The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (92 page)

Boris kept his promise. We Japanese war prisoners were given partial autonomy and allowed to form a representative committee. The colonel was the committee chairman. From then on, the Russian guards, both civil and military, were ordered to cease their violent behavior, and the committee became responsible for keeping order in the camp. As long as we caused no trouble and met our production quotas, they would leave us alone. That was the ostensible policy of the new politburo member (which is to say, the policy of Boris). These reforms, at first glance so democratic, should have been great news for us prisoners of war
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But things were not as simple as they seemed. Taken up with welcoming the new reforms, we were too stupid to see the cunning trap that Boris had set for us
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Supported by the secret police, Boris was in afar more powerful position than the new politburo member, and he proceeded to make over the camp and the town as he saw fit. Intrigue and terrorism became the order of the day. Boris chose the strongest and most vicious men from among the prisoners and the civilian guards (of which there was no small supply), trained them, and made them into his own personal bodyguards. Armed with guns and knives and clubs, this handpicked contingent would take care of anyone who resisted Boris, threatening and physically abusing them, sometimes even beating them to death on Boris’s orders. No one could lay a hand on them. The soldiers sent out on an individual basis from regular army units to guard the mine would pretend not to see what was happening under their noses. By then, not even the army could touch Boris. Soldiers stayed in
the background, keeping watch over the train station and their own barracks, adopting an attitude of indifference with regard to what went on in the mine and the camp
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Boris’s favorite among his handpicked guard was a prisoner known as “The Tartar,” who had supposedly been a Mongolian wrestling champion. The man stuck to Boris like a shadow. He had a big burn scar on his right cheek, which people said he had gotten from torture. Boris no longer wore prison clothes, and he moved into a neat little cottage that was kept clean for him by a woman inmate
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According to Nikolai (who was becoming increasingly reluctant to talk about anything), several Russians he knew had simply disappeared in the night. Officially, they were listed as missing or having been involved in accidents, but there was no doubt they had been “taken care of” by Boris’s henchmen. People’s lives were now in danger if they failed to follow Boris’s orders or if they merely failed to please him. A few men tried to complain directly to Party Central about the abuses going on in camp, but that was the last anyone ever saw of them. “I heard they even killed a little kid—a seven-year-old—to keep his parents in line. Beat him to death while they watched,” Nikolai whispered to me, pale-faced
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At first Boris did nothing so crude as that in the Japanese zone. He concentrated his energies instead on gaining complete control over the Russian guards in the area and solidifying his foothold there. He seemed willing for the moment to leave the Japanese prisoners in charge of their own affairs. And so, for the first few months after the reform, we were able to enjoy a brief interval of peace. Those were tranquil days for us, a period of genuine calm. The committee was able to obtain some reduction in the harshness of the labor, however slight, and we no longer had to fear the violence of the guards. For the first time since our arrival, we were able to feel something like hope. People believed that things were going to get better
