Occupied City (37 page)

The Killer looks up from the black water. A man is standing over him, a man he recognizes. A man who has been following him.

The living tend to the graves of the dead / The dead watch over the lives of the living / The lives of the living, divided and dissected / Those whom receive tribute, those that give tribute / Those of substance and those of none, those who matter and those who don’t / The child divides, the child dissects

In the Death Factory, my work now began. There were two types of workers; those who were recruited, recruited for their brains, and those who were conscripted, conscripted for their brawn. I was recruited, recruited for my brain; its knowledge of disease, its knowledge of death. Loyal to the Emperor, subservient to the State, deferential yet intelligent, I was the ideal worker; fervent in my devotion to the Emperor, to Japan and to victory; unfailing and unquestioning in my belief in all three. My work was in the field of hygiene.

On the Black Ship, in a coffee-shop, a man is whispering to the Killer, ‘I hear many of them have got good jobs now, in the prestigious universities or in the Ministry of Health and Welfare. I heard some of them got payments of one or two million yen. It’s unbelievable. Look at us! Look what we’ve got! Barely the clothes on our backs.

‘I think of all I did for them, for Ishii and for the Emperor, and look at me now. I can’t get a job and I can’t sleep, can’t sleep for the memories and for the ghosts.

‘I remember one day, towards the end, a truckload of about forty Russians was brought in. But we already had too many logs, more logs than we could use, and so we had no need for this lot. So we told the Russians that there was an epidemic in the region and that they should all get out of the truck so we could inoculate them. And so, one by one, they jumped down from the truck. They stood in line with their sleeves rolled up. Then I went down the line, one by one.

‘First I rubbed their arms with alcohol, then I injected them with potassium cyanide. Of course, there was no need to rub their arms with alcohol first. I did it purely to put them at their ease. Then, one by one, they all fell to the ground in silence.

‘But I can’t forget the way they looked at me as I rubbed their arms and then injected them. They looked at me with trust in their eyes, with relief and even gratitude.’

The Killer picks up the bill from the table. The Killer gets up from the table. The Killer pays the bill and leaves.

Flowers and insects, animals and people / The child collects and the child catalogues / Flowers then insects, animals then people / The child examines and the child experiments / Those with blood and those without, those with this blood and those with that / The child studies and the child learns

In the Death Factory, hygiene was of the utmost importance. Fear of accidents and outbreaks, infections and contaminations, was all-pervasive. Despite the precautions and procedures taken, there were frequent unintended civilian casualties among the staff and technicians of the Unit. Priority was therefore given to hygiene and to research into better methods of hygiene control.

Initially, my work involved only the examination, treatment and prevention of communicable diseases among army personnel and their families. The examination and treatment section in which I worked was separate from the main complex. Our building was known as the South Wing and we also worked closely with the Army Hospital in Harbin.

At first my work was neither particularly demanding nor dangerous and my biggest fear was of becoming infected myself, particularly with the plague. Often we did not know what was wrong with a patient until it was too late. I remember that once a civilian
technician from the Unit was brought in with suspected syphilis. However, the man had the plague and soon succumbed and died. When such a patient was brought in, everyone was careful to avoid getting any cuts. Often we did not shave.

My main work was the examination of blood, urine and faeces samples, testing for and measuring changes in haemoglobin. Often this involved visits to the prison building. Whenever I entered the prison, I had to walk through a tray of disinfectant. The samples I received here had been taken from prisoners, who were also known as logs. I believe they were known as logs because the local population had been told that the Death Factory was involved in the manufacture and production of lumber. The samples were needed in order to determine a subject’s condition prior to any experiment or trial. Further samples were then taken from logs after they had become infected with various viruses. This was how the data from bacteriological tests was compared. Having received the samples in prepared slides, I would then travel back by truck to the South Wing. Often I would have to make this journey two or three times a day. Often I would also be ordered to bring back and forth research papers and human organs. These were my duties, this was my work.

There was no real research into preventative vaccines in our work at the examination and treatment centre. The nearest we came to any such vaccine was the development of an invigorative solution. The base of this solution was garlic and we would give it to patients in order to speed up their recovery. Often I would inject it myself in order to overcome the depression and the fatigue caused by the isolated location and the long hours. I understood why many of the Chinese and the Manchurians were addicted to heroin. It was a temptation to which many surrendered.

On the Black Ship, the Killer writes a letter,
To Your Excellency Ishii Shirō, Former Lt. Gen. Army Medical Corps –

Dear Sir
,

You must be very surprised to receive this badly scribbled and most rude letter so unexpectedly. But I was one of your subordinates at Pingfan in China and I write this letter, not only on behalf of myself, but on behalf of the many men who dutifully served under you during the war in China
.

After the turmoil at the end of the war, we came back to Japan. But the defeated Japan has not been very cordial in welcoming us back. Our homes have been burnt, many of our wives and our children are dead, and the little money we have been given towards our rehabilitation, towards food and shelter, has been consumed by inflation. Because of our hardships, many of us have now been driven to contemplate committing wicked acts in order to simply feed and clothe ourselves
.

However, before embarking on such a dark path, I beseeched my former colleagues to wait until I had at least sought the counsel and guidance of you, our thoughtful former commanding officer. Surely, I told my former colleagues, if Lt. Gen. Ishii knew of our plight, he would rescue us, his former loyal subordinates who so faithfully carried out his every order, no matter how gruesome the work, no matter at what cost to our souls
.

Of course, because of our current hardships, we all thought of dying as we have retained the means to do so. But then we realized that if you had found the courage to live on, then we certainly should also be able to overcome our present difficulties and accomplish anything with your inspiration and generous assistance
.

