‘Ward Three? Well, they’re getting nothing to eat and their cells aren’t heated, but they’re assigned to hard labour. It makes sense that their immunity would be compromised.’
‘There’s another notable thing about the Korean prisoners,’ Midori said hesitantly.
‘What’s that?’
‘Most of the patients assigned for medical treatment were chosen from Ward Three.’
I froze. ‘The medical treatment was for those who are unwell, right?’ I stammered. ‘And that’s why the Koreans were chosen. But then why would they be getting worse?’
She shook her head. ‘It might be the infusions. If a weak person is infused with strong nutritive medication, they might experience side-effects.’
‘We need to find out what’s going on.’
‘These are doctors from the best medical school in the Empire. If they see any side-effects they’ll be the first to take action.’
‘They should have done so already!’
‘We’re going to have a research meeting in three days. The doctors will go over the treatment plan and research questions for the week. I’ll report the side-effects and suggest remedies. Would you look into the prisoners’ symptoms?’
Her calm tone reassured me to some degree. But I was nevertheless deeply troubled by an unidentifiable nervousness.
A few days later, I was called into Director Morioka’s research lab. The air was filled with the cool, clean smell of dozens of medications and, on one wall, bookcases were lined with numerous foreign-language medical texts.
The director offered his hand eagerly. I took it stiffly.
‘Yuichi!’ the director cried. ‘I heard that you recently volunteered to escort the prisoners to the infirmary for their medical treatments. I commend you for that. I understand that you put together Nurse Iwanami’s report at the research meeting. It seems there was a small misunderstanding about the medical treatments.’
At the meeting Midori had presented a chart of prisoner numbers and the side-effects each suffered. Almost all the patients experienced headaches, fatigue, weakness and indigestion. Vomiting and diarrhoea weren’t uncommon. They also experienced loss of memory, dizziness, bleeding and bruising at the smallest impact. Almost all the prisoners showed several symptoms.
‘I merely reported the results after receiving complaints from the prisoners,’ I said, somewhat defensively.
‘Oh, I’m not reprimanding you. The medical team has decided to review the report and come up with an appropriate plan. It was a wonderful report, except for one fatal flaw.’
‘A flaw?’
‘You relied too heavily on the patients’ statements. These kinds of symptoms have to be determined through careful medical examination.’
I felt cowed by Director Morioka’s gentle expression and melodic voice. ‘Sir,’ I began hesitantly. ‘The symptoms weren’t false. The prisoners who received infusions are in pain. What the patient is feeling has to be the most accurate documentation of his pain.’
Director Morioka smiled. ‘Will you be my guest tomorrow in the infirmary? Your misgivings will be put aside when you see for yourself how scientifically and hygienically we conduct the medical treatments.’
I nodded, mute.
The next day, at two in the afternoon, I escorted thirty prisoners to the infirmary. We stopped, as always, in front of the auditorium. Dong-ju’s gaunt cheeks were flushed with vitality as he stood listening to the singing. At the end of the song I led the prisoners down the corridor, their shackles dragging behind us.
In the infirmary a doctor wearing silver glasses motioned for me to follow him. He opened the door to the infusion room, revealing six cots shielded by white curtains on either side of the room. ‘The infusion room is the height of hygiene and convenience,’ he explained.
In a clear, high voice a nurse called out six numbers. Prisoners filed in and each took a cot. Nurses approached them and, with precise movements, found the veins and inserted the needles in their thin arms. After the treatment the men rested. The doctor explained to me that they might experience dizziness or muscle spasms if they moved right away. I tagged along behind him as he moved slowly between the cots.
‘This medication will give them more vitality and help prolong their lives,’ he said and opened the door at the other end of the room. I followed him in, feeling like Alice hurtling down the rabbit hole. He sat down at the desk, which was stacked with medical files, and nodded at the young prisoner, an interpreter, sitting stiffly in a chair in the corner.
