Page 33 of Daikon

Noriko took a long, quavering breath. “I worked at NHK,” she began. “In the Front Line Section. There were about twenty English speakers there, overseas Japanese like me. Nisei. And some prisoners of war. We broadcast English-language programs.” Her voice trailed off.

The stranger, still behind her: “Go on.”

“I started as a typist in 1942. I was reassigned as a writer and announcer in 1943. I worked on The Zero Hour and The Hinomaru Hour . And on From One American to Another occasionally. And in January this year I became the main announcer on Humanity Calls .”

She stopped, her eyes on the open file on the table, presumably all about her.

The stranger, still behind her, placed his hand on her shoulder, making her jump. “Go on.”

“We played American music,” Noriko said quickly.

“The sort of music American soldiers and sailors would like. And we broadcast news reports and messages from prisoners. I read the introductions to the music and made various comments. The ‘platter chatter.’?” Noriko spoke the phrase in English.

She paused to catch her breath, then continued more slowly.

“The broadcasts were written to have propaganda value. ‘Sowing seeds of loneliness and homesickness among the enemy by shooting psychological bullets.’ The Front Line Section chief explained it like that. I used the name Sally. I was Rose in some of the earlier broadcasts. Then I changed my name to Sally.”

“Sally. I see. So that was the purpose of your work, ‘shooting psychological bullets.’ Did you sincerely and loyally work to fulfill this purpose?”

“Yes.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And yet you were denounced as unpatriotic, as working to undermine the war effort.”

The man at last left his position behind Noriko’s chair and returned to his seat. Noriko’s eyes flashed up at him and then retreated to her clasped hands. His face remained impassive.

“I tried to explain…” She fell silent. She couldn’t go on.

“Yes?”

Noriko squeezed her fists tight. “I tried to explain before, but the officer became angry.”

The stranger drew in a meditative lungful of smoke and slowly expelled it. “Yes, well, tell me now.”

Noriko hesitatingly began to explain about Fujimura, the undercover Tokkō man assigned to Radio Tokyo on the sixth floor; about the advantage he took of the Nisei women; about the advances he made on her and his anger when she refused him.

“And so this is why you attacked him,” said the stranger, addressing the top of Noriko’s bowed head.

“I only slapped him.”

“Because he made unwanted advances.”

Noriko nodded.

“Very spirited. I can’t say I blame you. But Fujimura isn’t the issue just now. He was removed from that position.” The stranger consulted a page in the file. “Reassigned on July second. His accusations against you were dropped.”

Noriko’s head jerked up. She looked the stranger full in the face, shocked.

“You seem surprised.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Yes, well, the other reports against you remain.” He extracted a page and set it on top of the file. “This is the problem.”

“I don’t understand,” said Noriko. “What other reports?”

The stranger looked down at the paper and started to read. “?‘Noriko Kan has been heard by her coworkers to express pro-American sentiments. Noriko Kan has actively attempted to undermine war spirit among her coworkers.’ And more in that vein.”

Noriko shook her head, emphatic. “But that’s not true.”

“Mary Hasegawa and June Ikeda. These were coworkers of yours?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re saying these reports they made against you are false?”

“They’re not true.”

“Then why were they made?”

Noriko’s heart was beating hard, blood thundering in her ears. She dropped her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You have no idea why they would make false reports against you?”

Noriko didn’t respond. She could feel her cheeks burning.

“Kan-san, I’ve been given the authority to rectify your situation, but I really can’t unless I get to the bottom of this.

Fujimura was removed from your office. He was no longer there to bully your coworkers.

So why did they make these accusations against you?

Why, if they weren’t true? Do you claim to have no idea? ”

I’ve been given the authority to rectify your situation…

Noriko glanced up again. She saw no duplicity in the man’s face. She felt a pang of hope.

“You have no idea?” the stranger repeated.

“No,” she said in a quavering voice. “I have an idea.”

“All right. Then tell me.”

Noriko’s eyes dropped back to her hands. She had not told the Tokkō captain her secret even when she had been the most frightened. What had happened in the office that day… it was as if someone else had taken control of her body.

