Occupied City by David Peace Page B

between 3 p.m. and 3.10 p.m.
    ‘When the killer began to distribute the poison, I looked him in his face. I will never forget that face. I would know it anywhere.’
    ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know.’
    ‘I am a survivor,’ I tell him. ‘But of course I know only through luck have I survived so many friends. But night after night, in dream after dream, I hear these friends saying of me: “Those who survive are stronger.” And I hate myself.
    ‘I hate myself.’
    ‘I know,’ he says again, ‘But I will help you …’
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, it is 4 February 1948.
    There are flowers and there are presents, photographers and well-wishers. The nuns, the nurses, and the doctors stand in a line to bow and wish me well. And I bow back and I thank them and then I leave this place, this hospital, and I step outside.
    But something is still wrong…
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, it is cold and it is grey, and there are more flowers and there are more presents, more photographers and more well-wishers. Mr Yoshida, Mr Tanaka and Miss Akuzawa are here too, and we greet each other for the first time since that day, trying to smile as the cameras flash and the reporters shout, thinking of our colleagues who are not here, who will never be here to receive these flowers and these presents as the smiles slip from our lips and fall to the floor of this cold, grey Occupied City.
    And now we are led through the crowds to the cars, the cars which are waiting to take us back, back to the bank, the bank and the scene of the crime. And so we sit in the backs of these cars and westare out at the cold, grey Occupied City, the cold, grey Occupied City which stares back into these cars at us and whispers through the windows,
‘In due time, in due time
    The cars turn up past the Nagasaki Shrine and now the cars pull up outside the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank and I don’t want to get out of the car, I don’t want to get out of the car, but a policeman has the door open and my hand in his as I step out of the car and into the mud and into the sleet and I want to drop to the ground and crawl on my hands and on my knees away from this place, away from this city, but where would I crawl, where would I go, for there are no white horses here, no one here to save me from the Occupied City, and now I am standing in the
genkan
of the bank, taking off my hospital shoes, putting on my freezing slippers and going down the corridor into the bank with my eyes closed tight, tight, tight; tight, tight, tight for I AM THE SURVIVOR
    But of course I know: only through luck
    Have I survived so many friends.
    But night after night
    In dream after
    Dream
    I hear these friends saying of me: ‘Those who survive are stronger.’ And I hate myself
    I hate myself
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, I wake up. It is cold, in the Occupied City. I do not know what day it is and I do not want to get up. I do not want to get dressed.
For something is wrong
. But I do not want to lie all day beneath this quilt. I do not want to sleep because I do not want to dream. So I get up and I think,
something is wrong
. The room is cold and I know,
something is very wrong
. I walk through the house but no one is here. I open cupboards and I open drawers. Among the rubbish I find the newspaper and I open the newspaper and I look for his name, for
Takeuchi Riichi
. And I find his name and I see the story he has written, a story about a letter, a letter his paper has received and I read the story, I read his words:
    Dear Teikoku Bank, Shiinamachi, Toshima Ward
.
    I am sorry I caused quite a disturbance the other day. At first I had an unpleasant feeling watching so many people writhe and
squirm in agony but later I didn’t mind at all. I let Miss Murata Masako live bemuse I have some use for her later
.
    In due time, I shall pay her a second visit
.
    Signed, Yamaguchi Jirō
.
    And now I hear the tapping on the front door and I am walking through the house and I am opening the door, hoping and