The doctor flipped through the list and shouted, ‘531! Enter!’
The interpreter followed suit in Korean.
A man with sunken eyes walked in.
The doctor didn’t look up from the chart. ‘Any uncomfortable symptoms?’ he snapped.
The patient blinked his eyes, waiting for the interpreter to finish translating. ‘Nowhere in particular,’ he replied nervously. ‘I’m always uncomfortable. My head feels foggy and I’m tired, but I can’t sleep at night. I haven’t eaten much. I can’t digest anything, anyway. I have the runs, you see.’
The doctor wrote down the symptoms on the chart. He laid down his pen and took out a stopwatch and a piece of paper from the desk drawer. He turned to me and explained that he would conduct a mental-agility test that would reveal any damage to brain function. Apparently, performance of arithmetic was the most effective neurological test, as it required instant recall, strong focus and accurate maths skills.
He handed the piece of paper to the prisoner and pressed a button on the stopwatch. ‘Begin!’
The patient started on the problems. They were mostly double-digit additions and subtractions. The stopwatch ticked through the silence. One minute later, the doctor told him to stop. The patient put down the pen with a tired expression. The doctor checked the answers, recorded the number of questions solved and the number of accurate and inaccurate answers.
‘What’s the date today?’
‘January 1945.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Fukuoka Prison . . .’ The patient was speaking hesitantly now.
The doctor cocked his head and wrote something down on the chart. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Uiju, on the Korean peninsula.’
‘When will you be released?’
The prisoner paused. ‘1946?’
The doctor wrote, ‘Doesn’t clearly remember when he will be released.’
The questioning continued. The prisoner hesitated a few times and then the doctor compared the results with those of a previous test.
‘How am I, Doctor?’ the patient interrupted. ‘Am I getting better?’
‘You know that things get worse before they get better. You’re getting a special infusion, so it’ll take some time for you to get used to it. You’ll improve gradually, so be patient.’
The doctor looked at him sympathetically as the prisoner left the room. ‘He answered twelve problems in a minute. He got nine right. He completed one less than last week and he got one more wrong. On the memory test, he answered two fewer than last time and hesitated twice more. It’s not good. Like you said, it must be the side-effects of the infusions.’
‘Then shouldn’t we halt them immediately?’
The doctor shook his head in exasperation. ‘Look here, Soldier! Do you even understand what we’re doing? The medical team will take care of this, so just concern yourself with your own job.’ He then explained that the infusions were part of a larger research project – they were aiming to ameliorate the fatality rates of soldiers and air-strike victims – and they were testing this new medication on the prisoners, which would make them feel stronger. They were also doing all they could to eliminate side-effects. He concluded by saying that there would be no need for research if medications didn’t have side-effects and never failed.
Dong-ju entered the room. His cheekbones protruded starkly over his gaunt cheeks, and his pale skin was stretched grotesquely over his skull.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Name?’
‘Yun Dong-ju.’
The doctor looked up at him in surprise. ‘Your Japanese name!’ he snapped.
‘I don’t remember.’
The doctor gave Dong-ju the arithmetic test. Dong-ju took the pencil and started working on the problems. One minute later, the doctor pressed the stopwatch.
‘Home town?’
‘Mingdong village in Jiandao Province, Manchuria,’ Dong-ju replied. ‘It’s a lovely little village surrounded by mountains. In the spring, azaleas, cherry blossoms and peonies bloom and soft catkins cover the river banks.’
‘That’s enough,’ the doctor said, cutting him off. ‘This is not the time to reminisce about your birthplace. When will you be released?’
‘30 November 1945.’
‘Who is the Emperor of Japan?’
‘I don’t remember.’
The doctor’s mouth flickered with a tiny spasm. ‘What words can you recall?’
Dong-ju closed his eyes. Smiling, he answered, ‘Sky, wind, stars, poetry.’
The doctor wrote the words down. ‘What is the multiplication table for nine?’