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Not that Boris was ignoring us during those few honeymoon months. He was quietly arranging his pieces to gain the greatest strategic advantage. He worked on the Japanese committee members individually, behind the scenes, using bribes or threats to bring them under his control. He avoided overt violence, proceeding with the utmost caution, and so no one noticed what he was doing. When we did finally notice, it was too late. Under the guise of granting us autonomy, he was throwing us off our guard while he fashioned a still more efficient system of control. There was an icy, diabolical precision to his calculations. He succeeded in eliminating random violence from our lives, only to replace it with a new kind of coldly calculated violence
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After six months of firming up his control structure, he changed direction and began applying pressure on us. His first victim was the man who had been the central figure on the committee: the colonel. He had confronted Boris directly to represent
the interests of the Japanese prisoners of war on several issues, as a result of which he was eliminated. By that time, the colonel and a few of his cohorts were the only members of the committee who did not belong to Boris. They suffocated him one night, holding him down while one of them pressed a wet towel to his face. Boris ordered the job done, of course, though he never dirtied his own hands when it came to killing Japanese. He issued orders to the committee and had other Japanese do it. The colonel’s death was written off simply as the result of illness. We all knew who had killed him, but no one could talk about it. We knew that Boris had spies among us, and we had to be careful what we said in front of anyone. After the colonel was murdered, the committee voted for Boris’s handpicked candidate to fill his chair
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The work environment steadily deteriorated as a result of the change in the makeup of the committee, until finally things were as bad as they had ever been. In exchange for our autonomy, we made arrangements with Boris on our production quotas, the setting of which became increasingly burdensome for us. The quota was raised in stages, under one pretext or another, until finally the work forced upon us became harsher than ever. The number of accidents also escalated, and many Japanese soldiers lent their bones to the soil of a foreign land, victims of reckless mining practices. “Autonomy” meant only that we Japanese now had to oversee our own labor in place of the Russians who had once done it
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Discontent, of course, only blossomed among the prisoners of war. Where we had once had a little society that shared its sufferings equally, a sense of unfairness grew up, and with it deep hatred and suspicion. Those who served Boris were given lighter duties and special privileges, while those who did not had to live a harsh life—if allowed to live at all. No one could raise his voice in complaint, for open resistance meant death. One might be thrown into an icy shed to die of cold and starvation, or have a wet towel pressed over one’s face while asleep, or have the back of one’s skull split open with a pick while working in the mine. Down there, you could end up at the bottom of a shaft. Nobody knew what went on in the darkness of the mine. People would just disappear
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I couldn’t help feeling responsible for having brought Boris and the colonel together. Of course, if I hadn’t become involved, Boris would have burrowed his way in among us sooner or later by some other route, with similar results, but such thoughts did little to ease my pain. I had made a terrible mistake
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Suddenly one day I was summoned to the building that Boris used as his office. I had not seen him for a very long time. He sat at a desk, drinking tea, as he had been doing the time I saw him in the stationmaster’s office. Behind him, standing at attention with a large-caliber automatic pistol in his belt, was The Tartar. When
I entered the room, Boris turned around to the Mongolian and signaled for him to leave. The two of us were alone together
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“So, then, Lieutenant Mamiya, I have kept my promise, you see.”

