The Year of Counting Souls

by Wallace, Michael

  “This was 1937, and they weren’t all Nazis in the embassy, not here in Asia. I trusted this one, and only gave him a copy, just in case.”

  “And what did he do with it?”

  “Large excerpts were published in European and American newspapers, so he didn’t burn my report. I knew he wouldn’t—he was horrified by what was happening, no matter what the Germans have done since then.

  “It was well known that the source of the information was a Japanese soldier,” Sammy added. “There was talk of traitors and defeatists. If it had got out to the Kempeitai that the account had been written in English—”

  “The Kempeitai is the secret police?”

  “Right, if it had got out to the secret police that the account was in English—and not told to a foreigner, as my German friend made it sound—they’d have found me easily enough. There weren’t that many fluent English speakers in the Japanese expeditionary force that took Nanking. My own brother is secret police and would have no doubt arrested me. He has become a fanatic. Can you imagine that? A boy who wouldn’t study his letters, who scoffed at everything that was beautiful about Japan, who said that he wasn’t a Japanese, he was an American. Who grew up in Hawaii, with his feet in the sand and a surfboard by his side, caring nothing for his homeland. Now Yoshi would see the whole of Asia burn and Japan stand astride it, dominating until the end of time.”

  “It’s an ugly thing you’ve fought for, Sammy Mori,” Louise said.

  “I know.”

  “A legacy of violence and destruction. China was a great country and civilization, and the Japs dismembered it. What possible justification do you have? Tell me, Sammy. What possible reason?” She had a bitter taste in her mouth, a physical, tangible thing, and she was so angry that a tremble worked down her limbs. “The world would be better if Japan never existed, if a giant earthquake blasted the islands to the bottom of the sea.”

  “Look up at the sky,” he told her.

  There was something solemn in his voice that made her look up. A warm breeze murmured through the leaves of the nearby trees. The air was thick and moist. The clouds had cleared, and the stars glimmered in the vast black bowl of the night, vibrating, moving against each other.

  “A night in summer,” Sammy said, his voice quiet. “Even the stars whisper to each other.”

  “What is that? Did you write that?”

  “Me? No, of course not. That is a famous poem from my country. Kobayashi Issa, a great poet. Miss Louise, you haven’t been to Japan, or you wouldn’t have said that. Let me tell you something. I took a trip to Kyoto two weeks before they shipped me to China for my first taste of war. It was my last leave before the nightmare that was to become my life.

  “I went to see the beauties of Kyoto: the Golden Pavilion, the Pure Water Temple, the Path of Philosophy. The Inari torii gates stretching like a line of red sentinels up the mountainside.” Sammy’s voice glowed like that of a man describing his lover’s naked body. “What you see there is sublime. An understanding of what is beautiful and pleasing to the eye that speaks to your ancestral soul. I would say it is purely Japanese, but foreigners feel it, too.”

  “And yet there is the Rape of Nanking,” she said.

  “And yet.” His sigh contained a deep anguish that seemed to come from his bones. “Miss Louise, how is it possible that those two things come from the same source? How is it possible?”

  “I don’t know.” Her anger had faded, and now she felt only sadness. “Germany is the land of Goethe and Bach, after all.”

  “Here is another poem from Issa, Miss Louise, if you will allow me to indulge myself.”

  “Go ahead.”

  A carp dying in his basin

  Spends his last moments

  Thrashing the water with his fins.

  So man wastes his short life

  In senseless agitation.

  “Okay,” Louise said tentatively, turning the words of the poem over in her mind.

  “Since Nanking, my soul has been in a state of turmoil. Senseless agitation? I don’t know, maybe. I can’t change what I saw, and I can’t take responsibility for it, either. I did what I could—my hands are clean, as Christians say. But I was raised to believe in Japan. My brother struggled against it in Hawaii, but in those days, I was the fanatic. But now I’ve seen things that can’t be unseen. And so I engage in senseless agitation. I engage in self-destructive behavior.”

