Yes, I was falling, yes, falling, toppling head first and long, long into darkness, falling down, slowly down, from the drainpipe, from the wall, past windows and their ledges, falling, still falling, down, slowly down, past walls, more walls, bookcases and cupboards, maps and pictures hung upon pegs, maps of the city, the Occupied City, pictures of the crime, the scene of the crime, falling down, slowly down, bottles and jars standing on shelves, a bottle marked “CLUES,” a bottle marked “WITNESSES,” a jar labeled “FICTION,” a jar labeled “TRUTH,” and as I fell, slowly fell, through the darkness, past the shelves, I reached for the jar, the jar labeled “TRUTH,” and I took down this jar, this jar from the shelf, this jar labeled “TRUTH,” the biggest, heaviest jar I ever had seen, seen or held, held in my hands, but as I fell, slowly fell, when I prized off the lid, when I opened the jar, to my great disappointment, my instant regret, all the truths blew away, flying up, up and away, back the way I’d come, up, up into the night, in a rainbow of butterflies, feathers, and petals, and as I tried to juggle the jar and its lid, tried to catch one truth, one butterfly, feather, or petal at least, one truth at least, this jar labeled “TRUTH,” this jar now empty, it slipped through my fingers, it dropped from my hands, spinning off, spiraling down, slowly down, down and down, into the darkness, the darkness below –
“Look out,” cried I. “Look out down below!”
No answer came up from the darkness below, just the echo of my voice, my voice in the dark: “Look out …”
But too late, too late came the echo of my voice, a warning in the dark, for thump! thump! thump! down I came upon a heap of broken jars, then bump! bump! bump! down something came upon my head, and I remembered –
Nothing more until I was not falling anymore, not in darkness anymore, not lying on a heap of broken jars anymore, nor in a pile of garbage in an alley anymore. I was being picked up, I was being carried along –
I opened my eyes: I was slumped on the back seat of a big car, with a sore head and aching bones, the car speeding through the night and the city –
“Thank heaven you’ve come round, Sensei,” said the voice of the driver from the front, as I tried to sit up. “But I’d lie still, if I were you. Looks like you took an almighty tumble.”
I nodded, but even that hurt. Still, I managed to blink a few times, to try to focus on the driver, the driver hunched in the front, a man too large even for a car of this size, dressed in a military coat unsuitable for late March, let alone for early July – assuming it was still early July – his hands on the steering wheel wrapped in winter gloves. But it wasn’t winter, must be still summer, for I was sweating, soaked and dripping, my tattered yukata sopping wet through –
“So sorry about that, Sensei,” said the driver. “But if I hadn’t gone into the alley to answer nature’s call, and if the stream of my call hadn’t roused you, then I’d never have found you. Very lucky, all in all …”
“Thank you,” said I, turning my face, and particularly my nose, away from the stench of my yukata toward the window, unfortunately closed.
“Think nothing of it, Sensei,” said the driver. “I’d do the same for any man. But in your case, you being you, it’s an honor. I am a great admirer.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes,” said the driver. “I grew up reading your books, Sensei. Your characters were like family to me, practically raised me, they did.”
“Thank you,” said I again. “Thank you.”
“No, no,” said the driver, “thank you, Sensei. In fact, it’s funny me picking you up tonight because only the other day I was thinking to myself, I wonder whatever happened to Kuroda Roman? Because you’ve been a bit quiet of late, haven’t you, Sensei? But it makes sense to me now. Because, and please don’t be offended, Sensei, but I can see you’ve been having some problems. I just hope, and forgive me if I am being too blunt, but speaking as an admirer, I just hope you hadn’t been trying to do anything stupid back in that alley, the open window and …”
“No, no,” said I. “It wasn’t like that. I fell.”
“Right, right,” said the driver. “It can happen.”
“No, really,” said I. “I got locked inside the building. I’d been at the Mystery Writers of Japan …”
“Had you now,” said the driver. “Oh, I do envy you, Sensei. I’d have liked to have been a fly on them walls, I tell you. Bet you were all discussing the Shimoyama Case?”
“We were actually, yes.”
“I knew it,” said the driver. “I bet there were some theories flying around that room, weren’t there?”
“A few, yes.”
“But you know what annoys me?”
“No,” said I. “What?”
