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  Takeda doesn’t know his father’s name. Barbara Gerressen didn’t know it either, or refused to mention it. All her life she referred to him as “that fornicating buck”.

  His mother’s moods and convictions were extremely volatile, all down to the painful experiments the Japanese occupier conducted on her and many other women in the camp. If you could seduce one of the guards, stir his lust, you were better off. Barbara’s Dutch pragmatism almost dictated it. Result: a fertile belly bulging for a second time. Destined for the latrine as before, but the liberation got in the way. After the camp, Barbara Gerressen loved and hated her son with tremendous intensity for the rest of her life. She never knew why. Perhaps she thought too much about her firstborn.

  The inspector stares at the bullet-shaped memorial to Sadako Sasaki, the twelve-year-old little girl who was standing on Misasa Bridge when Little Boy exploded above her head and toxic radiation descended on the city like a blanket. She died ten years later from leukaemia. Sadako spent the last year of her life folding paper cranes because a clairvoyant had predicted she would survive if she reached a certain number. Takeda couldn’t remember how many, only that she had folded many more than the required number when she died with malignant bulges on her neck and throat. The hibakusha later picked up her habit. Nowadays, after every school trip, hoards of nervous, giggling schoolgirls leave behind a veritable mountain of finely folded paper at her monument.

  The inspector kneels beside the swollen lump of flesh. Colourful paper cranes are piled up next to the tiny corpse. Under his breath Takeda curses the person who discovered the body and phoned the gutter tabloid Shukan Gendai before warning the police. It must have been one of the cleaners, but everyone’s denying it. Takeda is convinced they all received an equal share of the tip-off money. He has Shukan Gendai’s local photographer traced, accusing him of disturbing a murder investigation and removing forensic evidence from a crime scene. The man defends himself by insisting that he’d come to photograph the monument for an “opinion piece” prior to the commemoration of Little Boy’s fiftieth anniversary and “stumbled over the corpse” in the process. As a good citizen he had taken photos first and then informed the cleaning crew. His photos will appear on the front page under a glaring headline.

  “Inspector?” Wary-eyed and bespectacled detective Akira appears behind Takeda’s back, striking a quasi-military pose.

  “Yes?”

  “The forensic people are here. They want permission to start work.”

  In his youth, inspector Takeda’s hair wavered between blond and red, just like his mother’s. Now it was turning grey. His angular features had a rugged hue that still glistened like copper in the sun. Takeda has always considered the enforced racial fusion that led to his birth unseemly. Large, plump, cumbersome hands and feet, robust shoulders. The inspector moves like the trained judoka he is and has been for years.

  “Wait for a bit, Akira.” The inspector stoops closer to the tiny corpse. The subdued light under the monument casts a uniform glow over the baby’s blackened skin. The body looks like a doll that’s been baked at too high a temperature. Its head is swollen and misshapen. Hardened fibrous tissue protrudes from its eye sockets. A lump of raw flesh – the tonsils? – bulges from its lipless mouth. The naked little body has the colour and texture of black porcelain. But the crotch is distended, a snow-white protuberance, the genitals melted like congealed egg-white. The inspector pulls on a thin latex glove. He doesn’t touch the corpse. His hand makes a gentle waving motion above the head, then the heart region, then the crotch.

  Akira turns away. As a modern Japanese man he abhors such displays. But time after time superstition takes over and sends a slight shiver down his spine.

  Takeda’s face remains motionless, writing off some of his colleagues’ claim that he has a sixth sense to sheer accident and his share of luck. But a feeling overcomes him nevertheless that’s best described as the moment before a tornado lets loose. A tingle of electricity runs across his chest from left to right. He picks up an intensity of pain and anxiety he’s never experienced before.

  4

  Hiroshima – Dr Kanehari’s private clinic –

  Mitsuko and Dr Kanehari – March 10th 1995

  “Pseudocyesis,” says Dr Kanehari. My father’s face, always so inscrutable and stern, with those inward looking eyes almost impossible to engage, refuses to leave the room. It floats past in a slow blur, but I can still feel his presence, so powerful that I begin to doubt he was a dream. My legs are cold, my head trapped in an airless bubble. At the same time my limbs feel tense, ready to escape. I can see tiny droplets of sweat on Dr Kanehari’s forehead, crystal clear, as if through binoculars.

  “What do you mean?”

  The doctor looks at me as if he doesn’t understand why I should be asking him a question. “Phantom pregnancy. It’s rare, but the women who suffer from it are usually so desperate to get pregnant they experience all the symptoms: nausea, occasional vomiting, increased weight, sensitive, painful breasts, excessive sleep.”

  “But...”

  “You called me,” the doctor interrupts. “You didn’t want the foetus removed. You wanted to have the baby and give it to your sister. It was only after I agreed to your request that I realised you weren’t pregnant.”

  “But I felt it kick! I talked to...”

  Kanehari shakes his head. He tries to placate me. I sense he’s hiding something.

  “Phantom pregnancies are often related to hysteria, even temporary insanity, a psychosis resulting from an enormous and merciless longing.” The doctor appears to be content with his last observation.