  “Like tonight?”

  “Like tonight,” he said. “When I was about to set off into the jungle to escape. Miss Frankie came on her rounds, and I thought for a moment she had a syringe filled with morphine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, it was a fantasy. A fantasy that Frankie would give me a lethal dose of morphine and I would slip away to somewhere calmer. She was standing over me with a syringe in her hand, and I thought, ‘I’ll just lie here, pretending to be asleep. In a few minutes it will be over.’”

  “That’s ridiculous. Miss Frankie would never do that.”

  Yet shivers danced down Louise’s spine. She pictured Frankie’s dark silhouette standing over Sammy with a syringe. Ugly thoughts would be running through Frankie’s mind. She had condensed her fear and hatred into a syringe filled with a lethal dosage of morphine to take her revenge on one Japanese soldier.

  “I know she wouldn’t,” he said. “Like I said, it was a fantasy. But that put other thoughts into my mind. I would crawl or hobble into the jungle and set off toward the Japanese army.”

  “You’d never have made it, Sammy.”

  “I know. That’s the whole point. I’d either be shot by enemies or collapse to die of thirst or snakebite. And if I did somehow reach the Japanese, I’d be killed because of another moment of senseless agitation.”

  “Another moment?” She smiled gently. “How often do you suffer these lapses, soldier? Is this a daily occurrence, or weekly?”

  “I’m not a strong man, not mentally. And you need to be to survive this madness. I can’t look away while they cut the ears off a screaming prisoner. I can’t see my comrades blown in two, come across the bodies of the dead lying in heaps. There’s an expression in Japanese—ashita no kougan, yuube no hakkotsu—a rosy face in the morning, white bones in the evening. Life is so fragile, so easily destroyed. Once I saw a child sucking at his mother’s breast. Five minutes later he was facedown in the mud, dead, while men had their way with his mother.”

  Louise felt immediately guilty for the flippant remark that had stirred these memories in him. “Don’t tell me any more. I don’t need to know.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Sammy swallowed loudly, and continued a moment later. “The point is that I’d seen it all in China. This invasion would be more of the same—more killing, more horrors of war. It wouldn’t surprise me if the army is doing right now in Manila what they did to Nanking. We were warned, of course, told to maintain our discipline, so maybe not, but that’s what I was expecting.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re here with us instead of in Manila.”

  “You know what I think? I think maybe I threw myself in front of your truck. I don’t remember the exact moment, but maybe I had a flash of courage and did it on purpose so I wouldn’t have to face the rape of Manila.”

  “I was watching when the truck hit you,” she said. “You had a look of surprise on your face. If you did it on purpose, it wasn’t through any forethought.”

  “Ah, well. I should have known.” He sounded disappointed in himself.

  “Did you do something else? Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sammy?”

  “I sent my brother a letter. I confessed to everything, told him that I was the one who’d written the reports of Nanking that were then shared on newsreels around the world.”

  “Your brother in the secret police?” she asked, aghast. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “So he’d arrest me, of course.”


  Chapter Thirteen

  Yoshiko Mori was quickly disabused of the hope that he would quickly find his brother. After leaving Baliuag, he and Lieutenant Fujiwara came down to Route 3 so they could find the road into the mountains taken by the American evacuees. But army roadblocks stopped them twice, and Mori had to call back to headquarters to get Colonel Umeko to force matters.

  The second time, the colonel sounded agitated. “Mori, what the devil is this about? I don’t have time for this nonsense.”

  No, obviously not. That’s why it took so much blasted time to move forward. If Umeko would spend a few minutes on the radio himself, he could open the path for Mori all the way to Bataan.

  Mori gritted his teeth and ignored the chuckles from the IJA soldiers in the guard post who could hear Umeko’s tinny shouting, even though the receiver was at Mori’s ear.

  “It’s important, sir, part of my forward base for cutting off partisan activity. We spoke of it, remember?”