“Headlines like THE CAR USED BY THE SUSPECT IS THE CLUE, and the way some of you writers blame the driver. I don’t mean you, Sensei. At least, I don’t think you suspect the driver, do you, Sensei …?”
“I don’t, no.”
“Didn’t think so,” said the driver. “You’re much too intelligent, I know. But one of your colleagues – forget his name, but a popular writer – in one of the newspapers, he claimed the death of President Shimoyama is a case of murder and that the testimony of his driver, as reported in the newspapers, was highly questionable. He suspected that the driver had been blackmailed or threatened and that he should be considered the prime suspect. What an idiot, an absolute fool!”
“Quite,” agreed I.
“And I’m not saying this just because I’m a driver. It’s not as though all us drivers are part of some kind of secret brotherhood. It’s just that I know the job. And so if he says he was asleep in his car outside the Mitsukoshi department store for five or six hours, I believe him. Because I know that’s how the job is.”
“Of course,” said I.
“Actually, it’s a shame you didn’t come round a bit sooner, Sensei,” said the driver, “because we passed Mitsukoshi, you know, ‘one of the scenes of the crime,’ just a bit back, back when you were still dead to the world.”
“Is that right,” replied I, looking hard out of the window, unable to tell where we were, the car traveling too fast, even accelerating, the inside of the car seemingly shrinking, the body of the driver ballooning.
“But if I may say so,” said the driver, not waiting for I to say yes or say no, “I think novelists, even great ones such as yourself, Sensei, they should stick to their fictions, not get themselves mixed up in the facts. I mean, you of all people, Sensei, you know it’s better not to go and get yourself mixed up in a real-life murder case –”
“Where are we going,” asked I.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sensei, you probably don’t remember, what with you being in the state you were in, but I said I’d take you home …”
“Home,” asked I. “You know where I live?”
“It’s still Negishi, isn’t it, Sensei,” answered the driver, “that is, if my memory is correct?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Sensei,” said the driver. “It’s my pleasure, Sensei. But hang on, what have we here …?”
Suddenly, the driver braked hard and the car screeched to an abrupt stop, sending me forward, out of my seat, my head bouncing off the back of the driver’s chair. “Owww!”
“Sorry about that, Sensei,” said the driver. “I’m sure it’s just routine, a formality, nothing to worry about.”
I sat back upright, holding my neck, glimpsed the Matsuzakaya department store to my right, and realized we were in Ueno, not far from home, and I’d soon be home sweet –
“So sorry about this, Sensei …”
The back door on the left side of the car opened, and a rough-looking youth, dressed in military khaki and possibly Korean, climbed onto the back seat, the back seat next to me, then slammed the door shut –
“Excuse me,” said I, politely, “but I’m afraid this car is taken, isn’t it, driver?”
The youth turned to me, seized me by my throat with his left hand, punched me twice in my gut with his right, pushed my head hard against the side window, then said, “Step on it, driver!”
Crumpled on the back seat, clutching my stomach, my face pressed to the glass, I watched through the window, a window of tears, as the car began to move forward again, then to turn left, to pass the Shinobazu Pond, where the lotuses were closed and asleep for the night, then left and left and left again, up a hill, then down a slope, until all I could see were high walls and tall trees, their shadows and the night, and all I could hear was the youth whistling the Funeral March as the car slowed before a set of gates marked OFF LIMITS: STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE, then passed through these gates, the gates closing behind the car, and up a long gravel drive, round to a large mansion, a mansion I recognized, the former residence of the Iwasaki family –
“I’m sorry, this is not where I live,” whispered I.
“It is now,” laughed the youth.
The driver turned off the engine, got out of the front, and opened the back door.
I looked up at him and said, “I’m afraid there has been a terrible mistake.”
“Let’s hope not,” said the driver.
“Stop your blubbering and get out,” said the youth, heaving me off the back seat, out of the car and down onto the gravel, the sharp, pointed gravel.
“Get up!”
“I’d rather not,” said I, lying face down, trying to dig a hole in the ground, to tunnel my way out of here.
“Help me get him inside,” the youth ordered the driver, and together they turned me over, picked up an arm and a leg each, then carried me squirming and writhing over the threshold, into the former Iwasaki Mansion, now known as Hongō House.
“I shall be missed,” wailed I.
“In your dreams,” laughed the youth again.
“Questions will be asked!”
