The Persimmon Tree (47 page)

The colonel approached the microphone and the mayor hastened to stand on his left, the ends of his snowy white spats peeping from his cuffless striped trousers, highlighting the shine on his black patent-leather shoes. The
kempeitai
captain took two steps backwards, ignoring the four Chinese prisoners who knelt directly behind him, the nearest so close that he could have licked the heels of his jackboots.

The mayor leaned forward, and as the microphone stand had been set for the taller Japanese colonel, the mayor was forced to stand on tiptoe in front of the unfamiliar contraption, appearing as if he would lose his balance at any moment. Now he yelled at the top of his voice so that the speakers crackled alarmingly. ‘People of Tjilatjap, it is with great honour that I introduce to you the esteemed Colonel Konoe, Commander of the Japanese Imperial Army Battalion, wounded valiantly in battle, a former Captain in the Imperial Guards Regiment!’ He then stepped to the side so that the Japanese colonel could speak directly into the microphone and he could interpret.

‘People of Tjilatjap, we come as your liberators and friends in the spirit of cooperation and in the name of the Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. We bring you salutations and now greet you as a free Asian people in the name of His Imperial Majesty, the Showa Emperor Hirohito.’

Shouts of ‘
Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
’ came from the battalion and the assembled
kempeitai
,
while several people standing near the front shouted out as well.

‘The yoke of the colonial forces of the Netherlands has been lifted from your necks!’ Colonel Konoe’s voice rose to an emphatic level, though not quite a shout. ‘They stole your land and your riches and enslaved you for more than three hundred years! Now they have scurried like rats from a sinking ship! However, this is no sinking ship, it will sail again as a vessel, as a freedom-loving and independent State, a partner in the war against the white colonial oppressors.’

He waited until the cheering from the large crowd died down before continuing. ‘But the cleansing of your society is not yet complete. In the community of Asian people there lurks a mutual enemy who has robbed you and exploited you! An enemy who does not belong in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, who is like an army of fleas on a dog’s back, sucking its blood while contributing nothing but disease. I speak, of course, of the loathsome Chinese, who have forced you into onerous debt and demanded crippling interest so that you are enslaved to them!’

The cheering from the crowd in response to this last remark rose to a roar that continued for at least a minute. Colonel Konoe was striking exactly the right chord and the crowd was ecstatic. When at last he could continue, he went on to say, ‘While we will rid you of this pestilence, this evil presence, so that it no longer exists in your town, we have brought these four before you today as an example of our swift and honourable justice system. Others of their kind will be dealt with very soon. These four degenerates are typical of the evil influence that pervades yours and the other Asian societies we have liberated.’

He turned to glance at the four kneeling Chinese, then returned to the microphone. ‘The first is a supporter and agent of the Kuomintang, the rapacious and evil-intentioned Chinese Government! The second is a murderous communist — no lower and more ill-conceived doctrine exists! The third is a Triad, a ruthless criminal in a brotherhood of evil! Finally, worst of all, the greedy and merciless merchant,’ he glanced quickly at his notes, ‘who entices and then cripples you with debt! The Emperor, His Benevolent Majesty, has particularly charged the Japanese Imperial Forces to rid you of this vermin, this pestilence, who are the lackeys of colonialism and grow fat and rich on the people’s misery.’

‘
Banzai!
Banzai! Banzai!
’ followed from the battalion and the huge crowd now took up and echoed the traditional cry, waving Japanese flags and, where there was sufficient room, hugging each other and breaking into joyous and spontaneous dance. If it were possible, they showed that their hatred for the Chinese matched that of the way they’d felt about the Dutch.

The tall Japanese officer waited until the cheering died down and finally came to the conclusion of his speech. ‘I will now command Captain Takahashi to behead these four criminals in the name of His Imperial Majesty.’ He paused only a second. ‘Long live His Imperial Majesty! May he rule ten thousand years!’

