Authors: David Peace
Until everyone believes these lies upon lies –
Pick up their spades and begin to heap the dirt
…
These lies that everyone tells themselves –
Heap the dirt back into the hole
…
Until everyone believes this history –
Back into the hole, over the man
…
This history we teach ourselves –
Over the man, faster and faster
…
Until I too believe these lies –
Faster and faster, as they
…
Until I believe this history –
As they bury his cries
…
My lies. My history.
*
Masaoka has heard the screams. Masaoka has heard the silence. Now Masaoka is ready to talk. Now Masaoka is ready to tell us whatever we want to hear. Now she will say whatever we want her to say –
But I am screaming now.
Inside
. I am shaking.
Outside –
‘There were four of us,’ she is saying. ‘Yoshiko, Tominaga Noriko, Shishikura Michiko and me. But after what happened to Yoshiko, then we all went our own separate ways…’
I am shaking. I am repeating, ‘Aged approximately eighteen years old, wearing a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, a white half-sleeved chemise, dyed-pink socks and a pair of white canvas shoes with red rubber soles…’
Red rubber soles
…
I am asking, ‘Does this sound like Tominaga or Shishikura?’
‘It could be Tominaga Noriko,’ says Masaoka. ‘It might be
Tominaga. It could be her. Then again, it could be anyone. But…’
I stare at Masaoka Hisae and I ask her, ‘But what?’
‘But I heard that Tominaga is missing,’ she says.
I sit forward. I repeat, ‘Tominaga is missing?’
‘Since sometime in June,’ she says. ‘But…’
I am still staring at Masaoka. ‘But what …?’
‘But you hope it’s her and I hope it isn’t.’
‘You’re wrong,’ I tell her, but Masaoka Hisae is looking past me now, looking over my shoulder to the door –
Chief Inspector Adachi standing in the doorway. Inspector Adachi asking me, ‘What does she know?’
‘Not much,’ I tell him, still looking at Masaoka Hisae –
Shadow and sweat running in rivers down her face
…
‘Take this woman home then,’ Chief Inspector Adachi tells Detective Nishi and then he says to me, ‘Let’s walk…’
*
Down another backstreet, up another alleyway, under another lantern, at another counter, Adachi orders the drinks, ‘Whatever you have that won’t send us insane or leave us blind or dead in the morning!’
Send us insane. Leave us blind. Dead in the morning
…
The master puts two glasses of clear liquid on the counter –
‘Cheers,’ says Adachi as he raises his glass to mine –
And then adds, ‘But you look terrible, inspector…’
‘I feel terrible,’ I tell him. ‘Worse than terrible.’
‘Because of tonight? The Formosans?’
‘No, but it didn’t help much…’
‘It’s the way things are,’ says Adachi. ‘The way things are.’
‘Well then, I suppose I just don’t like the way things are.’
‘And you think I do?’ asks Adachi. ‘You think I do?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But you’re surviving and I’m not.’
‘You’re still here,’ he says. ‘You’ve not run.’
‘Where would I go? What would I do?’
‘There’s always the next life…’
Another life. Another name
…
‘No thanks,’ I tell him. ‘Twice is too many times for me. Much too many times…’
Adachi drains his glass. Adachi offers me a Lucky Strike.
Now Adachi asks, ‘Have you seen Detective Fujita yet?’
I take his cig. I take his light. I tell him, ‘Yes.’
He orders two more drinks. He asks, ‘And?’
I finish my first drink. I say, ‘He’s gone.’
He raises his second glass. ‘Gone?’
I say, ‘And he’s not coming back.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He told me.’
‘And do you always believe everything people tell you, Inspector Minami?’
‘Not always, Chief Inspector Adachi. But this time I believed what he said, yes.’
‘People say all kinds of things, especially these days.’
‘Not Fujita,’ I tell him. ‘He’s not coming back.’
Adachi puts out his cigarette. Adachi takes another drink. Adachi asks, ‘Do you think Fujita killed Hayashi Jo?’
I put out my cigarette. I say, ‘I don’t know. Not any more.’
‘So you think he might have? You think he had reason?’
I shrug my shoulders. I say, ‘Him and everybody else.’
Adachi drains his second drink. ‘Even you, then?’
I turn to look at Adachi. I ask him, ‘Why me?’
Adachi smiles. Adachi laughs. ‘You’ve got blood on the cuffs of your shirt. You’ve got blood on the legs of your trousers…’
I smile now. I laugh. I say, ‘And so have you…’
‘But mine is fresh blood, corporal.’
*
I have come again to this place.
Black bile again
. I have walked out of the light and into the shadow.
Brown bile again
. Into the temple grounds.
