GARO
I think they know how to play. I just think it is useless to play by yourself. I have watched them doing it. It isn’t really a game, not like you would think.
INT.
So, you were bringing him a shogi set?
GARO
When he spoke? No. He had the set. He would always take the gold generals out of the set and hold them in his hand. I don’t know why. So, it became this question. Why did Oda Sotatsu hold on to the gold generals? A reporter was visiting and noticed. She noticed too that the pieces on the board were set up strangely. It became this thing — everyone was wondering, was this a clue? Was he finally revealing something about where the victims were?
INT.
So, the press was just allowed into the prison?
GARO
Rarely. Hardly ever. Really not much at all. This was an exception, I’d say. Anyway, so there was a bet. I don’t remember what we bet, maybe some portion of our salary or shift pick or something. It did matter, though. Oh, now I remember. It was vacation. The one who bet right would get a day of the others’ vacation. There was a lot of talk. But, Oda wouldn’t explain. He wouldn’t say why he was doing it. Different guards came up to him, asking him. They threatened him, they begged him. Nothing worked.
INT.
But you got him to explain it?
GARO
Well, I just noticed it by accident. He was using the board as a calendar. To do that, you only need thirty-six pieces, not forty. So, he would take the gold generals off the board. I don’t think he liked them being on the floor of the cell, so he would hold them. It was as simple as that. I noticed because I saw that he changed the board first thing when he would wake up. Nobody else knew what that meant, but eventually I did. So, I said to him, Prisoner Oda, you missed a day.
INT.
“You missed a day”?
GARO
That’s what I said, You missed a day.
INT.
And what did he say?
GARO
For a second he looked very carefully at the board. I think he was worried someone had moved it around while he was sleeping. Someone did do that once. He was checking to see that it was right. Then he said, No. I didn’t miss any days.
INT.
And that was it?
GARO
That was it. It got me two weeks off. That’s probably why I was so nice to him from then on. That and the fact that …
INT.
That what?
GARO
That it made me feel good he would talk to me and not to the others. I liked to pretend it was because I had secrets, about how to be a guard, but it wasn’t that.
INT.
Who can say?
Interview 15 (Brother’s Wife)
[Int. note. I spoke to Jiro’s wife one of the days when I was enjoying their hospitality. She was a very sharp and argumentative woman if she felt she was right, and we got along quite well. In the evening time, the family played various games, board games and games of other sorts, and she was merciless. I played her in go, a game at which I can claim little skill, and she defeated me with very little effort. She seemed to be glad that I was writing this book, and that I was meeting so often with Jiro. One morning while I was sitting out very early (I had been unable to sleep), she came out and sat by me and we spoke. I didn’t record the conversation, but I remember a good deal of what she said. I paraphrase below.]
She said that I should know, that Jiro wouldn’t say all of it, but that I should know that Jiro’s family has not ever been any good to him, not in the least. That even now all they want is for him to give them money. They don’t even want him to visit. She said that his sister is the worst of all, a petty intellectual. She said that one of the great sadnesses in her life is that she didn’t get to meet Sotatsu, as Jiro speaks so highly of him, and that she just knows, just knows that they would have been very close. When I asked if she had known about the Narito Disappearances and the whole business when she met Jiro, she said that she had. She said that there was no getting away from it. But, she said, it hadn’t made her think any one thing more than another. Maybe it would for some people, but not for her. I asked her if they often saw the rest of the Oda family. She said she discouraged it as much as she could, and that I could print that, if I wanted to.
Int. Note
[I went on a walk with Jiro on one of the days I visited there. He said there was a way to go that would be quite pleasant, especially on a day like that. I didn’t know what he meant. It seemed like any other day, but when we went outside, there was a sun-shower going on. He said he loved sunshowers more than any other weather. They were good luck, but some people said you shouldn’t go out in them. Do you go out in them? I asked. I always do, he said. Always. We went down off of his property and along a thin road. No cars came or went. He told me that you get the whole place to yourself, since everyone stays in. Which place? I asked him. Any place, he said, laughing. After a while, we passed a small wooded area with some broken-down buildings. They were a deep rust red, and there was old broken farm equipment here and there. Something that had been a barn was now leaning on itself, huddling in. The site was quite arresting. I said there was no good catalog of the human qualities of buildings or alleys. Jiro asked me what I meant. I said something like, there is a quality of firmness or importance, secret importance that one puts on small geographies and features of landscape, houses, yards, hidden spots beneath trees. To have a list of such places. That was my explanation, and it prompted him to tell me the following.]
JIRO
Is it on? All right. This is the memory. When we were boys there was an old gate at the end of a little road. We would go to it. Do you know what I mean? Do you remember boys go to things, to places where limits exist — to the end of things wherever they can be found, to the bottom of holes, to the sea, to walls, fences, gates, locked doors. Do you remember of all places, these are where boys feel their real work must be done? My parents had never taken us there. Matter of fact, we had never even seen anyone else on that road at all. When we stepped onto it, we felt we were gone away. Well, we would go there and look at this gate, just stare at it. We felt it was unclimbable, it was so rusty and sharp.
INT.
You went there often, you say?
JIRO
At this time, at this one particular age, we were always there. We’d sit some distance from it, and have muttered conferences, make plans. Or if I just ran off from the house, or Sotatsu did, the other one would know that that’s where to go. He’d go there and find the one who’d run off. I was always finding Sotatsu there, and he was always finding me there. We thought that gate wasn’t in use, that someone had closed it a hundred years before, and that no one even remembered it was there. But, one day we went there and it was open. It was half swung open and the way was clear. I was terrified. It is hard to explain how frightening it was to me. I didn’t even want to go near it, but Sotatsu pulled me along. I balked at the very edge and he continued on. When I saw that he was going to go through, I started crying and ran home. I didn’t look back, not once. He went in by himself.