The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

by Colin Cotterill

  “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  “No,” said Beer, instantly. Siri answered with a smile.

  “I’m buying you both lunch,” she said.

  “No, you don’t have to,” said Siri.

  “Oh, but I do,” said Kyoko. “You two have enlivened my life, expanded my horizons. I didn’t sleep a minute last night.”

  Siri was curious to know how boring Toshi had accomplished such a feat. Many of the Lao entries—not including the fables—had put him to sleep. The waitress came and took their orders with a smile.

  “Did you find it exciting?” Siri asked. “The Japanese section?”

  He’d hoped for a “yes” so Kyoko’s “no” floored him.

  “Fascinating, yes,” she said. “Disturbing, appalling, sickening? All of those. But not exciting.”

  “What do you mean?” Siri asked.

  “Well, Doctor Siri, the diary entries begin in 1937. Hiro, who was then called Toshimado, was in Manchuria. He provides us with the dates and the times and describes in great detail the places he visited and the tasks he was ordered to perform. At that time he was a major in charge of what they called ‘salvage.’ They would go in behind their victorious armies and rescue goods and equipment which could be reused or sold toward the war effort. It appears the spoils of war had no bounds: valuables in empty apartments and houses, heavy equipment in factories, rings and gold fillings from deceased enemy soldiers and civilians. It’s all documented with no emotion at all.”

  “So Toshi was a noncombatant even then?” said Siri.

  “So it seems.”

  “Any other mention of him being a pilot?”

  “None at all beyond the introduction.”

  “So it’s possible he never flew.”

  “Yes,” said Kyoko. “I’m only halfway through but he seems intent on demonstrating his undying devotion to the emperor and the Imperial Army. There are entries where he describes the most horrific scenes in impassive terms.”

  “For example,” said Siri.

  She turned to a page that she’d selected by inserting a pink cartoon bookmark.

  “For example, this,” she said. “Today, quite to our surprise, the General made an inspirational visit to our battalion. He was so pleased with our work he penciled around one area on the map of Nanjing and gave us a suburb.”

  “What does that mean?” Siri asked.

  “I phoned my advisor in Bangkok,” said Kyoko. “She’s a historian. I read her the passage. She said that as a reward for productivity and loyalty, the senior officers would give a suburb to a unit of soldiers. There would be no holds barred. The soldiers in the unit could take anything or anybody they wished within the borders allocated. They could mete out punishment on the Chinese in that suburb for any infringement. They could destroy property, torture, kill, rape. There were no rules. It was their reward and, as the Japanese military saw the Chinese as inferior beings, there were no moral conflicts. Your friend Toshi was honored to be congratulated in such a way.”

  Siri sighed.

  Kyoko turned to another marked page and translated, “It was our great honor today to be able to follow the eighth battalion on their victorious march on Chuzhou. The bodies of the enemy were piled six feet high on either side of the road. There were women and children in those stacks and our glorious commander informed us that the Chinese animals were so unscrupulous that they recruited such people as spies and suicide bombers.”

  The food was on the table but only Beer was eating. Siri had lost his appetite. Of course he’d learned of the Japanese atrocities in China but hearing them anew from Toshi’s point of view felt like . . . like what? Like betrayal. Siri had come to like the man from his light and humorous diary entries. But to discover he was a war puppet, a man without scruples, a beast: that was more than he could take in. It was as if he’d lost a friend.

  “Is it like that all the way?” he asked.

  “As far as I got,” said Kyoko. “There’s just . . .”

  “What?”

  “There’s something about the style of his writing that doesn’t seem . . . natural.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s a little like reading a textbook. Even the few personal entries are impersonal. Everything he sees and does makes him ‘so proud to honor the emperor.’ That and a few dozen other well-used wartime clichés crop up on every page. He talks about death clinically. There isn’t a single euphemism. There is no difference between his choice of language describing mass rape and that talking about the lack of space in a warehouse to store rice.”

  “What does that say to you?” Siri asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, absently chasing her food around the plate. “Either your Toshi is a complete automaton . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or he was expecting someone to read his diary. I got the feeling he wasn’t necessarily writing for himself.”

  “Are you going to eat that, Uncle?” asked Beer, looking at Siri’s plate. Siri slid it across the table. He noticed that Beer didn’t contribute much to the thought process, but he did spare kitchen workers a lot of washing up.

  “Oh,” said Kyoko, “and I looked briefly through the Japanese occupation documents you gave me.”

  “You’ve been busy,” said Siri.

  “I’m caught up in your puzzle. I didn’t have time to read it all, but I was able to pick at the troop movements in and out of Thakhek. That included the names of the first battalion to arrive there in 1941. I don’t read Lao very well but there are enough similarities to Thai for me to make out the names in Toshi’s unit in his diary. Even allowing for misreading and poor translation on my part, I think I can say with some certainty that there were no military personnel based in Thakhek with the names listed by Hiro.”

  “Not one?” said Siri.

  “Not even Hiro himself.”

  “You’re telling me he was never there?”

  “According to the official lists.”