  “Why did you put me under?”

  “Standard procedure.” Kanehari joins his hands, palm to palm. “You should understand that given the circumstances I’m obliged to charge my full fee, as we agreed. I presume you’re fit enough to leave. Now you know what’s happening, your body will quickly adapt. You can already see that the swelling has largely disappeared.”

  I get down from the bed and feel a little dizzy, nothing more. And he’s right: my belly isn’t completely flat, but it’s a lot less swollen than it was this morning. Even the oedema in my lower legs is virtually gone. I feel no pain between my legs. I saw my father as I awoke from the anaesthetic, but that must have been my imagination, nothing unusual after a period of sedation. In spite of everything, I still don’t trust the situation. But if Kanehari and my father have robbed me of my baby, I would at least be in some kind of physical pain. Almost unconsciously I check my breasts. Dr Kanehari’s glasses veer sideways. I sense an air of disgust. Maybe that is also my imagination. The tension he’s radiating is tight as a drum. He’s probably scared he might get into trouble. I sneak a peek at the bed. No trace of blood. It looks exactly the same as the bed I fell asleep in after the injection.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Have I been asleep for nine hours unbroken?”

  Kanehari snorts. “Some people have a stronger reaction to sleep medication than others. It’s nothing unusual. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  “Thirsty, yes, but not hungry.”

  “You’re clearly sensitive to the anaesthetic. We followed the correct procedure. There were no mistakes.” The doctor’s gaze drifts in the direction of the door.

  I can’t think straight. It dawns on me that I don’t want to go back to the Islamic Centre, but I’m also scared of being outside during the hours of daylight. I grab my bag. Kanehari shows me the bathroom. I wash and dress. I leave The chuddar in my bag is at the ready, but I don’t put it on yet. When I leave the bathroom, the doctor is waiting for me, his hands pressed stiffly into his jacket pockets. I pay him the agreed fee and say nothing. He leads me to the door.

  I take out my veil. I notice him look at it. I skilfully wrap the chuddar around my head. I’ve become something of an expert.

/>   It comes to me at the door.

  “Why didn’t I see a nurse?” I say. “You said “we” a moment ago. Didn’t you say you intended to supervise the birth on your own, for the sake of discretion?”

  Kanehari remains tight-lipped. I can see myself in his glasses: a tall, veiled figure who fills him with fear, disgust and greed.

  5

  Hiroshima – metropolitan police headquarters – inspector Takeda and chief commissioner Takamatsu – March 10th 1995

  As Orandajin – a Dutchman – Takeda is more apprehensive of the strict hierarchy in the Japanese police service than his colleagues. After assessing the crime scene, he drives immediately to his district’s police station. Chief commissioner Takamatsu receives him in his office. Takeda bows, the chief commissioner nods and motions him to get to the point. Takeda gives a detailed report. As Takeda had expected, the commissioner works himself into a serious fuss. He refers to the baby corpse as “a barbaric disruption of the harmony reigning in the City of Peace”. Takeda presumes the commissioner will have refined this slogan before the more important papers get wind of the affair. Takamatsu taps at his desk with a letter opener. He thinks Takeda was too easy on the photographer from “that rag” Shukan Gendai. Haul the bastard in and scare him shitless! As if a seasoned photographer working for a gutter tabloid could care less about police threats, especially when he knows they can’t follow them through. But Takeda bites his lip, nods and says in a composed manner that the commissioner’s order will be followed and that he’ll be sure to be less cautious with the press in the future. “Now of all times, this hideous crime, Takeda!” Takamatsu declaims, visibly irate. “The city will be crawling with foreigners soon for the fiftieth anniversary of the atom bomb! I demand an efficient and professional investigation and I demand results, fast! Don’t let this sordid affair cast a slur on your record of service, Takeda!” In the corner of Takamatsu office, the lacquered sheath of an officer’s sword from the Second World War graces the wall, hung there by the commissioner himself. Older officers claim he wields the blade with skill and speed to chop yuzu to flavour his soup. Takamatsu’s office does indeed smell of Japanese citrus all the time, but Takeda is pretty sure the story about the yuzu is made up. It’s typical of the jokes they tell when they get drunk after work and there are no inspectors around, Takeda excluded. Takeda’s half foreigner. That’s why the inspector doesn’t come across as their superior, in spite of his rank.

  The commissioner ends the conversation with a tirade over “serious irregularities” in the social order brought about by the shinjinrui - the “new type of human” - and their antics, young people set adrift by the economic crisis who have nothing to do but loaf around and commit crimes. What this has to do with the baby is a mystery to Takeda, but he nods benignly nevertheless. Takeda knows that Takamatsu is dreaming about a career in local politics. He asks himself if the chief commissioner will then be at the beck and call of the powerful extreme right organisations that have a lot of influence in Hiroshima – and in Tokyo and Osaka for that matter. Rumour has it they even have close links with the force.

  “You can go, Takeda,” the chief commissioner barks. ‘Don’t disappoint me!”

  Takeda bows, noticing his hands dangling at his sides in the process.

