(A minute of silence, tape running.)
INT.
And there would be no way to know, to know which it was.
JIRO
No way, a hunger strike imposed by the guards on a prisoner who won’t break would look identical to a hunger strike staged by a prisoner as a protest. No one could tell the difference.
INT.
But in this case they didn’t want to starve him to death. They wanted to execute him.
JIRO
Right, so they had to make him eat.
Interview 11 (Watanabe Garo)
[Int. note. Through a very peculiar and wonderful action of chance, the landlady who rented me the property on which I conducted many of the interviews had a friend whose brother had worked in the prison where Oda Sotatsu sat on death row. Apparently the high profile of the case had led to this brother’s stories of Oda becoming common anecdotes that were told and retold in that family, eventually reaching the ears of the landlady to whom I came. When she learned what I was writing about, she put me in touch with the brother. I spoke to him several times on the telephone and once in person at a ramen house in Osaka. He was an extremely vain man in his sixties and he boasted at every conceivable opportunity. Even the ramen house we met at, it was a personal connection. He would get us some kind of special service, he said. In fact, they did not know him at all. It is my belief that this man did not personally know Oda Sotatsu at all, but rather that he relayed all manner of prison lore and anecdotes about Oda Sotatsu, casting them in the first person as though he were the one having had the experiences. As anyone familiar with oral histories will attest, this is quite a common occurrence. His narratives of the time are quite compelling, however. Whether that is because he actually knew Oda, actually was there, or whether it is due to him repeating the anecdotes countless times, I can’t say. However it may be, he was an invaluable source of otherwise unobtainable data about this time period and I am grateful that he consented to speak to me.]
[This first interview occurred via telephone. The house in which I lived (the leased property) had no telephone, so I made use of the telephone situated on the property immediately adjoining.]
INT.
Hello. Mr. Watanabe.
VOICE
One moment. Garo! One moment, please.
(Noise of the phone being put down.)
(Perhaps thirty seconds.)
(Noise of the phone being picked up.)
GARO
Mr. Ball.
INT.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. We are being recorded at this time.
GARO
I understand.
INT.
You were a prison guard at the L. Facility during the spring of 1978?
GARO
I was employed there from 1960 to 1985. Yes, you could say …
(Laughs.)
GARO
You could say I was there in 1978.
INT.
And you were a guard on what is called death row, with the most dangerous prisoners?
GARO
The ones on death row aren’t always the most dangerous; that’s what people often think, but it isn’t always true. Quite the opposite sometimes. Certain types of assault, certain types of fraud, in-house kidnapping, what is that called in English?
INT.
Home invasion.
GARO
Yes, home invasion, or rape and mutilation. These are all crimes that don’t get you too much time. But the guards know. We know which ones to watch out for.
INT.
You learn that?
GARO
I think you just know it. If you don’t, you don’t last long. So, it takes care of itself. In the long run, you get guards who know what they’re doing.
INT.
You met and dealt with Oda Sotatsu at that time? The man convicted of the Narito Disappearances?
GARO
Sure, I dealt with him. If walking back and forth, looking at him, talking to him, bringing him food, counts. I only spoke to him three times. Three times in the eight months he was there. And he liked me. He wouldn’t speak to anyone else.
INT.
Eight months? I was told he was on death row for only four months.
GARO
Not to my knowledge. Four months is awfully short, awfully short. Don’t think I’ve heard of that. Matter of fact, eight months is short for a capital case. Almost unheard of. We used to say someone must have wanted him dead for it to come so quick, his number to come up, I mean. Seems he skipped clear to the head of the line. Supposedly he had an enemy, some minister, didn’t like how things went, wanted an example, I can’t say. He was easy, though. Tell you that much. Made no trouble, not once.
(Something indecipherable.)
INT.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t make that out. What did you say?
GARO
I said he was so good they let a girl in his cell, right before the end. Not that he knew it was the end, mind you. Execution’s always unannounced. Never know. They drag ‘em off through a series of rooms, one after another. We called it visiting the Buddhas because there are different statues, one in each room.
INT.
I have questions about that, but first …
[Int. note. Here we lost the connection. It was a couple of weeks before I managed to speak to him again. That continuation will come shortly.]
Photograph of Jito Joo
[Int. note. Watanabe Garo gave me a photograph that he claims had been in Oda Sotatsu’s death row cell. When I later met with Jito Joo, she admitted having given it to him. This strengthens Watanabe’s claims of having known Oda; it is also possible he recovered it from another guard, or from the cell, without having known Oda. Further conjecture on the exact degree of his reliability is likely useless.]
Interview 12 (Brother)
[Int. note. This was somewhat later in the same conversation at the pavilion. Jiro and I had been drinking, and he had begun to tell me some stories from his and Sotatsu’s childhood.]
INT.
So your father refused to take you along on the fishing boat?
JIRO
He said it would be bad luck for me to come.
INT.
And why was that?
JIRO
He said it had to do with my birth date, that it was not an, what did he call it, not an auspicious day for a fisherman to be born. He wouldn’t even let me on the boat when it was out of the water.
INT.
But he would let Sotatsu?