The Investigation (31 page)

Midori took out a black, hardcover file from in between her sheet music and handed it to me. As the sun set and left gold streaks across the keys, I started to read through the
chart. From January to August, no Korean prisoner was treated. The mention of a Korean name was always followed by a note of the cause of death. Ward Three was lethal; at least three to four died
every month. In January, a prisoner was sucked into the dye-baths and drowned, one fell to his death while repairing the ceiling and another died from a heart attack in his sleep. In February, two
fell to their deaths, another suffered cardiac arrest and one suffocated. In the summer, incidents of aneurisms and heart attacks increased.

I noticed that at the end of August, the injured prisoners began to be treated. The number of Korean patients increased markedly in October. They were treated by the on-duty nurse, mostly for
head injuries from falling during labour or slipping on stairs. The same prisoner names appeared repeatedly: Choi Chi-su, Kim Gwing-pil, Hiranuma Tochu. My eyes pricked. Choi and Dong-ju had
received treatment once a month for head injuries and lacerations on their calves, shoulders, biceps and forearms. But the reasons for the injuries were different from what I knew to be true. I
took the open file to Midori, who stopped playing.

‘I’m not sure whether this file is accurate,’ I said. ‘Sugiyama regularly beat up Ward Three prisoners. I probably brought a handful of them to the infirmary myself.
There isn’t a single mention of that in here.’

Midori avoided meeting my eyes. ‘These are merely records. They differ from reality.’

‘Are you saying the treatment logs are falsified?’

‘When a Ward Three patient comes to the infirmary, I treat them. Afterwards I report the type of wound and the severity of the injury, and the doctor records the information in the log,
usually as being caused by falling during labour or being struck by a falling object.’

‘Why would a doctor make things up?’

‘The warden doesn’t want to have unpleasant facts live on in official prison records.’

‘But the doctors are supposed to take care of the patients. They have a duty to record why and how their patients got hurt.’

‘The injuries of a few Korean prisoners mean nothing to them.’

I glared at her. My voice cracked. ‘What’s going on? Tell me what you know.’

She stared down at the keys. ‘The Korean patients began to come to the infirmary starting around August. When I asked them what happened, they usually mentioned Sugiyama. He was a butcher,
he was going to kill all the Koreans with his club. All of the wounds were caused by a blunt object. But I noticed something odd about all the prisoners’ injuries.’

‘What?’

‘Most of the wounds were lacerations about two to three centimetres long. They were deliberate – the skin was very precisely cut, probably with the tip of a whip.’

‘Hmm,’ I murmured, ‘we’re supposed to be careful not to create marks on the body.’

‘Once I was treating a prisoner for a shallow cut when I noticed that his left little finger was bent. It had broken, but hadn’t properly healed, so it was twisted. He told me
he’d blocked Sugiyama’s club with his hand, and that was how he broke it.’

‘That’s odd,’ I said. ‘When a forehead is busted open, it looks like a major and bloody injury, but it actually heals quickly. A broken finger is much more serious. He
wasn’t treated for that?’

‘No. And that was how it was with the rest of the prisoners. Even those with serious wounds weren’t sent to us, and then all of a sudden prisoners with minor cuts came flooding
in.’

It didn’t make any sense. Sugiyama had been violent for a long time, but he had never referred anyone for medical treatment. And then, in August, he began to send people with minor cuts to
the infirmary. What happened in August? ‘Choi and Hiranuma went to the infirmary once a month. But, starting in October, they began going once a fortnight. What was going on?’

Midori’s eyes flickered almost imperceptibly. Was she hiding something? ‘I remember Choi being investigated for his tunnel around that time. Hiranuma—’

My eyes fixed on hers. ‘That was when Sugiyama was communicating with Hiranuma through poetry. He was still violent, but he was almost the man’s guardian. So then why would he injure
him?’

The sun turned purple before disappearing in a reddish black. Darkness watched us through the window.

‘August 1944,’ I said to myself. ‘What happened then?’ My head was spinning with thoughts.

But Midori said nothing. She slid the file back into the leaves of the sheet music, crossed the auditorium and disappeared into the darkness.