Dong-ju slowly recited the numbers with a blank expression: ‘9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99 . . .’
‘Enough. You may leave.’
Dong-ju turned round slowly, his thin, stooped back as unsightly as his gaunt face. His body was slowly betraying him.
The doctor turned to me. ‘His memory and his arithmetic are perfect. He solved many more questions than anyone else and he didn’t give any wrong answers. This is an example of someone adjusting well to the infusions. He’s had no side-effects to worry about.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But his memory is faulty. He couldn’t remember his Japanese name or his prisoner number.’
‘Ah, that. You, of all people, should know that you have to be alert and to sort out made-up answers when examining prisoners.’
‘Made-up answers?’
‘I mean an intentionally wrong answer, or an answer that has nothing to do with the question posed. He didn’t tell us his Japanese name because he didn’t want to. Not because he couldn’t remember. And it was the same with his prisoner number.’
‘Why would he conceal what he remembers?’
‘You must be well aware of this tactic! It’s a way to deny his crime. He’s avoiding acknowledging it by erasing his prisoner number from his memory. He’s not admitting to the fact that he has a Japanese name. It’s typical of an intelligent mind.’
‘Are you saying he was trying to trick you?’
‘Obviously! He’s realized that the patients suffer from one or two side-effects. He’s using memory loss, which is fairly common. If he really couldn’t remember his prisoner number, he would have looked down at his uniform. But he didn’t. And he remembered his release date and even recited the multiplication table. You saw that yourself!’
‘But he didn’t recite the multiplication table the way most people do. He didn’t say nine times one is nine, nine times two is eighteen. He just blurted out the answers directly.’
‘So?’
‘What I mean is, he didn’t recite the table. I think he had to calculate it. He wasn’t multiplying; he was adding nine to the last number.’
‘It doesn’t matter. If he can add in his head, it’s clear that his brain function is good. I think we’re done here. You can escort the prisoners back.’
I wanted to say something else, but my lips wouldn’t comply. I spun on my heel and left the room.
The prisoners were lined up in two rows in the dark corridor. As I called out the prisoner numbers one by one, hoarse voices wheezed out in reply. ‘Forward, march!’ I called out, spitting out my resentment. The men’s shackles began clanking on the cold, hard floor. I wanted to turn around to make sure that Dong-ju was fine, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want him to see the sorrow in my eyes.
IF SPRING CAME TO MY STAR . . .
The air strikes became more frequent. Japan turned into an enormous barracks and Fukuoka was the front yard for the US Air Force. The bleak warning of the urgent air-raid siren always came as the prelude to death and destruction. B-29 bombers were turning the city into ash. The sirens blared on, a requiem both for the burning city and for the people who were buried under it. Women with buckets scurried through the bombed streets to stamp out fires. People tried to forget the sirens, the buzzing of aeroplanes, the explosions and screams, recalling instead the other sounds that had once filled these streets – the laughter of children, jazz music coming out of record shops, women’s delighted laughter. War had transformed everything. Streets resonated with the sound of heavy boots, shops were shuttered, military trucks filled with terrified young male conscripts. People were weighted down with terror. Death had become a routine affair and survival was the only goal. Hard labour continued in lockstep with the war. More and more military uniforms were needed; the prisoners washed, mended and re-dyed military uniforms that were soaked in blood and torn by shrapnel. Dong-ju’s job was to pull carts piled high with blood-stained uniforms. When the siren sounded, signalling the start of the prisoners’ outdoor break time, Dong-ju stood in the yard and looked up at the grey sky, whistling.
I approached him one afternoon. He smelled sour. Strangely, it was a welcome odour; it meant that his body was still functioning. I followed his gaze up to the sky, which stretched low over the yard like a faded piece of grey fabric.
Dong-ju looked at me. ‘It’s been three days. I haven’t seen the blue kite that usually flies up around this time.’