  Huge hands. Murderer’s hands according to his wife.

  6

  Hiroshima – Mitsuko searching the city for a place to sleep

  – March 11th 1995

  I remember precious little of the hours after I left Dr Kanehari’s clinic. I ended up in Hiroshima’s neon neighbourhood. I don’t know the city, so I’m not sure what the district is really called. I was surrounded by shopping centres full of people of my own age, hanging around, the girls in colourful and often outrageous outfits. Since my arrival on the mainland I’ve noticed that my knowledge of society is more limited than I had imagined. Theoretical knowledge is misleading. It’s experience that shapes us.

  It’ll be dark in a few hours. I don’t know where to go. Fortunately, I took all my money and personal possessions with me when I left the Dambara Centre for my appointment with Dr Kanehari because I couldn’t find a reliable place to hide them. But I left my clothes behind.

  I decide to grab a hamburger in a place full of blaring music and garish colours. My father always insisted on eating traditional Japanese food. I loosen my chuddar from underneath as Akkira taught me. People are looking at me but I lower my eyes and peer at my surroundings through my lashes. The hamburger tastes like soggy cardboard, the Cola leaves me down in the dumps. If my father was right about the food that many Japanese prefer to their traditional cuisine, wasn’t there a chance that he had been right when he said that the country needed a new leader? I look around and see smiling faces. I don’t remember laughter like that on Hashima. Everyone in the hamburger joint seems self-assured, high-spirited, carefree.

  And the racket! Chitter-chatter right and left like tiny mountain streams coming from God knows where, wriggling and criss-crossing one another. My ears are ready to burst. I feel dizzy. I miss having the sea in the background, the cawing of the seagulls. But the relentless vitality of all these people surrounding me, running on escalators, storming in and out, roller-skating on the sidewalks, unleashes a longing within me. I don’t want to go back to Hashima. I want to be like them: wear bright colours, shave my legs, go dancing in discos.

  7

  Hiroshima – Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank –

  March 11th 1995

  The bus stops at 8pm in front of the headquarters if the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank. The bus is marked Municipal Cleansing Department. The building is impressive, perfectly apt for an important branch of the biggest bank in Japan. Hiroshima’s harbour activities bring in a lot of money. There’s a meeting underway with the ceo of the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank who’s here from Tokyo. There are two security guards in the lobby. They allow three men into the building with containers on their backs. They’re wearing white facemasks and white gloves, the prescribed clothing for this sort of work. The bank’s logbook contains the words: extermination of vermin. Once inside the lobby the men pull out pistols with silencers. They shoot the security guards. They put on gas masks and march through the corridors as they open the valves on the containers on their backs.

  8

  Hiroshima – Mitsuko spends the night in Hotel Ikawa Ryokan – Dobashi-Cho – March 11th 1995

  Night falls, but I don’t go dancing in a disco. I walk into the nearest hotel and book a room. I can’t sleep, but I’m not surprised. I toss and turn in the tiny bed. I miss the familiar curves of my belly and feel like a ghost lost in the wrong body. I wasn’t raised with other people, I was raised with shadows, and dreams like a puff of breath in the neck when you’re alone. A girl can create her own world in such circumstances, a world in which everything has meaning. On Hashima, books and rubble were the focal point around which my existence seemed to turn. Rubble was everywhere. The island was one massive industrial ruin. My father took care of the books. They were delivered in bulk. When it came to books my father set no limits. As a girl, I liked to wander down to the shingle beach and read at the foot of the sea wall surrounding the island. If you looked up from the beach, the blackened buildings on the island seemed to be on the verge of falling over. People called the island Gunkan or ‘the battleship’, because of its shape. It was a place that left you short of breath because of the secrecy it exuded. The entire island was built over and there were few if any open spaces. My father only allowed me to go to the shore when the weather was good. Each time I was laden like a mule with books. I was crazy about them because they could make the world big or small at will, interfere in the fate of nations, but also seek out your hidden thoughts, illusive, intangible, like silver-coloured fishes at the bottom of a deep lake.

  When the weather was bad I would sit in the old cinema. A good many of the wooden chairs were broken and the scre
en was torn. I sometimes pictured the characters in the book I was reading coming to life on the screen, making each other’s lives a misery, fighting and then loving each other. Those were lonely moments, a little creepy too, as if my head was capable of containing much more than I wanted it to. Everything was covered in dust. From time to time the uncontainable wind would toss it into the air and it would form itself into a figure in my mind’s eye. Then I would quickly look back at the page in front of me. Books protected me from reality. I remember them as a choir of pale shapes, sometimes hysterical, other times comforting, vividly prophetic, or disquieting, like a piano being played in the dark. I’ve always been convinced that stories influence the mind: they haunt regions of the brain where reason has lost its way. Stories made people see my father as Rokurobei, a demon of classic mythology. His background and the way he had been treated will also have had a role to play, but the main reason he acquired the status had its roots in the old stories and their superstitions. When I was a teenager, I was also convinced he wasn’t completely human. My father was treated like a god by his followers and he considered it nothing out of the ordinary.