“You’re goddamn right they will be,” boomed the familiar voice of an American, just a split second before –
Knuckles and fists rained down on him, on the stones of the street, they punched and chopped him, in the broad light of day, packed and sent him, in the back of the car, their blows and the needle taking him down, knocking him out, down and out, out for the count –
Don’t fight them, darling, please don’t fight …
He drifted as they drove, just drifting, just drifting, in and out of the day and the city, the darkening day, the passing city, here and then gone again, gone again, gone –
Just let them do, do what they want …
Out of the car, the back of the car, they dragged and they hauled him, up stairs and down corridors, they kicked and they kneed him, into steps and into walls –
For we could be happy, darling …
They dropped and they threw him, again and again, across judo mats and polished floors, dropped and thrown, then rolled in a futon, wrapped tight in a futon, they smothered and they suffocated him, again and again –
Darling, we could be happy …
Smothered and suffocated –
Happy and dead.
In a room underground, under the house, under Hongō House, in this tiny room, this cell of a room, under Hongō House, they tied me to a chair, tied me to a desk, bound my fingers to a pen –
And said, “I want you to write it all down.”
“He wants you to write it all down.”
Two figures in the room, this tiny room, under the house, under Hongō House, one in a black raincoat, one in a white raincoat, both masked, in masks: black-raincoat wears a smiling mask, white-raincoat wears an unsmiling mask –
“Who? What? When and where?”
“And the how? And the why?”
“The what and the where?”
“The who and the when?”
The light goes down, down and out, the light comes up, up and in; this is how time passes here, under the house, under Hongō House, where the weather is always the same, where the weather is always bad; this is how time passes here –
“Who? When? How and why?”
“Who–when–how–and–why?”
“WHO? WHEN? HOW? WHY?”
“WHOWHENHOWWHY?”
Light going down and out, light coming up and in, the weather always bad, bad and getting worse, the time passes here without seasons, only fall, my fall –
“Well?”
“Nothing.”
“He didn’t write anything?”
“No.”
“He didn’t write it then?”
“No.”
“Not what we wanted to read?”
“Not what we wanted to read.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“He didn’t say it then?”
“No.”
“Not what we wanted to hear?”
“Not what we wanted to hear.”
“But did he weep?”
“Oh yes, he wept.”
“And did he scream?”
“Yes, he screamed.”
“Did he beg for mercy?”
“Yes, he begged for mercy.”
“How did he beg? What did he say?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘All that I give you is never enough.’”
“Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“It’s what’s been written down.”
“You weren’t there?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“So you can’t be sure?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“And so he might have said, for example, ‘All that you give me is never enough.’”
“He might have said that.”
“Might have said what?”
“‘All that you give me is never enough.’”
“Really? The bastard said that?”
“The bastard said that.”
“Right then. We’ll have to give him the works.”
Yesterday, you attacked and assaulted President Shiozawa of the Shinpi Shōbō publishing house. Two days ago, a war veteran named Terauchi Kōji was found stabbed to death in Hibiya Park. The knife used to kill him was found in a drawer in your office in Kanda. On the previous day, you broke into the house of a Doctor Nomura, assaulted his daughter, and threatened the doctor. Meanwhile, Detective Hattori has told us he did not meet you, has not seen you for over fifteen years, and the proprietress of the Rabbit-o Hole bar in Yūrakuchō told us she was closed on the night in question, the night Nemuro Kazuko fell from her balcony, clutching your name card, the night you have no alibi for now. Furthermore, the whereabouts of your common-law wife, Tominaga Noriko, are unknown.
Murota Hideki looked up from the handcuffs around his wrists. He looked past the men sat opposite him, past the men stood behind them, over at the wall, then up the wall to the low ceiling, to the place where the wall met the ceiling, where a narrow, oblong-shaped air vent had been cut into the outside wall, the air vent covered in a black grid of metal bars.
Say something then, said one of the men.
But Murota Hideki said nothing, he just kept looking up at the air vent at the top of the wall, staring at the drops dripping down through its bars. Drop-drip, drip –
Talk, shouted another man.
Drop by drop, a dark liquid sweated out through the bars of the vent in black pearls, the color of ink or the color of oil, they trickled down the wall, caught the harsh light of the bare bulb, and turned red, a dark and ruby red, they dripped, they dropped, in a trickle, then a stream –
Confess, they screamed.
