The prisoners glanced at one another warily as they took their clothes off. The hesitant were met with clubs. The prisoners lined up on either side of the cells facing each other. The doctors estimated each prisoner’s height and weight; with gloved hands they looked into their eyes and examined their mouths. Afterwards the doctors gathered in the corridor and submitted their inspection logs to Morioka, who left, leaving behind a sharp antiseptic smell.
Twisting the ends of his moustache, Hasegawa watched the medical team disappearing down the corridor. ‘End of sanitation inspection! Close the cell doors!’
Sugiyama looked on nervously. He knew that everything was a prelude to something else; no single incident existed in isolation. But he couldn’t tell what was about to happen, whether it would bring an unbelievable stroke of luck or terrible misfortune.
The following day Hasegawa ordered Ward Three prisoners to line up in the military training grounds. The tight ranks squeezed everyone’s freedom; nobody could burst out of line or fall behind. By obeying, the prisoners forced others to follow suit. Hasegawa looked down silently from the platform, appearing to enjoy the prisoners’ growing anxiety. Time was on the side of the powerful; the more one delayed, the more worried the powerless became. The prisoners watched the warden’s lips. A long time passed before Hasegawa spoke into the microphone: ‘You should all be grateful to the medical staff of the Kyushu Imperial University Medical School!’
The prisoners began to murmur.
Hasegawa paused, fanning their curiosity. ‘Thanks to the magnanimity of the Great Emperor of Japan, the best medical staff in the nation gave you an inspection. It was revealed that a large number of prisoners are suffering from ill health. The medical staff will provide free medical treatment to those prisoners.’
Hasegawa stepped away from the crackling microphone. A guard tacked a piece of paper filled with prisoner numbers on a bulletin board next to the platform. The prisoners crowded around it, the illiterate openly fretting. As Maeda opened a log and began to call out the numbers, the yard erupted in excited shouts.
Several men who were not selected crowded around Maeda.
A pale man walked up. From the yellowed whites of his eyes, it was clear he was jaundiced. ‘I’ve been suffering for a long time from anaemia,’ he said dejectedly. ‘Why are you helping people who are fine, but not me?’
‘You’re disqualified because you have a wound on your forehead,’ Maeda said. ‘But there will be more chances. The inspection will continue at regular intervals.’ He laughed arrogantly.
The prison hummed with cheers and laughter. Only those who weren’t selected were unhappy, as was one guard standing in the corner, nervously watching the celebrations.
TO BE, OR NOT TO BE
Every time I walked into the censor office, I was on the lookout for any evidence of Sugiyama’s life. The desk, the bookcases and the boxes of documents weren’t illuminating, and the only other furniture in the office was an old wooden cabinet with a broken lock, squeezed in the narrow space between the bookcases and the wall, which Sugiyama used to store his clothes and personal effects. I opened the cabinet. Inside hung a well-ironed dress uniform, a brown winter uniform and two grey summer uniforms. The drawer near the bottom contained worn underwear, socks, gaiters and a few neatly folded handkerchiefs. A large box sat in the bottom, probably filled with dirty laundry. Right after the murder I’d taken an inventory of his things and noticed how everything was in perfect order, revealing Sugiyama’s obsessive personality. I closed the cabinet door. Something made me open it again. I took the top off the large box. It smelled sour — sweat and mould. Dirty laundry, like I’d thought. I caught sight of a pair of winter uniform trousers, dirt embedded in the baggy knees. It gave me pause. Come to think of it, the dust in the prison yard flew away easily. I examined the trousers hanging in the cabinet. The knees showed faint traces of having been dragged along damp dirt. I remembered the scratches on Sugiyama’s knees. What could that be about?
The heavy doors to the interrogation room opened and Choi walked in. His sunken, glinting eyes glanced at my shoulder, at my new, stiff badge. ‘Congratulations. I see you’ve got yourself a promotion.’
I was embarrassed. I’d got my corporal’s badge by making him out to be the murderer.
‘Well,’ he said, noticing my discomfort. ‘People who will die should die, and those who survive should live well. Get a promotion, go on leave.’ He sat himself on the chair, looking tired and anxious.
I felt warm. I unfastened a button on my uniform top. ‘I have a few more questions about Hiranuma Tochu.’
‘Him again?’ he snapped. ‘That man’s a different breed. I don’t want to get involved in any way.’ His eyes flickered.
‘You’re right. Hiranuma is very different from you. I know why you and your men kept going to solitary. Why did he?’
Choi rubbed his beard. ‘How am I supposed to know? Why don’t you ask him?’
I had to trip him up. ‘You’re lying. Or you’re not telling me the whole truth. I know your men beat him up when he got out of solitary.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It was written in Sugiyama’s daily log. He watched Hiranuma very carefully. So don’t bother lying.’
‘Don’t you find that people usually lie because they’re afraid or because they’re hopeful? Since I’m neither, I might as well tell you.’ Choi drew in a breath. ‘We tried to pull him into our plan. Of course, we didn’t like him, but we thought he would be someone the other Koreans would look up to.’
Choi kept his eye on Yun Dong-ju from the very beginning. Dong-ju was gentle; he exuded helplessness. Choi was disgusted that the young man had changed his name, as he believed that was equivalent to denying one’s country. His men gathered information about the new prisoner. Man-gyo wheedled out Dong-ju’s story from the guards — a student from Manchuria who attended the prestigious Yonhi College in Seoul and ended up in Japan. An intellectual, the kind of man Choi despised.
But something shifted when Yun arrived. The Korean prisoners started to crowd around him. Choi couldn’t understand it. After all, Yun didn’t have either the acumen to rally the men or the brute force to overpower someone. But he seemed to draw people in with spellbinding power, though all he did was listen to their stories, write their postcards and fly a kite. All he had going for him was his talent for writing. But that was how he unified all the Koreans. Choi didn’t fully understand how language could move a man’s heart, but he wanted to harness Dong-ju’s influence for his own use.
It was obvious that they were extreme opposites. Choi considered Dong-ju to be sentimental, and Dong-ju probably thought Choi a boor. But Dong-ju’s undeniable magnetism pulled Choi in. So Choi sent his men to set up a meeting with Dong-ju, who claimed he wasn’t interested. Finally Choi took matters into his own hands and approached Dong-ju himself.
‘Aren’t you hard to pin down! We need to talk. I think it’ll interest you.’
Dong-ju gazed up at the empty sky without answering, and the others began to turn their heads to look at the two men, aware of the roaring silence.
Choi laughed heartily and stalked off, not wanting his authority to be flouted in the presence of the rest of the prisoners.
After that encounter Choi began to approach Dong-ju daily. It was patently obvious that Choi was desperate to get this inexperienced young man on his side. Finally, one day, Choi revealed his true feelings. ‘Don’t you want to get out of this place?’ he asked. ‘Listen to me if you want to leave this prison alive.’