The Investigation

by Jung-myung Lee

  I nodded.

  ‘Like I said, we don’t have enough blood. If the platelets, which are the most important component, could be manufactured, we can change the direction of the war.’ Morioka’s voice trembled.

  My heart pounded. ‘So you’ve created blood?’

  ‘We’re in the process of developing a saline solution to substitute for platelets. It has similar sodium levels to bodily fluids and is composed of similar substances to platelets. Currently it’s used to replace fluids for patients who are ill or injured. We’re tinkering with the concentration of the saline. That’s what we’re using to develop a platelet substitute.’

  ‘But saline solution is basically salt and water,’ I murmured, frowning. ‘How can that take the place of blood?’

  ‘If one isn’t knowledgeable about medicine, like you, one would think that we are killing people, not saving them,’ the director said breezily. ‘That’s why we work under high security. Don’t worry. We’re reviewing all side-effects as we conduct experiments on human adaptation to varying saline concentrations, resistance to sodium concentrations and infections.’

  ‘But the side-effects are not diminishing.’

  ‘Well, I told you we’re still working on it. And we’re conducting detailed diagnostic checks to ensure that abnormal reactions are treated. You saw how we give arithmetic tests, right? That’s the best way to determine overall neurophysical function. We can instantly determine the effect of foreign substances in the subjects’ bodies.’

  I finally understood everything. They were experimenting on people. I’d led unsuspecting Koreans to a laboratory of death. I could tell my face was flushed. ‘The Kyushu Imperial University medical team is conducting human experiments that kill healthy men! Now I get it. You came here because you needed people to experiment on.’

  Morioka smiled. ‘I understand what you’re saying. You’re still young. Why, you’re not even twenty years old! Look, Yuichi. The world isn’t black-and-white. It’s tough and complicated. This research could save the lives of many, many soldiers. All the women and children dying in air raids.’

  Tears coursed down my cheeks. I was ashamed and enraged. This wasn’t right. However lofty the cause, we couldn’t do this. We couldn’t toy with one person’s life, even if it benefited many more. I squeezed my eyes closed.

  The director patted my shoulder gently. ‘Listen carefully, Yuichi. The people we need to save are the Empire’s soldiers and civilians. The people you’re crying over are Koreans who have committed very serious crimes. They’ve set fire to police stations. They have thrown bombs at the Emperor. They’ve cut Japanese throats. You know what I mean?’

  I didn’t. How many people had to die? When would this all come to an end?

  Morioka continued. ‘They’re evil spores growing in our society. Cancerous tumours taking over our bodies. They’ll eventually take our lives. Do you know what the treatment for cancer is? You cut it out. You remove it surgically. But the cancerous cells keep growing, damaging healthy cells and ruining the entire body. Who do we need to save? Should we let countless Japanese die, just to save some cancerous fellows?’

  Time clattered into the deserted space around me. The golden pendulum of the grandfather clock swung mechanically, wrenching my heart with it. ‘Who are we to decide who gets to live and who ends up dead?’

  ‘You know this place is a graveyard for Korean prisoners anyway. So many die before they finish their terms. Don’t you think their lives would be put to good use if they could teach us something in death?’ Morioka smiled. ‘There’s no difference between a dying man and a dead man. I’m telling you, the prisoners are on their way to the grave anyway.’

  Was he right? Could this terrible situation be even more complex than I thought?

  FRIGHTENING TIMES

  It was loud inside the fabric workroom. The washing machines spun manically, the sewing machines clattered, the guards shouted, the prisoners grunted and moaned. Here, prisoners mended tattered military uniforms with bullet holes; their owners were probably no longer alive. I’d searched for a way to get Dong-ju out of the medical treatments, but as yet I hadn’t found a solution. The best I could do was move him to the dye-team, in charge of dipping cloth into the dye-baths. At least here he was indoors. As Dong-ju pulled a cart heaped with faded uniforms, a loud siren sliced through the shriek of steam; it was time for break. Dong-ju backed away slowly and squatted near the dye-bath. Other workers were collapsed in exhaustion near the window on the opposite side. The guards stood to one side, smoking and laughing.

