The lieutenant believed that Seiji was resisting. For that reason, the interrogation became rather brutal. We were in the middle of a war, so everyone, including me, got very rough with him. For Seiji, who was already wounded, it must’ve seemed like torture. Even so, he never submitted. To be honest, I was shocked by his stubbornness. At the same time, his appearance disgusted me. With his eyes swollen shut, he mumbled incoherently, as saliva and blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth.
Exasperated, Lieutenant Williams decided to question the ward chief again. With an escort of four soldiers, we rode in two separate jeeps to the village. After parking in the open space in the middle of the village, we went straight to the ward chief’s house. He had been contacted through our patrols, so we weren’t surprised to find him waiting out front when we arrived. The island had been spared most of the shelling, so many houses were unscathed. The ward chief asked us to sit in two wooden chairs under the low, thatched roof. The lieutenant sat down immediately, but I remained standing and told the ward chief to sit facing the lieutenant. He was reluctant to do so and kept urging me to sit there instead. The lieutenant asked what the heck he was doing. After I translated this, the ward chief finally realized he was being annoying and sat down.
When we asked if Seiji had acted on an order from the Japanese army, the ward chief reiterated that Seiji had acted alone. He explained that since all the Japanese soldiers had been taken prisoner, they couldn’t possibly have issued an order. Sweat dripped down his face, and he sounded nervous, so the lieutenant began to get suspicious. His piercing gaze seemed to make the ward chief even more nervous. As he wiped the sweat from his face, he glanced over at the crowd of villagers and smiled awkwardly.
The villagers had started gathering as soon as we arrived. By the time we started our questioning, about thirty of them were at the wall on the edge of the ward chief’s property. Our military escorts stood alert at the gate, but they didn’t really try to control the villagers. It was hot and humid, but the ward chief’s excessive sweating made us suspicious.
“You say he acted alone, but what was his motive?” asked the lieutenant. “Do you have any idea?”
When I relayed what the lieutenant had said, the ward chief wiped his brow, started to say something, and stopped. Then he looked at me and twisted his face into an unpleasant, obsequious smile. For me, who was from Okinawa, seeing that expression was heartbreaking. It was one of those servile smiles that attempt to hide both fear and resentment. Being disarmed in this way irritated me, and my anger toward him intensified.
“Just tell the truth!” I shouted at him.
The ward chief looked down at the ground. I loathed myself for scolding a man old enough to be my father. His knees were quivering.
Seeing this, the lieutenant snorted and said, “Tell him if he doesn’t talk, we’ll have to haul him in.”
When I translated this, the ward chief became flustered and said, “I’m telling you! He was acting on his own!” Then he bowed again and again in apology. The lieutenant spit on the ground and stood up.
“Just tell them the truth!” a young woman’s voice called out from the yard.
Standing just inside the front gate, a woman of about twenty was staring at us with a look of defiance. The ward chief started to turn red. The lieutenant asked what the woman had said, and when I told him, he beckoned her over. The small, dark-complexioned woman pursed her lips as if she might cry, but she walked over to us with confidence.
“Don’t say more than necessary,” said the ward chief in the local dialect.
I understood what he said.
“What’s more than necessary?” I asked him.
He looked over at me in surprise and then turned his eyes away.
“Tell us your name.”
“I’m Kana Matsuda,” the woman answered in a shaky voice. However, I could sense the determination in the black eyes staring straight at me.
“What is it that you know? What’s the truth you were referring to? Tell us everything.”
She took a deep breath and began speaking in an energetic tone of voice.
“Four American soldiers attacked Sayoko,” she said. “Seiji got angry and tried to get revenge. Those soldiers are the bad ones.”
Struggling to keep up with what she was saying, I cut her off and asked her to speak more slowly. Then I translated what she had said for the lieutenant.
It was a horrible story to hear from a woman. Her voice sometimes cracking, she told us that a girl named Sayoko was searching for shellfish along the shore when she was attacked and raped by four of our soldiers. Afterward, the soldiers often came to the village and attacked other women, too. Seiji got angry and struck back with his harpoon. Sayoko was his childhood friend.
“The Americans were the bad ones,” she concluded, “so please spare Seiji’s life.” Then she put her hands together and began to cry.
When I finished interpreting everything, the lieutenant and I didn’t know how to react. The woman certainly seemed to be telling the truth.
“Is what she said true?” the lieutenant asked the ward chief.
The ward chief stared at the ground and seemed to be mulling something over. Then he glanced over at the woman and answered, “It’s true.”
The lieutenant glared at the ward chief, thanked the woman, and looked around at the crowd of villagers. Other than some children, none of them looked the lieutenant in the eye. The woman who had told the story, however, stared straight at him.
“Where’s the victim now?”
When I passed this on, the ward chief answered in a quiet voice, “She’s confined to her house.”
“Where are the parents?”
“They’re probably at home, too.”
When I relayed this to the lieutenant, he told me to tell the ward chief to take us there, so we could hear directly from the victim and her parents. The ward chief stood up and said with a bow, “Sure, it’s right nearby.” He mumbled something to the woman who had testified, but she didn’t react. The lieutenant ordered our escorts to move the other villagers to under the banyan tree, and then he followed the ward chief and me to the girl’s house.
