But you’ll stay awhile longer?’
I nod and I thank her.
Yuki opens a cupboard. She takes out a saucer of pickled radish and a small aluminum saucepan. She sniffs at the contents of the pan and shrugs. She places it on the charcoal embers –
‘And you’ll eat with me, won’t you?’
I nod again and I thank her again.
She lifts up the lid of the pan –
‘Are you married?’ she asks.
*
Night is still day here. The queues through the gates, the queues to the doors, the queues in the corridors. I have spent too long here. I run through the gates, through the doors and down the corridors. Past the queues, past the patients and past the gurneys to the elevator. Hours, days and weeks. I push the button, I step inside, and I press another button. The doors close and I ride the elevator down in the dark. Weeks, months and years. The doors open –
Here in the half-light, the half-things …
I run past the tiled walls of sinks, of drains, the written warnings of cuts, of punctures, to the mortuary –
She is here. She is here. She is here …
I read the names of the dead –
She is here. She is here …
I pull open the casket –
She is here …
No name –
Here …
I take out her clothes and now I take out her bones –