“It’s shameful,” she said.

“Please set aside your feelings. It’s the only way for you to get out of this place.”

She hesitated, struggling with herself.

She took a wavering breath and started to speak.

“There was a Filipino man in our section.” She stopped. She took another breath. “His name was Fernando Reyes. He was brought to Japan as a prisoner of war and became a resident alien after the Philippines joined the Co-Prosperity Sphere. And he was…”

Noriko stopped. Even with her blood so depleted her face felt like it was glowing. She turned in her chair until she was partly facing away.

“He was very handsome,” she continued quietly. “And very active among some of the younger Nisei women. In one of the empty offices. Do you understand?”

“I believe so,” said the stranger, sounding mildly perplexed.

“And two of these women became quite infatuated with him. They developed strong feelings. And one day…” The shame of it was intolerable. Noriko stopped.

“Go on.” The stranger’s voice was soft, almost gentle.

“One day, I found myself alone with this person.”

“This Filipino. Reyes.”

“Yes. I found myself alone with him. In the empty office. And the door was locked.” Noriko turned farther away, raising her hand to hide her face.

“And I did something foolish. Something very foolish. I don’t know why it happened.

I wasn’t myself. And when the other women found out—he must have told them—they gossiped. And…”

Her voice trailed off.

The man was slowly nodding now. “These women who were infatuated with this Filipino,” he said. “I take it they were Mary Hasegawa and June Ikeda.”

Noriko nodded.

The man heaved a long sigh. “All right. I see now. Jealousy. I think I understand.”

He stubbed out his cigarette, extracted a sheet of paper from his satchel, and started to write.

He worked industriously with his pen for ten minutes, line after line of characters filling the page.

Noriko cast him anxious glances, mortified that he was committing to writing the secret that caused her such shame.

The incident—for that’s what it was, an isolated incident, not an affair—remained inexplicable to her even now, after weeks in solitary confinement to reflect.

After the horror of losing her only child, for which she felt to blame, she had then betrayed her husband in a moment of madness.

She had been trying to find… She was trying to feel…

what? She didn’t know. She had never been inclined toward infidelity before.

So why had she done it? Had her journey through hell on that night in March somehow left her irredeemably corrupted?

The stranger finished writing. He screwed the cap back onto his pen.

“This may take some time,” he said, gathering up his papers and returning them to his satchel. He stood up and went to the door. “I’d like to see the captain now,” he said to the Toad, who was waiting outside.

The door closed.

Footsteps disappeared down the hall.

Noriko was left alone in the interrogation room for more than an hour, exhausting herself with emotions careening between hope and despair. When the footsteps finally returned, her heart raced so fast that the beats seemed to trip over themselves.

The door opened. It was the Toad, face hard, eyes angry. He seized her by the arm and yanked her up and shoved her down the hall toward the stairs without a word.

She was not returned to her cell. She was instead prodded outside—outside into daylight that she had not seen in weeks, extraordinarily bright.

After her eyes adjusted, she saw a patch of grass.

And trees. Green trees. She saw fields in the distance, green fields, and beyond them a line of hills, an exquisite shade of grayish blue through the haze.

She saw an overcast sky overhead, and the hint of an orb that was the sun trying to break through.

She saw flowers lining the roadway leading to the main gate, pink and white cosmos with bright yellow centers.

The aching beauty of it all, mixed with a deep dread of where she was heading, gave her a curious light feeling, like she was floating along.

They passed a battered, dust-covered car, the driver coaxing its charcoal-fired engine to life. The stranger who had interviewed Noriko was in the back seat, patiently waiting.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said as the Toad hurried her past. “But they insisted, you know.”

They continued along the length of the prison building, the car coughing and choking behind them as it slowly drove off.

They came to a smaller structure with large front doors like on a garage.

Behind it, in a secluded exercise yard—hard-packed earth, chin-up bars, rusty barbells and dumbbells—stood the Tokkō captain.

There were two other men with him. The captain was wearing a sword.

“Bind her,” he said. His voice was flat—no frenzy in it like in his interrogations. He and his two companions stood very still.

