The Investigation (23 page)

Maeda tossed the tongs aside and turned round to look me squarely in the eyes. ‘What are you talking about? You’re the one who investigated the murder. You said it was Choi.
You’ve been given a medal and promoted to corporal. And now you’re saying you’d reached the wrong conclusion?’

‘There was an error in the investigation. Circumstantial evidence pointed strongly to Choi, who, as you know, confessed. But there are still unresolved issues.’

‘This prison is filled with unresolved issues! For example, why don’t these filthy Koreans disappear from the earth? Why do soldiers of the Empire have to take care of them?
Everything is an issue. That doesn’t mean there are answers.’

‘If Choi killed Sugiyama, there would have been footprints at the entrance to the central facilities. If you remember, it snowed that night. But there were no footprints at the scene of
the murder or in the yard leading up to the building.’ Of course I knew that the lack of footprints had nothing to do with Choi’s innocence, since he could have entered the central
facilities through the tunnel leading to the underground library. But I wasn’t about to reveal that secret. To get at one truth I had to hide another; I was playing a dangerous game.

‘I suppose they could have got erased by the guards’ or the prisoners’ footprints.’

‘That night all the prisoners were in their cells. I have another question.’

‘How many goddamn questions do you have?’ Maeda snapped.

‘Why didn’t Sugiyama report Choi’s tunnel? And why hasn’t Choi been executed for digging it?’

The damp coal in the furnace crackled. Maeda waved his hands impatiently. ‘Enough! You intellectuals never know when to put a stop to things. You’re over-thinking it. When
you’re not sure, the very first thought that comes to you is usually the right one.’

‘But Sugiyama was so thorough. Why would he look the other way when a prisoner tried to escape? And why would that prisoner be allowed to live? Neither of these things should have happened
at a place like Fukuoka Prison.’

Maeda looked uncomfortable. ‘So you have a lot of questions. But you’re a soldier! Your job is to take orders.’

I straightened my shoulders. ‘Sir, I’m not resisting an order. As an investigator—’

Maeda’s voice sliced through mine. ‘You’ve wrapped up that incident!’

I forced myself to keep talking. ‘But if Choi isn’t the murderer . . . If it wasn’t Choi, then who killed Sugiyama? Who’s the real murderer?’ I looked down at my
feet.

‘Yuichi,’ Maeda said gently. ‘The investigation is over. Stop picking at scabs. It doesn’t matter who killed him. All Koreans are the same. They’re not worth being
kept alive.’

Although I had begun this investigation only under orders, now I found myself unable to let it rest. I still had no idea what had happened. What was behind Sugiyama’s mysterious actions,
the secret tunnel and the underground library?

Maeda raised his voice. ‘You need to realize how serious the war situation is. Every day young men are dying on one battle-front after another. Sugiyama was just one of them. It’s
like pouring a small gourd of water into the Pacific. Obsessing over a closed investigation is an affront to their memories. Understood?’

I turned around woodenly and walked out of the office, feeling his gaze burning into the back of my head.

Maeda’s voice flew at me like a leather whip. ‘By the way, I’m assigning you to take over Sugiyama’s other duties. You must censor the sheet music for the concert, escort
the chorus and watch over them during practice.’

The grandfather clock rang ten times, like a heavy axe chopping down a tree. I was certain I would begin to fall very slowly, unable to stand upright any more.

The cells were filled with cold, grey air. Twelve men were crammed in a space five metres wide by five metres long. Their breath formed tiny water drops that clustered on the
walls. The stiff, frozen men waited impatiently for the beginning of labour; it was easier to live with the cold when they moved their bodies. They were starving, freezing and dying. Before falling
asleep at night, they stared into the face of the person lying next to them. Nobody knew what would happen overnight; an invisible hand silently yanked souls away in the dark. In the morning the
prisoners woke with moans, starting a new nightmare all over again. Lying on the frosted floor, their blood frozen, the men would turn their heads to check that their neighbours were still
breathing.