‘
Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
’ came the response as the people gathered in the square went wild with joy. They would tell their children later in the
kampongs
that they had waited a long time, but now the power of their two great tormentors was finished. Their Dutch oppressors were the first. Now the insidious Chinese usurers had finally been brought to justice.

Captain Takahashi came to attention and saluted, then rapped out a command. Four of the
kempeitai
soldiers immediately came to attention and took three paces forward, one behind each of the prisoners. To a second command from the officer, in unison, as if it were a practised drill, they removed from the right-hand pockets of their putteed trousers a blindfold, stepped another two paces forward and quickly and simultaneously blindfolded the hapless Chinese. Then they returned to the ranks by stepping four paces backwards. Another command and four more
kempeitai
stepped forward, first reaching down and picking up a small container of water placed on the dais behind them. They merely took a single step forward and remained standing, the dish held in both hands in front of them at chest height as if it was an offering.

The people who were able to observe what was happening grew quiet and the ominous silence seemed to ripple through the crowd so that the entire square appeared to hold its collective breath. The emotionless face of the
kempeitai
captain terrified Anna even before he drew the long, slightly curved
katana
. The only sound was the soft ‘shrup’
of the sword as it left its sheath. The colonel and the mayor retreated to the rear right-hand side of the flag platform facing Anna and the others so that only Takahashi stood slightly angled behind the first victim. In the accustomed practice of a beheading, this was so his shadow wouldn’t fall on the bound, blindfolded Chinaman kneeling in front of him and cause him to flinch. Ancient tradition has it that in such circumstances awareness in the victim is so acute in the moments before death that even blindfolded he will feel the shadow of the master swordsman. Honour forbade the shadow of the executioner falling over the victim, causing a less than perfect decapitation.

Glancing quickly at the colonel, who nodded almost imperceptibly, the captain swung the curved blade up and over his right shoulder. The sword flashed down so quickly that Anna caught the entire beheading before she had completely closed her eyes. She did not see the Chinaman’s head hit the surface nor the jet of blood that shot into the air from the neck stump and landed a metre away to splash down the steps of the flag platform. She felt Ratih gripping the top of her arm as a collective sigh, an expulsion of air, could be heard coming from those who witnessed the beheading. ‘Try to look, Anna, so you can prove you came,’ the cook whispered. She had seen from the side of the sunglasses that Anna had her eyes tightly shut. Anna opened them to see one of the
kempeitai
soldiers who was holding a dish step forward. The captain removed a small wet towel from the dish and wiped the blood from the blade of the sword, then stepped behind the next victim, again ensuring that his shadow didn’t fall over him. This time Anna wasn’t caught by surprise and her eyes remained shut while the captain beheaded the remaining three Chinese, each time wiping the blade of his sword with a fresh damp towel from a different dish. The
kempeitai
captain then turned to the colonel with a deep bow, his boots and army pantaloons splattered with the blood of the Chinamen. Konoe nodded his head, bowing almost imperceptibly in return.

Ratih still held onto Anna’s arm. ‘It is over, Anna,’ she said. ‘We can go now.’ Anna opened her eyes and turned her face away but not before she saw the four heads that lay directly below the severed necks as if they’d been previously carefully arranged. Captain Takahashi’s work had been precise. Anna fainted and Ratih’s desperate attempt to prevent her falling knocked the sunglasses from her head as, too heavy for the cook to hold, she collapsed to the gravelled surface of the square.