  “Right, but you said nothing about needing an armed escort. You think the army can spare the men when they’re fighting Americans? There’s fifty thousand enemy troops still at large on Bataan.”

  “But we’re taking fire, sir. There are snipers and deserters and villagers with guns. The two of us can’t go alone into the mountains.”

  “And you know what else? I’m getting word from the IJA that you’re mucking around with their prisoners and threatening their officers.”

  “They were obstructing. Is that a problem, sir?”

  “Dammit, Mori, yes. In this case, it is. You apparently promised Major Noguchi thirty bottles of scotch, and I had to pay it out when you failed to deliver.”

  “It was twenty bottles, and I never planned to pay out. The bastard was extorting me, and I told him I’d do it so he’d give me what I needed.” Mori shook his head and shifted the radio receiver to the other hand. “I can’t believe you paid him.”

  “Mori!” Colonel Umeko’s voice roared over the radio, scratchy with static, but full of fury.

  “Sorry, sir. My apologies, sir.”

  “Noguchi isn’t any old major. His cousin is a general in the Forty-Eighth, and he can cause us trouble if he wants.”

  “I need to get past one more roadblock and I’ll be able to get into the mountains. I haven’t seen Noguchi since Baliuag and don’t plan to interact with the man again. I’m almost to the front, sir.”

  “Not for long, you’re not. Get your ass back to Manila—it’s a mess here, and I need you to sort out these foreign civilians. They keep yelling about their rights and privileges, and I don’t have time for it. I’m trying to stop the bloody looting.”

  “But, sir—”

  “No, Mori. That’s an order. You can chase down partisans when you’ve got things settled here. I’ll see you tonight in the Manila Polo Club. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mori handed the radio to the operator, who wore a large, bucktoothed grin like something out of American propaganda. Other IJA soldiers stood around the shack that was headquarters for the signal corps, and there were grins all around. Mori took Fujiwara outside.

  “That was a disappointment, sir,” Fujiwara said.

  Mori glanced toward the truck. Their new driver sat on the hood, smoking a cigarette. His shirt was off, and grease smeared his face. The sky was closing over again, and it seemed like it would rain some more.

  What if he ignored the colonel’s order? What if he got in his truck and kept going? He was only a mile or two from the road that must be the one taken by the Americans. He could enact his own personal gekokujō. A little insubordination in service of the greater cause, which was recovering a traitor and wiping out an untidy nest of partisans before it had a chance to establish itself in the mountains.

  No, he couldn’t do that. But maybe there was an alternative, so the trail wouldn’t get too cold.

  “Do you remember that village we passed through about a mile back?” Mori said.

  “The one with the Christian shrine to their virgin queen, sir?”

  “That’s right, it was named Santa Maria, wasn’t it?”

  Soldiers, thinking they were being clever, had uprooted the statue of the Virgin Mary from her shrine, carted her out to the road, and hung a sign in Japanese around her neck, reading: “This Way to the Christian Brothel.”

  “It would be a good place for a Kempeitai post. It’s off the main military highway, but close enough to both the Central Luzon Plain and the mountains to keep an eye on both.”

  “So we’re not going back to Manila like the colonel ordered?” Fujiwara asked.

  Was Mori imagining it, or was there an element of doubt in the lieutenant’s voice? What would he do if ordered to disobey Colonel Umeko? Where would his loyalties fall?

  “He didn’t order you to Manila, he ordered me.”

  “That is true, sir.” Now Fujiwara sounded relieved.

  “I’ll go back and sort out this mess with the foreigners. You’ll take position in Santa Maria and establish our post. Don’t worry, I’ll send support. More law soldiers so you won’t be abandoned and vulnerable. And money to pay informers. Give me five days, then I’ll be back in person.”

  It wasn’t five days, unfortunately. The situation in Manila wasn’t as chaotic as what he’d seen in China, but the city struggled with electricity, with looting, with random fires and occasional murders of Japanese civilians and soldiers. These killings were paid back tenfold, and by official decree.

