After Darkness

by Christine Piper

  Ishii stopped next to an unmarked dark wooden door. He rapped on the surface. He hardly waited a second before rapping again. ‘Aya-chan, it’s me, Ishii Shiro. I have a few friends with me.’

  The wooden divider slid open. I caught a glimpse of a white face. The girl on the other side said something, too quietly for me to hear. Then the door opened, and we stepped inside. The hallway was so dark I couldn’t see anything at first, but from somewhere ahead of us, a girl was singing to the rapid twang of a shamisen. The haunting music and that high, lilting voice conjured a world of exquisite refinement. For a moment, my headache subsided, but then I thought of Kayoko playing the koto, and with the feeling of guilt, the pain returned. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that the passageway opened up into a rectangular entrance hall, with gold-coloured fusuma panels on all sides. The music emanated from behind one of these panels.

  The girl who had answered the door took our coats. Her face was heavily painted white, with pink cheeks and a semicircle of crimson on her bottom lip. She looked to be no more than fourteen.

  A slender older woman approached us, moving so smoothly she seemed to glide along the passageway. She wore an indigo kimono and a simple gold kazari in her hair, which was pulled back into a heavy bun. ‘Lieutenant Colonel Ishii, how delightful you could join us. We are preparing a room for you this instant. So there are five in your party?’

  Ishii nodded. ‘Are Momotaro and Eriko working tonight?’

  ‘Yes, they are. However, Momotaro is currently with another client. I can send another girl, Teruha. She’s very beautiful—’

  ‘If I’d wanted a different girl, I would have asked for one. Send Momotaro. She’ll want to come, just ask her. If she can’t join us, perhaps I’ll take my group elsewhere.’

  The mistress’s smile faltered for a second, then she bowed deeply. ‘Of course, Lieutenant Colonel Ishii. When Momotaro has finished her performance, I will send her to your room. Please, come this way.’

  As we passed gold-panelled rooms to our left and right, the sound of laughter and conversation swelled and dimmed like the roar of a passing train. The singing and the shamisen grew louder and clearer as we approached the back wall. For a moment, I thought we would be taken to the source of the music, but then we were ushered into an empty room. The grassy smell of tatami greeted us. A long lacquer table graced the centre of the room. Ishii and Kimura sat down on one side, while Shimada, Yamamoto and I sat on the other.

  Ishii ordered sake and whisky. ‘That will do us to start. And bring the girls, quick!’

  As soon as the waitress had pulled the door shut, Ishii made a face. ‘The service here is terrible. So slow, and did you see the way the old hag treated me, after all the money I’ve spent? I should go somewhere else. But they have the prettiest girls. They start them young.’

  I knew Nomura and Ota would be bitter when they learned I had been invited to drink with Ishii and Kimura. If they had joined us, they would no doubt have used the opportunity to ingratiate themselves with Ishii—especially Ota. But I was too timid to do such things. Truth be told, Ishii frightened me. He had a reputation for picking on junior workers and forcing them to do the worst jobs. Even Kimura, who was slightly older than Ishii and had once been ranked higher than him, had been bullied into coming out tonight. I hoped the evening would pass quickly and I could return home without humiliation.

  The door slid open and a porcelain face appeared.

  ‘Eriko!’ Ishii thumped the space next to him at the table to indicate she should join him.

  Eriko bowed until her forehead touched the tatami. When she lifted her head, she smiled. She was very beautiful. Her eyes were even and perfectly shaped. Her lips, which were painted crimson, were defined by a deep cleft. Her nose was long and slender—unusual in an Oriental woman. All her features coalesced in symmetrical perfection.

  She greeted Kimura and Shimada by name, then introduced herself to Yamamoto and me, before settling herself next to Ishii. Her kimono rustled against the tatami.

  ‘It has been too long, Ishii-sensei. Have you been in Manchukuo all this time?’ She had a slightly husky voice, making her seem older than she appeared.

  ‘Aside from a couple of brief visits, yes. The new project has been very demanding.’

  ‘You didn’t come to visit me while you were here?’ Eriko pouted.

