Time : Monday April 6th, around midnight.
Place : On the street below my apartment..
I am listening to some music, over which I hear a strange noise coming from outside, the sound of a woman screaming. I go out onto the balcony, and in the street below, I see a man dragging a woman, who is crying and asking for help and the police. Also down there is another girl, looking somewhat overpowered by the man, in her attempts to help this girl, or at least find out what is going on.
だいじょぶですか？(are you ok) I yell in a deep voice from my balcony. After some Japanese I don't understand, the man said "Yes no problem, go away." Strange answer I thought, but the woman was continually sobbing something in Japanese, and the key words けせつ (police) and たすける（help). At which point the man would try to drag her even more, which was met by even louder screams from the woman.
"Help" and "Police", I have no idea what is going on, but I have to go down, at least to give moral support to the Japanese girl struggling to help the screaming woman.
When I got down there, the girl trying to help looks somewhat relived, and had the expression of, if only you spoke Japanese. I asked again, are you ok, and again the man said ok, go away, I just said うるさい (shut up) and waited for the woman to answer. She was just sobbing, and a little calmer knowing that another man was here, and might help her.
Apparently, (according to the guy) they have been engaged for 2 years, and he loves her very much. I could tell how much he loved her, by the fear in her eyes, and the pathetic おねがいします she would add to the end of whatever she was saying, as she grabbed onto my leg, so the man would not take her.
The other girl was trying to calm the situation, but the crying woman, did not want to go with the man, who insisted she should.
At this point, a local shop owner arrived, he was taking his dog for a walk, in typical Japanese style. Holding the dog in your arms, and walking around the street with it.
He said to me "Hey man, what's going on?", I told him I had no idea, but she is asking for the police, and for help. I asked them how old they were, she was 32 and he was 53. He said he was a doctor, but of what, it did not make me think, "oh ok, silly me, off I go."
After the guy with the dog had spoken to the old man, he said to me, protect her, I will be back. His dog was tired from all the exercise and excitement had to take him home, a couple of minutes later he was back on his bike.
I told him that the police had been called, and we were just waiting for them to arrive, my flat mate had called the police. After what seemed like a long time, they finally arrived.
While we were waiting, the man said, that we could have her (the crying girl) he would give her to us, and we could look after her forever. The situation was so strange.
First one police car arrived, and stopped at a distance, I beckoned them over, and they came. Then two more patrol cars arrived, they got out of the car, and quickly assessed the situation, concluding that I might have had something to do with it. Dog guy quickly set them straight, pointing at the strange man.
They started taking statements from people, and three remaining police men were arguing about who would talk to me, the westerner. One finally came over, and in sheepish English asked me my name, I told him my name, and the story of why I was there, in the best Japanese I could come up with. Even though I made mistakes like pointing at my ears, meaning to say "I heard", but instead said "I saw".
At this point 4 more police cars arrived, realised there was nothing they could do, and stood around, like road workers waving the red light wands.
At this point I was free to go home, as was dog guy, but the girl, was asked to go with them. So the guy, crying girl, and the first girl to help went off to the police station (in separate cars). Why not, there were 7 police cars to pick from.
I am sure the girl was just drunk, and angry at the man, and that it was just a misunderstanding, as the guy, apart from trying to drag the girl back to his apartment, did not strike me as being a violent guy, he was a small old short guy.
I am sure I will never find out the truth, but I slept better, knowing that the police were dealing with it.