Yellow bile again
. But there is nothing here.
Grey bile again
. Nothing but the ruin of the old Black Gate.
Black bile
. Beneath the dark eaves of the Black Gate, I close my eyes.
Brown bile
. Under the Black Gate, I can hear a stray dog panting.
Yellow bile
. His house is lost, his master gone.
Grey bile
. In the ruin of the Black Gate, in the Year of the Dog, I stare at its feet.
Black bile, brown bile, yellow bile and grey
. I vomit and I vomit and I vomit and I vomit –
Cover the mirrors! Cover the mirrors!
This dog has no feet.
*
In the half-light, Yuki stands up. In the half-light, she picks up an unlined summer kimono draped over the rack by the mirror. In the half-light, Yuki changes into the summer kimono, a pattern printed low upon its skirt. In the half-light, she knots the red and purple striped undersash. In the half-light, Yuki sits back down beside me. In the half-light, she takes a cigarette from the package on the dresser. In the half-light, Yuki lights it. In the half-light, she hands it to me –
‘It was like a fairy tale,’ she smiles. ‘The way we met…’
‘Yes,’ I laugh. ‘A chance meeting in a sudden shower.’
‘A love story from the older traditions,’ she says, but Yuki is not smiling now, she is not laughing, she is crying now –
‘There is tobacco smoke in my eyes,’ she lies –
‘Air raid! Air raid! Here comes an air raid!’
Now she lies back down next to me and she stares up into my eyes. Now she touches her finger to my nose and says, ‘Don’t sleep.’
But there is no more sleep because there is no Calmotin –
But I want to sleep, though I won’t. I want to forget today, though I won’t. I want to forget yesterday. The day before. This week. Last week. This month. Last month. This year. Last year. Every single year I have ever lived, but I won’t forget because I can’t forget. But here, here at least, here I can sometimes forget. For an odd hour –
In her arms.
I can forget
. Between her thighs.
I can forget
…
The many things I have left behind. The things I have lost –
I have failed you. I have failed you. I have failed you
…
The many things I have seen. The things I have done –
Hour after hour. Day after day. Week after week
…
The blood on the walls. The blood on the floor –
Month after month and year after year
…
The blood on the cuffs of my shirt –
But in the half-light, I can’t forget
…
On the legs of my trousers –
I am sorry. I am sorry
…
Here, in the half-light –
I have failed you all
…
In the half-light.
Tokyo, 90°, very fine
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton
…
It is dawn now and the first trains have already been and gone. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. There is no shadow here. No respite from the heat. I am standing at the end of my own street, watching the gate to my own house –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton
…
I walk down the street to my own house. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. I open the gate to my own house. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck again. I go up the path to my own house. I itch and I scratch.
Gari-gari
. I open the door to my house. I wipe my face and I wipe my neck. I stand in the
genkan
of my own house –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton
…
The house is silent.
The mats are rotting
. The house still sleeping.
The doors in shreds
. I place the envelope of money and the bundle of food on the floor of the reception room.
The walls are falling in
. The house smells of my children –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton
…
I turn their shoes to face the door –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton
…
I turn away and I walk away, itching and scratching,
gari-gari
, wiping my face and wiping my neck, as I start to run, to run away.
*
Tominaga Noriko’s last known address was in Ōimachi, near to where Abe Yoshiko’s body was found. Near to where Kodaira Yoshio works.
Kodaira country
. Near to where Miyazaki Mitsuko was murdered. Near to where Yuki lives.
My country
…
Tominaga Noriko’s landlady invites me into her house and then up the stairs to Tominaga Noriko’s rented little room at the end
of the second-floor passage, next to a bathroom –
‘I dust,’ she says. ‘But, other than that, it’s just as she left it.’
‘Why is that?’ I ask her. ‘Why don’t you rent it out again?’
‘The same reason I reported her missing, I suppose.’
‘Why?’ I ask her again. ‘Just another tenant …?’
The landlady goes over to the small window and opens it. She shakes her head. ‘But Noriko wasn’t just another tenant, you see…
‘She’d lost both her parents and her younger sister in the March air raids, her elder brother still missing in China…
‘I have no one either now, you see. My husband is long dead and my sons are both dead too, one killed in the south early on and one killed in the north. My eldest was married but he had no children, his wife already remarried. I don’t begrudge or blame her, these are the times we live in, but I have no one now but this house which was spared and the people who live here…
‘Noriko had been here just over six months, a very pretty girl, a very polite and very friendly girl. Because of all your inquiries after the murder of her friend, I know now the kind of life Noriko led, but I never ever would have guessed…
‘Noriko was so very quick to share whatever extra food or clothing she managed to get hold of, no matter what she had done for it, no matter what it had cost her…’
‘Asobu …? Asobu …?’
