OFFICER 1
You cannot see the confession. The inspector is correct. It is completely unnecessary. It is possible, of course, that if you cooperate, many things that are unnecessary can occur. As we said, better food, a larger cell, a different facility. Perhaps even this. I do not say yes, not at all. I don’t say that. But speak to us about these things and we will see what can happen.
OFFICER 2
This is about you. This is in your hands.
(Forty more minutes of quiet on the tape as the interviewers and Oda stare at one another. Finally, the sound of a door closing, and the tape clicks off.)
Interview 2 (Brother)
[Int. note. This interview also was conducted at the house previously mentioned. Sotatsu’s brother, Jiro, was his most loyal supporter. He actually learned about what had happened and tried to visit the station prior to his parents. However, he was turned away, for reasons unknown. Perhaps the first interrogation had not yet happened at the time of his visit. It is unclear. I spoke to him at great length. Of all the family, he was the one most angry about what had happened. He had worked at a steel plant as a younger man, and was doing so in 1977. He later became active in organized labor. When I met him he was well dressed and drove an expensive car. Of his personal habits, I can say he smoked nearly an entire pack of cigarettes during each one of our conversations. I don’t know if this was usual for him, or if my presence and the subject of our discussions made him nervous. On several of the interviews, he was accompanied by his children, both young, who played in the yard while we spoke. Although he was very matter of fact, and even at times hostile with me, he was exceptionally soft-spoken with them. I had done judo for a while, and Jiro had also done so; at one point he broke in, out of the blue, to ask if I had ever done it. I had never said a word on the subject. When I answered yes, he laughed. I can always tell, he said. A judo man walks a bit differently. While this may have predisposed me to liking him, I assure you, I have tried at all times to be as objective as possible.]
INT.
That was the nineteenth of October?
JIRO
It may have been. I don’t know.
INT.
But it was your first time inside the police station?
JIRO
Actually, no, I had been there once before, in connection with a friend from the mill. I had been visiting him, accompanying his wife to visit him. I think he had been fighting and was taken by the police.
INT.
Your friend?
JIRO
Yes, that was some years before that.
INT.
But on this visit …
JIRO
I saw Sotatsu. The police frisked me. I signed some papers, showed some identification, and was taken in. His cell was at the back. He was there, by himself, in a long cell with no window.
INT.
Did the police leave you alone to speak with him?
JIRO
No. One of the officers stayed within earshot. When Sotatsu saw me, he came to the edge of the cell and we looked at each other.
INT.
How did he look?
JIRO
Terrible. He was in jail. How do you think he looked?
INT.
What did you say?
JIRO
I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t come there to say anything. I just wanted to see him and I wanted him to know that I was thinking of him. I don’t know that I wanted to hear him say anything. I don’t know what he could have said that would have been worth hearing.
INT.
You had read about the matter in the newspaper?
JIRO
Yes, it was all over the newspaper. It had been for months already, all about the disappearances. Then, it became all about Sotatsu. He confessed to it all, even to parts that the newspapers hadn’t known anything about. That’s what made the police sure. They had thought there were eight disappearances, but he had confessed to eleven, and the other three had been entirely unreported. When the police went to check on those people, they were gone too.
INT.
And you didn’t ask him about it?
JIRO
I just said that. I saw him and left.
INT.
And you had other visits like that?
JIRO
I came every day. Some days they would let me in. Some days they wouldn’t. When they would it was always the same. I would approach the bars from one side, he from another. Neither one of us spoke. It was said there was a room where prisoners received visitors. I never saw that room.
Interrogation 3
Nineteenth of October, 1977. Oda Sotatsu. Inspector’s name unrecorded.
[Int. note. Again, transcript of session recording, possibly altered or shoddily made. Original recording not heard.]
OFFICER 3
Mr. Oda, I have been informed about your case by the inspector you spoke to previously. He declared you unresponsive. It is his opinion that you should simply be run through the system. Flushed out of the system. Those were his exact words. Not to be vulgar, but you see what I mean. You are getting a particular reputation around here. I am going to explain something to you. In jail and in prison, even here at a police station, a local police station like this, there are things that people have done that make them what they are. Do you see? I was in the military, I went to school, I was in a training program, after that I joined the force, and I have worked my way up to being an inspector. That is what I am. Those things I did have made me what I am. You, on the other hand. You have done a crime. That is why you are here. What you are is a prisoner. That is what you are. However, what you are does not determine how you are treated, not the way you would think. What determines how you are treated in here is how you behave and how that behavior creates a reputation. I have a reputation for being good to the people I talk to. Then more people talk to me, then more people learn that I am good to talk to. That is my reputation. There are prisoners here who are treated exceptionally well. Some who have done worse things than others are treated better than the others. Do you know why that is?
ODA
(silent)
OFFICER 3
It is because they have learned how to behave and how to represent a particular reputation, to make it real. You are creating a reputation for yourself. Do you know that?
ODA
(silent)
OFFICER 3
There is a reason you sleep in a concrete cell with no bed, night after night. There is a reason that you get the food that no one else wants. Not all the prisoners get sprayed with a hose. Do you see what I mean? These officers are from good families. They grew up in your town. You may even know them. They have children. They treat people well. But when they see you, they think: here is an animal. Here is a person who wants nothing to do with being human, with being part of our community.