Tokyo Year Zero Read Free Page A

piss and shit –
    ‘We could do with Nishi now,’ says Fujita.
    I turn back to the caretaker in his shade –
    ‘When did this happen?’ I ask him –
    ‘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