Fate itself was the doctor’s own fatal disease. From his youngest days, he had had a weirdly lucid awareness that “I, as an individual, am living under the control of some outside force.” This may have been owing to the vivid blue mark on his right cheek. While still a child, he hated this mark, this imprint that only he, and no one else, had to bear upon his flesh. He wanted to die whenever the other children taunted him or strangers stared at him. If only he could have cut away that part of his body with a knife! But as he matured, he gradually came to a quiet acceptance of the mark on his face that would never go away. And this may have been a factor that helped form his attitude of resignation in all matters having to do with fate.
Most of the time, the power of fate played on like a quiet and monotonous ground bass, coloring only the edges of his life. Rarely was he reminded of its existence. But every once in a while, when the balance would shift (and what controlled the balance he never knew: he could discover no regularity in those shifts), the force would increase, plunging him into a state of near-paralytic resignation. At such times, he had no choice but to abandon everything and give himself up to the flow. He knew from experience that nothing he could do or think would ever change the situation. Fate would demand its portion, and until it received that portion, it would never go away. He believed this with his whole heart.
Not that he was a passive creature; indeed, he was more decisive than most, and he always saw his decisions through. In his profession, he was outstanding: a veterinarian of exceptional skill, a tireless educator. He may have lacked a certain creative spark, but in school he always had superior grades and was chosen to be the leader of the class. In the workplace, too, others acknowledged his superiority, and his juniors always looked up to him. He was certainly no “fatalist,” as most people use the word. And yet never once in his life had he experienced the unshakable certainty that he and he alone had arrived at a decision. He always had the sense that fate had forced him to decide things to suit its own convenience. On occasion, after the momentary satisfaction of having decided something of his own free will, he would see that things had been decided beforehand by an external power cleverly camouflaged as free will, mere bait thrown in his path to lure him into behaving as he was meant to. The only things that he had decided for himself with complete independence were the kind of trivial matters which, on closer inspection, revealed themselves to require no decision making at all. He felt like a titular head of state who did nothing more than impress the royal seal on documents at the behest of a regent who wielded all true power in the realm—like the emperor of this puppet empire of Manchukuo.
The doctor loved his wife and child. They were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him in his life—especially his daughter, for whom his love bordered on obsession. For them, he would have gladly given up his life. Indeed, he had often imagined doing so, and the deaths he had endured for them in his mind seemed the sweetest deaths imaginable. At the same time, however, he would often come home from work and, seeing his wife and daughter there, think to himself, These people are, finally, separate human beings, with whom I have no connection. They were something other, something of which he had no true knowledge something that existed in a place far away from the doctor himself. And whenever he felt this way, the thought would cross his mind that he himself had chosen neither of these people on his own—which did not prevent him from loving them unconditionally, without the slightest reservation. This was, for the doctor, a great paradox, an insoluble contradiction, a gigantic trap that had been set for him in his life.
The world he belonged to became far simpler, far easier to understand, though, once he was left alone in his residence at the zoo. All he had to think about was taking care of the animals. His wife and daughter were gone. There was no need to think about them for now. The veterinarian and his fate could be alone together.
And it was fate above all, the gigantic power of fate, that held sway over the city of Hsin-ching in August of 1945—not the Kwantung Army, not the Soviet Army, not the troops of the Communists or of the Kuomintang. Anyone could see that fate was the ruler here and that individual will counted for nothing. It was fate that had spared the elephants and buried the tigers and leopards and wolves and bears the day before. What would it bury now, and what would it spare? These were questions that no one could answer.
The doctor left his residence to prepare for the morning feeding. He assumed that no one would show up for work anymore, but he found two Chinese boys waiting for him in his office. He did not know them. They were thirteen or fourteen years old, dark-complected and skinny, with roving animal eyes. “They told us to help you,” said one boy. The doctor nodded. He asked their names, but they made no reply. Their faces remained blank, as if they had not heard the question. These boys had obviously been sent by the Chinese people who had worked here until the day before. Those people had probably ended all contact with Japanese now, in anticipation of changes to come, but assumed that children would not be held accountable. The boys had been sent as a sign of goodwill. The workers knew that he could not care for the animals alone.