Few, if any, people would have noticed Anna’s collapse. The crowd was too busy yelling ‘
Banzai!
Banzai! Banzai!
’, shouting and cheering, jostling, craning their necks for a look at the severed heads. The four remaining
kempeitai
now stepped forward and grasped the heads by the hair, holding them high in front of them, careful to avoid blood splashing onto their polished boots. However, the Japanese colonel chose that moment to leave the platform and, careful to avoid the blood on the steps, took a different route to the one by which he’d arrived and now moved directly towards Anna. He paused momentarily beside her prostrate form just as she opened her eyes. Anna, still dazed, saw the face of the Japanese officer staring down at her and screamed. A quizzical and slightly startled look momentarily crossed Colonel Konoe’s face before he grunted and moved on. Budi and Ratih helped her to her feet and Budi retrieved her sunglasses, which had now been trampled underfoot, the lenses smashed and one arm missing. But they could not leave in the crush as people craned and pushed to see the four decapitated heads being impaled on long bamboo poles and secured, one at each corner of the flag platform, so they could now be seen from every part of the square — a grisly reminder that, with the Japanese military, retribution was swift and final. With mother and son on either side supporting Anna, Lieutenant Khamdani led them away, pushing his way through the jostling people, shouting ‘
Pak Polisi! Pak Polisi!
’
so the crowd would part to let them through.

I should pause here to explain what undoubtedly happened to the remaining two hundred Chinese who were captured in Tjilatjap. All Anna can recall of the massacre is that the four heads were prominently displayed together with those of some local criminals, remaining on the posts in the town square for all to be warned that the Japanese would tolerate no disobedience from citizens and, also, that for several days the air was filled with the stench of benzine, acrid smoke and the smell of roasted human flesh. Captain Takahashi had ordered that the Chinese prisoners be tortured, shot, burned and buried in the single grave the locals had dug for them.

The Chinese prisoners did not first dig their own graves, which would have been another form of psychological torture. The reason for this was ghastly but practical. For the most part, the prisoners would have been unable to walk. Most would have received, among other forms of torture, the final and most painful of all. They would have been made to sit on a small wooden block about half a metre high, with their legs stretched straight out, heels resting on another block of similar size and height. Their hands would have been bound behind their backs and the torso suspended in a sitting position by shoulder straps attached to the ceiling. This done, the shinbones of each leg were shattered by a wooden club, not unlike a baseball bat, and thereafter the same was done to their kneecaps. There is said to be no greater pain that can suddenly be inflicted on the human body without causing it to go into total shock and cause a heart seizure or death.

Other forms of getting the Chinese to confess the whereabouts of hidden gold were the traditional water drip onto the forehead (by Japanese standards fairly tame), the application of electric shocks to the genitals, the ripping out of fingernails, or being tied up in the blazing sun for several days until they were literally sunbaked to death. As it required little imagination, whipping was the most common form of torture. They were simply beaten with various instruments: bamboo canes, leather whips and blunt metal instruments, until the flesh peeled from their bones. Another method was to place a prisoner in a vat and slowly bring it to the boil. It is claimed that these methods, used in Java and elsewhere, were child’s play compared to what the Japanese did to the Chinese elsewhere.

My father spoke often of the poetry and refinement of the Japanese intellect. It had been one of the reasons he had taken a teaching position in Japan. He loved the Japanese aesthetes, their capacity to reduce a complex scene to the glorious simplicity of a
haiku
poem; how, with a few simple brush strokes, a Japanese artist could capture a wild and savage landscape, leaving scope for your imagination to supply the unseen detail. I was too young when I left Japan to appreciate much of this, but even at a young age I knew these people to be concerned with beauty, purity and simplicity. I have always found it difficult to accept that the same refined intellect can change into a remorseless and merciless killer, whose torture is blunt and brutal.

For ten days Lo Wok remained in the cellar, his fortitude and even humour remarkable, for he never showed himself as being depressed, never complained and never failed to thank Anna for his food, delivered most days by Kiki and sometimes Til, and for the less pleasant chores she performed.

Then one day Ratih and Til visited together to say that the lieutenant had visited a
Bugis’ pinisi
schooner that was in the port to check the contents of the hold, only to discover that it was captained by an old Macassar acquaintance, Ahmed Nur-make, who had been arrested by the lieutenant some years ago and had served some time in a Dutch prison for piracy.