  Mori distributed a proclamation to the newspapers as they resumed publication:

  Anyone who inflicts, or attempts to inflict, an injury upon Japanese soldiers or individuals shall be shot to death. If the assailant or attempted assailant cannot be found, we will hold ten influential persons as hostages who live in and about the streets where the events happened. The Filipinos should understand our real intentions and should work together with us to maintain public peace and order.

  He kept hidden that he’d written this notice himself, not wanting to expose his knowledge of English when it was unnecessary.

  Mori then set about with other secret police to round up foreign nationals in the city. With the exception of a few Germans, all the whites—Europeans, Americans, Canadians, and Australians—were shipped to the University of Santo Tomás for internment. A rock wall already surrounded the university, and Mori had it topped with barbed wire. A wrought-iron fence marked the front of the university, and Mori had it blocked off with woven bamboo mats to cut down on communication and smuggling to the internees.

  Most of the foreigners complied with the orders to surrender to the new authorities. Some even seemed relieved to gather in one place where they could presumably be safe from Japanese soldiers. A handful tried to hide or escape the city. These were dragged off and occasionally beaten as an example to the others. Regrettably, a few foreigners died in the roundups, as well as several dozen Filipinos shot or hung for helping them.

  Unfortunately this all took time. And then Colonel Umeko had Mori interrogating locals to serve in the new administration. There were plenty of volunteers—that was never a problem in an occupation—but by definition such people weren’t very loyal. Mori sent a few men up the road to Fujiwara, as well as supplies, but grew increasingly anxious to return to Santa Maria as the days dragged on. This was tedious business, mopping up in an increasingly tranquil city while the surrounding countryside and mountains teemed with uncaptured enemies and Filipino partisans.

  Finally, in mid-January, the colonel allowed Mori to leave the city, but with conditions. He was only given three more secret police to join the four already in Santa Maria, not twenty armed men, as he’d requested. Ten thousand pesos to pay for supplies and buy off the locals, not forty. And he couldn’t use the main highway, which was still clogged with military equipment for the army pressing into Bataan to fight the Americans. Back roads only.

  Mori left in the middle of a tropical downpour and got stuck three times in the m
ud. The last time, he bullied some villagers into lending him their carabaos. Remembering his encounter with one of the buffalo a couple of weeks earlier, he kept a wary distance as Filipinos roped the surly beasts to his vehicle. The truck came out sullenly, like a rotten tooth. Mud and water had flooded the engine, and it needed to be cleaned.

  It took a full day and a morning to travel the twenty miles to Santa Maria. It was raining so hard, mud and water splattering onto the windshield, that the driver almost passed right through the village without seeing it. The driver hit the brakes hard, cursing, to avoid hitting a person standing in the road.

  But when the driver stopped and revved the engine to get the person to move, Mori realized it was the statue of the Virgin Mary with the sign hanging around her neck. What he’d thought were trees on the side of the road was a row of dilapidated nipa huts.

  Mori left the others behind and came dripping into the only building in the village with a corrugated-metal roof instead of leaky cogon grass. The metal roof leaked just as badly. Wooden buckets collected the drips. Lieutenant Fujiwara bent over a crude table, writing furiously by lamplight.

  He gave a relieved look when he saw Mori, put down the pen, and crumpled the paper.

  “I was expecting you yesterday, sir.”

  “The roads are bad,” Mori said. “We spent the night in an open shed fighting off pigs trying to muscle their way out of the rain. What were you writing?”

  “I was going to radio the colonel to tell him you never arrived. I was preparing my thoughts, making sure they were well organized.”

  Mori brushed the water from his clothes. The place seemed to be the lieutenant’s home as well as his headquarters, with patatis—woven reed mats—laid out in the best approximation of tatami, Japanese-style. He’d set up a small stove on one side of the room, with a pot of half-eaten rice, a cot in the corner, and a few personal belongings in open cupboards to keep them out of the dripping water.