I nod. I ask, ‘So when did Miss Tominaga go missing?’
‘About a month after her friend was killed, I think.’
‘So that would be early to mid July?’
‘Yes,’ agrees the landlady. ‘But it was definitely before the fifteenth of July because that was the date that the rent was due on her room. And so that was when I became worried…’
‘So when did you report her missing?’
‘Not until the start of this month.’
I ask her, ‘Why did you wait?’
‘I thought she might have just gone off for a bit, you see. Because of what had happened to her friend, because of all your investigations into her and her friends, because of all your questions, because of all your insinuations…’
‘So if Miss Tominaga had just gone off for a bit, where do you think she would have gone?’
Tominaga Noriko’s landlady turns away now. Tominaga
Noriko’s landlady looks out of the window and does not answer –
‘You said she might have just gone off for a bit; so where?’
The landlady shakes her head. ‘It’s too late. She’s dead.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I say. ‘Maybe she’s scared.’
The landlady shakes her head again. ‘It’s too late.’
‘Maybe she just got scared and she ran away.’
Tominaga Noriko’s landlady walks over to an old wooden chest of drawers. Tominaga Noriko’s landlady opens the drawers. Tominaga Noriko’s landlady says, ‘But Noriko would never leave all her clothes behind, never leave all her cosmetics…’
‘But you don’t know that for certain,’ I tell her again. ‘People’s plans can change quickly these days.’
‘But Noriko would never not say goodbye,’ she tells me. ‘She would never leave like that, you see.’
I walk over to the chest of drawers. I touch the clothes inside. I walk over to the dresser. I touch the jars of cosmetics. I take the cover off the mirror. I touch the glass –
‘Does this become me…?’
I say, ‘There was a man, wasn’t there?’
Tominaga Noriko’s landlady catches a sob in her throat, puts a hand to her mouth. Now Tominaga Noriko’s landlady closes the drawers, covers the mirror and says, ‘You should know, detective.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘How should I know?’
‘He was one of you, wasn’t he?’ she whispers –
‘She was seeing a policeman?’
‘For all the good it did her.’
Now I take out my notebook but I do not open it. I ask her, ‘Did you ever see Miss Tominaga wear a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress over a white half-sleeved chemise…’
The woman is crying. The woman nodding now –
‘Dyed-pink socks and white canvas shoes…’
Nodding now and crying and crying –
‘With red rubber soles…’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!’ she is crying as she opens the drawers again, pulling out the clothes and sending them into the air as she frantically searches for a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, a white half-sleeved chemise and a pair of dyed-pink socks –
But these clothes are not here and neither am I –
Our body has a name. Our case closed
…
I am running back down the stairs now –
Case closed! Case closed! Case
…
Out of the house and straight into the face of a uniformed policeman asking, ‘Are you Inspector Minami?’
‘What is it?’ I ask him. ‘What is it?’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he says. ‘There is a meeting of all divisions, sections, and rooms at Metropolitan Headquarters…’
‘How did you know you’d find me here?’
‘Chief Inspector Adachi told me I’d find you here, sir.’
*
The chiefs of all the divisions are here. The heads of all the sections. The heads of every room. The chiefs of every single police station.
The Victors have also sent their observers and their spies; their Nisei translators; their collaborators in their turncoats; race traitors, these banana boys, with their yellow skins and white hearts –
‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …?’
Down at the very front of the room, Fujimoto Yoshio, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Defence Bureau, stands up and begins his speech about the events of last night –
‘Gentlemen, as you know, though such cases have occurred before in Osaka and in Kobe, this is the first case of Formosans openly attacking a police station in Tokyo…
‘Details remain sketchy for now; however, it is reported that approximately five hundred Formosans, possibly aided by a further five hundred Chinese and Korean allies, all of whom are angry at their perceived exclusion from the New Life Market in Shimbashi, boarded at least five trucks at the Yaesu entrance of Tokyo station at about 7 p.m. last night. They then drove to the site of this Shimbashi New Life Market, where they rode about in a repetition of previous incidents at the market, hoping to confront members of the former Matsuda group. However, as the market is temporarily closed, there were no members of the Matsuda group present on this occasion and no confrontation occurred there. There are reports, however, that a few machine-gun bursts were heard…
‘But finding no Matsuda group members at the Shimbashi New Life Market, the Formosans then headed in their trucks for the Shibuya precinct station and, on arriving there at approximately
9 p.m., they were met by over two hundred policemen who had been assigned to guard the station…
‘Police initially stopped the trucks but then allowed them to pass when the Formosans insisted they were there only to peacefully visit the Kakyō Sōkai headquarters at the request of representatives of the Chinese Mission to Tokyo. However, as the trucks passed through the police lines, occupants of at least one truck opened fire on the police, aiming at the chief of the Shibuya police and seriously wounding two officers…’
Bang! Bang!