The veterinarian gave each boy two cookies, then put them to work helping him feed the animals. They led a mule-drawn cart from cage to cage, providing each animal with its particular feed and changing its water. Cleaning the cages was out of the question. The best they could manage was a quick hose-down to wash away the droppings. The zoo was closed, after all: no one would complain if it stank a little.
As it turned out, the absence of the tigers, leopards, bears, and wolves made the job far easier. Caring for big carnivores was a major effort—and dangerous. As bad as the doctor felt when passing their empty cages, he could not suppress a sense of relief to have been spared that job.
They started the work at eight o’clock and finished after ten. The boys then disappeared without a word. The veterinarian felt exhausted from the hard physical labor. He went back to the office and reported to the zoo director that the animals had been fed.
•
Just before noon, the young lieutenant came back to the zoo, leading the same eight soldiers he had brought with him the day before. Fully armed again, they walked with a metallic clinking that could be heard far in advance of their arrival. Again their shirts were blackened with sweat, and again the cicadas were screaming in the trees. Today, however, they had not come to kill animals. The lieutenant saluted the director and said, “We need to know the current status of the zoo’s usable carts and draft animals.” The director informed him that they had exactly one mule and one wagon. “We contributed our only truck and two horses two weeks ago,” he noted. The lieutenant nodded and announced that he would immediately commandeer the mule and wagon, as per orders of Kwantung Army Headquarters.
“Wait just a minute,” the veterinarian interjected. “We need those to feed the animals twice a day. All our local people have disappeared. Without that mule and wagon, our animals will starve to death. Even with them, we can barely keep up.”
“We’re all just barely keeping up, sir,” said the lieutenant, whose eyes were red and whose face was covered with stubble. “Our first priority is to defend the city. You can always let the animals out of their cages if need be. We’ve taken care of the dangerous meat-eaters. The others pose no security risk. These are military orders, sir. You’ll just have to manage as you see fit.”
Cutting the discussion short, the lieutenant had his men take the mule and wagon. When they were gone, the veterinarian and the director looked at each other. The director sipped his tea, shook his head, and said nothing.
Four hours later, the soldiers were back with the mule and wagon, a filthy canvas tarpaulin covering the mounded contents of the wagon. The mule was panting, its hide foaming with the afternoon heat and the weight of the load. The eight soldiers marched four Chinese men ahead of them at bayonet point—young men, perhaps twenty years old, wearing baseball uniforms and with their hands tied behind their backs. The black
-and-blue marks on their faces made it obvious that they had been severely beaten. The right eye of one man was swollen almost shut, and the bleeding lips of another had stained his baseball shirt bright red. The shirtfronts had nothing written on them, but there were small rectangles where the name patches had been torn off. The numbers on their backs were 1, 4, 7, and 9. The veterinarian could not begin to imagine why, at such a time of crisis, four young Chinese men would be wearing baseball uniforms, or why they had been so badly beaten and dragged here by Japanese troops. The scene looked like something not of this world—a painting by a mental patient.
The lieutenant asked the zoo director if he had any picks and shovels he could let them use. The young officer looked even more pale and haggard than he had before. The veterinarian led him and his men to a tool-shed behind the office. The lieutenant chose two picks and two shovels for his men. Then he asked the veterinarian to come with him, and leaving his men there, walked into a thicket beyond the road. The veterinarian followed. Wherever the lieutenant walked, huge grasshoppers scattered. The smell of summer grass hung in the air. Mixed in with the deafening screams of cicadas, the sharp trumpeting of elephants now and then seemed to sound a distant warning.