Crimson and scarlet, it was blood, it was blood, and in a river, now a torrent, Murota Hideki saw the blood run down the wall, watched the blood pool on the floor, falling faster down the wall, rising higher from the floor, Murota Hideki saw the blood lapping at his shoes, all their shoes, watched the blood covering his shoes, all their shoes –
Confess. Confess …
But Murota Hideki stamped his feet, his bloody feet, in the pools, the bloody pools, paddling and splashing in the tide, the bloody tide, up to his ankles now, all of their ankles, and Murota Hideki sprung up from his chair, jumped up and down in the blood of the tide, the tide of the blood now up to his shins, all of their shins, then his knees and their knees, then his thighs and their thighs, and Murota Hideki turned his face to the ceiling, the low ceiling of the room, raised his handcuffs to the light, the harsh light of the bulb, the blood of the tide, the tide of the blood now over his waist, all of their waists, then up to his chest, all of their chests –
Confess!
Up to his neck in the blood now, then over his chin onto his lips, Murota Hideki tasted the blood on his lips, the blood in his mouth, licked the blood, sipped the blood, the blood down his throat, the blood in his belly, drinking the blood, swallowing the blood, dark and ruby red, crimson and scarlet, the room, this station all dark and ruby red, the world, this life all crimson and scarlet, drowning and drowned, this life, his life in blood, in blood, Murota Hideki now drowned in blood.
The works, the works, oh did they give me the works: injected and sedated, then doused and roused, slapped wide awake, punched in the ribs, kicked in the shins, throttled and choked, then injected again, sedated again, bound and then dragged, from pillar to post, from room to room, then car to car, and house to house: from Hongō House down to Yokohama, from Yokohama to a mansion in Kawasaki, from Kawasaki back to Tokyo, a big suburban villa in Den-en-chōfu, always tied to a chair or strapped to a bed, until I could stand it no more, no more, could take it no more, no more.
First, I tried to hang myself from a chandelier by my belt, but the lamp broke. Next, I tried to hang myself in the toilet, but my belt broke. Finally, having borrowed a pair of scissors from a sympathetic cook, I locked myself in the bathroom. I smashed the mirror on the wall, then with the scissors and the shards I set about my work. But we human beings are so frail and weak, so very frail and weak, and before my work was done I’d fainted and fallen to the floor, alas, not quite yet dead to the world.
Busybodies and do-gooders, or sadists and torturers, call them what you will, but there’s always someone out there, out to save you from yourself, to break down the bathroom door, to wrap you up in bandages, to fill you full of pills, to strap you to a cot, to wire you to the mains and then to flick the switch.
On and then off, off and then on, again and again, day after day, over and over, night after night, they’d flick the switch and watch me twitch, twitch and writhe, writhe and thrash, with each of the shocks, their electric shocks, through the electrodes into my scalp, shock after shock, into my skull, into my brain, black electricity into my brain, into my mind, on and then off, off and then on, the black electricity into my mind, my mind.
“Release me,” screamed I. “Release me!”
“If that’s what you wish,” they would sometimes say, and even sometimes do, driving me home, back to my house, my study and my desk, my pen and my papers. But no sooner had I picked up my pen, put my pen to my papers, than I’d hear them knocking on my door, hear them whispering in my ear –
“Just checking how you are …”
And back they’d take me, kicking and screaming, back I’d go, bound and gagged, back to the Cuckoos’ Wing of the Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane, back –
“To save you from yourself …”
Dressed in soiled drawers and leather restraints, that’s where I’d be, that would be me, lying in my own feces, choking on my own dribble, day after day, night after night, hearing only the sound of the rain and a clock – drip-tick, drop-tock – struggling to stay positive, to somehow have hope –
Drip-tick, drop-tock …
As the rain fell and the time passed – drip-tick, drop-tock – until late one cloudy afternoon, not unlike today, as I lay moored to my bed, bobbing up and down in my own private harbor of recollection and reverie, remembering lost times, dreaming old dreams, when in among the raindrops and the clock-tocks, stealing over the walls of the hospital and in through the bars of my window, I swear I heard –
Shu-shu pop-po …