  ‘You’ll have to come visit me in Manchukuo next time. I’ll give you your own apartment within the compound. There’s a cinema there, too.’ He tugged at her kimono sleeve.

  She playfully swatted away his hand. ‘If only I could. You know that’s against the rules. As much as I’d like to, I’d be banished from my okiya if I ran away with you.’

  The waitress appeared with the sake and whisky, and Eriko poured drinks for everyone. She handed me a cup.

  Ishii leaned forward and spoke to me. ‘I hope you can drink more than Kimura’s cousin here. A glass of whisky and he’s already asleep.’ He nudged Yamamoto beneath the table. Yamamoto jolted upright, murmuring an apology.

  Ishii held his cup aloft. ‘To His Majesty the Emperor. Kanpai!

  ’ We clinked cups and downed the sake. It warmed my chest, but the pain at my temples surged. I winced. Across the table, Ishii was watching me. Heat rushed to my cheeks. I reached across to refill his cup, careful not to let my hands tremble. He said nothing while I poured. Then he lifted the cup and emptied it into his mouth.

  ‘How did you get a position at my laboratory, anyway? I don’t recognise your name or your face. Let me guess: a connection to Kimura?’

  Before I had a chance to explain, Shimada spoke up. ‘Ibaraki’s father was a surgeon at Tokyo Hospital. Ibaraki Shuichiro.’

  ‘A surgeon at Tokyo Hospital? Is that so?’ Ishii regarded me coolly.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said.

  ‘One of the very best,’ Kimura said. ‘I worked for him when I was an intern.’

  Although I was aware of my father’s outstanding reputation, hearing Kimura confirm it made me glow with pride.

  Ishii took out a cigarette, and Eriko brought out a lighter from one of the folds of her kimono to light it. He leaned back and inhaled deeply, still looking at me as he did so. He tilted his head towards the ceiling and exhaled a plume of grey smoke. It was a showy gesture that demanded an audience. The room fell silent.

  ‘You know, I wanted to be a surgeon when I was younger. It seemed to me to be the noblest of professions. But really, what can one surgeon do? He can only heal patients one at a time. But a medical scientist . . . ah. A scientist can heal the world. When I realised that, I decided to dedicate my life to medical research. As my mentor says: “Great doctors tend their country, good doctors tend people, and lesser doctors heal illnesses.” A great doctor, just like a great military commander, knows that sometimes a few lives have to be sacrificed to save thousands of others. When this war is over, great doctors will be remembered. The question is, what type of doctor will you be, Ibaraki-kun?’

  It wasn’t a question that demanded a response, but over the next few hours as we drank steadily I was concerned Ishii was testing me. Kimura and Yamamoto became so drunk that they fell asleep. As Shimada, Ishii and Eriko continued talking, I became more and more quiet. At about eleven o’clock the geisha Momotaro appeared. She was another porcelain-skinned beauty of tender age, who smiled slyly upon seeing Ishii.

  ‘Ah—she’s here!’ Ishii exclaimed. ‘But she’s a bad girl for making me wait.’ Eriko got up and Momotaro arranged herself next to Ishii and proceeded to fawn over him, pouring him drinks and speaking to him in soothing tones. Soon afterwards, they disappeared together into the hallway. I took the opportunity to leave.

  When I opened the front door to my home, the aroma of simmering broth reached me. My stomach turned. Although I ordinarily enjoyed Kayoko’s cooking, I felt ill from the alcohol, my headache and the long day I’d had. I wanted nothing more than to go straight to the bathroom to scrub myself clean. I was surprised to find Kayoko
waiting for me at the kotatsu, and the table set for two.

  ‘You waited for me? But it’s almost midnight.’

  ‘I’ve hardly seen you all week. I wanted to spend time with you. Come, let’s eat.’

  She went into the kitchen to serve the meal. A warm bath beckoned, but I knew I couldn’t refuse Kayoko after the effort she’d gone to. I removed my jacket and stood at the threshold between the kitchen and sitting area, and smoked a cigarette. I tried to empty my mind of the images I’d seen that day. Rotting flesh. Blackened limbs. I heard the pad of Kayoko’s feet and the clack of bowls as she set them down on the table. I smelled soy sauce and mirin. ‘You made my favourite?’