I dragged myself back to the guard office, and the guard on duty looked up. I told him I would take over, as I had to catch up on reports anyway. He flashed a dazzling smile, handed me the ring
of keys and scurried off. I opened the cabinet where we kept all the files: the Disinfection and Sanitation Log, Air Raid Evacuation Training Report, Ward Three Prisoner Interrogation Log,
Assignment of Workers and Review of Work. I found what I was looking for on the third shelf – Diagnostic Referrals and Autopsy Requests.

Guards filled out diagnostic referral forms when a prisoner needed treatment, and gave them to Maeda for signature. The two-page form had carbon paper underneath, which was submitted to the
infirmary; the original went into the file. The same procedure was followed for autopsy requests. I noticed that the forms were the same as those in the file Midori had shown me. The only
difference was that we kept the two forms in separate files, while they filed them both in one. In our file, too, the referrals increased, starting on 22 August, mostly by Sugiyama. Various reasons
were listed as the cause of injury. Another file, the Infirmary Inspection Results Report, drew my gaze like bait to a fish. I opened it. It didn’t start in January; it began with 24 August.
So the inspection programme had begun in August. I flipped the page. There were twelve patients identified, along with their symptoms and suspected illnesses. The symptoms were listed as
malnourishment, weakness, weakened eyesight, insomnia, haemorrhoids and emotional instability. These were all common; none was worthy of study by Kyushu Imperial University doctors. Why
didn’t they select Japanese prisoners with more critical illnesses? I knew that many suffered from diabetes, glaucoma, hepatitis and arthritis. But these Korean prisoners seemed relatively
healthy, and they were all young, in their late teens to early thirties.

Could it be that the best medical team in the nation had made a grave mistake? I laid the Diagnostic Referrals, Autopsy Requests and Infirmary Inspection Results Report files side-by-side and
started to cross reference them by date. Kaneyama Tokichiro, Korean name Kim Myeong-sul, age twenty-nine, was selected during the first infirmary inspection on 24 August. He suffered from
malnourishment and insomnia. I was puzzled. Even we guards experienced those conditions. Food was becoming scarce, rations were dwindling and air-raid sirens blared in the middle of the night. I
found Kaneyama in the Autopsy Request file for 17 November. What had killed a healthy twenty-nine-year-old man in three months? I flipped through the Diagnostic Referrals carefully, but
didn’t spot his name. He’d never received treatment for any ailment. I went back and compared the Autopsy Request forms with the Infirmary Inspection Results Report. Since October, five
out of seven autopsied bodies had been selected for medical treatment. The causes of death were listed as an aneurism, abnormality of heart function and disturbances of metabolism.

I heard a loud bang and felt suddenly cold. I spun round. The wind was rattling the old doorframe. Freezing air burst through the gap in the windowsill. I looked out the window. Goosebumps
prickled all over my skin. Prisoners who had been referred to the infirmary by Sugiyama hadn’t been chosen for medical treatment during the inspections. Prisoners who had been chosen died.
Why did they keep dying? What was happening during these medical treatments?

The next morning I walked into Director Morioka’s office. The antique brown carpet muffled my footsteps. Next to the glistening hardwood desk stood a model of a skeleton.
An anatomical diagram, a muscular model and a model of the human body hung on the walls; I could see the shoreline of Hakata Bay outside the window.

‘How are things, Yuichi?’ Morioka asked kindly. ‘Was it helpful for you to observe the medical treatment procedures?’ His smile was white and sparkling, almost
blinding.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, my voice cracking.

‘Very good. I’m sure your misgivings were put to rest. I will give my recommendation to the warden that you be granted leave. I hope you will be able to visit your family with your
mind at ease.’

I couldn’t wait. I wanted to flee this place and its bars and fall asleep between the dark, narrow bookcases in Kyoto, inhaling the scent of old paper and dust. But I forced myself to
speak up. ‘Thank you, sir, but unfortunately, the side-effects are continuing.’

Thick furrows creased the director’s brow, but he continued to smile. He coughed. ‘I know. They’re not side-effects. We had fully anticipated these symptoms.’

I was stunned. ‘You expected that your patients would lose their memories and keep bleeding? So why are you continuing the treatment?’

