Return to Hiroshima Read online

  Praise for Return To Hiroshima

  Van Laerhoven’s Return to Hiroshima might well be the most complex Flemish crime novel ever written.

  — Fred Braekman, De Morgen, Belgium

  A complex and grisly literary crime story which among other things refers to the effects of the nuclear attack on Japan.

  — Linda Asselbergs, Weekend, Belgium

  Van Laerhoven skilfully creates the right atmosphere for this drama. As a consequence the whole book is shrouded in a haze of doom. Is this due to Hiroshima itself, a place burdened with a terrible past? Or is the air of desperation typical for our modern society?

  — Jan Haeverans, Focus Magazine, Belgium

  Van Laerhoven won the Hercule Poirot Prize with Baudelaire’s Revenge. You’ll understand why after reading Return to Hiroshima.

  — Eva Krap, Banger Sisters Return to Hiroshima

  Originally published in 2010 in Belgium as Terug naar Hiroshima

  © Bob van Laerhoven / Houtekiet / Linkeroever Uitgevers nv

  This edition published in 2018 by

  Crime Wave Press

  Flat D, 11th Fl. Liberty Mansion

  26E Jordan Road

  Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

  www.crimewavepress.com

  English Translation Copyright © 2017 by Brian Doyle

  The translation of this book is funded by Flanders Literature.

  Protected by copyright under the terms of the

  International Copyright Union: All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic

  or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,

  or any information storage and retrieval system,

  without written permission from the publisher.

  e-book ISBN: 978-988-14938-7-3

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters,

  and other elements of the story are either the product of the author’s imagination or else are used only fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to real characters, alive or dead, or to real incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Hans Kemp

  Author photograph © Studio Schrever

  Prologue

  Hashima Island – the wooden pier –

  Mitsuko – March 9 th 1995

  In the diffident light of a fading moon, I descend the path to the wooden pier, exhausted somehow by the incessant boom of the surf. On my right, massive waves crash against the concrete wall that surrounds this part of Hashima Island. Every few meters of my descent, I look over my shoulder. A lifetime of shadows and fears has sensitised me to presences. I can’t help wondering if Rokurobei knows that his minions call him the Serpent’s Neck, behind his back. Me, they call majo, the giant witch. They fear me, but I know that majo is no match for the serpent’s neck. I have the feeling that Rokurobei will materialize at any moment from behind the weathered concrete blocks next to the pier. I have apologies and lies at the ready, but will they suffice to slake his wrath?

  The ship is waiting as I had commanded. Rokurobei tends to use burakumin as his servants, those of unclean descent. This is to my advantage. The captain wouldn’t dare question my orders. Recently, during daytime, I walked to the shore with a book in my hand. I’d told Rokurobei that I liked to read with the roar of the water in the background. I closed my eyes intermittently as I descended, to imitate the darkness that would confound my escape.

  The night sky hangs low, ashen, the moon prowling behind restless clouds, pale red as a berry in spring. I carry a rucksack with a few belongings, some cash, my diaries, and the talisman. My breathing is fast, as if the blustering coastal wind has sucked away the oxygen. The instant my feet touch the rough wood of the pier, a lantern ahead of me sways to and fro then disappears, a sign that the captain is waiting for me, ready for departure. I can’t resist one final glance over my shoulder, up towards the eagle’s nest on the top of the tallest apartment building on the island. At that moment, the moon breaks through the clouds and magnifies Rokurobei’s silhouette, standing at the hand rail of the fortified wall. I freeze...Time skips a beat. Then I realise that the serpent’s neck is looking in the opposite direction; I sense he’s deep in thought, reflecting on who he once was and what he has become.

  He never understood that to me Hashima Island was sakoku, a land enchained.

