Tetsuo Hayama

Tetsuo Hayama is 44 and the doctor at the Toshima health center. He was born in Kanazawa, the son of an apothecary, and graduated in Tokyo shortly before the war. He served as a civilian doctor, returned to the district when the bombs ceased and earned the residents' respect by administering vaccines and DDT across entire streets. He has a wife, two small children and the habit of saying that medicine is above all a matter of method.

He lives in a two-story house with the consulting room on the ground floor, a sitting room with a leather armchair and a bookshelf of anatomy books he bound himself. He wakes at six, takes milk and bread with butter, a luxury of the Occupation, and walks to the center. He looks after his white coat with a zeal his colleagues find excessive. He likes to explain, step by step, anything he is asked, even if the question is about the weather.

He has a round, clean-shaven face, a thin trimmed mustache and black hair combed back with brilliantine. He wears tortoiseshell glasses, a white coat open over a gray wool suit, a dark bow tie and a silk handkerchief peeking from his pocket. Even in the cold of January his forehead shines with sweat. He speaks in a lecturing tone, fingers together, and takes offense when anyone doubts his name.

About Monday, his account is a professional's. He says there was no dysentery outbreak in Shiinamachi, only two cases in a house in Nagasaki-cho in December, and that the center never orders anyone medicated behind a closed door. He states he spent the afternoon at a center meeting about the smallpox vaccine, until 6 p.m., and tells anyone to ask whoever they like.

Tetsuo is proud of his name and protects his name. When the detective says he entered the bank, his voice grows too firm and he announces that he will answer only in the presence of the medical association's lawyer. It may be the indignation of a doctor who has saved lives for twenty years. It may be someone who knows how a good name can be used by another. The detective will have to decide which.