So please, we beg you, our former commanding officer, that you loan us, the forgotten and unfortunate ones, as funds towards our rehabilitation, the sum of ¥50,000 and which we swear will be returned to you within two months. So please be gracious and kind enough to send the money to the above address
.

Of course, we should like to visit you personally but, since we have been so reduced to poverty, we are too embarrassed and so are unable to do so. But please, please help us
.

From your former subordinates
.

   Now the Killer stops writing. The Killer seals the letter in an envelope. The Killer posts the envelope to Mr Ishii Shirō, 77 Wakamastu-chō, Ushigome-ku, Tokyo.

Now the Killer waits.

There are those born with strength and those born with weakness / Those who are healthy and those who are sick / There is order in all matter, there is order in all things / There are structures and there are hierarchies / Those of substance and those of none, those who matter
and those that don’t / And there is one who matters more than most, the one who matters most of all

In the Death Factory, in the summer of 1940, I was suddenly sent to Xinjing. An outbreak of plague had been reported in one part of the city. As soon as we arrived, we enclosed the entire affected area inside a sheet-metal wall one metre in height and then burnt everything within the enclosure to the ground. We then conducted examinations of all the Japanese and the Chinese who had been living in the area. Finally, we were ordered to dig up the bodies of people who were suspected of having died from the epidemic, to dissect the corpses, to remove and then preserve the organs. My task was to take small specimens from the lungs, livers and kidneys of the corpses. I then applied each to a Petri dish. Organs that tested positive for the plague were taken directly back to the Unit. The Petri dishes of plague germs which I had gathered were first sent to the Xinjing National Hygiene Laboratory to be cultivated and then on to Pingfan.

It was a high-risk job and one of my colleagues became infected. I do not know how it exactly happened but the man developed a high temperature and suddenly collapsed. He was rushed back to the Air Corps Hospital at Harbin, which was a small hospital and easier to isolate. There he was treated by doctors from the Death Factory. I was told he became well enough to travel and was sent to Port Arthur, then to Hiroshima, and finally to a hospital in Morioka. I was also told he received thirty-six yen a month in compensation, which was then double the salary of a school principal, for example. However, I never personally saw or heard from the man again.

On the Black Ship, the Killer gets a reply to his letter.

Early one morning, an American jeep and a car from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police pull up outside the Killer’s address. The police rush up the stairs of the boarding house. The police kick in the door to the Killer’s room. The police ransack the room. The police come back down the stairs. The police talk to the Americans who are standing beside their jeep. The Americans and the police get back into their jeep and their car and they leave.

The Killer steps out of the shadows of the ruined building opposite his former boarding house. The Killer has a knapsack on his back and a doctor’s bag in his hand. The Killer makes his way to
Tokyo Station. The Killer boards a train. The Killer leaves the Occupied City. For now.

He is the brightest boy in his class, he has the sharpest memory / He carries himself with authority / He is the tallest boy in his class, he has a magnetic personality / He hypnotizes everyone he meets / He is abrasive, arrogant and brash, and he is almost blind / He idolizes the Emperor Meiji

In the Death Factory, as the war intensified and the number of soldiers multiplied, most of my daily work increasingly concerned venereal disease. Thousands of our soldiers had become infected, with a debilitating effect upon our military capabilities. Often we were sent to perform VD checks and issue health certificates. The brothels were under civilian management and almost all of the women who worked in them were Korean. There were three classifications for the brothels; Class 1 was for officers, Class 2 for noncommissioned officers, and Class 3 for Japanese civilians and enlisted soldiers. However, due to a shortage of brothels and a surfeit of customers, it became common practice to let different units use the Class 1 brothels on certain days at certain times.

My work involved taking blood samples from the women and conducting health examinations. These examinations were known as
manju
exams. The woman would have to get down on her hands and knees with her buttocks raised. If her sex organ was swollen or discharged any pus it would mean she had been infected with syphilis. On a typical day, I would have to examine over one hundred and fifty women in this manner.

I know that within the Death Factory, research was conducted into venereal diseases with the aim of developing a way to protect soldiers from sexually transmitted diseases. Often I would collect blood samples from women prisoners who had contracted syphilis. These women were usually Chinese prisoners but, on occasion, I collected samples from Russian women. I heard rumours about the ways in which these women had been infected with the disease, that doctors dressed from head to toe in white laboratory clothing, with only their eyes visible, forced male prisoners infected with syphilis to have sex with female prisoners at gunpoint. Also I believe studies were conducted on pregnant prisoners and the effects of syphilis upon
the foetus. It was at this time that I took a personal vow of abstinence.

On the Black Ship, the Killer travels across Japan. Day after day, the Killer tries to find a new job. Day after day, the Killer tries to start a new life. But night after night, the Killer goes hungry and cold while night after night, the men the Killer once followed, the men the Killer once served, retire well fed and warm. So night after night, the Killer writes letter after letter; anonymous letters to the Americans, anonymous letters to the Russians; letters listing names, letters detailing crimes. But day after day the letters go unanswered, night after night the guilty go unpunished. And night after night, the Killer’s own memories and nightmares return. Night after night, with the smell of bitter almonds.

In the fifth year of the reign of the Emperor Taishō / At Kyoto Imperial University, in the Medical Department / He sits beside his fellow students, his fellow students here to heal / But he is not here to heal, he is not here to cure / With his knowledge of Western medicines, with his knowledge of Oriental traditions / He is only here to study, he is only here to learn / To study disease, to learn of death

In the Death Factory, the Kwantung Army and, in particular, the Kempeitai had always been concerned about the vulnerability of our water supply to poisoning by Chinese saboteurs. However, from early 1942, this concern seemed to become an obsession and began to consume the majority of our time in Hygiene. It was, though, preferable to the interminable VD inspections.