The lieutenant went on among the trees without speaking, until he found a kind of opening in the woods. The area had been slated for construction of a plaza for small animals that children could play with. The plan had been postponed indefinitely, however, when the worsening military situation caused a shortage of construction materials. The trees had been cleared away to make a circle of bare ground, and the sun illuminated this one part of the woods like stage lighting. The lieutenant stood in the center of the circle and scanned the area. Then he dug at the ground with the heel of his boot.
“We’re going to bivouac here for a while,” he said, kneeling down and scooping up a handful of dirt.
The veterinarian nodded in response. He had no idea why they had to bivouac in a zoo, but he decided not to ask. Here in Hsin-ching, experience had taught him never to question military men. Questions did nothing but make them angry, and they never gave you a straight answer in any case.
“First we dig a big hole here,” the lieutenant said, speaking as if to himself. He stood up and took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Putting a cigarette between his lips, he offered one to the doctor, then lit both with a match. The two concentrated on their smoking to fill the silence. Again the lieutenant began digging at the ground with his boot. He drew a kind of diagram in the earth, then rubbed it out. Finally, he asked the veterinarian, “Where were you born?”
“In Kanagawa,” the doctor said. “In a town called Ofuna, near the sea.”
The lieutenant nodded.
“And where were you born?” the veterinarian asked.
Instead of answering, the lieutenant narrowed his eyes and watched the smoke rising from between his fingers. No, it never pays to ask a military man questions, the veterinarian told himself again. They like to ask questions, but they’ll never give you an answer. They wouldn’t give you the time of day—literally.
“There’s a movie studio there,” said the lieutenant.
It took the doctor a few seconds to realize the lieutenant was talking about Ofuna. “That’s right. A big studio. I’ve never been inside, though.”
The lieutenant dropped what was left of his cigarette on the ground and crushed it out. “I hope you make it back there,” he said. “Of course, there’s an ocean to cross between here and Japan. We’ll probably all die over here.” He kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke. “Tell me, Doctor, are you afraid of death?”
“I guess it depends on how you die,” said the veterinarian, after a moment’s thought.
The lieutenant raised his eyes and looked at the veterinarian as if his curiosity had been aroused. He had apparently been expecting another answer. “You’re right,” he said. “It does depend on how you die.”
The two remained silent for a time. The lieutenant looked as if he might just fall asleep there, standing up. He was obviously exhausted. An especially large grasshopper flew over them like a bird and disappeared into a distant clump of grass with a noisy beating of wings. The lieutenant looked at his watch.
“Time to get started,” he said to no one in particular. Then he spoke to the veterinarian. “I’d like you to stay around for a while. I might have to ask you to do me a favor.”
The veterinarian nodded.
•
The soldiers led the Chinese prisoners to the opening in the woods and untied their hands. The corporal drew a large circle on the ground, using a baseball bat—though why a soldier would have a bat the veterinarian found another mystery—and ordered the prisoners in Japanese to dig a deep hole the size of the circle. With the picks and shovels, the four men in baseball uniforms started digging in silence. Half the squad stood guard over them, while the other half stretched out beneath the trees. They seemed to be in desperate need of sleep; no sooner had they hit the ground in full gear than they began snoring. The four soldiers who remained awake kept watch over the digging nearby, rifles resting on their hips, bayonets fixed, ready for immediate use. The lieutenant and the corporal took turns overseeing the work and napping under the trees.
It took less than an hour for the four Chinese prisoners to dig a hole some twelve feet across and deep enough to come up to their necks. One of the men asked for water, speaking in Japanese. The lieutenant nodded, and a soldier brought a bucket full of water. The four Chinese took turns ladling water from the bucket and gulping it down. They drank almost the entire bucketful. Their uniforms were smeared black with blood, mud, and sweat.
