Occupied City Read online

  ALSO BY DAVID PEACE

  Tokyo Year Zero

  The Damned Utd

  GB84

  Nineteen Eighty-Three

  Nineteen Eighty

  Nineteen Seventy-Seven

  Nineteen Seventy-Four

  For my mother

  Tokyo

  OCCUPIED CITY

  – And what the writer found there …

  The obedient and virtuous son kills his father.

  The chaste man performs sodomy upon his neighbours.

  The lecher becomes pure.

  The miser throws his gold in handfuls out of the window.

  The warrior hero sets fire to the city he once risked his life to save.

  The Theatre & the Plague, Antonin Artaud, 1933

  IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, you are a writer and you are running –

  In the wintertime, papers in your arms, through this January night, down these Tokyo streets, you are running from the scene of the crime; from the snow and from the mud, from the bank and from the bodies; running from the scene of the crime and from the words of the book; words that first enticed and entranced you, then deceived and defeated you, and now have left you in-snared and in-prisoned –

  Beneath a sky that threatens more than night, more than snow, now you huff and breath-puff, puff and breath-pant, pant and gasp –

  For in your ears, you hear them coming, step by step, whispering and muttering. In your ears, you hear them gaining, step by step-step, drooling and growling, step by step-step by step –

  A Night Parade of One Hundred Demons …

  In the night-stagger, your spectacles fall from your nose. In the snow-stumble, your papers fall from your hand. In the night and in the snow, you scramble for your spectacles and for your papers, you search for your sight and for your work. But the ghost-laden wind is here now, again the be-specter-ed air is upon you. It steals your papers and it shatters your spectacles, it makes a sheaf-blizzard of the loose-leafs, a shard-storm of the slivered-lenses, as you claw through the laden wind, as you thrash through the haunted air –

  But then the wind is dead and now the air is gone, the sheaves fall and the shards drop. You grab your spectacles, you grasp your papers, your manuscript; your manuscript of

  the book-to-come;

  this book that

  will not

  come–

  This unfinished book of unsolved crime. This book of Winter, this book of Murder, book of Plague.

  The blank sheets in your hands, the empty frames on your nose, now you see the Black Gate up ahead, and so you start to run again, through the January night, huffing and breath-puffing, down the Tokyo streets, puffing and breath –

  Now you stop running.

  Beneath the Black Gate, you seek shelter. In its damp shadows, you squat now. Under the eaves of the gate, here there is no one else, only the finger-night-tips, the foot-snow-steps. This gate once a treasure, this gate now a ruin, almost; but this gate still remains, this gate now a sanctuary, perhaps. No crows, no foxes, no thugs, no prostitutes tonight. Only night and only snow, their finger-cold-tips and their foot-dirty-steps. You breathe hard, your soaked-coat-through, you spit blood, your stained-papers-red. Your breath is bad and belly bloated, your eyes bloodshot and face swollen –

  But here, under this Black Gate, in these damp shadows, here you will hide. Here inside, inside here –

  Here you will hide –

  Hide! Hide!

  From this city, out of breath, from this city, out of time. This cursed city; city of riot and city of earthquake, city of assassination and city of coups, city of bombs and city of fire, city of disease and city of hunger, this city of defeat, defeat and surrender –

  This damned city; city of robbery and

  city of rape, city of murder,

  of murder and plague –

  These things you have witnessed, these things you have documented, in the ink you have spilt, on the papers you have spoiled. Inside here, here

  inside –

  ‘… a ghost-story-telling game popularized during the Edo period. By the mid-seventeenth century its form was established among samurai as a playful test of courage, but by the early nineteenth century it had become a widespread entertainment for commoners. The game begins with a group of people gathering at twilight in the pale-blue light of one hundred lit candles, each covered with a pale-blue paper shade. Each person in turn then tells a tale of supernatural horror and at the end of each tale one wick is extinguished. As the evening and the tales progress the room becomes dimmer and gloomier until, after the one hundredth tale has been told and the last candle blown out, the room is in complete darkness. At this moment it is believed that real ghouls or monsters will appear in the dark, conjured up by the terrifying tale-telling…’

  The blood-blots, the tear-traces, the dead letters and the death sentences. You look up from your papers, you snatch sight of a stairway, a broad stairway to an upper storey, an upper storey away from the city. You rush to gather your papers, you run to climb the steps, finger-light-tips follow you up, foot-soft-steps echo your own –

  One step, two steps, three steps, four –

  Half-way up, you stop, stair-still,

  stair-bent, you crouch,

  breath-held –

  In the chamber of the upper storey, high on the under-hide of the roof, there is light above your head, here inside the Black Gate,

  here you are not alone, here in-presence-d …

  You climb again, you stop again, and now you see –

  In the upstairs chamber, in an occult circle –

  Twelve candles and twelve shadows –

  In the Occupied City, beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in this occult circle of these twelve candles,

  now you are on your knees.