  “Damn.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  An Adorable Alcoholic

  “So it would appear I’m right again,” said Daeng.

  “You’re always right, my love,” said Siri. “But . . . he describes everything in such detail, even the mundane stuff. I mean, why would he bother to write about trivial things? If he was a carrot peeler, as you said, surely he’d write a diary full of excitement and intrigue to counteract his dull life. But we have a hundred and sixty pages of philosophical insights and fables and descriptions of all the beauties of Mother Nature. There isn’t one death. There are no villains. Even the alcoholic was adorable.”

  Siri, Daeng, and the girls were fishing. Or, rather, they were sitting on a wooden dock dangling their lines in the water for the amusement of the fish.

  “Except for the last untorn pages,” said Daeng. “It seems Toshi’s colleagues are starting to get on his nerves.”

  “But that’s where it all ends,” said Siri. “We don’t have those missing pages so we’ll never know what happened before his promise to ‘rise.’”

  “Talking about rising, shouldn’t we be taking off soon?”

  “We can’t leave, Daeng. There are so many unanswered questions. What about that loose sheet and the treasure? We still don’t know who sent us the diary.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. What’s your plan?”

  “Kyoko is—”

  “You mention her a lot.”

  “She’s been very helpful. She said she—”

  “Attractive, is she?”

  “She’s gorgeous.”

  “Hence the risky rowing trips to Thailand.”

  Siri loved it. Daeng never failed to be jealous when other women made appearances in his life. If he was feeling braver he’d say something like, “In Japan, young women are attracted to older
men, sexually.” But he invariably came off worse as a result of making such comments so instead he said, “She told me she’d discuss matters with her sensei in Bangkok and see if I can get access to any other documents. Problem is, all the war records are in the hands of the Americans now and they’ve barely made a dent in translating everything.”

  “Young, is she?”

  “What?”

  “Keiko.”

  “Kyoko? I don’t know, mid-twenties? But she was asking if we had any US contacts who could get us access to the data bank of records in Washington. She thinks it’s the best way to find out what actually happened to Toshi after China and, for that matter, whether he really existed. If he could make up the Lao half there’s no reason why he couldn’t make up the Japanese half, too, including his name. So I was wondering whether we could get in touch with Cindy.”

  “Cindy?”

  “Yes, remember? She was at the embassy in Vientiane, then moved to Phnom Penh.”

  “Cindy the beautiful blond second secretary?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “It appears you have a stable, Siri Paiboun.”

  “She was able to get us access to documents in a hurry and she was really helpful in the dog tail case last year. And she did tell us she’d be delighted to work with us again.”

  “I do recall.”

  Against all the odds one of the girls caught a fish. It appeared to be elderly. She pulled it from the water with the help of her un-sister and they chuckled together as it squirmed on the dock. By the time Siri had removed the hook and returned the fish to its retirement community in the water, Daeng had regained her composure.

  “What do you hope to find?” she asked.

  “If Hiro Uenobu exists or existed we might be able to find out whether he really was a pilot. He doesn’t get anywhere near an airplane in the Lao or the Japanese segments of the diary. Something must have happened. And perhaps we can confirm that he was in Manchuria on the dates he gives. Then apparently he arrives in Indochina but not in Thakhek. I suppose it’s possible he gives a false place name for security reasons. He seems quite knowledgeable about salvage so perhaps that part was true. Then there’s a gap. His last Japanese entry was in 1940. He’d just left China and arrived in Vietnam. When the Lao entries begin he’s already on his way here, or so he says. If we take it at face value, that’s a gap of three months when he writes nothing. By late ’41 he’s in Thakhek or wherever writing fluent Lao, second in command, and having a good time with a unit of men who apparently don’t exist. Doesn’t this all tickle your funny bone just a little?”

  Daeng had caught a knot of river weed that refused to release her hook.

  “Have you ever considered that the diary might have been written by two different people?” she said, tugging on her line.

  “What?”

  “That soldier Hiro keeps a diary about his placement in Manchuria and he drops it.”

  “He drops the diary?”

  “Yes, or just loses it. He’s off pillaging and raping his generously donated virgins, has a little too much stolen whisky and drops it on his way back to the barracks. And somebody else picks it up, sees it’s a finely crafted tome with half the pages untouched, and he keeps it for himself. When he comes to Laos he learns the language and writes his nonsense in it just to practice. Either that or he gives it to a Lao as a present.”

  Siri pondered silently.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “Different language, different style, different person.”

  “Damn,” said Siri again.

  “Your friend Kimiko didn’t uncover anything about his younger days?”

  “No. The diary started in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, with Hiro saying goodbye to his family. He’s about to be transferred to Manchuria. He’s thirty-four already but we don’t know anything about his early years. It really is intriguing.”

  “Siri, you really need a hobby that’s more suitable for your age.”

  “The only thing suitable for my age is decomposition,” he reminded her.

  They heard an enthusiastic “yoohoo!” from the lane behind them, and Roper, sodden with sweat, came bounding up to them on the dock. The structure swayed. The girls shied away from him.

