But now the pasts and the futures, their memories and their dreams, their deceits and their lies, their voices and their words, are all gone again; the Black Gate, the occult circle spinning again, spinning and spinning, and you are spinning, spinning and spinning,
through the laden wind, through the haunted air,
spinning and spinning, the detective gone –
Only his notes, his words remain –
Taunting you, mocking you –
You and your book, your book that is no book, as you pick up your pen and then drop your pen, drop and pick up, start and then stop, stop and then –
Here beneath the Black Gate, in the occult circle of its ten candles, a voice whispers, whispers from the shadows, ‘I am a Survivor. And I have the same dream, night after night…’
And from out of those shadows, a woman crawls towards you, on her hands and on her knees, and she says again, ‘The same dream.
‘Night after night, the same dream …
The Third Candle –
The Testimony of a Survivor
The city is a purgatory. Night after night, the same dream, IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, night after night, the same dream:
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. It is Monday and I do not want to get up. I do not want to get dressed. I do not want to go to work. Something is wrong. I want to lie all day beneath this quilt. To sleep and to dream, of food and warmth, of the man who will come and take me away from the cold and the hunger, of the man on a white horse who will save me from the Occupied City. But I must get up. I must get dressed. I must eat breakfast and leave for work. For it is Monday.
Monday 26 January 1948.
In the Occupied City, I walk through the mud and the sleet, the mud on my shoes and the sleet in my hair. Something is wrong. Maybe today the bank will close early. Maybe today we can leave early. Maybe today I can go back home early. Maybe I can lie again beneath my quilt. Because something is wrong. But I walk through the mud and the sleet, past the shrine and up the hill.
The road is busy and crowded, people coming to Shiinamachi to work, people leaving Shiinamachi to work. An American jeep sounds its horn and makes us all jump to the side. The wheels of the American jeep turn and splatter us with mud.
I know something is wrong.
I slide open the wooden door. I step inside the genkan to the bank. I take off my dirty shoes. I put on my freezing slippers. I go down the corridor into the bank. I say good morning to Miss Akuzawa and Miss Akiyama. We talk about the weekend and we talk about the weather as we change into our blue uniforms. 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 quilts. Then we go down the corridor into the main room of the bank.
In the warmth of the heater, in the light from the lamps, I take my seat at the counter and I wait for the bank to open, for the working day to begin, the working week.
Just before half past nine, Mr Ushiyama makes his usual speech which starts every week and we all bow and the clock chimes half past nine and the bank opens and the working day begins, another working week.
The customers come, from out of the mud and out of the sleet, and I greet them and I serve them and I think about my lunch and I listen to the sleet turn to rain as it falls on the roof of the bank. And just after half past twelve, Mr Yoshida tells me I can take my lunch. I change places with Miss Akiyama. I go down the corridor. I sit in the changing room. I take out my bento. I open the lunch box. I eat my cold rice and sour pickle. I drink hot tea from my teacup. I listen to the rain as it falls