The Investigation (25 page)

I was breathing hard from the effort of bearing Dong-ju’s weight. ‘I’m sorry to bother you during practice,’ I said, panting. ‘It’s an emergency. He
won’t stop bleeding.’

She motioned for Dong-ju to sit on the piano bench and opened the emergency kit she kept next to the piano. She cleaned the wound with alcohol. ‘It’s only a superficial cut. It
won’t require stitches. But it’s odd that it won’t stop bleeding.’ She placed gauze on the wound and wrapped it with a bandage. Gradually the blood stopped seeping through
the gauze.

Dong-ju turned round in his seat and placed a careful finger on the keyboard. The note lingered, continuing on like a delicate thread. He closed his eyes, feeling the note with his entire
body.

I asked Midori to step outside. ‘Thankfully the bleeding is under control now, but I’m still worried. He’ll keep getting injured during hard labour. Besides, the bleeding might
only be an indication that something else is wrong.’

‘Does he have any other symptoms?’

‘He’s definitely changed. He’s sluggish. He falls asleep during interrogation. He has a chronic cough and his memory is getting worse.’

‘We’re seeing plenty of patients with colds, since the temperature is freezing right now and the cells aren’t heated. And we’ve started seeing other prisoners who
wouldn’t stop bleeding, mostly from Ward Three.’

‘Ward Three? Well, they’re getting nothing to eat and their cells aren’t heated, but they’re assigned to hard labour. It makes sense that their immunity would be
compromised.’

‘There’s another notable thing about the Korean prisoners,’ Midori said hesitantly.

‘What’s that?’

‘Most of the patients assigned for medical treatment were chosen from Ward Three.’

I froze. ‘The medical treatment was for those who are unwell, right?’ I stammered. ‘And that’s why the Koreans were chosen. But then why would they be getting
worse?’

She shook her head. ‘It might be the infusions. If a weak person is infused with strong nutritive medication, they might experience side-effects.’

‘We need to find out what’s going on.’

‘These are doctors from the best medical school in the Empire. If they see any side-effects they’ll be the first to take action.’

‘They should have done so already!’

‘We’re going to have a research meeting in three days. The doctors will go over the treatment plan and research questions for the week. I’ll report the side-effects and suggest
remedies. Would you look into the prisoners’ symptoms?’

Her calm tone reassured me to some degree. But I was nevertheless deeply troubled by an unidentifiable nervousness.

A few days later, I was called into Director Morioka’s research lab. The air was filled with the cool, clean smell of dozens of medications and, on one wall, bookcases
were lined with numerous foreign-language medical texts.

The director offered his hand eagerly. I took it stiffly.

‘Yuichi!’ the director cried. ‘I heard that you recently volunteered to escort the prisoners to the infirmary for their medical treatments. I commend you for that. I understand
that you put together Nurse Iwanami’s report at the research meeting. It seems there was a small misunderstanding about the medical treatments.’

At the meeting Midori had presented a chart of prisoner numbers and the side-effects each suffered. Almost all the patients experienced headaches, fatigue, weakness and indigestion. Vomiting and
diarrhoea weren’t uncommon. They also experienced loss of memory, dizziness, bleeding and bruising at the smallest impact. Almost all the prisoners showed several symptoms.

‘I merely reported the results after receiving complaints from the prisoners,’ I said, somewhat defensively.

‘Oh, I’m not reprimanding you. The medical team has decided to review the report and come up with an appropriate plan. It was a wonderful report, except for one fatal
flaw.’

‘A flaw?’

‘You relied too heavily on the patients’ statements. These kinds of symptoms have to be determined through careful medical examination.’

I felt cowed by Director Morioka’s gentle expression and melodic voice. ‘Sir,’ I began hesitantly. ‘The symptoms weren’t false. The prisoners who received infusions
are in pain. What the patient is feeling has to be the most accurate documentation of his pain.’

Director Morioka smiled. ‘Will you be my guest tomorrow in the infirmary? Your misgivings will be put aside when you see for yourself how scientifically and hygienically we conduct the
medical treatments.’

I nodded, mute.

The next day, at two in the afternoon, I escorted thirty prisoners to the infirmary. We stopped, as always, in front of the auditorium. Dong-ju’s gaunt cheeks were
flushed with vitality as he stood listening to the singing. At the end of the song I led the prisoners down the corridor, their shackles dragging behind us.

In the infirmary a doctor wearing silver glasses motioned for me to follow him. He opened the door to the infusion room, revealing six cots shielded by white curtains on either side of the room.
‘The infusion room is the height of hygiene and convenience,’ he explained.

In a clear, high voice a nurse called out six numbers. Prisoners filed in and each took a cot. Nurses approached them and, with precise movements, found the veins and inserted the needles in
their thin arms. After the treatment the men rested. The doctor explained to me that they might experience dizziness or muscle spasms if they moved right away. I tagged along behind him as he moved
slowly between the cots.

‘This medication will give them more vitality and help prolong their lives,’ he said and opened the door at the other end of the room. I followed him in, feeling like Alice hurtling
down the rabbit hole. He sat down at the desk, which was stacked with medical files, and nodded at the young prisoner, an interpreter, sitting stiffly in a chair in the corner.

The doctor flipped through the list and shouted, ‘531! Enter!’

The interpreter followed suit in Korean.

A man with sunken eyes walked in.

The doctor didn’t look up from the chart. ‘Any uncomfortable symptoms?’ he snapped.

The patient blinked his eyes, waiting for the interpreter to finish translating. ‘Nowhere in particular,’ he replied nervously. ‘I’m always uncomfortable. My head feels
foggy and I’m tired, but I can’t sleep at night. I haven’t eaten much. I can’t digest anything, anyway. I have the runs, you see.’

The doctor wrote down the symptoms on the chart. He laid down his pen and took out a stopwatch and a piece of paper from the desk drawer. He turned to me and explained that he would conduct a
mental-agility test that would reveal any damage to brain function. Apparently, performance of arithmetic was the most effective neurological test, as it required instant recall, strong focus and
accurate maths skills.

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.

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.