Abandoning the sanctuary of my inner harbor, I dared to open my eyes and face again the stains on the ceiling, the cobs in the corner, and there I saw the colors begin to change, to shift, to smear, and then to run –
A moment later, even less, came a pale and sudden flash, then a clap of thunder so loud it shook my bed and bones, silencing the rain and stopping the clocks, the only sound now that sound of a train –
Shu-shu pop-po, shu-shu pop-po, SHU-SHU POP-PO, SHU-SHU POP-PO …
Louder and louder, faster and faster, nearer and nearer, shaking the walls, the ceiling, and floor, the noise of the train, the smell of the train, smoke through the window, steam through the bars, as I thrashed in my tethers and chomped on my gag, certain, so certain this was the end, the air grease and the air oil, the air coal and the air light, light flooding the room, the light from the train, coming down the line, coming down the tracks, through the tunnel of the window, round the bars of my window, the line and the tracks, up my bed, over my body, the tracks and the line, to the end, the end, where I was the end, the end of the line –
SHU-SHU POP-PO, SHU-shu, shhh …
But then and there, yes, then and there, at the end of the line, did the saintly moon of my salvation rise up before my face, take the sodden rag from out of my bloody mouth, put its cold finger to my chapped lips, its own sweet lips to my bandaged ears, then whisper, gently whisper, “Shhh now …”
But shhh now I could not – tears as big as pumpkins rolling down my cheeks, gasping for lost breath, struggling for forgotten words – finding his tongue and mine as I wept, as I begged, “Let me kiss you, my dear, dear Sadanori …”
For here at the end of the line, at the literal end of my tether, unfastening my restraints, massaging my ankles and wrists, here was Shimoyama Sadanori –
“Come back to set you free,” he whispered. “But quick, there is no time for explanation, we must hurry.”
And Sadanori helped me up from the bed, my feet to find the floor, to steady and then to guide me into clean drawers and next a white gown, then toward the door –
“Wait,” said I. “My manuscript.”
“Where is it,” asked Sadanori, scanning my cell.
“Over there,” pointed I. “Below the abandoned crucifix, under those vases of dead flowers.”
“This,” asked Sadanori, moving both vases to one side, then picking up my mighty tome.
“Indeed,” said I, tapping the side of my head, giving him the knowing wink. “Cleverly disguised as a telephone directory.”
“Say no more,” said Sadanori, the book under his arm, now turning the lock, then opening the door, taking my hand, and leading me on. “Please follow me …”
And so down the corridor – that corridor of muffled cries and stifled screams, of thrashing beds and knotted sheets, to the applause of the thunder and the flashbulbs of the lightning; no nurse, no orderly, no soul in sight, all gone for the night – from room to room we went, stepping out of our paper world of words, out of the book, through its paper walls of pages, from all its fictions, knocking on doors –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
Murota Hideki twitched, twitched again, his eyes open and his heart pounding. He swallowed and he choked, he spluttered and he coughed, swallowing and choking, spluttering and coughing, again and again, over and over, because he could not get up, he could not sit up. His body was strapped to the bed, his wrists and his ankles tied to the posts of the bed. He could only splutter, only cough, fight not to swallow his tongue, to choke on his own tongue, and wait for it to pass, then to close his eyes again, for all of this to pass again –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
The muffled cries and stifled screams, of thrashing beds and knotted sheets, down the corridors, behind the doors, in this place of madness, time of madness –
Ton-ton. Ton-ton …
He did not hear the key turn in the lock, turn once and only once, if it did turn in the lock. He did not hear the door open, once and only once, if it did open. But he did feel the straps loosen on his chest, the ties fall from his ankles and his wrists as he opened his eyes, opened his eyes to see a figure in the moonlight –
Ton-ton …
In the moonlight of his cell, he raised himself up from the bed. He slowly swung his legs over the edge, slowly lowered his feet to the floor. Trembling and unsteady, Murota Hideki stood and stared as the silhouette stepped out of the shadows and came toward him, aged and skeletal, barefoot and dressed in a hospital gown, the specter had a thick book under his left arm, a teddy bear in his hands.
Kuroda-sensei, I presume, asked Murota Hideki.
Yes, yes, he replied with a sad smile. Unfortunately. But come, come, let us hurry, the rooms are about to be locked again, and we, we have an invitation to a séance …
Séance, asked Murota Hideki.