…
‘The officers were left with little alternative but to defend themselves and respond with revolvers. A fifteen-minute gun battle then ensued, wounding a further four officers, two seriously, and killing six Formosans and wounding a score more. The battle was waged with at least two machine guns, set up by the Formosans in their trucks, as well as with pistols, knives, staves, clubs, pickaxes and other weapons. One Formosan truck also ran up onto a sidewalk, injuring many of the passengers but allowing us to arrest twenty-seven of the Formosan occupants. Revolvers, iron clubs, wooden clubs and bottles of gasoline were also found inside the truck…’
These lies that everyone tells themselves
…
‘Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Formosans involved in this incident escaped during the course of the gun battle and the ensuing melee. These Formosan suspects remain at large…’
Until everyone believes this history
…
‘Furthermore, earlier yesterday evening the ōji police station was also surrounded and attacked by a group of twenty to thirty Koreans, resulting in the hospitalization of Police Chief Hashioka of ōji police station and the death of one Korean man…
‘It is believed that the incident began at around 5 p.m. last night and grew out of a dispute between Japanese and Korean stall-operators in front of ōji train station in which approximately forty or fifty people were involved in a fist fight…
‘Police were called to restore order and to arrest the perpetrators, detaining them at the ōji police station. It was at this point that the group of twenty to thirty Koreans surrounded the police station and began to stone the building. Police Chief Hashioka of ōji police station went outside to remonstrate with the crowd and was himself then surrounded and stoned. Police Chief Hashioka was left
with no alternative but to discharge his pistol in self-defence. His shots unfortunately pierced the lower abdomen of one of the Koreans, fatally wounding him…’
Bang! Bang!
…
‘However, the firing of the shot undoubtedly brought the dispute under control and order was restored. Police Chief Hashioka was then taken to the Imperial University Hospital where, we have been told, he will take about ten days to recover from his injuries.
‘Finally, during the course of last night, there were also five separate reports of fights between rival Korean gangs, resulting in many injuries and much damage to property. The headquarters of the Youth League for the Promotion of Korean Independence at Denenchōfu in Ōmori Ward was attacked at around 5 a.m. by approximately three hundred Koreans in a number of trucks and vehicles, breaking windows, tables and chairs…
‘As a result of information received, a comprehensive roundup of suspects in the Komatsugawa, Sunamachi and Kameido districts has been ordered…’
Bang! Bang!
…
‘But enough is enough!’ shouts Chief Fujimoto now –
‘The restoration and maintenance of order must be our priority as both policemen and as Japanese!
‘The Tokyo Metropolitan Police will detail extra guards at all police stations with instructions to fire back in the event of a renewal or repetition of last night’s attack…’
Bang! Bang!
…
‘To fire back not for the purpose of wounding or killing but for the arrest of the attackers and for restoring order because the restoration and the maintenance of order must be our priority…
‘Extra guards have also been assigned to the Shimbashi Market and other markets believed to be potential targets…
‘Today we will also urge the operators of all markets to tighten their own security and to cooperate fully with police in order to restore and maintain order in Tokyo…’
Bang! Bang!
…
‘But we will continue to urge them to accommodate legitimate businesses run by Chinese, Formosan and Korean operators inside their markets. We will also continue to offer ourselves as arbitrators and mediators in the case of any disputes…
‘But enough is enough!’ shouts Chief Fujimoto again –
‘Restore order! Maintain order! Dismissed!’
*
Things never change
. There are wars and there are restorations.
Things never change
. There are wars and there are victories.
Things never change
. There are wars and there are defeats.
Things never change
. There are occupations and there are elections.
Things never change
. Because there is always a second meeting.
Things never change
. There is always a second meeting to discuss the first –
Never change. Never change. Never change
…
For everyone to discuss the best ways in which to ignore the conclusions of the first meeting; for everyone to pretend that the first meeting never actually took place; to promise to keep things exactly the way they were before the first meeting –
Never change. Never change
…
‘What a mess, what a mess, what a mess,’ our chief is saying over and over, again and again. ‘The Victors will be talking about the corruption of the police and the failure of justice again, warning of the growth of racketeering and the power of the underground, moaning about the mistreatment of minorities and the rebirth of nationalism. The Victors will be wanting more reviews and more reforms, watching us like hawks…’