  The chunks of yellowtail and radish were golden and steaming. Slivers of ginger and green mitsuba leaves were scattered on top. Boiled spinach and grated radish were set out in the gold-leaf lacquer bowls we’d been given as a wedding present. Despite my nausea, my mouth began to water. ‘What’s the special occasion?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a moment.’

  I was a little apprehensive, but Kayoko’s happy mood suggested something good. Over the first year of our marriage, I’d come to accept my wife’s occasionally mysterious ways: every so often she withdrew into herself, avoiding me for hours while she read, practised the koto or went outside for a solitary walk. Tonight, however, she was being playful.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Dinner is ready.’

  My mind was finally blank. Through the windows I glimpsed the yellow lights of the house next door, like a beacon that aided our safe passage. A silhouette moved across next door’s window, a dark shape that separated and merged into the shadows. Sometimes, on the weekends, I saw the elderly couple who were our neighbours. They often walked to the markets together, guiding each other around the holes in the path, and I wondered if Kayoko and I would grow similarly dependent as the decades passed.

  Kayoko brushed past me, carrying a tray of bowls. ‘Smoking now? Aramaa. And I just told you dinner is ready.’

  She made a few trips back to the kitchen, bringing more bowls, condiments and utensils.

  ‘Who else is coming to dinner?’ I asked. ‘This is enough to feed a family of six.’

  ‘No, just us,’ she said coyly. ‘Come, sit down.’

  I eased onto the cushion at the wide end of the table and plunged my feet into the cavity. The coal heater warmed my feet. ‘Itadakimasu,’ I said, picking up my rice bowl and scooping a portion of sticky grains into my mouth. My appetite had returned.

  ‘Itadakimasu,’ Kayoko said softly.

  The stew was delicious. Subtly sweet and rich with the flavours of fish, radish and mirin. She must have been preparing it for a long time.

  ‘Soon we’ll have to make space for another at the table.’ Kayoko spoke into her bowl of soup.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I went to a doctor today. Tomo, I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a child.’ Her eyes glistened.

  I put down my chopsticks. My spine was tingling. Thoughts crowded my mind. I must have stared at her for a while, because she asked, ‘Tomo, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am . . . I’m surprised, that’s all. I hadn’t noticed a change in you.’

  ‘I’ve had my suspicions for the past three weeks. I was late, and I wasn’t feeling well. The doctor confirmed it today.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything to me earlier?’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain. You’ve been working so hard lately. I didn’t want to distract you.’

  I reached across the table and touched her hand. ‘I’m so happy. A baby. We’ll be blessed.’

  ‘I already told Mother. She guessed when I saw her last week. She took me to the doctor today.’

  ‘So it’s news, then. I’ll tell my mother she’ll be a grandmother again. And my sister will be glad her children will have someone new to play with.’

  I smiled. But when I thought of our baby, images of blistered skin and a child’s black fingers came to mind.

  Two months later, we readied ourselves to receive another shipment of specimens at the laboratory. This time, Yamamoto was allowed to stay back with Nomura, Ota and me. We were told the volume would be larger and so two nurses from the Army Medical College were sent to assist us. They stood in the foyer with us, waiting for the delivery. They were only young, no more than twenty or so—too young to be working past midnight, and far too young to be engaged in work such as this. I wondered what they’d been told. Yamamoto tried to engage them in conversation by asking them where they’d studied, but they gave the briefest of answers and hardly met his gaze. I sensed their reticence was due to their knowledge of the nature of our work. I felt stained by my association with the laboratory.

  The trucks arrived and the crates were ferried to the basement. Shimada levered them open and we began to move the specimens into the storage room. Most of them were in small jars—hands, feet, heads, hearts and other organs—but one of the crates held a single large metal container filled with formalin and whole bodies. One had gangrenous skin. Another was smooth and showed no signs of malady save for its chest cavity, which had been opened up for dissection. There was the body of a woman, too. She had her arms outstretched as if she were trying to cling on to something.