  I

  Hiroshima – Dambara Islamic Centre –

  Mitsuko – March 10th 1995

  In the train to Hiroshima, I leaf through the old diaries I have taken with me from Hashima Island. On May 8th 1988, I’d written: “Rokurobei hunts at night. Do not underestimate the demon’s power. When his victims hear his footsteps and see his long neck, it’s too late. He seduces if he can, kills if he must. Although his gentle nickname for me as a child was Aonyobo, a singing female spirit that haunts abandoned imperial palaces, it would be a mistake to overlook the Serpent Neck’s true nature, his capacity for violence.” I was a high-spirited teenager, hoping to fly with words.

  Now I can only hope Rokurobei doesn’t find me. After fleeing Hashima Island, I only stayed in Nagasaki for five hours. I explained my conspicuous appearance by pretending to be the daughter of hibakusha, survivors of the atom bomb from the Second World War. My story sounded plausible: my parents were little more than infants when the bomb exploded and the radiation threw their endocrine system out of kilter, leaving me with an inherited genetic defect that made me grow up differently. People tended to be politely sympathetic, and some cautiously observed that I was a striking hibakusha of the second generation.

  Fortunately, I have brought enough money with me from the island. I wasted time and money in those first hours, the result of having spent almost twenty years imprisoned on “ghost island” Hashima and thus a stranger to normal society. Although I have stayed abreast of developments on the mainland via newspapers and magazines, adjusting turns out to be more difficult than I expected. Hashima is only 15 kilometres off the coast of Nagasaki, and Rokurobei will have presumed that I fled to the city when I left the island. The only other city where I could hope to blend in was Hiroshima. Rokurobei was sure to figure that out sooner or later, but it still gave me something of a head start.

  Fate came to my assistance on the train to Hiroshima. A woman in a veil was sitting opposite me and we got into a conversation. Her name was Akkira and she had converted to Islam. She took her religion seriously and wore a veil that covered her face as well as her hair. While we were talking, it gradually dawned on me that a chuddar like hers might come in handy. I feigned interest in Islam, and Akkira, a zealous recent convert, was clearly anxious to win me over. When we left the train at central station in Hiroshima, she took me with her to the Dambara Islamic Centre, an old building in a working class district of the city with a small brightly painted mosque. Akkira believed my story about being a second generation hibakusha without batting an eyelid. My height and loose fitting clothes concealed what was really going on with me. In any event, she made no allusion to it. I told her that my parents had died within weeks of each other. Her husband, a Muslim of Turkish origin, gave me permission to stay at the Centre while I prepared for my initiation as a believer. That was eight days ago and I’ve hardly been outside since, only at night. I know how merciless the one who is pursuing me can be. I’ve known him all my life. Rokurobei has connections with the police, the business world, politics, and the yakuza, the bigwigs of the underworld. I know how powerful he is, and I know about his origins.

  He is a formidable enemy and I am a
broken twenty-one year old woman.

  The last few days I’ve had the feeling that the birth is about to happen. I’m afraid Akkira now has her suspicions. She’s discrete, says nothing, but I’ve seen her looking at me.

  My water is about to break. Tonight I see Dr Kanehari.

  2

  Hiroshima – Dr Kanehari’s private clinic –

  Mitsuko and Dr Kanehari – March 10th 1995

  I feel reasonably safe behind the chuddar that covers my face. Fortunately, Japan’s small Muslim population tends not to attract much attention. People pretend disinterest. We are a discrete people. I pass through the streets unimpeded. I deliberately asked for a late appointment with Dr Kanehari. The teachers at the Dambara Islamic Centre have kept me busy all day, studying Islam’s hundreds of rules and practices. Many of them are contradictory. The only moments I had to myself were at night in my room. I soon discovered that I could easily slip in and out of the place via a side door. I’m the only one living in the Centre on a permanent basis. After searching the telephone book for Dr Kanehari’s number, I rang him up and came straight to the point. He was confused at first when I told him I didn’t want to deliver in a hospital and that I wasn’t looking for an abortion. I had access to television on Hashima Island and in the last year to the internet. I was aware that many Japanese women resorted to abortion because the contraceptive pill isn’t legal. Just about every gynaecologist performs illegal abortions. It’s an excellent source of undeclared income, and something of a blessing after the collapse of the Japanese economy.