Indeed, he had, I replied. What he said was unfortunately true. Everything he had promised me had come to pass. It was like a pact with the devil
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“You have your autonomy, and I have my power,” he said with a smile, holding his arms out wide. “We both got what we wanted. Coal production has increased, and Moscow is happy. Who could ask for anything more? I am very grateful to you for having acted as my mediator, and I would like to do something for you in return.”

There was no such need, I replied
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“Nor is there any need for you to be so distant, Lieutenant. The two of us go way back,” said Boris, smiling. “I want you to work here with me. I want you to be my assistant. Unfortunately, this place has a critical shortage of men who can think. You may be missing a hand, but I can see that your sharp mind more than makes up for it. If you will work as my secretary, I will be most grateful and do everything I can to see that you have as easy a time of it here as possible. That way, you will be sure to survive and make your way back to Japan. Working closely with me can only do you good.”

Ordinarily, I would have rejected such an offer out of hand. I had no intention of selling out my comrades and securing an easy time of it for myself by working as Boris’s assistant. And if turning him down meant that he would have me killed, that would have suited me fine. But the moment he presented his offer, I found a plan forming in my mind
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“What kind of work do you want me to do?” I asked
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What Boris had in mind for me was not a simple task. The number of chores waiting to be taken care of was huge, the single biggest job being the management of Boris’s personal assets. Boris had been helping himself to a good forty percent of the foodstuffs, clothing, and medical supplies being sent to the camp by Moscow and the International Red Cross, stashing them in secret storehouses, and selling them to various takers. He had also been sending off whole trainloads of coal through the black market. There was a chronic shortage of fuel, the demand for it endless. He would bribe railroad workers and the stationmaster, moving trains almost at will for his own profit. Food and money could make the soldiers guarding the trains shut their eyes to what he was doing. Thanks to such “business” methods, Boris had amassed an amazing fortune. He explained to me that it was ultimately intended as operating capital for the secret police. “Our activity,” as he called it, required huge sums off the public record, and he was now engaged in
“procuring” those secret funds. But this was a lie. Some of the money may have been finding its way to Moscow, but I was certain that well over half was being transformed into Boris’s own personal fortune. As far as I could tell, he was sending the money to foreign bank accounts and buying gold
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For some inexplicable reason, he appeared to have complete faith in me. It seems not to have occurred to him that I might leak his secrets to the outside, which I now find very strange. He always treated his fellow Russians and other white men with the utmost suspicion, but toward Mongolians or Japanese he seemed to feel only the most openhanded trust. Perhaps he figured that I could do him no harm even if I chose to reveal his secrets. First of all, whom could I reveal them to? Everyone around me was his collaborator or his underling, each with his own tiny share in Boris’s huge illegal profits. And the only ones who suffered and died because Boris was diverting their food, clothing, and medicine for his own personal gain were the powerless inmates of the camp. Besides, all mail was censored, and all contact with outsiders was prohibited
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And so I became Boris’s energetic and faithful private secretary. I completely made over his chaotic books and stock records, systematizing and clarifying the flow of goods and money. I created categorized ledgers that showed at a glance the amount and location of any one item and how its price was fluctuating. I compiled a long list of bribe takers and calculated the “necessary expenses” for each. I worked hard for Boris, from morning to night, as a result of which I lost what few friends I had. People thought of me (probably could not help but think of me) as a despicable human being, a man who had sold out to become Boris’s faithful bootlicker. And sadly enough, they probably still think of me that way. Nikolai would no longer speak to me. The two or three other Japanese prisoners of war I had been close to would now turn aside when they saw me coming. Conversely, there were some who tried to approach me when they saw that I had become a favorite of Boris, but I would have nothing to do with them. Thus I became an increasingly isolated figure in the camp. Only the support of Boris kept me from being killed. No one could have gotten away with murdering one of his most prized possessions. People knew how cruel Boris could be; his fame as the “manskinner” had reached legendary proportions even here
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The more isolated I became, the more Boris came to trust me. He was happy with my efficient, systematic work habits, and he was not stinting in his praise
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“You are a very impressive man, Lieutenant Mamiya. Japan will be sure to recover from her postwar chaos as long as there are many Japanese like you. My own country is hopeless. It was almost better under the czars. At least the czar didn’t have to strain his empty head over a lot of theory. Lenin took whatever he could understand of Marx’s theory and used it to his own advantage, and Stalin took
whatever he could understand of Lenin’s theory (which wasn’t much) and used it to his own advantage. The narrower a man’s intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab in this country. I tell you, Lieutenant, there is only one way to survive here. And that is not to imagine anything. A Russian who uses his imagination is done for. I certainly never use mine. My job is to make others use their imaginations. That’s my bread and butter. Make sure you keep that in mind. As long as you are in here, at least, picture my face if you ever start to imagine something, and say to yourself, ‘No, don’t do that. Imagining things can be fatal.’ These are my golden words of advice to you. Leave the imagining to someone else.”

Half a year slipped by like this. Now the autumn of 1947 was drawing to a close, and I had become indispensable to Boris. I was in charge of the business side of his activities, while The Tartar was in charge of the violent side. The secret police had yet to summon Boris back to Moscow, but by then he no longer seemed to want to go back. He had more or less transformed the camp and the mine into his own unimpeachable territory, and there he lived in comfort, steadily amassing a huge fortune, protected by his own private army. Perhaps, too, rather than bring him back to the center, the Moscow elite preferred to keep him there, firming up their foothold in Siberia. A continual exchange of letters passed between Boris and Moscow—not using the post office, of course: they would arrive on the train, in the hands of secret messengers. These were always tall men with ice-cold eyes. The temperature in a room seemed to drop whenever one of them walked in
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