The lieutenant had two of the soldiers pull the wagon over to the hole. The corporal yanked the tarpaulin off, to reveal four dead men piled in the wagon. They wore the same baseball uniforms as the prisoners, and they, too, were obviously Chinese. They appeared to have been shot, and their uniforms were covered with black bloodstains. Large flies were beginning to swarm over the corpses. Judging from the way the blood had dried, the doctor guessed they had been dead for close to twenty-four hours.
The lieutenant ordered the four Chinese who had dug the hole to throw the bodies into it. Without a word, faces blank, the men took the bodies out of the wagon and threw them, one at a time, into the hole. Each corpse landed with a dull thud. The numbers on the dead men’s uniforms were 2, 5, 6, and 8. The veterinarian committed them to memory.
When the four Chinese had finished throwing the bodies into the hole, the soldiers tied each man to a nearby tree. The lieutenant held up his wrist and studied his watch with a grim expression. Then he looked up toward a spot in the sky for a while, as if searching for something there. He looked like a stationmaster standing on the platform and waiting for a hopelessly overdue train. But in fact he was looking at nothing at all. He was just allowing a certain amount of time to go by. Once he had accomplished that, he turned to the corporal and gave him curt orders to bayonet three of the four prisoners (numbers 1, 7, and 9).
Three soldiers were chosen and took up their positions in front of the three Chinese. The soldiers looked paler than the men they were about to kill. The Chinese looked too tired to hope for anything. The corporal offered each of them a smoke, but they refused. He put his cigarettes back into his shirt pocket.
Taking the veterinarian with him, the lieutenant went to stand somewhat apart from the other soldiers. “You’d better watch this,” he said. “This is another way to die.”
The veterinarian nodded. The lieutenant is not saying this to me, he thought. He’s saying it to himself.
In a gentle voice, the lieutenant explained, “Shooting them would be the simplest and most efficient way to kill them, but we have orders not to waste a single bullet—and certainly not to waste bullets killing Chinese. We’re supposed to save our ammunition for the Russians. We’ll just bayonet them, I suppose, but that’s not as easy as it sounds. By the way, Doctor, did they teach you how to use a bayonet in
the army?”
The doctor explained that as a cavalry veterinarian, he had not been trained to use a bayonet.
“Well, the proper way to kill a man with a bayonet is this: First you thrust it in under the ribs—here.” The lieutenant pointed to his own torso just above the stomach. “Then you drag the point in a big, deep circle inside him, to scramble the organs. Then you thrust upward to puncture the heart. You can’t just stick it in and expect him to die. We soldiers have this drummed into us. Hand-to-hand combat using bayonets ranks right up there along with night assaults as the pride of the Imperial Army—though mainly, it’s a lot cheaper than tanks and planes and cannons. Of course, you can train all you want, but finally what you’re stabbing is a straw doll, not a live human being. It doesn’t bleed or scream or spill its guts on the ground. These soldiers have never actually killed a human being that way. And neither have I.”
The lieutenant looked at the corporal and gave him a nod. The corporal barked his order to the three soldiers, who snapped to attention. Then they took a half-step back and thrust out their bayonets, each man aiming his blade at his prisoner. One of the young men (number 7) growled something in Chinese that sounded like a curse and gave a defiant spit—which never reached the ground but dribbled down the front of his baseball uniform.
At the sound of the next order, the three soldiers thrust their bayonets into the Chinese men with tremendous force. Then, as the lieutenant had said, they twisted the blades so as to rip the men’s internal organs, and thrust the tips upward. The cries of the Chinese men were not very loud—more like deep sobs than screams, as if they were heaving out the breath left in their bodies all at once through a single opening. The soldiers pulled out their bayonets and stepped back. The corporal barked his order again, and the men repeated the procedure exactly as before—stabbing, twisting, thrusting upward, withdrawing. The veterinarian watched in numbed silence, overtaken by the sense that he was beginning to split in two. He became simultaneously the stabber and the stabbed. He could feel both the impact of the bayonet as it entered his victim’s body and the pain of having his internal organs slashed to bits.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Page 62