Tokyo Year Zero

Prologue

I lie among the corpses. One Calmotin, two. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Dead leaves, floating in the autumn breeze. I try to raise my head but I cannot. Flies and mosquitoes swarm over me. I want to brush them away but I cannot. Low dark clouds shift across the sky. It is time to reveal the true essence of the nation. Last night, sometime between midnight and dawn, between retreat and defeat, rain drenched this place and, though the storm has now passed, fresh torrents of rain still fall upon the corpses and onto my face. My head is numb, my thoughts the fleeting shadows of delirium. Images of my wife and my children float before my eyes, among the corpses. Ten Calmotin, eleven. Beneath the eaves of the Black Gate of Zōjōji Temple. Oh so bravely, off to Victory. My son has a little flag in his hand. My daughter has a little flag in hers. Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind. My parents are here. Friends from school, teammates from my high school baseball club, colleagues with whom I graduated. Who can die without first having shown his true mettle? Each holds aloft a big banner, each banner bearing my name, each before the Black Gate. Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army, I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags cheering us into battle. There are sight-seeing buses full of girls on school excursions. The earth and its flora burn in flames, as we endlessly part the plains. The clock strikes noon as my truck approaches the Black Gate. Helmets emblazoned with the Rising Sun. The truck stops in front of the gate and I jump down from the Nissan. And, stroking the mane of our horses, who knows what tomorrow will bring — life? I stare into the crowd, up at the banners and the flags, and I salute. Now the departure signal sounds. Or death in battle? Twenty Calmotin, twenty-one. The print of dear faces floating in a sea of flags as the mountains fade, the rivers retreat, waving our flags until our hands are numb, floating and waving. We are bound for Siberia. Down the Shimonoseki Channel, the waters choked with transports and cargo boats. We are bound for Dairen. I lie among the corpses, the damp bodies and the fetid air. We are bound for Shanghai. The two tiers of cheap bunks on the decks below. We are bound for Canton. The men shout, the men applaud, as Yamazaki begins to recite ‘The Bloody Handkerchief of Kioi Hill’. More shouts, more applause, as Shimizu tells of ‘Konya, the Harlot’. I love you, I love you, I love you, says Konya to her customer. The bell rings for the evening meal. The war horses stabled in the hatch below scream, their ribs exposed. The steam winch hoists their corpses into waiting boats. In their bunks, men hold their sennin-bari tighter, their belts of one thousand stitches, touching the charms and talismans sewn into the silk. The Eight Myriads of Deities and a Buddha from Three Thousand Worlds. I lie among the corpses, a three-inch image of the Buddha in my hands. No bullet ever touched the man who carried it, said my father. Through the Shino War, the Boxer Rebellion and the Russo War, without a scratch. Bags of five-sen or ten-sen pieces, vests of dried cuttlefish, every man has his charm. How far we have come from the homeland. The transport ploughs on through the black ocean. ‘Tis the land of Manchuria, far, far from home. I lie among the corpses and I listen