  Suddenly, the ceiling of the chamber is illuminated by a flash of lightning. You look, you listen. You hear a peal of thunder, the fall of rain hard upon the roof of the gate. You listen, you look –

  In the light of the candles, you see and now you hear a hand-bell being shaken in the air; hear and see a bell and a hand –

  The red bell and the white hand, the white arm and the red sleeve, the red robe and the white face of a woman –

  The woman, a medium, before you –

  In the centre of the circle of the candles,

  in their gutter-ring, she stands –

  Her hair and her robes now flailing within a sudden tempest, for the laden wind has found you here again, again the haunted air,

  as the medium rattles the bell again and again, and again –

  The bell, and now the sound of a drum beating slowly,

  as the medium begins to dance, to spin and to turn –

  Madly, the bell clattering and the wind howling,

  the drum beating, on and on, over and over –

  Feet moving through the splintered wood,

  dancing, spinning and spinning, turning –

  Suddenly she stops, suddenly still now,

  frozen, the bell slips from her hand –

  Abruptly, she faces you now, to say:

  ‘Let the story-telling game begin…’

  Then she tears towards you,

  in this Possessed City –

  The medium falls to the floor before you, now she sits upright, taut and still, and now her mouth begins to open, to speak. In a disembodied drone, it speaks. It speaks the words of the dead –

  ‘We are here because of you,’ they whisper. ‘Because of you, our dear sweet, sweet writer dear, because of you …

  The First Candle –

  The Testimony of the Victimo Weeping

  Because of you. The city is a coffin. In the snow. In the back of a truck. Parked outside the bank. In the sleet.
Under the heavy damp tarpaulin. Driven through the streets. In the rain. To the hospital. To the morgue. In the sleet. To the mortuary. To the temple. In the snow. To the crematorium. To the earth and to the sky –

  In our twelve cheap wooden coffins –

  In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we lie. But we do not lie still. In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we are struggling. Not in the dark, not in the light; in the grey, we are struggling; for here is only grey, here we are only struggling –

  In this grey place,

  that is no place,

  we are struggling all the time, always and already –

  In this place, of no place, between two places. The places we once were, the places we will be –

  The deathly living,

  the living death –

  Between these two places, between these two cities:

  Between the Occupied City and the Dead City, here we dwell, between the Perplexed City and the Posthumous City –

  Here we dwell, in the earth, with the worms,

  in the sky, with the flies, we who are no longer in the houses of being. Beyond loss, flocks of birds fall from the sky and shower us with their bloody feathers and severed wings. But we still hear you. We who are now in the houses of non-being. Beyond loss, schools of fish leap from the sea and splatter us with their bloody guts and severed heads. We still see you. We want to breathe again, but we can never breathe again. Beyond loss, herds of cattle run from the fields and trample us with their bloody carcasses and severed limbs. We listen to you. We want to return again, but we can never return again. Beyond loss. We watch you still. Through our veils –

  The veils which no longer hang before our eyes, these veils which now hang behind our eyes, their threads spun by our tears, their webs woven by our deaths, these veils which replaced our names, which replaced our lives –

  Through these veils,

  still we see –

  Still we watch, we watch you …

  Our mouths always open, our mouths already open. But we no longer talk, we can no longer talk, here we can only mouth, mouth:

  Do we matter to you? Did we ever matter?

  Our mouths always screams,

  already screams, screams

  that mouth:

  Your apathy is our disease; your apathy, a plague…

  We dwell beyond sorrow. You close your mouths. We dwell beyond pain. You close your eyes. Beyond grief, beyond despair. You close your ears, for you do not hear us, for you do not listen to us …

  And we are tired, we are so tired, so very tired –

  But still we dwell, between these two places –

  Beyond dereliction, we lie. Drunk, you harangue us. Beyond oblivion, we wait. Sober, you ignore us. Forgotten and untended, buried or burnt, haunted and restless, under the earth and above the sky, without dreams and without sleep. You are Mind to our suffering. We are so tired, so very tired. You are deaf to our supplications. We weep without tears, we scream without sound,

  yet still we wait, and still

  we watch –

  Between the Occupied City and the Dead City, between the Perplexed City and the Posthumous City we wait, we watch and we struggle. Here in this grey place, here where we are waiting,

  watching and struggling:

  Cursed be you who cast us into this place! Cursed be you who keep us here! Fickle you are, so very fickle –

  Fickle are you, fickle the living…

  Forgotten are we, forgotten and denied –

  Lives forgotten and deaths denied –

  For you deny us our deaths …

  Deny us and trap us …

  In the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, beyond the Occupied City, before the Dead City, here we are trapped, trapped in the greyness, trapped in this city. In this city that is no city,

  this place that is no place –

  Here we shuffle, we shuffle around, around in circles, with our boxes. Did you hear our footsteps in your heart? Our own ashes, around our necks, our own bones, in these boxes. Did you feel our fingertips within your flesh? We raise our shoulders, we raise our faces, we raise our eyes. Have you come to lead us back, back towards the light? Back towards the light, we begin to shuffle. Back to the Occupied City? In the Occupied City, we shuffle around, around these twelve candles, we gather around, around and around –