  Dong-ju dipped a finger in a can of dark-navy paint under the dye-bath. He scrawled something on the dirty wall, before wiping his finger on his uniform. He looked at me with relief. He stood awkwardly in front of the wall, hiding the words. A guard was watching suspiciously from the other side of the room. I took out my club, approached Dong-ju and whacked him on the thigh. He winced and lost his balance. The guard turned around and started talking with the others again. Dong-ju whispered to me what he’d written for my benefit. ‘Sky, Wind, Stars, Poetry.’ I nodded in unspoken promise. If he lost all his memories,

  I would bring him here to these words. Even if he couldn’t remember, I would tell him that he was a poet, and would always be one. That I remembered his poems, that I was safekeeping that part of his soul. A smile bloomed on his face, unsullied and strong. I stood in front of him, facing out, so that the guards wouldn’t see his face. That was the only kindness I could offer.

  Dong-ju’s health deteriorated rapidly. During our time in the interrogation room he spoke less and less, uttering only half-formed sentences and tangled thoughts. Our conversation was like Morse code: a long silence interrupted by a short dialogue, leading to an even longer silence and an even shorter exchange. His spark was vanishing, like the last breath of a dying man. Eventually our conversation ceased entirely – silence, longer silence and, finally, endless silence. I wasn’t sure if he was choosing not to talk or if he couldn’t. His memories had scattered like fallen leaves; thin winter branches were all that were left, leaving behind a barren tree yearning for a bygone summer. Dong-ju no longer recalled his brilliant past; he merely suffered through empty time.

  On what would end up being our last day in the interrogation room, we shared a silent conversation. I felt his exhaustion and his pain as though they were my own.

  Suddenly, his lips opened. ‘“Frightening Times.” Who are you, calling me? / In a shadow of green oak leaves, / I am still breathing. / I who have never raised my hand / I who don’t have the sky to greet with my hand / Why are you calling me / I, who have no sky to put my body under? / On the morning of my death, after my work is done / Oak leaves will fall in peace . . . / Do not call me.’

  I scribbled down his halting words. Was this the last light emitted by his pale soul, lightning tearing through darkness one last time? The words blurred. Why was it this poem that he remembered now?

  Suddenly it reminded me of one of his favourite poets, Francis Jammes, and one of his poems that I’d come across in Dong-ju’s box of confiscated documents:

  IT WAS TERRIBLE

  It was terrible to see that poor struggling little calf being dragged

  just now to the slaughterhouse,

  and who tried to lick the rainwater

  on the grey walls of the sad little town.

  O my God! he seemed so gentle

  and so good, he who had been the friend of the holly-lined lanes.

  O my God! You who are so good,

  tell us that there will be a pardon for us all

  – and that some day, in golden Heaven, we shall no longer

  murder precious little calves,

  and, instead, having become kindlier,

  we shall wreathe their little horns with flowers.

  O my God! Don’t let that little calf

  Suffer too much as he feels the knife enter . . .

  I looked away; I didn’t have the courage to look Dong-ju in the ey
e. We were the ones who started this horrible war, we were the ones who put him behind bars, we were the ones who had destroyed him. Whether we wanted it or not, we had all consented to this terrible war waged in the name of our country. Could we be forgiven for that?

  Dong-ju continued performing hard labour, his body frail and doe-like. I didn’t know where he was going; he may not have known, either. The workroom was hot, filled with smoky dust, the dizzying clatter of the sewing machines and the strong smell of dye. The prisoners’ faces glistened, blackened by sweat, dust and dye. We urged them on, swinging our clubs. Dong-ju went between the sewing machines and the dye-bath like a dung beetle, pulling the cart piled with uniforms behind him. He pulled that heavy cart with all his might.

  The siren rang out loudly, signalling break time. Men collapsed like blades of cut grass. Dong-ju put the handle of the cart down on the ground and sank to the floor. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked, taking care to tamp down the trembling in my voice.

  He looked at me blankly. Then he smiled in recognition. ‘Ah!’