‘Well, I’m sure someone flew that kite out of curiosity,’ I said. ‘He had fun cutting your line, but when we banned kite-flying, he got bored and left.’
‘That girl didn’t fly the kite just to cut my line. The way she flew the kite – it was delicate. Sophisticated.’ He explained that it had been like a waltz. The girl gently tugged at his line like a shy girl at her first ball. He would lead her kite, like a young man wrapping an arm around her waist. They had performed a beautiful dance in the sky. He could sense her careful consideration through her line.
‘Why would she do that?’ I asked.
‘Maybe she was lonely,’ he said. ‘She would often put the weight of her kite on my line, as if she were a puppy cavorting on her master’s lap. Her purpose wasn’t to boast how well she could fly, but to lean against someone.’
I didn’t know what he was talking about. How could anyone show their feelings through kite lines?
Dong-ju looked up at the sky beyond the walls, searching for the blue kite again.
‘She probably lost interest in flying it,’ I said.
He looked at me hopefully, but quickly grew dispirited. It was then that I finally understood what he was concerned about. Three days before there had been terrible bombings. Dong-ju told me that he’d stood in the middle of his cell, listening to the explosions. The Korean prisoners had loved it; they’d prayed for the B-29s to turn the city into a fire pit, even if it meant that they, too, would be swept away by the carnage. He rounded his shoulders. ‘I just want to make sure that she’s alive. I wish I could fly a kite . . . If I could fly mine, I know she’d definitely fly hers . . .’
‘Kite-flying has been banned,’ I said, feeling suddenly anxious in the face of his despair. ‘I’m sure there’s another way to confirm that she’s safe.’ I hoped he wouldn’t press me. The siren blared from the speakers on the roof, signalling the end of break; Dong-ju jumped up and went back to his cart.
The next day, after rehearsal, I cautiously brought up the matter with Midori. I asked if she could find out about a young girl who flew a kite near the prison, even though I didn’t know her name or what she looked like. Midori didn’t answer. Instead she placed her hands on the keys. I shouldn’t have asked; it was presumptuous of me. Two days later, I saw Midori again, and light returned to my
life. We walked side-by-side on the frozen snow, our shoes crunching. I stole a look at her delicate profile, feeling anxious.
‘I know where she lives,’ Midori said. ‘Her house is on the outskirts of the city, closer to Fukuoka than Hakata Bay, in a neighbourhood with about twenty shanties clustered together.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’ve gone to her house before. On behalf of Sugiyama-san.’
‘What happened to her? According to the paper, the road linking Hakata Port to downtown Fukuoka suffered the most damage.’
‘The bombs dropped along the road and destroyed the neighbourhood. I could still smell gunpowder in the air. Because it’s a poor neighbourhood that’s out of the way, they didn’t have any bomb shelters.’
My blood chilled. It would have been better if I hadn’t found out.
She continued, her voice cracking. ‘I managed to find her mother in a temporary ward at Fukuoka City Hospital. A beam fell from the roof and broke her leg.’
‘And the girl?’ I almost couldn’t bear to ask.
‘Thankfully, she left Fukuoka before the attack. Following the government’s recommendation for evacuation, she was sent to her grandmother’s house in the countryside. It’s a farming town an hour away from here, so they wouldn’t have been bombed.’
My body surged with relief, as though a furnace had been lit inside. All I needed was for the girl to be alive. It didn’t matter where she was.
Midori handed me a white bundle and nodded for me to open it. Inside was a battered, yellowed paper kite. The rounded stake in the middle was broken.
‘Her mother was asleep when she woke to the sound of bombs exploding,’ Midori continued. ‘She was running down the stairs when it occurred to her that she should take her daughter’s cherished kite. When the girl left for her grandmother’s house she took all the kites she’d won in battles, but she’d left this one hanging on the wall in the attic, telling her mother to look at it whenever she missed her. There was an explosion, and her mother lost consciousness. She was found clutching this kite to her chest.’
The Investigation Page 19