The book still wedged under his left arm, Kuroda Roman raised the teddy bear slightly in his hands. The teddy bear looked up at Murota Hideki, smiling sadly as he sadly said, Why, the séance in memory of my death, fifteen years ago tomorrow, and the mystery of its solution …
Out of the room, down the corridor they went, hand in hand, two barefoot men in their hospital gowns, led by a bear and a book, through flashes of lightning, amid crashes of thunder – ’Tis the storm of history, whispered Kuroda Roman with a gentle nudge and a sad wink – then down the stone stairs, flight after flight, then through the kitchens, down to the basement, then past the boilers, following the pipes, until they came to a door marked DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIC SCIENCES –
After you, said Kuroda Roman, opening the door for Murota Hideki. But do mind your step …
Inside, the room was dim and stifling, but, guided by the hand of Kuroda Roman, Murota Hideki found a seat at a large round table, between one patient who-appeared-to-be a Westerner and one who-appeared-to-be Japanese, even vaguely familiar, but who did not look at Murota, acknowledge him, nor even his surroundings, but –
Ladies and gentlemen, interrupted another foreign man, lighting a candle in the center of the round table. I am Professor Peck of this department and I am very pleased to be able to introduce to you this evening Madame Hop …
Professor Peck, somewhat green around the gills, turned to nod and smile at a round-faced, red-haired lady seated beside him, then continued, As you may know, Madame Hop is one of the foremost mediums of our time …
They are Russian émigrés of the old school, whispered Kuroda Roman, leaning across the Westerner and the thick, black tablecloth to Murota Hideki. Berlin by way of Harbin, then back east again. Believers in the jinx and the hex, in numerology and demonology, black spots and evil eyes, the power of symbols and signs. Excellent –
Silence, please, exclaimed Professor Peck. Madame Hop needs to be able to discern a spiritual atmosphere before she can begin, so now let us all join hands, and give ourselves up completely, and concentrate …
In the faint, pale circle of the candle’s light, Murota Hideki glanced around the table, watching the eight people – not counting the bear sat in the lap of Kuroda-sensei – all join hands, Murota, too, joining hands with the Caucasian on his right and the Asian to his left, their hands and his own, hot and clammy, the fingers and the palms. But hand in hand, in the dim, yellow circle, Murota Hideki found it hard to concentrate, to keep his eyes closed, peeking at the dark walls of velvet curtains, at the cards and pens and charts across the tabletop, the collection of megaphones and microphones dangling over the table, suspended from an unseen ceiling, but –
Concentrate on one thing, whispered Professor Peck, and one thing alone, emptying your mind of everything except the subject, and only the subject …
Still peering at the proceedings, Murota Hideki watched the Professor rise from the table, walk over to an ancient phonograph, turn its handle again and again, then return to his seat, as the strains of a somewhat scratched recording by Artur Rubinstein of Liszt’s third “Liebestraum” tip-tip-tiptoed around the gloomy bunker –
We are calling you, said Madame Hop. Who is able and willing to talk to us …?
The “Liebestraum” faded into silence, then into the silence, the waiting, then came a gentle, regular knocking, a tap-tap-tapping on the table –
Ton-ton, ton-ton …
They had gone from ward to ward, down corridor after corridor, from room to room, opening and closing doors, lifting sheets here, pillows there, turning faces to the light, their light, then moving on, slowly on, from floor to floor, down flights of stairs, through the kitchens, into the basement, past the boilers, the pipes until –
Ton-ton …
They are here, cried Madame Hop, as the table began to shudder, to shake, to tilt, and to rise. The Messengers are here.
The room was hot, then cold, now hot again, then cold again, in waves, on tides and on currents, of electricity, black electricity, hum, hum, black electricity humming, humming, louder, louder, something coming, coming, was coming –
Is anybody there, asked a voice, human-yet-not-human, from out of the biggest, blackest of the megaphones above the table and its sitters, then joined by other voices, also human-yet-not-human, from out of all the other megaphones, all speaking in chorus, We said, IS ANYBODY THERE?
Yes, stammered Madame Hop. We are here.
Who are you, they hissed, this “we” …?
Madame Hop looked at Professor Peck, who looked to the foreign doctor on his left and asked, Doctor Morgan?