  That was it. He didn’t know who I was. I could tell he was analysing my features, noting my short hair and brown uniform, considering whether I knew him and, if so, how. He knew he was a prisoner, but he didn’t know why he was there. He knew he was a poet, but he didn’t know what he wrote. He knew he read books, but didn’t know their contents. Did the times we spent together remain in his memory? Our quiet literary conversations in the interrogation room, the secret underground library, the black books that had lived there, the postcards he wrote, the sound of singing that he listened to, as he trembled in the corridor of the infirmary ward? I hoped so, even if they couldn’t be recovered. I wanted to help him – to tell him who he was.

  I grabbed his thin wrist. He followed me placidly. We walked through the groups of resting prisoners. I tightened my grip when he lost his balance and let go only when we got to the dye-bath. I turned him towards the wall marked with the words – Sky, Wind, Stars, Poetry. A smile bloomed on his face, the same one I’d seen the first day I met him. But now, everything had been taken away from him. I was the only one who knew the man he used to be. He was a child born into a lost nation; a boy who lived in a house with a plum tree, who ate mulberries and revelled in the blue sky reflected in the well; a child who looked up at the cross on the tip of a high steeple, sad that his country was no longer; a teenager who loved Tolstoy, Goethe, Rilke and Jammes, bringing a precious book he bought at a used book-shop to his boarding house, feeling as though he’d conquered the world; a studious young man who read that book all night; a writer of brilliant poems that nobody ever read; someone who liked to walk along a winding path; a boy who loved a girl without telling her so; a colonized man whose soul had been shattered by the dark era, but still created sparks; a traveller who boarded a boat and left home, studying in a six-mat tatami room in a foreign country; a young man awaiting the dawn of a new era; an offender shackled for writing poems in his native tongue; a son longing for his mother in far-away Manchuria; a prisoner awaiting the bugle signalling dawn in this cold prison, flying kites on windy days; a man who always had a smile on his face.

  Dong-ju was staring at his own handwriting; he had missed those words dearly. They remained a promise, telling him who he was, how pure his soul was, how he wrote beautiful poems. He reached out with a trembling hand to touch the words.

  In a low voice I recited ‘Night Counting Stars’. ‘The sky of passing seasons / Is filled with autumn. // Without a single worry / I think I can count all the autumn stars. // The reason I can’t count all the stars carved one by one in my heart is / because morning is coming, / because night will fall again tomorrow, / because my youth is not yet gone. // For one star, memory / For one star, love / For one star, loneliness / For one star, longing // For one star, poetry / For one star mother, mother. // Mother, I call out one beautiful word for every star. The names of children I shared a desk with in primary school, the foreign names of girls, Pei, Jing, Yu, other girls who have already become mothers, the names of impoverished neighbours, dove, puppy, rabbit, donkey, deer, the names of poets like Francis Jammes and Rainer Maria Rilke. // They are so far away. / Like stars in the beyond, // And you, Mother – / you are in Manchuria far away. // Longing for something, / On top of the hill under falling starlight / I etched my name, / And covered it with dirt. // The insect that cries all night / Does because of its sorrow about its shameful name. // But after winter passes and spring dawns on my star, / On the hill where my name is buried / Grass will stand thick and proud / Like green grass blooming on a grave.’

  Dong-ju’s face brightened. Perhaps he was thinking of the night sky he and Sugiyama had watched, of the stars scattered above, of eternity glimpsed beyond the hazy constellations, of the voice singing of those twinkling lights. Perhaps he would gather his scattered memories and once again write poems and discuss Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Rilke. But it was more likely that he had no idea he once couldn’t sleep because of those shining words, or that his own head had been filled with such beauty, or that he had written this poem himself.

  I was losing a friend. I couldn’t bear it.

  Break was over. The prisoners rose to their feet, moaning and grunting. Dong-ju hurried to his cart, his legs shaking under him. I shoved my club under his armpit to help him up, hoping it would look as though I were prodding him to hurry. He was astoundingly light. He murmured his poem that I had just recited. ‘Mother . . . Longing for something, on top of the hill under falling starlight I etched my name, And covered it with dirt . . . but after winter passes and spring dawns on my star—’ He suddenly stopped as his ankles gave way.