It didn’t even take a minute to get there. The thatched-roof house, surrounded by trees, was right next to Seiji’s house, which we had visited earlier as part of our investigation. In fact, the ward chief was the one who had guided us there. The lieutenant could barely suppress the anger he felt over the ward chief’s never having mentioned that the victim lived right next door. But when we asked about this, the ward chief only bowed and muttered an apology.
The ward chief entered the yard ahead of us and called out to the occupants. A woman of about forty came out.
“This is the victim’s mother,” said the ward chief, introducing her to us. As he explained the situation to her, she glanced over at the lieutenant and me with fear. Upon hearing that we wanted to question the girl, she stared at the ground in silence. The ward chief took off his shoes and entered the front room, a wooden floor covered with straw mats. We entered with our boots on. The tall lieutenant clicked his tongue when he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on a beam. The sound seemed to scare the ward chief. With a deprecating smile, he slid open the door to the back room.
The room was so dark that we couldn’t see inside. However, any occupants could probably see us. After a few seconds, a scream came from the darkness. Never in my life had I heard such a heartrending scream, nor have I heard one since. The voice ripped through me and pinned me to the spot. Neither the ward chief nor the lieutenant could move, either.
We heard footsteps on the floorboards, and then felt the vibration of the air. For an instant, I thought that some wild beast had been lying in wait and would come springing out with its sharp fangs and claws. I saw the lieutenant reaching for his holster. Then we heard a loud thud and saw someone tumble down into the yard on top of a broken shutter. What rose up outside the window was a girl, looking nothing at all like the
beast I had imagined. Her long, black hair was disheveled, and her face was distorted as if by a drastic change in air pressure. Even so, her striking eyes and eyebrows, and shapely nose and lips, revealed her beauty at a glance. However, that impression vanished when another scream issued from her throat. Staring straight at the lieutenant and me, the girl screamed again and again, all the while scratching at her neck, breasts, and shoulders. With her kimono open, and her breasts exposed, she ripped into her flesh with her fingernails. Blood began oozing from the deep scratch marks across her chest. Then her obi came untied, and her kimono fell to the ground. Still staring and screaming, she began scratching between her legs and inflicting wounds to her genitals. Then she turned and ran out the gate.
The mother, who up until then was standing behind us, yelled and pushed us aside. Then she jumped through the window into the yard, picked up the kimono, and ran after her daughter. The lieutenant and I stood transfixed, frozen until the voices of the girl and her mother faded into the distance. The trees in the small yard created shade and a cool breeze. If it weren’t for the fallen shutter, I’d never have believed that a girl had just gone crazy there. Her screams, however, reverberated in my ears—or rather, through my entire body.
In silence, the lieutenant climbed down into the yard, looked around, and headed toward the gate. As I hurried to catch up, I sensed someone behind me and turned around. I don’t know where they’d been hiding, but the girl’s younger sister and brothers were peeking out from the back room. A clear vision of how I was reflected in those innocent eyes flashed into my mind. To escape that knowledge, I ran off to join the lieutenant.
The villagers at the banyan tree were in an uproar. After seeing the naked girl and her mother run past, they probably assumed that we had committed some sort of outrage. When they saw Lieutenant Williams striding toward them, they stopped talking, and a heavy tension descended over the area. If our escorts hadn’t brandished their rifles, we might’ve been attacked. Well, maybe not. Still, the icy stares turned on us were terrifying.
Walking just behind the lieutenant, I held my head high to hide my discomposure. On the way, he turned to me and said in a commanding tone, “Never tell anyone what you just saw.”
I instinctively answered, “Yes, sir!” The lieutenant quickened his pace and headed to the banyan tree. The ward chief chased after us.
The lieutenant told the villagers to disperse and to stay in their homes until new instructions were issued via the ward chief. I translated this, and the villagers headed off in silence. After making sure the order had been obeyed, we boarded the jeeps and returned to base with the ward chief.
When we arrived, we immediately started questioning him. His testimony changed completely. Just as the young woman had said, he now stated that a girl had been raped by four soldiers, and that several other women had met the same fate. He went on to say that the women in the village were terrified, but that the men couldn’t do anything since the soldiers had guns. He ended by saying that Seiji had probably attacked the soldiers to get revenge. In contrast to before, he was quite talkative. The lieutenant, looking so infuriated that I thought he might punch the guy, asked why the ward chief had remained silent all this time. Terrified, the guy merely apologized.
Once the lieutenant got a general sense of the situation, he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and stared at the wall while stroking his chin and lips with his fingers. His anger at being forced to deal with such an awful situation was obvious. The ward chief wasn’t the only one feeling nervous. I thought the lieutenant’s anger would explode at any moment. When the lieutenant finally slapped the table, the ward chief pressed his knees together and sat up straight.
“The village can continue as before,” said the lieutenant. “I’ll increase the number of patrols so that something like this doesn’t happen again. The young man who wounded our soldier will be released as soon as he recovers. I’d like your help in maintaining order so that gossip about this incident doesn’t spread any further.”
