The Investigation (6 page)

I continued: ‘A Korean needs a certificate to come to Japan legally. You could enter illegally by stowing away on a ship, but not if you were officially enrolling in a university. In order
to receive that certificate you are required to have a Japanese name. Your Korean name is the artefact of the fallen dynasty. The “disgraced face” reflected on the rusted bronze mirror
refers to your name change. That’s what distressed you. That’s what you were confessing to, as you stared at the person you had to discard in order to come here.’

Hiranuma looked tired. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. ‘It’s just a poem I wrote before coming to Japan. Is that a crime? It’s never even been published.’

‘No, that’s not a crime.’

Then why am I here?
his eyes asked.

‘This poem is linked to a murder case. I found
Confession
in the desk drawer of the guard who was killed three days ago. The same poet wrote
Self-Portrait
. Now, why did
that guard copy down your poem? What do these poems have to do with his death? That’s what I want to find out.’

His eyes were neither guarded nor tense as a smile lingered on his lips.

The stove in Maeda’s office was still emitting heat. My blood warmed, making me tired and lethargic. Maeda barely glared at the censor log I handed him before stamping
it. I wasn’t sure what to say and what to keep to myself. ‘Regarding Sugiyama’s case,’ I said hoarsely.

‘What about him?’ Maeda asked with a bored expression. ‘Did he rise from the dead?’ He shoved a finger in his ear as though to dig out what I’d just said.

‘I think I’m starting to understand the significance of the poem I found in his uniform.’

He removed some earwax and wiped it off his finger, looking puzzled. I couldn’t blame him; a few anonymous scribbles couldn’t be evidence of anything much, let alone murder.
‘There’s nothing of note about that case. Just focus on your censorship duties.’

‘Yes, sir. I won’t neglect my duties because of the case. If you look at the log you’ll see that I’ve been on the task. But I would still like to investigate the cause of
death and the situation surrounding Sugiyama’s murder.’

‘That’s all in the autopsy report the infirmary sent over.’

‘There are certain facts I can’t determine from that document. I think it would be a good idea for me to go to the infirmary and talk to the doctor who performed the autopsy to find
out more about—’

Maeda flung aside the newspaper he’d begun to read. ‘You’re in over your head, boy. Do you realize what the infirmary is? It’s solely for Kyushu Imperial University
Medical School researchers. It’s a first-tier security zone where guards aren’t even allowed! You can’t just waltz in whenever you want.’

I persisted. ‘I’m conducting the murder investigation according to the warden’s express orders. Something caught my eye on the daily-duties log and that led me to interrogate
Prisoner 331. Sugiyama had beaten him so badly that he suffered broken bones.’

Maeda’s wrinkled face showed a glimmer of curiosity. ‘Are you telling me that he killed Sugiyama because of a grudge?’

‘To confirm that I have to interview the doctor who performed the autopsy and take a look at the corpse.’

‘All right. I’ll write you a note. But be careful.’ He stamped a form granting me permission to enter the infirmary. ‘Just do what you need to do and leave. Be
invisible!’ Strangely, his order sounded more like a plea.

The infirmary was a two-storey building to the right of the central facilities. From the outside it looked like a single structure, because a long corridor linked the two.
Inside, however, it was a different story. The tart smell of disinfectant floated around the infirmary corridor, in stark contrast to the stench of sweat and bodily waste in the central facilities.
The clean scent made me faintly dizzy, but it was a small price to pay. The infirmary was built when Fukuoka Prison became a national long-term prison. Before then, nobody gave a second thought to
the health of criminals and traitors. So instead of an infirmary, there was a makeshift ward in the administrative wing, without adequate medical equipment and staffed by a doctor pushing sixty and
a nurse in her forties. They dealt mostly with corpses fresh from execution, illness and riots. There was no need for medicine, as there was no saving the dying or curing the sick. The situation
changed thanks to Professor Morioka of the Kyushu Imperial University Medical School, the country’s foremost medical expert. A charming, sociable man with a deep appreciation for the arts,
Morioka was well known in Kyoto as a philanthropist and intellectual. His decision to leave the university for the prison system was therefore a shocking event, and the media covered the move with
a tinge of hysteria. Morioka, explaining his decision as a strict adherence to the Hippocratic Oath, said that prisoners, too, had the right to receive medical treatment. As university hospitals
were overflowing with good doctors, he would serve those who needed him most. He emphasized that he would continue to conduct research in the prison. The head of the university hospital was
flummoxed, and even the mayor tried to persuade him to stay. Morioka recruited a medical staff of ten specialists, a dozen interns, twenty researchers and twenty-odd nurses. When he arrived at the
prison, everyone greeted him expectantly. The prisoners were elated that their health, ruined from the cold, starvation and harsh beatings, would now be monitored by Imperial University
doctors.

I floated by the patients’ rooms, nurses’ station and treatment rooms. Bright lights cast everything in sparkling white. Doctors and nurses wearing dazzlingly white coats rushed
about. In my mind, a uniform represented one’s soul – the prisoners were washed out, the guards were dark, the doctors were clean and the nurses were pure. The autopsy room was in the
basement, at the far end of the corridor. Sugiyama’s body was lying on a metal gurney in the middle of the empty room. Bruises – blue, black and red – covered his body. I noticed
his knees were scratched, and darkly calloused. Dried blood tattooed his smashed forehead. Meticulous stitches sealed his pale, dry lips.