  ‘645! Hiranuma! Yun Dong-ju!’ I cried.

  He was unconscious. He must have hit his head on the way down. Or maybe he had fallen because he’d lost consciousness. The prisoners rushed forward and surrounded us, glaring at me. Dong-ju was sprawled on the ground. His eyes were closed, but he was still smiling.

  AFTER WINTER PASSES AND SPRING DAWNS ON MY STAR

  The doctors checked Dong-ju’s vitals every hour, gauging his blood pressure, temperature and pulse. They weren’t trying to save him; they were simply observing the process of death. The doctor on duty granted me special permission to visit Dong-ju, and led me down the narrow hallway lined with dancing white curtains. That was where patients awaited the end of their lives. The doctor showed me to a cot and pushed aside the thin curtain. I could sense the presence of death; Dong-ju was slipping in and out of consciousness. I shot a resentful look at the needle in his arm, through which clear liquid was flowing into his body. The doctor explained that it was a nutritional supplement. Was that even true? I wanted to yank it out. Each time Dong-ju came to, the doctor rattled off a series of questions. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘What’s today’s date?’ ‘Where are we?’

  Dong-ju cocked his head. He struggled to open his mouth. ‘I don’t know. 14 July 1943. I’m at . . . is this the Shimogamo Police Station?’

  That was the date he was arrested by the Special Higher Police.

  The doctor frowned. ‘His memory’s completely shot. Do you remember anything? Tell me whatever you can think of.’

  ‘Sky, wind, stars, poetry,’ Dong-ju murmured. ‘Memories and love and longing and poetry and mother . . . One star and a beautiful word, impoverished neighbours’ names, and puppy, rabbit, deer, donkey, Rainer Maria Rilke—’

  The doctor shook his head. He motioned for me to follow him out. Dong-ju stared through me as though he were looking into another world.

  That was the last time I saw him.

  A few days later, I was in the censor office when I came across a form signed by Dong-ju’s doctor. Requesting posting of prisoner 645’s death notification. I felt everything turn black. It was my job to send telegrams notifying deaths. I pulled the phone on the desk towards me. I turned the handle to call the operator, but I couldn’t speak. The operator’s annoyed voice cut through my muteness.<
br />
  I managed to dictate the telegram. ‘Dong-ju died 16 February. Collect body.’ My hand – no, my entire body – was trembling. I returned the receiver to its cradle. I opened my hand to count out the days that remained until his release.

  I paced the frozen prison yard like a caged animal. Ten days later, Dong-ju’s father and cousin arrived to gather Dong-ju’s remains. I approached them as they headed out of the prison. I bowed my head. I wanted to say something. I wanted to convey his appearance, his last words, something that would allow his father to remember his son the way he was. After a while I raised my head. ‘It’s unbelievable – Dong-ju has died. That beautiful person . . .’ I quickly turned round and walked away; my own tears were inappropriate in the face of their grief.

  BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN

  Time stopped for me, but it somehow kept ticking away for everyone else. Snow fell, piled up, drifted and melted, and new grass sprouted. On frozen branches spring flowers bloomed and died. I didn’t notice the winter fading into spring, which heated into summer in turn. I was a small, unmoored boat on an empty ocean, my sail torn, my oars broken. I was haunted by the men no longer here; Sugiyama’s face and Dong-ju’s voice dogged me wherever I went. My memories flashed back to the guard’s corpse hanging in the main corridor. I heard the plangent strokes of Die Winterreise, saw the poet’s long, pale hand opening the door to the interrogation room and Sugiyama’s rough hand writing on coarse recycled paper, and recalled Dong-ju’s eyes as he recited poetry under the stars. I thought often of the underground library, the long, narrow tunnel, Midori’s fingers flying across the piano keys like birds on the wing and the way she said, ‘He was a poet.’ My memory swam with poems that withered into a plume of smoke, books that transformed into a handful of ash, conversations in the interrogation room and Dong-ju’s words: ‘A book that takes root in someone’s heart never disappears.’