Doctor Morgan looked up from his pen and notepad, adjusted his glasses, touched his bow tie, coughed once, then said, Naturally. So then, anticlockwise, we have myself, Doctor Morgan, a visiting consultant here at Matsuzawa, specializing in the study and treatment of the long-term mentally ill. Then, to my right, Professor Peck and Madame Hop, former students of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, well known in their field, and already to you, no doubt. Then, to their right, we have one of our longest-surviving patients, a former police inspector who went by the name of Minami, though he has not spoken a word since the day he was committed, back in 1946. Next to him, we have a recent arrival, Hideki Murota, charged with multiple murders, but whose mental competence to stand trial is currently under review. Beside Murota, we have a foreign national whose identity remains unconfirmed and who, again, has not spoken since being admitted to the hospital well over a decade ago now. Then we have Tamotsu Horikawa, better known as the writer Roman Kuroda, who has been in and out of here on a number of occasions. Finally, on my left, this is Sadamichi Hirasawa, the man convicted of the infamous Teigin mass poisonings in 1948. He is currently with us as part of an ongoing assessment of his mental competency, which, in turn, pertains to an appeal against his death sentence …
Dark medicine, whispered the voices.
Doctor Morgan touched his bow tie again, glanced up at the megaphones, cleared his throat, then said, So you now know who we are, but who, then, are you?
We are legion, giggled the voices in the megaphones, then laughing loudly, For we are many.
Very funny, said the doctor.
Funny, laughed the voices. You think we are trying to be funny? We’ll show you FUNNY –
Instantly, the table rose up, then jerked in the direction of Madame Hop, Professor Peck, and Doctor Morgan, hitting all three in their chests, knocking them over, backwards in their chairs, sending all their cards and pens and charts falling from the tabletop, yet not the candle, which remained fixed to its spot in the center, though one moment lit, then not, then lit again, as the table came plunging back down to the ground.
Quietly, the doctor and the professor helped the medium back to her feet, then back into her chair, all three now seated back at the table as again the room turned hot, then cold, now hot again, then cold again, in waves, on tides and on currents, of electricity, black electricity, hum, humming again, louder, coming again –
We are here because of you, mumbled and muttered the voices, still from the megaphones, but different, quite different, sad, so sad, stifling, swallowing sobs. Because of you …
Thank you, said Doctor Morgan. We are –
Shut up, screamed the voice from the biggest, blackest megaphone. One or more among you is an enemy …
Somewhere near, or was it far, in another room, another world, where the year is zero, always, already zero, a gramophone began to play again, to sing –
Oh so bravely, off to Victory …
Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind, boomed the gramophone. Who can die without first having shown his true mettle? / Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army / I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags marching into battle …
The earth and its flora burn in flames, as we endlessly part the plains / Helmets emblazoned with the Rising Sun, the Rising Sun, Sun, Sun …
The needle stuck, the air became hotter again, much, much hotter than before, and filled with the strong scent of garlic, so strong it stung the eyes and tongues of the room, the hand of the man called Minami gripping, squeezing the hand of Murota Hideki tighter, still tighter, crushing the fingers of his left hand, but then, just as suddenly, the noise of the needle stopped as the temperature fell, the stench and taste of garlic dissipated, the air colder, freezing, the sound of teeth chattering, of women wailing, weeping –
Postwar, après-guerre, you say – he says, they say, all men say – but it’s always been postwar, already après-guerre.
Conquered from birth, colonized for life, I have always, already been defeated. Always, already been occupied –
Occupied by you, by you, by you –
Born of me, the death of me. Blood of me, the death of me. Come in me, the death of me. Rob my name, the death of me. Born of you, the death of me –
In the snow. In the mud. Beneath the branches. Before the shrine. In the genkan. In the bank. On a street in China. In a wardrobe in Tokyo. With your poison. With your pen.
In sorrow, whispered Kuroda Roman.