The Toad produced a length of cord and tightly trussed Noriko’s hands behind her back.

“Blindfold.”

A rough piece of burlap was knotted around her head, covering her eyes. The light was blotted out now. Noriko could smell the jute.

“On her knees.”

A kick to the back of Noriko’s legs. It dropped her hard and she toppled over.

“Get up,” ordered the Toad, speaking for the first time. He grabbed her by the hair and lifted her onto her knees.

She knew what was coming. There was no point in resisting. She started to shake.

A slow, distinctive sound, close to her ear, a shush . It was the captain drawing his sword.

“It would be better for you to keep very still,” came his voice. “And to hold your neck straight.”

Noriko tried to comply, but she couldn’t. She was shuddering too badly. She could hear the captain moving around behind her, the rustle of his uniform fabric as he loosened his shoulders, the swish of his blade as he made a few practice strokes.

“Straighten her up.”

The Toad seized her by the arm, pulling her up, his other hand prodding her in the spine. She tried to remain straight. But it was hard not to cringe.

Movement behind her. The captain was taking his position.

“Yosh!”

He was ready.

A calmness descended upon her, accompanied by a hollow feeling, like she was only a shell.

Then, with a sensation of tearing, she was rising out of her body, enveloped in a circle of light, rising into the air so that she was looking down at herself.

She saw the captain standing behind her, his sword poised.

She saw herself kneeling in the dirt, a pathetic figure.

And she saw a second light, mauve and violet, glowing in the lower part of her torso.

A sharp, guttural cry. Noriko watched as the blade descended and stopped at the nape of her neck.

“Well done!” A different voice, one of the others.

“Passable.” This from the third man, less enthusiastic. “It might not have gone through, though. Two strokes, perhaps.”

A sense of falling. Noriko found herself back in her own body. She slumped forward, a fog filling her brain.

“Straighten her up!”

The Toad’s hands on her again, yanking. “Keep your neck straight!”

The captain’s movements behind her sounded quicker. Swish, swish, swish. Three practice strokes of the blade.

“Yosh!”

A pause, then the cry, higher this time. The icy touch of steel on the back of her neck.

“Ah, that was a good one.”

“Splendid. A clean cut, I think.”

“I believe it was.” This was the self-satisfied voice of the captain. Then: “All right, get rid of her. Get her out of my sight.”

Noriko felt herself being yanked upward. Her legs seemed boneless. She fell down.

“Stand up!” barked the Toad, hauling her back to her feet and this time propping her against his body, which smelled of sweat. The blindfold came off. Noriko squeezed her eyes shut against the light. Sharp pulls at her hands now. The binding cord fell away.

“Move!”

She staggered forward, propelled by a push in the back, and fell down.

“Stand up!”

The Toad yanked her up again. This time her legs managed to support her weight.

“Move!”

She took a step forward, struggling for control of her muscles. She weaved from one side to the other, partly bent over. Another push.

“Move!”

She continued on in this manner, pushed and staggering and occasionally falling, back to the main building, then down the road leading to the front gate.

“Open it!” called out the Toad as they drew near the guardhouse. A young sentry appeared, gave Noriko a distasteful look, and complied. A final push propelled Noriko through. She again lost her balance and sprawled in the dirt.

This time the Toad left her. “Go!” was all he said, standing in front of her, his hands on his hips. “Get away from here. Go!”

Noriko got onto her hands and knees. The sentry, expressionless, was watching. She got her right foot under her, then her left, and slowly stood up.

“Go!”

The Toad scooped up a handful of gravel and threw it. Most of the grains and pebbles struck Noriko in the chest.

“Go! Get out of my sight!”

She heard his words but could not process the meaning. She stood in the middle of the road, facing the prison, not knowing what to do, her hand shielding her face.

“Bakayaro!” spat out the Toad, scooping up another handful of gravel and throwing it hard. “Go! You’ve been released! Go!”

Biting stings on her arms, her neck, the back of her hand. She took a step backward.

“Go!”

She took another staggering step back from the gate, then another. The Toad, muttering curses, bent down for more gravel. Another stinging shower struck her.

She turned her back on the prison and started walking away.