One day, as a man ate his meagre ration of rice, he announced, ‘If I die, don’t move my body until spring. My body won’t start rotting because it’s so cold. And you can
have my share of the rice.’

Indeed, nobody told the guards when someone died. The prisoners would rather sleep next to a corpse, if they could fill their hollow stomachs with a few more frozen balls of rice. They wished
they were living a nightmare; at least they wouldn’t feel pain if they were dreaming. The men who were still alive ate the meals of the dead, then paid the price by digging graves in the
frozen ground when the guards found out. They all believed they might be next.

Soon, even the healthy men started to die. The prisoners liked to say that one could survive the year if one lived through the winter. As the season deepened, more and more men were assigned to
receive medical treatment every week. The prisoners felt protected and cared for as the doctors listened to their hearts, measured their blood pressure and drew their blood. Depending on the
results, the doctors prescribed infusions. The men entrusted their bare arms to gentle nurses in white masks. They hoped the warm solution entering their veins would invigorate their tired bodies
and strengthen their feeble heartbeats. Their fellow cellmates eagerly waited for their return to hear every last detail. The men who’d received treatment exaggerated what they’d
experienced, creating a fantastical infirmary, a place filled with bright light that wasn’t hot in the summer or cold in the winter, a paradise where angels in white caressed their wrists.
Everyone wanted to be chosen, to revel in that special privilege. Weak, sickly men were treated as heroes. Before long, though, their dreams and fantasies crumbled. Those who were called into the
infirmary saw no visible changes to their health. They became more subdued and talked less, but it wasn’t clear what the cause was. The patients began to tire of going to the infirmary.
Eventually some of them wanted none of it, but it wasn’t in their power to decide.

Dong-ju was selected to receive treatment at the beginning of winter. I discovered this one Monday morning when I didn’t see him in his work area. I felt a sense of
foreboding. It began to snow as I ran across the yard. I didn’t believe in God, but I prayed that nothing had happened to him. As I ran into the main corridor of the central facilities I
heard a guard shout authoritatively, ‘Step to it!’

The solemn guard was leading thirty-odd prisoners. Dong-ju stood out among the grey faces. He smiled as always; his smile was luminous against the other pale faces, lustreless skin and muddy
eyes.

The guard spotted me. ‘I’m escorting prisoners to their medical treatment. What is it?’ He was a seventeen-year-old boy, but as he’d been conscripted even younger than I,
he was at a higher rank. He should have been eating his lunch in a classroom or trying to stay awake while reading a grammar book or learning trigonometry or calculating the distance to the moon.
But war made him a soldier. The youth became taciturn, learning how to destroy a man’s dignity before he could realize what dignity was.

I approached Dong-ju. The escort guard cocked his head disapprovingly. While he paused, wondering if he should stop me or not, I grabbed Dong-ju’s elbow and tugged, forcing him to stumble
out of line. He smiled faintly and shrugged as though to ease my worries, moving his parched lips. ‘I’m fine. I have a cold, but it’s nothing serious. It would be a cause for
worry if you don’t get a cold or two in this kind of weather.’

I looked him over, but he did seem fine.

‘I don’t know why I was chosen, but it’s a good thing,’ he said. ‘If I get treatment I’ll feel lighter and it’ll be easier to get through
winter.’

The escort guard shot Dong-ju a tense look. He limped back into line. The escort guard reported to another guard manning the gates the reason for the transport and the number of prisoners, and
the line slowly passed by.

The red prisoner’s garb looked like a baggy coat on Dong-ju because of his emaciated physique; he soon became invisible among all the other pale faces.

I recalled a poem he’d sung out last night in the dark interrogation room, now cradled in my breast pocket like a ticking time bomb:

The poem still gave off warmth, as though Dong-ju’s breath was lingering over the words. I quietly recited the last stanza to myself. He wasn’t yet twenty-five when he wrote it, but
he was already grappling with his death:

The previous night I’d ripped the poem out of the file. ‘There’s one stanza that doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘Which one?’

