Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [116]
In Italy he witnessed devastation – helped create it. The ruins of Cassino, the shattered towns and villages, the transforming hand of war. This is something else.
The city has been crushed to ash and cinders, a burnt-out emptiness where houses stood, where people worked and lived and slept. Here and there a concrete structure breaks the rubble surface – a gutted department store, a square stone building topped by a blasted clock tower, a blackened mass that had been a movie theatre; two twisted metal shafts that once were office blocks.
Joe had one long-gone day driven past a Californian hill-side consumed by fire, blackened, still smoking, the gaunt skeleton of what had been a forest. Tokyo, like that forest, is a graveyard of trees: not one wooden building survived the firestorm, not a dwelling was left standing.
Eerily untouched, the Imperial Palace sits within its moat as though ringed by magical waters. A few yards away he can see the Dai-Ichi insurance building, squat and solid as a fortress; busy with people in uniform coming and going, jeeps lined up outside. This is the American HQ.
He steps through the doorway and enters America. Gleam and polish and comfortable chairs; young bodies encased in crisp khaki come and go in a hurry. There are ceiling lights, desk lamps, shades and chandeliers. The air smells different.
At Reception, he gives his name, presents his papers. Here there is no second glance, no mismatch. Joseph Theodore Pinkerton. Here, he’s the right man in the right place.
He is located on a list, identified, tagged, but this time with a difference: now he wears a label that proclaims him a regular guy. One of the gang running the show.
At his desk he is engulfed by checklists, information of every sort: guidelines, schedules, ‘categories of suppression’. At the next desk is another uniformed figure surrounded by papers.
Joe calls across: ‘These categories. What are we suppressing?’
‘They’ve given us thirty-one topics to be avoided: Criticism of Occupation Forces, Criticism of the United States, Criticism of Allies, black market activities – it’s all listed.’
‘So basically we’re censoring . . .’
‘Everything. Yeah. But we’re not allowed to mention it. See there, under ‘topics to be avoided’: References to Censorship.’
He walks the streets, charting the ruins as an archaeologist might rebuild a Roman city from its surviving foundations, and he sees that, slowly, life is returning. Here and there the yellow of new planks glows bright against the cindery grey; buildings are rising. From all around comes the sound of dragging footsteps: clogs clattering, boots clanging on metallic residue. People move slowly; they look bewildered. They wear bizarre combinations of clothing: a beaded evening blouse salvaged from wreckage, summer pants, dirndl skirts, torn kimonos, rags reborn as shirts, strips of cloth made from wood pulp which disintegrate in the rain. Young ex-soldiers shuffle past in tattered uniforms, dazed remnants of the Imperial war machine who would have gladly died in action, condemned instead to live.
Water and soap are scarce, which means the normally fastidious locals wander uncaring with dirt-streaked faces, muddy feet, grubby clothing, cracked and gaping boots. Children go barefoot.
By the side of what had been main thoroughfares stalls have sprung up, with anything portable for sale or barter – old war medals, fine leather bags scorched and stiff from flames; here an army greatcoat, there a pair of shoes too fine to wear. One woman beckons Joe over to show him an example of her miraculous refurbishing service: unwanted military