  I told the doctor that as a Muslim woman I didn’t want to have an abortion, but that my life would be in danger should my husband discover that the baby was a love child and that it was already growing in my belly when we met for the first time seven months ago. Dr Kanehari swallowed my story. I made him believe that I didn’t dare have myself admitted to a hospital for fear that my husband would get wind of it. The doctor asked me how I had managed to conceal my pregnancy up to now. I dished up a story about my husband being in Turkey for almost five months trying to save the family business and preparing for me to come and join him in the land of his birth. Dr Kanehari wanted to know what I planned to do with the baby. My answer was endearing in all its simplicity: my childless older sister had promised to take care of the baby as if it were her own. My story didn’t exactly hang together, but wasn’t that the same with every story and every life? In reality, Dr Kanehari was only interested in the substantial sum of money I was offering. We made an appointment for this evening.

  Just before leaving the Dambara Centre for his private clinic, I inspected myself in the mirror. Because of my height, my swollen belly was barely visible, and in recent weeks I had also resorted to a corset. I had unremitting cramps and prayed that day that I would survive until nightfall.

  I’m tough, I remind myself, as I scurry through the streets of Hiroshima, map in hand. I am strong, but on the verge of despair. The night is warm and humid. People glance at me furtively, at my height, my veil, but they continue on their way, in haste, absorbed by their own lives, their own pasts, their own plans for the future.

  I am a pale spirit without a past.

  The future is in my belly.

  * * *

  The lenses of Dr Kanehari’s glasses are dotted with a myriad of miniature suns, reflecting the lights behind him.

  “A little jab,” says the doctor.

  What? He had told me he was going to induce labour, but had said nothing about an injection.

  I want to sit up.

  Too late.

  * * *

  He’s sitting in the eagle’s nest with a book. That’s what I call his favourite place to read and think. On a clear day, you can see the outline of Nagasaki harbour from the top of the tallest apartment building on the island. Ships sail past from time to time. None of them put in to port. At night a flotilla of little boats brings us everything we need.

  This was once the most densely populated place in the world. Our island is only four-hundred metres long and one-hundred and forty wide, but more than five thousand people used to live here.

  It’s high tide. I stand at the old “saltwater fountain” and look left and right. This is the narrowest part of the island. In rough weather, this kind of weather, the waves sometimes break on the other side. I wait until the sea draws back and then run towards the dirty grey building in front of me. On the ground floor, daylight on Hashima always seems gloomy. The old apartment blocks of weathered reinforced concrete, moss green and slate grey, are built so close together that they block out the light. The entrance to the building is still littered with empty sake bottles, left behind by the last group of mine workers who departed the island twenty years ago.

  Every time I enter the inner courtyard of the eagle’s nest my eyes are drawn to the empty windows and I’m reminded of the people who once lived here. It’s as if they left behind a terse sort of restlessness. Mainlanders say the place is haunted. Maybe they’re right. Sometimes you think you can hear voices, sighs perhaps, but in fact it’s the old buildings, crumbling. When people leave behind their deeds, their dreams, their desires in the house they once lived in, the walls begin to fester, the ceilings split and the windows crack. The buildings of Hashima seem to exude more darkness with every passing year, more menace, more loneliness. I climb the stairs, walk the corridors. Most of the doors to the tiny apartments have disappeared or are lying on the ground. In some of the flats there’s still evidence of the former inhabitants: a torn wall screen adorned with pastel drawings, an old 1950s white-framed tv, delicate teacups in a circle on the floor. Fragile, introverted signs in brutal surroundings. I look outside through the broken windows: besides the odd spot of green ivy here and there, the rest is grey. The sky is overcast, the colour of old ice. To reach the roof of the eagle’s nest I have to take an exterior staircase from the top floor. The sea is menacing today, whipped up, high waves crashing against the fortified walls. The pier at which our supply ships tie up at night is swamped with sea water. When I reach the roof I see him sitting there. He’s set up a screen against the wind. His armchair is surrounded by books. He’s not wearing western clothes. His black haori and hakama, the long, pleated culottes once worn by warriors, are impeccable.