When I finished translating all this, the ward chief stood up and answered, “I understand. I’ll take care of it without fail.” Then he bowed deeply.
The lieutenant stood up with a pained look and ordered me to accompany the ward chief back to the village and to check up on the situation. Then he left the room.
In the jeep on the way to the village, the ward chief looked like he wanted to talk, but I ignored him the entire time. I couldn’t control my anger at him for having deceived us, even when we were conducting a search to capture Seiji. I was surprised at the lieutenant’s lenient orders; I thought the guy should be harshly punished. On the other hand, I understood what the lieutenant might be thinking. According to proper military procedure, the four soldiers should’ve been court-martialed, but the lieutenant was trying to deal with the situation quietly. That’s what I assumed, and I needed to proceed cautiously, in accordance with his wishes.
We arrived at the village in the early evening. Purplish light had begun to spread through the slightly cloudy sky. The open space was quiet, without the usual shouts of children playing under the banyan tree. The villagers were undoubtedly staying in their homes, as the lieutenant had ordered.
I asked the ward chief to repeat the lieutenant’s instructions, and he reeled off what he’d memorized without the slightest hesitation. This obvious talent of his only made me feel all the more unpleasant.
After dropping him off at his home, I decided, after a moment’s hesitation, to visit the girl and her family. I walked up to the gate and looked at the house. The shutters were closed. I pictured the parents, younger sister, and younger brothers huddled around the girl, clinging to them in the dark. The image prevented me from proceeding through the gate. I recalled the girl’s piercing stare and the horrific scream that issued from the depths of her soul. The vivid memories chased me back to the jeep.
As I rattled along on my way back to base, the girl’s intense stare and blood-curdling scream never left my mind. They were still with me after lights out. Though I hadn’t done anything wrong, a feeling of guilt kept me awake. Was there anything I could do? Even if there were, I wasn’t free to act on my own. The only thing I could come up with was to have some extra food sent to her family through the ward chief.
As expected, the lieutenant pursued the investigation in secret. I wasn’t present during the questioning of the four soldiers. Nor did I ever receive details about how the case was handled. Rumors never surfaced in our unit about what the four had done. Even if they had, it wouldn’t have been all that unusual. I often heard such stories. Soldiers who’d harmed civilians were sometimes warned or punished by their superiors, but the rank and file hardly took notice.
One day, Lieutenant Williams informed me that the wounded soldier had been sent home and that the other three had been sent to the front lines. That wasn’t a disciplinary action. Most units had been relocated to the south, and that included mine. Anyone who knows about the Battle of Okinawa would agree that the stabbed soldier who’d been sent home early was lucky.
There was one last job I was given before being transferred: escorting Seiji back home to his village. After finding out the truth, I deeply regretted how we had treated Seiji during our interrogations. Our medical team provided only minimal treatment for civilians who’d harmed Americans. I wanted to explain so they’d treat Seiji better, but I could only look on in silence. Surgery and antibiotics helped him recover from the gunshot wounds to his shoulder and leg, but his eyes were a problem. No doubt, this was due to the long exposure to the tear gas and the poor treatment that followed. There might’ve been other causes, but even after the swelling subsided, he never recovered his eyesight. Whenever I went to see him, he was always lying in bed muttering deliriously. I never did understand what he was saying.
I took Seiji home the day before I was transferred. He could now walk with the help of a cane, but since he was blind, I had to help him get in and out of the jeep. As we were
driving to the village, Seiji muttered as incoherently as always. I drove into the village, passed through the open area, and parked in front of Seiji’s house. His mother and father came running up and bowed many times while expressing words of appreciation. The ward chief had informed them of the day and time of Seiji’s return.
I had planned to leave immediately, so that I could avoid any crowd that might form. However, I was worried about the family next door, so I walked over and looked through the gate. The shutters were open, and I could see into the front room, but no one was there. The girl might’ve been in the back room, and if she noticed me, there would’ve been another scene. I took off my hat, gave a slight bow, and started to head back to the jeep.
Just then, Seiji came up with his mother leading him by the hand. When I stepped aside, he stood in front of the gate and murmured something. Unlike his previous utterances, his words were spoken calmly. For the first time, I could understand him.
“I’ve come home, Sayoko.”
From the side, I watched him take a deep breath as if inhaling some kind of fragrance. He had a gallantness I’d never seen in him. I now realized that the ward chief, the villagers, and I myself, had completely underestimated him. As Seiji stood straight and tall, tears ran down from his closed eyes.
I put my hat back on, saluted, and got in the jeep. That was the last time I ever saw Seiji, and I never visited the village again.
I’ve spoken with you many times about what I did in the south, so I won’t repeat that here. To be sure, I helped to rescue hundreds of Okinawans hiding in caves. That’s something I’m still proud of. But at the same time, I can’t forget Sayoko, the girl Seiji tried to protect. When I recall how she stared at the lieutenant and me, and how she screamed as she fled, those proud feelings completely vanish. To her, I was just another terrifying American soldier.
In the Woods of Memory Page 19