Nothing else remains, wept the man called Hirasawa. Only sorrow. Nothing else remains …
It is you, cried the voices of the women, still wailing, still weeping. And only you …
Anata, darling …
But now the temperature began to rise again as the voices of the women, their wailing, their weeping, began to fade and, in their place, the sound, the feel of hissing, then roaring – sara-sara, sara-sara – a shower of static, in the air, their blood – sara-sara, sara-sara – damp and clinging, holding the inside out –
We are cold, we are wet, the voices, the voices of children said, then asked, Can’t you see us? We are standing on the bridge, our little head between the narrow gaps in the metal railings, the marshaling yard of the station stretched out before us, we are spellbound by its sights and sounds, transfixed by its trains. Shu-shu pop-po, they go, shu-shu pop-po. We love to watch the shunting and the switching operations, the small trains pushing the goods wagons around the yard, connecting this wagon to that wagon, that wagon to this locomotive, marshaling the wagons, creating the train, the long, long trains, then waiting for the engines to be heated, for the coals to burn and the steam to rise, for the whistle to sound, and the wheels begin to move, to move and to turn, the train heading toward the bridge now, toward us now, passing under the bridge now, under us now, enveloping us in its thick black smoke as we turn to run to the other side of the bridge, through the clouds of smoke and steam, pressing our blackened face between the metal railings, watching the train steaming away, far, far away, on the tracks to some unknown place, so very, very far away. Shu-shu pop-po, shu-shu pop-po. We are three years old. We never tire of standing on this bridge, never tire of watching these scenes, of watching these trains. Shu-shu pop-po, shu-shu pop-po. We would stand here all day, every day, if they’d let us, just let us. But they won’t let us – shu-shu pop-po, shu-shu pop-po – for they are murdering us …
The sound, the scream of wheels and whistles, along with thick black clouds of smoke and steam enveloped the underground chamber, deafening the ears and blackening the faces of all who were sitting at the table, but then, just as suddenly again, the sound and the screams, the smoke and the steam retreated into the shadows, the corners, and now, in their place, the sound, the feel of rain, a summer rain, in the air, an insect air, and their blood, in their blood again, clinging, holding again, the inside out, turning the inside out –
Behold, a summer landscape, whispered a voice from a megaphone, softly-softly, rising gently-gently. After the long border tunnel, again the defeated, occupied city appears, in the depths of the white night, again the landscape of a summer night, nineteen hundred and forty-nine. River. Embankment. Bridge. Crossing. Rails. Tracks. Road. Path. Fields and ponds. Prison walls and a rope hut. Here. They. Come. In the summer, in the night, beside the river, down the tracks, before the rain and before the train. Here they come: three, four men coming down the tracks, in blacks, in browns, in boots, in boots that once trampled Chinese dirt down, Manchurian earth, American dirt, and Indian earth, across the plains of history, from Wounded Knee to Nanking, all points before, between, and since, and yet to come, to come; here they come, beside the river, down the tracks, leading a child by its hand, they are leading him on, a Boy Who Loves Trains …
So easily led, echoed voices from other megaphones, first deceived, then tethered and led …
Down the line, along the tracks, looking for you, searching for you, calling for you …
But again the signals have changed, already the train has left the station, announced a grating metallic voice from the biggest, blackest megaphone, repeating, The signals have changed, the train has left …
As the table began to shudder, to shake again, but then to rock, gradually increasing in speed as professionals and patients alike let go of each other’s hands and tried to grip, to hold onto the tabletop –
Again the coal has turned to fire, again the water turns to steam, again the wheels have begun to turn, again and again they turn and turn …
And again the sound, the scream of wheels and whistles, again with thick black clouds of smoke and steam enveloping the underground chamber, again deafening the ears and blackening the faces of all who were trying to hold onto the table, the table violently rocking, faster and faster, rocking now racing, racing –
The wheels of the locomotive, across the river, under the bridge, as the ground shakes, as the rails hum, hum …
Deceived, tethered, and led, sobbed again a different voice, sad, so sad. They have laid him down upon the tracks, across the rails, where he shivers, where he trembles but does not rise, he does not rise, for he is waiting, waiting …
WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU, screamed a terrible, harrowing voice from the biggest, blackest megaphone above the rocking, racing table –
For you, for you …
Who among you, pleaded that different voice, so sad, so very sad, who among you will take off your armor, your uniform, then climb aboard the locomotive of history – not to ride that train, but to halt that train – who among you will apply the brake, the emergency brake?
Too late, too late, wailed the voices of the departed, as the table jumped up and out from the hands of the living, then came spinning straight back down, crashing round and into the circle of sitters, sending them flying into heaps of broken table and chair, piles of pulped skin and bone, all coated in ash and oil, rain and blood, wreathed in smoke and silence, apathy and stagnation, as somewhere near, yet far, a close but distant clock chimed midnight on the Fourth of July, Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Four, and the fifteen-year statute of limitations expired, officially closing, sealing all investigations into the death of Shimoyama Sadanori, and from the wreck of the wood, the ruin of his flesh, Murota Hideki blinked and blinked again, choking, suffocating – struggling, now failing to breathe, he watched a tear fall from the button eye of a teddy bear, then heard a voice, a foreign voice to his right –
Too late, whispered Harry Sweeney.