‘“Jesus Christ, a happy, suffering man.” It is surely contradictory.’

Dong-ju gave me a faint smile. ‘Life isn’t always logical. Everything is contradictory.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Life is like that. It’s filled with falsehoods and filth and evil. But life is made up of these contradictions. Contradictions aren’t falsehoods. They’re a way to
strengthen the truth. Jesus Christ’s suffering absolved mankind of its sins. That’s why he could be happy at the same time.’

It did make sense. With shame I remembered the way I thoughtlessly treated the people closest to me. Perhaps a brutal era like this forced you to grow. Reality might appear gloomy, but life was
even more valuable because of it. Still, I was troubled. ‘You’re not Jesus Christ!’ I shouted at him. ‘You’re going to die like a dog!’

He just looked at me sadly.

The next day I stood waiting in front of the auditorium. A line of prisoners shuffled over from the other side of the corridor. Their pallid faces were cast with powerlessness
and dejection. One man had ringworm from the top of his head down to his temples, another had red, chapped skin and blistered lips, and yet another had pale, cracked cheeks. They limped along,
their shackles rubbing against their ankles. The sour smell of unwashed bodies wafted over. I stepped up to the guard, the same one who had escorted these prisoners to the infirmary the day before.
The chains stopped clacking.

He looked uncertainly at me. ‘What is it?’ he barked.

‘I am requesting your cooperation, sir.’

He tensed at my use of formality. I assumed a gentle expression, but continued stiffly. ‘The chorus is nearing the end of rehearsals. They are improving, but they have stage fright. If
they are thrown onstage like this they’ll be nervous. It’ll ruin their singing.’

‘And what does that have to do with me?’

‘If the chorus could practise singing to an audience before getting onstage, it would help ease their fear.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘These prisoners walk through this corridor every day for medical treatment. If they could stop and listen to the chorus practising even for five minutes, they’ll be able to perform
better.’

His eyes sparked with curiosity, but soon dulled again. ‘I have to bring these men to the infirmary on time.’

‘You know how important this concert is,’ I pressed. ‘Everyone will be in attendance, from the Interior Minister and the heads of police, to foreign ambassadors and consuls and
their families. If something were to go wrong . . .’

He shook his head, fear crossing his features.

‘After the successful conclusion of the concert, those who helped will be recognized for allowing the chorus to have a real practice run.’

He relaxed a little. ‘Fine. Only for five minutes, though!’

I looked through the window into the auditorium, where sunlight streamed in like a white curtain. Midori was sitting at the piano and the singers were lined up according to voice part. She
caught my eye and nodded. A growing vibration cut through the heavy silence: the beginnings of ‘Va, pensiero’. Like the way a stream coursed towards the sea, the men dragged their
shackles to the window, one by one. Heavy, sad, but powerful singing reached us. The music coasted towards us like a golden carpet, glowing and smooth. Five minutes flew by, at once over in an
instant and an eternity.

The escort guard lobbed a command. ‘Turn right! Proceed!’

The men shuffled along, looking softer, as though they’d just been awakened from a sweet dream. I sneaked a glance at Dong-ju. In the silence we exchanged joyful looks, then the men went
on their way.

I crossed the auditorium to Midori. ‘It was marvellous. Even the escort guard was fully immersed in the music.’

‘I’m glad. They’re slowly getting better.’

‘The one flaw is that I can’t understand the lyrics. I can definitely feel the emotion. But it’s too bad that we don’t understand what the chorus is singing. I know the
prisoners have spent days memorizing the Italian, but – what about translating the words into Japanese?’

‘True emotion transcends language,’ she said. ‘Whether it’s in Italian or Japanese, everyone can understand the true yearning inherent in that song.’ Her hands
brushed the keys to pick out ‘Va, pensiero’. She started to sing along in Japanese: