(Mrs. Oda begins to cry. I pass her a handkerchief. She refuses it.)
INT.
And did he say anything to that?
MRS. ODA
He watched me the whole time, sitting with his back to the wall, he was watching me very closely. His eyes changed while I was watching so I knew that it affected him, and that is why I came back and said it again and again. I felt that it was affecting him, whether he would talk or not.
Int. Note
The guards I spoke to said Oda dealt poorly with being in jail.
Of course, the newspapers were readily available to the guards and so they read about Oda and about what had happened, and were deeply prejudiced against him on account of the confession he had signed, which seemed to reveal his guilt beyond any doubt.
This is a peculiar matter, because the confession should not have been available to the press. Indeed, the actual confession was not. However, it seems that on the evidence of: a. witnesses seeing Oda Sotatsu dragged away from his house, and b. data from an anonymous source supplied to the press, the newspapers gained the knowledge they needed to investigate further, at which point perhaps police officials disclosed information. What happened precisely is unknown. That there were many newspaper accounts linking the Narito Disappearances to Oda Sotatsu via his own signed confession is beyond doubt.
This led to Oda being dealt with harshly, most particularly because he would not cooperate. He was kept separate from the other prisoners, and visited almost constantly by a series of officials attempting to get information from him. The interrogations that have been made available to me form a part of this narrative, as you know, but are, I suspect, the least part of the many interrogations that took place. It is clear that the guards often would not allow him to sleep ahead of an interrogation in the hopes that it would weaken his will. However that may be, it appears, from the transcripts that we have, that it was not an effective strategy in this case.
Oda Sotatsu was in jail at the police station for a period of twenty days prior to charges being brought. He was then moved to a different facility, for the trial. The entire case was evidently expedited, possibly because of the enormous media scrutiny, and as well because of the confession, and because Oda refused to deal with any potential representation he would have in court.
Interview 4 (Sister)
[Int. note. Oda Minako, Sotatsu’s sister, was living elsewhere, possibly in Korea, when I began this series of interviews. It was important enough to her, when the family spoke about what I was doing, that she chose to return to Japan for some days to speak to me. These interviews also took place in the house I had let. She was an attractive woman, older, of course, and dressed very professionally. It seems she had acquired an advanced education, and was actually a professor at a university in Korea, in what subject I do not recall. She had been away at her studies when Sotatsu was apprehended by the police, and she returned from Tokyo to visit him. She was uncertain of the day, or whether her visits followed or preceded those of other family members. She did say that a childhood friendship with one of the police officers permitted her to actually enter the cell and sit with him, something allowed none of the other family members, and something mentioned by no other source.]
INT.
You were there then, sitting beside him in the cell. You were a young woman, in the midst of her Ph.D., called away into what must have been as absurd a situation as you had ever dealt with.
MINAKO
I was angry with him. He had never lied, not once, and so I was sure that the confession was true. I was worried about the people who had gone missing. I knew two of them personally, an experience the rest of my family did not have, and so …
INT.
And so it was more complicated for you?
MINAKO
You could say so, but I expect it was more than complicated for all of us.
INT.
Of course, I don’t mean to say …
MINAKO
I know, I understand. I just meant that my loyalties, my immediate duties in the situation were twofold. I wanted simultaneously to help my brother, a person I loved as much as I had ever loved anybody. I preferred him, in fact, preferred him to Jiro, to my mother, to my father. He was the only other one who actually read, who encouraged my studies. He wrote a great deal of poetry. He was cultured, although I don’t know that anyone besides me knew that. I don’t believe he shared that with anyone … I wanted to help him, but I also wanted to find these two people who were missing, a woman who had been my violin teacher, and a man, a Shinto priest whom I had visited as a child. I was deeply concerned that they should be missing, and I felt the guilt of their disappearance keenly. If there was something I could do to help them, I must do it, so I told myself.
INT.
And that led to you behaving in a certain way?
MINAKO
One can’t say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you are playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.
INT.
But you might have simply done things to make his time more bearable, irrespective of his guilt, or, alternately, tried to query him about the crime itself.
MINAKO
I did the latter. I sat by him and I told him that he was my brother, that I did not refuse him any family connection based on what happened, but that I needed to know if these people could be helped, or …
INT.
Or?
MINAKO
Or if they were beyond help.
INT.
And did he speak to you?
MINAKO
He did not. He watched me as I came in. He sat by me. He held my hand. When I left, we embraced. But there was no speech. It was as though he had become pre-literate. The expressiveness of his manner was magnified. His actions no longer leaned on his words. All that he meant he meant through his face and eyes, his hands.
INT.
And what did those tell you? How did they speak to you?
MINAKO
That there wasn’t any hope in him, none at all. That he was waiting to die, and did feel, did indeed feel that he was not any part of any community, not ours, not any.
INT.
But he embraced you.
MINAKO
I initiated the embrace. It might have been as much out of habit as anything else. Or out of boredom. Who can say? He had been in the cell a long time.