  One of the nurses stepped forward to help move the bodies into the concrete formalin tank in the storage room next to our laboratory, but when she looked inside, she put her hand to her mouth and turned away. It was a strangely polite gesture, as if she were minding her manners for the sake of not offending the corpses. At first I thought it was a bad smell that had made her recoil, but when I looked into the container the cause of her consternation became clear. Among the larger bodies was the body of a child, about two years old. His legs were buckled beneath him. His skin was blackened and covered in blisters. I couldn’t see his face, for he was curled up, his forehead resting on his knees and his arms wrapped around them. He appeared to have been sitting in this position when he died.

  Everyone stopped.

  ‘I can’t,’ the nurse whispered. Her eyes filled with tears.

  No one wanted to touch the child. Seconds passed. Nobody moved.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I reached in and picked up the boy as gently as I could. There was a numbered tag around his neck. His body was light, as if he were hollow.

  After we had unloaded all the crates, I went home. It was after midnight when I headed to the bathroom to wash away the day.

  Kayoko surprised me in the corridor as I made my way back from the bath. All the lights were out, but she was standing by the sliding doors that led to the kitchen, her face in darkness but the soft light of the moon spilling across her hips.

  ‘Kayoko,’ I said, almost colliding with her. She had her hand on her belly, the cloth of her nightdress pulled into her grip. Thinking she was on her way to the bathroom, I stepped aside for her to pass. She didn’t move.

  ‘I know why you wash yourself after work,’ she said. ‘Why you scrub so hard.’

  My blood surged. How could she know? Was it the smell of the formalin? Were my clothes soiled with their blood?

  ‘I know what you do,’ she continued. ‘You think I don’t notice, but I do.’

  My eyes adjusted to the low light and Kayoko’s face emerged from the gloom. I had expected her gaze to be hard, or that she would not be able to look at me at all, like the nurses earlier that night, but her eyes were round and full of pity. As soft as her skin. My wife, my love. She knew, and she didn’t hate me. She could still look at me with love. The realisation unhinged me. I felt dizzy with relief.

  ‘Kayoko . . .’ I reached out to take her arm, to draw her warmth to me. I wanted to hold her, to hear her tell me it was all right. I wanted her to help shoulder the burden of my pain. But before I touched her, she spoke again.

  ‘I’m not angry, I know you have to do it for work. You have to go to those places, with those women—’ her face creased ‘—b
ut you can’t do it so much. Not after our baby is born. It wouldn’t be fair. Not to me, or the baby.’

  The words I had been about to speak caught in my throat. The relief I had felt seconds earlier vanished. Emptiness gnawed at my stomach. To have been on the verge of sharing the pain, and then to have the comfort snatched away! All hope was knocked out of me.

  My face must have shown my despair, because Kayoko went on more gently. ‘I know how important your work is. When the baby comes, I want it . . . I want us to be more like a family. You’ve been so distracted lately. When I try to talk to you, it’s as if you’re not there. You’re always at work or out late socialising with your colleagues and geishas. I can’t sleep at night because I am so worried. You need to be at home more when our child comes. Can you do that?’

  I nodded. I tried to speak, but no words came out. I made a noise in my throat.

  ‘Tomo, are you all right?’ She took my hand in hers, and with her other hand she reached up to touch my cheek, wiping away the wetness. I longed to tell her about my work. But I couldn’t—I had given Kimura and Shimada my word. Besides, what would Kayoko think of me? What if she couldn’t forgive me? It was better to remain silent and never mention it to our families, as Kimura had said.

  ‘What’s the matter? It’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. I know it has been hard.’ She brought her body closer and slipped her arms under mine. She rested her head on my chest. I felt the warmth of it through my yukata, and the warmth of her belly as it pressed against me, our child moving inside.

  With Ishii’s support, Kimura planned a dissection demonstration at the Army Medical College for staff, students and several key army figures in the new year. He hoped to showcase the work the laboratory had been doing under Ishii’s command, and in doing so secure more funding.