  “Good news,” he said.

  “We can go home?” said Daeng.

  “Not yet. I hope you can bear with me for one or two more days. I have been able to secure a cassette tape upon which we have samples of every one of the tribal languages of the region. I shall play the tape to our poor victims here and once we have established their ethnicity I can begin the process of locating their home villages.”

  “And what if they don’t respond to their own languages?” Daeng asked.

  “Why would they not?”

  “They’ve done a good job of keeping mum so far,” she said. “It’s still possible they’ve been threatened not to use their native languages.”

  “Fear not, Madam Daeng. We have a linguistics expert flying up from Bangkok as I speak.”

  “Then the world is safe,” said Siri.

  “Do you suppose I could borrow the girls?” said Roper.

  “I might have to go with you,” said Daeng. “I think they’re finding men less than trustworthy.”

  She threw in a sideways glance at her husband as an exclamation mark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Feet Never Lie

  Alone again, Siri was in his room reading—for want of an alternative—a thrilling account in the Passasson Lao newsletter of the minister of agriculture’s state visit to East Germany. There was a hint of alliteration in the third paragraph that gave Siri a modicum of hope for his country’s literary future. He was not upset to be interrupted by a shout from outside.

  “Dr. Siri!”

  He ran to the door and opened it to find Beer and a man in his sixties with a neat beard the color of smoke. Siri had always wanted one just like it but for some reason he’d been unable to grow facial hair. Apart from the beard, Siri might have been looking at an image of himself. He expected Beer to introduce the guest as a Lao or a Vietnamese, but in a low voice he said, “Dr. Siri. This is Yuki-san.”

  Siri nodded and Yuki-san ran a thumb and forefinger over his beard.

  “I couldn’t find the mechanic,” said Beer. “But this is even better. Yuki-san was in Thakhek at the same time as Toshi.”

  “I was starting to believe Toshi didn’t exist,” said Siri.

  “Apparently he did,” said Beer. “But everyone knew him as Hiro.”

  Siri was recharged. A lost cause had been found.

  “Then please come in,” he said, standing back.

  There was only tepid tea from a thermos to drink but Beer threw back three mugfuls while the two old gentlemen sipped politely and stared at each other.

  “Do you speak Lao?” Siri asked.

  “Only few words,” said Yuki-san in Vietnamese. It was heavily accented but competent. Siri’s Vietnamese was fluent.

  “I cannot be in your room for long,” said the Japanese.

  “Yuki-san stayed in Vietnam after the Japanese defeat,” said Beer, also in Vietnamese. “He fought with the Viet Minh against the French. He ingratiated himself with Uncle Ho and was given a plot of land and a wife. He now has three children.”

  “How do you know all this?” Siri asked.

  “I tell him,” said Yuki-san. “Walking here.”

  “So you aren’t old friends?”

  “We just met at the market,” said Beer. “But I get the feeling it wasn’t a coincidence. Your purpose in Thakhek hasn’t gone unnoticed, Doctor.”

  “So, Yuki-san, according to the official Japanese documents, Kangen Toshimado, alias Hiro Uenobu, was not involved in the establishment of a Japanese base in Thakhek. How do you explain that?”

  “Hiro come be
fore the other,” said Yuki-san. “Him and his unit. They come before records start. Japanese army specially want major general to come first to show important of Thakhek. Hiro come with him plus six or seven other men.”

  “I can’t tell you what good news that is,” said Siri. “I wish my wife was here to enjoy this happy moment with me. Can you confirm any other names in Hiro’s unit? Captain Jame, Second Lieutenant Tetsukimo, Corporal Yatsusuki?”

  “I don’t know,” said Yuki-san. “Only know Major Hiro and Major General Dorari. I deal direct with this two.”

  “What were you doing here?” Siri asked.

  “I come many time from Cochin. I was engineer. I plan the road from Hòa Bình in Vietnam to Paksane in central Laos.”

  “What was he like, Major Hiro?”

  “He was kind and lovely man. Everybody like him. I like him. We are like brother.”

  “And he was a pilot before coming south?” asked Siri.

  “He don’t like to talk about past life.”

  Siri was keen to sit down for the afternoon and hear what Yuki-san knew about Hiro. But first, as Beer had said, this visit could not have been a coincidence.

  “Why did you come to town?” Siri asked.

  “To see you,” said Yuki-san. “Friends in Thakhek send a message to me. They say a doctor is looking for my old friend Hiro. I live in mountain with my family. I have no . . . what do you say? No resources to seek for Hiro. For many year I wonder where is Hiro? Where is Hiro? I want to see him. Drink with him. Talk about his life, my life.”

  “Did he also join the Viet Minh?” Siri asked.

  “He leave the Japanese army and he join the Free Lao. Same enemy. Different country.”

  “There’s a diary,” said Siri. “Hiro’s diary but in it he calls himself Toshi. Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  “He keeps his diary until August 1945. Some pages before that are missing. These are the weeks before the Japanese surrender. Do you have any idea what he might have written there?”

  “I don’t know this diary.”