INT.
Do you regret it?
JIRO
Somehow it happened that I never asked him what was in there. It seems like I would have, like such an important question couldn’t possibly have escaped me, but that is exactly how it happens. Children are constantly forsaking whole methods of thinking in favor of new ways, and with that they give up all the old questions. Of course, later they remember. What did Sotatsu see in there? I am so fond of him when I think of it, when I imagine him at that gate, disappearing from sight. It is something I never saw, but I wish I had.
Int. Note
I went to visit the prison that Oda Sotatsu was kept in. I was not allowed to go inside, but I took photographs from the car that I had rented, and I drove to various points in the countryside where there were vantages onto it. I would like to say it was a remarkable building, but it wasn’t much of anything. An ugly complex, not even particularly threatening. There was a small store about a half mile from the entrance where they sold soda, candy, newspapers, maps, etc. I asked the man what he thought about the prison. He said it kept him in business. Apparently people would buy things there to take to inmates when they visited. What’s the most popular thing? I inquired. He held up some peculiar candy that I had never tried. I bought some of it.
I knew, of course, that it wouldn’t be the same thing people had been bringing in when Oda Sotatsu was there. I knew that. But when you are dealing with something as odd as this, you sometimes get a sense for how to behave. I felt like buying that candy changed my relationship to the prison. The remaining photographs I took were a little different. Later I asked someone, a photographer friend I knew, I asked her to look at the photographs I had taken. Of the lot of them, she separated out the six I had taken after going to the convenience store.
These ones, she said, these are much better than the others.
Interview 16 (Brother)
[Int. note. On this day I had decided to be bold and ask Jiro about why he hadn’t tried harder to convince Sotatsu to recant. However, my opportunity for such a question did not arise.]
INT.
Your brother had been in the prison then for a few weeks when you finally saw him?
JIRO
That’s true. The guards were confused. At first they took me to the wrong prisoner. It was an old man. He came to the edge of his cell and peered at me. I think he was trying to remember who I was. Probably no one had visited him in years.
INT.
How long did you stand there?
JIRO
Not long. I said, Good luck, old-timer. He called me some name that I don’t remember. His voice was very shrill. The guard was looking at the paper he had been given. Suddenly he figured it out. He apologized and took me to the right place. It sounds very comedic, I know, but in a place like that, I don’t think the guards would do such a thing on purpose. I believe it was a mistake.
INT.
But then he did take you to Sotatsu?
JIRO
Yes, and my brother was actually in another ward entirely. Not even the same building. In his special building all prisoners were in single cells. They couldn’t see one another. They ate alone. Even the exercise, which was walking around in a concrete atrium — even that was alone.
INT.
How large would you say the cells were?
JIRO
Perhaps seventeen square meters.
INT.
And you were the first visitor he had had in weeks?
JIRO
I believe he had another visitor. I was told that. I think the girl was still seeing him. She was going during the trial, and the guard mentioned her to me. He said, your sister has been coming. Of course, I knew that wasn’t true. She did every single thing my father told her, everything he ever said, no matter how small, she did that thing exactly. There was no chance that she was visiting Sotatsu against my father’s wishes. That’s when I remembered that I had seen Jito Joo at the police station, and I connected her with a girl mentioned in a news report during the trial, a girl visiting Sotatsu.
INT.
Have you ever spoken to her about it, since that time?
JIRO
Never.
INT.
To get back to this first moment, the guard took you to Sotatsu’s cell. Did Sotatsu get up when he saw you?
JIRO
He was asleep. The guard had handed me off to a different guard. In fact, that process had happened three times. This deepest guard, he woke Sotatsu up by banging on the door. He opened the door and stood in it, banging it. Sotatsu opened his eyes. I could see from where I stood, he opened his eyes but didn’t move aside from that. Here was a guard banging a stick and shouting his name and he just calmly lies there.
INT.
Did you say anything?
JIRO
He sat up after a minute. When he saw me, his expression didn’t change, but he came over. The guard had shut the door by then, but there was a window that slid open and we could see through it, we could still see each other. I was always trying not to blink. I would stare and stare at him and then eventually I would blink, but he never would. I stood there with him until it got dark, maybe two hours. The guard told me five times, six times, I had to go, but I had a feeling I was getting all I would get of him, that I wouldn’t see him again, so I didn’t want to go. I put all of myself into just watching and stood there looking at him as powerfully as I could. Eventually, I had to go. And as it turned out, I was wrong. I did get to see him again. But, I was glad I stayed as long as I could that day.
INT.
So, you left the prison when it was getting dark?
JIRO
Yes.
INT.
And you said the bus didn’t stop there? You had to walk to the bus station?
JIRO
It was a two-hour walk to the bus station from the prison. Then, the bus didn’t run at night, so I slept in the bus shelter, leaning on the bench and an aluminum fence, and caught the bus the next morning back in time for the second shift.
INT.
That mustn’t have been so easy for you.
JIRO
It was hard, having what happened happen to him at all, but then, having him in a place that was so difficult to reach? That’s why I only went to see him maybe eight times. Maybe if I had had a car it would have been easier. I could do it, though, sleeping at the bus stop, walking for hours, I could do it because I could hardly feel anything. If it was like that for me, I was always thinking, what was it like for my brother?
Interview 17 (Brother and Mother)
[One day, I managed to convince Jiro to come with me to speak to his mother one final time. I had tried repeatedly to get access to her again, but she would not meet me. Jiro said that he thought he could convince her, but that if his father found out, it would never come to pass. He was as good as his word, and we met her in a park. There was a little wood and two benches sitting across from each other. I put the microphone by her and Jiro. I sat on the other bench. Some of my questions turned out to be inaudible, so I have reconstructed or omitted them. The words spoken by Jiro and Mrs. Oda were entirely clear.]