The director’s face stiffened incrementally. His eyes glinted, cold and ruthless. ‘You’re Japanese, aren’t you?’ His voice was chilly.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then you must know what a great war we are waging. And how important it is to Japan’s legacy.’

‘Yes, sir!’ I’d heard this my entire life. After all, we’d been at war from the day I was born. With Russia, with China, with Mongolia, with Korea, with America, against
regular armies and Communist forces and guerrillas. When one battlefront was vanquished, we moved on to yet another.

The director nodded. ‘My medical team is devoted to research. Just as you are devoted to our country. You handle prisoners for the glory of the Empire, and the doctors handle patients for
victory.’

I felt nauseated, as though I had swallowed maggots. ‘How can that be for the victory of the Empire?’

‘We’ve been working hard to develop new treatments for our soldiers. We’re on the brink of developing great, life-changing medicine.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. But I know for a fact that the patients are experiencing side-effects from those treatments.’

‘Enough about that!’

‘People are dying off. What is going on in this infirmary?’ I shouted, unable finally to restrain myself.

Morioka’s gaze grew flinty.

I pressed on. ‘One record might be false. But the truth is disclosed by many others. I’m talking about the Diagnostic Referrals, the Autopsy Requests and the Infirmary Inspection
Results.’

His face drained of blood. ‘You’re actually quite intelligent. Fine. I knew you were persistent, but if you figured that out, you’ll understand what we’re doing.
I’ll tell you what you want to know.’ Morioka lowered his voice, as though to soothe a cranky child. ‘My medical team is in the process of developing revolutionary medical
techniques. If we succeed, we can drastically lower casualty rates on the battlefield. This will be a new era for medicine.’

‘What are the techniques?’

‘We’re looking for a new substance that will replace blood. The war is getting more serious. Blood is what the injured need most. So many good soldiers haemorrhage to death on the
battlefield. Even if they’re transported to the hospital on time, we have a severe shortage of blood for them. So we can’t operate. If we can substitute blood with something else, we
can save thousands of soldiers’ lives. As well as civilians’.’

‘There’s a substance that could take the place of human blood?’

‘Blood is largely composed of plasma and blood cells. Of those, there are white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets. Plasma is mostly liquid and various proteins and
blood-coagulation factors.’

I nodded.

‘Like I said, we don’t have enough blood. If the platelets, which are the most important component, could be manufactured, we can change the direction of the war.’
Morioka’s voice trembled.

My heart pounded. ‘So you’ve created blood?’

‘We’re in the process of developing a saline solution to substitute for platelets. It has similar sodium levels to bodily fluids and is composed of similar substances to platelets.
Currently it’s used to replace fluids for patients who are ill or injured. We’re tinkering with the concentration of the saline. That’s what we’re using to develop a
platelet substitute.’

‘But saline solution is basically salt and water,’ I murmured, frowning. ‘How can that take the place of blood?’

‘If one isn’t knowledgeable about medicine, like you, one would think that we are killing people, not saving them,’ the director said breezily. ‘That’s why we work
under high security. Don’t worry. We’re reviewing all side-effects as we conduct experiments on human adaptation to varying saline concentrations, resistance to sodium concentrations
and infections.’

‘But the side-effects are not diminishing.’

‘Well, I told you we’re still working on it. And we’re conducting detailed diagnostic checks to ensure that abnormal reactions are treated. You saw how we give arithmetic
tests, right? That’s the best way to determine overall neurophysical function. We can instantly determine the effect of foreign substances in the subjects’ bodies.’

I finally understood everything. They were experimenting on people. I’d led unsuspecting Koreans to a laboratory of death. I could tell my face was flushed. ‘The Kyushu Imperial
University medical team is conducting human experiments that kill healthy men! Now I get it. You came here because you needed people to experiment on.’

Morioka smiled. ‘I understand what you’re saying. You’re still young. Why, you’re not even twenty years old! Look, Yuichi. The world isn’t black-and-white.
It’s tough and complicated. This research could save the lives of many, many soldiers. All the women and children dying in air raids.’

Tears coursed down my cheeks. I was ashamed and enraged. This wasn’t right. However lofty the cause, we couldn’t do this. We couldn’t toy with one person’s life, even if
it benefited many more. I squeezed my eyes closed.