He handed the piece of paper to the prisoner and pressed a button on the stopwatch. ‘Begin!’
The patient started on the problems. They were mostly double-digit additions and subtractions. The stopwatch ticked through the silence. One minute later, the doctor told him to stop. The patient put down the pen with a tired expression. The doctor checked the answers, recorded the number of questions solved and the number of accurate and inaccurate answers.
‘What’s the date today?’
‘January 1945.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Fukuoka Prison. ’ The patient was speaking hesitantly now.
The doctor cocked his head and wrote something down on the chart. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Uiju, on the Korean peninsula.’
‘When will you be released?’
The prisoner paused. ‘1946?’
The doctor wrote, ‘Doesn’t clearly remember when he will be released.’
The questioning continued. The prisoner hesitated a few times and then the doctor compared the results with those of a previous test.
‘How am I, Doctor?’ the patient interrupted. ‘Am I getting better?’
‘You know that things get worse before they get better. You’re getting a special infusion, so it’ll take some time for you to get used to it. You’ll improve gradually, so be patient.’
The doctor looked at him sympathetically as the prisoner left the room. ‘He answered twelve problems in a minute. He got nine right. He completed one less than last week and he got one more wrong. On the memory test, he answered two fewer than last time and hesitated twice more. It’s not good. Like you said, it must be the side-effects of the infusions.’
‘Then shouldn’t we halt them immediately?’
The doctor shook his head in exasperation. ‘Look here, Soldier! Do you even understand what we’re doing? The medical team will take care of this, so just concern yourself with your own job.’ He then explained that the infusions were part of a larger research project — they were aiming to ameliorate the fatality rates of soldiers and air-strike victims — and they were testing this new medication on the prisoners, which would make them feel stronger. They were also doing all they could to eliminate side-effects. He concluded by saying that there would be no need for research if medications didn’t have side-effects and never failed.
Dong-ju entered the room. His cheekbones protruded starkly over his gaunt cheeks, and his pale skin was stretched grotesquely over his skull.
The doctor opened his chart. ‘Prisoner number!’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Name?’
‘Yun Dong-ju.’
The doctor looked up at him in surprise. ‘Your Japanese name!’ he snapped.
‘I don’t remember.’
The doctor gave Dong-ju the arithmetic test. Dong-ju took the pencil and started working on the problems. One minute later, the doctor pressed the stopwatch.
‘Home town?’
‘Mingdong village in Jiandao Province, Manchuria,’ Dong-ju replied. ‘It’s a lovely little village surrounded by mountains. In the spring, azaleas, cherry blossoms and peonies bloom and soft catkins cover the river banks.’
‘That’s enough,’ the doctor said, cutting him off. ‘This is not the time to reminisce about your birthplace. When will you be released?’
‘30 November 1945.’
‘Who is the Emperor of Japan?’
‘I don’t remember.’
The doctor’s mouth flickered with a tiny spasm. ‘What words can you recall?’
Dong-ju closed his eyes. Smiling, he answered, ‘Sky, wind, stars, poetry.’
The doctor wrote the words down. ‘What is the multiplication table for nine?’
Dong-ju slowly recited the numbers with a blank expression: ‘9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99. ’
‘Enough. You may leave.’
Dong-ju turned round slowly, his thin, stooped back as unsightly as his gaunt face. His body was slowly betraying him.
The doctor turned to me. ‘His memory and his arithmetic are perfect. He solved many more questions than anyone else and he didn’t give any wrong answers. This is an example of someone adjusting well to the infusions. He’s had no side-effects to worry about.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But his memory is faulty. He couldn’t remember his Japanese name or his prisoner number.’
‘Ah, that. You, of all people, should know that you have to be alert and to sort out made-up answers when examining prisoners.’
‘Made-up answers?’
‘I mean an intentionally wrong answer, or an answer that has nothing to do with the question posed. He didn’t tell us his Japanese name because he didn’t want to. Not because he couldn’t remember. And it was the same with his prisoner number.’
‘Why would he conceal what he remembers?’
‘You must be well aware of this tactic! It’s a way to deny his crime. He’s avoiding acknowledging it by erasing his prisoner number from his memory. He’s not admitting to the fact that he has a Japanese name. It’s typical of an intelligent mind.’
‘Are you saying he was trying to trick you?’
‘Obviously! He’s realized that the patients suffer from one or two side-effects. He’s using memory loss, which is fairly common. If he really couldn’t remember his prisoner number, he would have looked down at his uniform. But he didn’t. And he remembered his release date and even recited the multiplication table. You saw that yourself!’
‘But he didn’t recite the multiplication table the way most people do. He didn’t say nine times one is nine, nine times two is eighteen. He just blurted out the answers directly.’
‘So?’
‘What I mean is, he didn’t recite the table. I think he had to calculate it. He wasn’t multiplying; he was adding nine to the last number.’
‘It doesn’t matter. If he can add in his head, it’s clear that his brain function is good. I think we’re done here. You can escort the prisoners back.’
I wanted to say something else, but my lips wouldn’t comply. I spun on my heel and left the room.
The prisoners were lined up in two rows in the dark corridor. As I called out the prisoner numbers one by one, hoarse voices wheezed out in reply. ‘Forward, march!’ I called out, spitting out my resentment. The men’s shackles began clanking on the cold, hard floor. I wanted to turn around to make sure that Dong-ju was fine, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want him to see the sorrow in my eyes.
IF SPRING CAME TO MY STAR
The air strikes became more frequent. Japan turned into an enormous barracks and Fukuoka was the front yard for the US Air Force. The bleak warning of the urgent air-raid siren always came as the prelude to death and destruction. B-29 bombers were turning the city into ash. The sirens blared on, a requiem both for the burning city and for the people who were buried under it. Women with buckets scurried through the bombed streets to stamp out fires. People tried to forget the sirens, the buzzing of aeroplanes, the explosions and screams, recalling instead the other sounds that had once filled these streets — the laughter of children, jazz music coming out of record shops, women’s delighted laughter. War had transformed everything. Streets resonated with the sound of heavy boots, shops were shuttered, military trucks filled with terrified young male conscripts. People were weighted down with terror. Death had become a routine affair and survival was the only goal. Hard labour continued in lockstep with the war. More and more military uniforms were needed; the prisoners washed, mended and re-dyed military uniforms that were soaked in blood and torn by shrapnel. Dong-ju’s job was to pull carts piled high with blood-stained uniforms. When the siren sounded, signalling the start of the prisoners’ outdoor break time, Dong-ju stood in the yard and looked up at the grey sky, whistling.