  Back in the Occupied City, here we are the victims again –

  Here, never the witnesses; always, already the victims –

  So we are weeping. Always, already the weeping –

  Here, we who were once the living –

  Now weeping all the time, here –

  Here tonight, weeping –

  In the Occupied City, where the weeping seek the living. But the living are not here, not here tonight before these candles –

  Here tonight, there are only the weeping –

  Here tonight, only us:

  And so again tonight we are Takeuchi Sutejiro, Watanabe Yoshiyasu, Nishimura Hidehiko, Shirai Shoichi, Akiyama Miyako, Uchida Hideko, Sawada Yoshio, Kato Teruko, Takizawa Tatsuo, Takizawa Ryu, Takizawa Takako and Takizawa Yoshihiro –

  But we are still weeping. Always,

  already the weeping,

  always, already the weeping again in the Occupied City:

  In the Occupied City it is 26 January 1948 again –

  Here it is always, already 26 January 1948 –

  This date always, already our wound –

  Our wound which will never heal –

  Here, here where it is always, already that date, that time; always, already, the last time:

  For the last time. In the morning, we wake in our beds. In our beds that are no longer our beds. For the last time. In our homes, we dress. In our homes that are no longer our homes, our clothes that are no longer our clothes. For the last time. We eat white rice. Now we eat only the black rice, the black rice that empties our stomachs. For the last time. We drink clear water. Here we drink only the dark water, the dark water that empties our mouths. For the last time. In our genkans, we say goodbye to our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters. Our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters who are no longer our mothers and our fathers, no longer our sisters and our brothers, no longer our wives and our sons, no longer our husbands and our daughters. For the last time. In the snow, we leave for work. For our work that is no longer our work. For the last time. Among the crowds, we catch our trains and our buses. Our trains and our buses that are no longer our trains and our buses …

  For the last time. Through the Occupied City, we shuffle –

  From the Shiinamachi Station, we shuffle. In the sleet. For the last time. Up the road, we shuffle. Through the mud. For the last time. To the Teikoku Bank. The Teikoku Bank that is no longer a bank…

  For the last time. We slide open the door. The door that is no longer a door. For the last time. We take off our shoes. Where are our shoes now? For the last time. We put on our slippers. Where are our slippers? For the last time. We sit at our desks. Our desks that are no longer, no longer our desks …

  For the last time –

  Among the papers and among the ledgers, we wait for the bank to open. For the last time, on this last day, 26 January 1948 –

  We watch the hands of the clock reach half past nine. For the last time. The bank opens and the day begins. For the last time. We serve the customers. For the last time. We write in ledgers.

  For the last time –

  In the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, we hear the snow turn to sleet, the sleet turn to rain, as it falls on the roof of the bank. And we wonder if today the bank will close early. We wonder if today we will be able to leave early, to go back to our homes, back to our families. Because of the weather,

  because of the snow –

  But the snow has turned to sleet, the sleet has turned to r
ain, and so the bank will not close early today and so we will not be able to leave early today, we will not be able to go back to our homes,

  back to our families –

  So we sit at our desks in the bank, in the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, and we watch the hands of the clock and we glance at the face of our manager, our manager sat at his desk at the back; we know Mr Ushiyama, our manager, is not so well. We can see it in his face. We can hear it in his voice. We know he has severe stomach pains. We know he has had these pains for almost a week. We all know what this could be; we know it could be dysentery, we know it could be typhoid. In the Occupied City,

  we all know what this could mean –

  In the Occupied City, we know

  this could mean death, death –

  But he will survive this,

  he will live through

  this…

  For the last time. We watch the hands of the clock reach two o’clock and we see Mr Ushiyama rise from his desk at the back, his face is white and he holds his stomach. For the last time. We watch Mr Ushiyama bow and we listen to Mr Ushiyama apologize to us all. For the last time. We watch as Mr Ushiyama leaves early –

  And we all know what this could mean –

  We know this could mean death –

  But he will survive, he will live. Back in his home that is still his home, back with his family that is still his family …

  But we do not leave early today. We do not go back to our homes, back to our families. We sit at our desks, in the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, and we go back to our customers and back to our ledgers. And we listen to the sound of the rain –

  And we watch the hands of the clock –

  We watch the hands of the clock reach three o’clock and we watch as the bank closes its doors for the day. Among the stacks of receipts, we collate the day’s transactions. For the last time. Among the piles of cash, we tally the day’s money. For the last time. And then we hear the tap-tap upon the side door. For the last time –

  We look up at the hands of the clock –

  For the last time:

  It is now twenty past three on Monday, 26 January 1948 –

  Twenty past three, in the Occupied City –