Eguchi Shinsuke, the head researcher who oversaw autopsies, stood behind the gurney, his face obscured by a surgical mask. I saluted. He held out a dry hand and removed his mask. He smiled
broadly. In every way a gentleman, he looked to be in his forties. Men at war aged quickly, but he seemed to have avoided the harsh reality of the times. He guided me out of the door and led me
into an observation room reserved for those viewing an execution or coming to collect a body. He placed the autopsy file on the desk and opened it. ‘The primary cause of death was cranial
rupture and cerebral haemorrhage, due to a blow to the back of the head. The bruises all over his body are consistent with being hit with a blunt weapon while unconscious.’

I felt intimidated. The doctor gave me a kind look, then went back to the gurney and covered the corpse with a white cloth. He returned and washed his hands. I smelled something faintly fishy in
the cool air. ‘Can you tell me what the blunt weapon was?’

‘It’s probably one of the clubs you guards have. The bruises are shaped like the tip of the club. The lacerations on the cranium have the same circumference. The long metallic weapon
thrust into his chest caused some real damage. That sharp object punctured the heart.’

I knew that metal shafts were easy to come by in the prison. Whenever a prisoner came upon a piece of metal he plotted how he would use it to kill someone. Prisoners shaved down spoons into
makeshift knives, or they took the mesh netting that kept them at bay, made it stronger by twisting it around itself, filed down the tip and walked around with it hidden in their sleeves.
‘The body was hanging from the second-floor banister,’ I reminded Eguchi.

‘Hanging was not a direct cause of death.’

‘You mean he was already dead?’

Eguchi gazed at me over his glasses and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know.

I tried another angle. ‘What does it mean that his lips were sewn shut?’

He shook his head again.

It was left to me to discover the truth. The results of the autopsy were clear, but the pieces of evidence it scattered failed to create a complete picture. I left and walked down the corridor.
I couldn’t wait to leave that white, shining ward. I was more suited to a damp, dark, grey space.

8 December 1941 dawned the same way as any other morning. The tram clanged its bell and rattled along the street, kimono-clad women rushed past and men glared with angry
expressions. That afternoon a university student stepped into the bookshop to tell us that the same important breaking news was being continuously broadcast on the radio. I ran over to the radio
shop next door. People were milling around outside the glass doors. I heard an impassioned voice burst through static: ‘At six this morning the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters,
comprising the army and the navy, entered into battle in the Pacific against American and British forces. The navy air fleet bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing massive damage to American
battleships.’

By the time I stepped out of the radio shop I was a boy no more. Men were standing in the streets, intently reading special editions of the paper. Fist-sized letters leaped off the page to punch
me in the face: ‘Empire Declares War Against America and Britain’; ‘Navy Attacks Honolulu: Two American Ships Sink in Pearl Harbor’. War had been raging during my entire
life; one war began before another was completed, in Manchuria, in China, in the Pacific. But this new war was different; it squeezed the life out of my fellow citizens. The elementary schools were
renamed National Schools. Men altered the lapels on their suits, converting them into nationalist uniforms. Private gatherings were proscribed and goods were rationed. The
oden
plant began
to produce food only for the military, and the suit factory began to make military uniforms. Children, taught that even a small nail would become a bullet and pierce the heart of an enemy soldier,
scoured their houses for any scrap of metal to donate at school. Air-raid shelters were constructed from sandbags on street corners, though trams continued to run from one sandbag-piled shelter to
another as if nothing had changed. Like a parrot, the radio continuously spat out news of victory from various places in the Pacific – Rangoon, Surabaya, the Dutch East Indies. The slogan
‘Wait for what you want until the day of victory’ burned in my ears. I desperately waited for victory, looking forward to the special food distribution that came with good news: sugar,
beans and sweets, which would paint our grey hearts with colour. Drill instructors barked terse commands at us as they marched around the school yard. We began with close-order drills and first
aid; by the end of the term we’d learned bayonet skills and marksmanship, how to identify American bombers, as well as different evacuation plans depending on the sound and smoke colour of
various bombs. We never loosened the gaiters around our ankles; with the fiery belief that we were suffering along with soldiers on the front and in honour of the dead, we resolved that we would
dash to the front if called. Our school uniforms could serve as military uniforms at a moment’s notice, but we didn’t think that would actually happen. Although we gathered at Kyoto
Station Square to send off with cheers upper-classmen entering the military, we didn’t believe that would ever be us. We still thought of war as unreal, something far away.

But fate is fair in its dealings.

One summer day before the end of the term, when I had just turned seventeen, a red note flew in like an air raid and combusted my life. I was in our bookshop, immersed in
Oliver Twist
,
when I heard the glass door slide open and a man call my name: ‘Watanabe Yuichi!’

His low, gloomy voice shattered my daydreams. I closed my book and came out to the front of the shop, staggering a little in a dream-like trance. The postman, in a nationalist uniform, glanced
at me before sticking his face into his mailbag. He flipped through his bundles of letters. I could tell he was trying to avoid my eyes. How many boys’ gazes had he had to avoid? Boys who
trembled, as though they were awaiting execution, as though they were young deer caught in a trap. After a long interval he looked up, his face expressionless, and held out a sealed letter and an
inkpad. I pressed my thumb on the inkpad and stamped his mail-receipt log. He didn’t meet my mother’s eyes, either. He turned around woodenly. On the envelope were the words
‘Japanese Imperial General Headquarters’. They reached out, grabbed me by the throat and throttled me. I found a red note inside.

I couldn’t breathe. That was when I realized that words, not bullets or bombs, were killing the soldiers dying in battle. One line of text was powerful enough to turn the world upside down
and destroy lives; boys became soldiers, were shipped to the front and were thrown into battle. I dropped the Dickens novel, not because I was afraid of death, but because I was suddenly afraid of
words. My mother, who had been sewing up bindings, let out an almost imperceptible sound; red droplets of blood spotted her thumb. She was trying her hardest not to collapse in the face of
despair.