  “What are you reading?” He makes me nervous. That’s why I don’t beat about the bush. He forgives me most of the time. After all I’m only twelve.

  “A book by a great English writer. Listen: No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.”

  He pinches my cheek with his long fingers.

  “I would like...”

  I fall silent. Although he’s in his late fifties, his hair is still shiny and black, pinned up in a topknot, classic samurai style. His long, gaunt, disproportioned face is expressionless, but his eyes, black as coal and gleaming fearsomely, gauge my mood. I had asked him months before why his eyes always had the same glassy expression. He told me it had to do with an overactive thyroid gland, one or other organ... I’ve forgotten where it’s located. He’s always slipping me little nuggets of knowledge, like treats to a dog.

  “You would like to leave the island.”

  I nod, avoid his gaze.

  “I miss my mother, friends to play with. I want to go to school.”

  “You learn more from me than any school can teach you.”

  That’s not what it’s about. There are a thousand things I want to explain to him but can’t because they’re scattered inside me like the pieces of a puzzle and I can’t fit them together.

  “I want to enjoy myself; live.”

  He lithely unfolds his limbs. I am more than six foot tall, but he is head and shoulders taller. His frame is slightly crooked and his neck, his impossibly long neck... I can’t avoid staring at it. I’ve been spared the neck, at least to some extent.

  “Live? Lif
e is about going after your goal and conquering yourself.”

  Your goal isn’t my goal, I want to say.

  He takes my hand and pulls me towards the handrail. He points to the countryside. From this distance, Nagasaki harbour is virtually invisible. A few bulbous, dark shapes allude to its presence. Today there are no ships sailing by.

  “You’re not an animal,” he says, “but people will treat you like one.”

  “And you,” I blurt, without being aware of what I’m doing.

  The hand on my shoulder feels heavier.

  It takes a while before he answers.

  “Me too. That’s why I know no pity.”

  * * *

  When I awake from the anaesthetic, with images of Hashima flowing out of me like water and making way for reality, I don’t see Dr Kanehari’s face, I see my father.

  “Daughter.” His weighty voice sounds broken behind the surgical mask. He says something about the kiku, the divine chrysanthemum, symbol of the kikusui, the imperial bloodline, but because of the turmoil in my head and the nauseating lightness in my belly I find it hard to understand what he’s talking about.

  What’s he doing? He’s turning away. I look at his back through the white coat he’s wearing. I remember that I used to think my father’s body was made of veined granite.

  “Daughter,” he says with his back still turned. “Did I make your life such a misery that you had to give birth like an animal?” His voice sounds like the voices in a dream, plaguing you from the depths of a gurgling well. Give birth like an animal? What does he imply? I want to answer him, but I can’t utter a word. What is there to say when Rokurobei catches up with us?

  3

  Hiroshima – Peace Monument – inspector Takeda

  and his assistant Akira – March 10th 1995

  Every corpse inspector Takeda’s job confronted him with made him think of his father, the fornicating buck. But the mutilated body of the baby found by the cleaning crew at the Peace Monument – dedicated to Sadako Sasaki – reminded him of his mother. When Takeda was a teenager, his mother told him about the first baby she delivered in the Dutch East Indies, which she tossed into the camp latrine shortly after its birth in 1943 with the permission of the Japanese guard who had raped her. Takeda, her second son, had been spared the same fate because his mother was still in her eighth month when the women’s camp at Pangkala-Balei in South Sumatra was liberated after the Japanese capitulation. Takeda thinks back to Hubertus Gerressen in a fit of melancholy. That was the name Barbara Gerressen gave him fifty years earlier, the name he no longer bears.