From the Fatherland, with Love, page 33
Felon #6 was being given a bandage for his finger, which had been crushed in a vice. A Korean resident of Japan, he had served as an official in the Republic-affiliated Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, while running a string of pinball arcades and companies producing and selling fake European designer handbags. Having speculated in the Republic’s currency before revaluation, he was now suspected of tax evasion. At the time of his arrest at a swank condominium, he had invoked the name of a high-level member of the DPRK Worker’s Party and said in a threatening tone: “Do you know what’ll happen to you for this?” Since the party official’s name was quite well known, the other Special Police officers had hesitated for a moment. Choi Hyo Il, however, walked straight up to him and slammed his fist into his shoulder, breaking his collarbone. This resulted in Choi’s being reprimanded by the deputy commander, Ri Hui Cheol. It was the Fukuoka police who were responsible for arrests, with the collaboration of the KEF; the exercise of force other than in self-defense was to be avoided. The Fukuoka police had provided a total of eight mobile armored vehicles and were supplying drivers and ten uniformed officers to participate in the arrests.
Choi could understand why physical force should be kept to a minimum but objected to the very idea of working with the Japanese police. His maternal grandfather, he’d protested, was murdered by the Japanese during the occupation. This kind of cooperation made no sense to him. Lieutenant Pak Myeong of the operations section had explained that by involving Fukuoka police personnel they were heading off any attack by the Japanese Self-Defense Force or the local US military, and further pointed out that by making the Japanese authorities primarily responsible for arrests, they were demonstrating to the Japanese public that the KEF was serious about establishing “a mutually beneficial relationship.” Choi apologized to the deputy commander for having resorted to violence while making the arrest, but in his heart he was still unhappy about the matter. Once Fukuoka was subdued, the Japanese police should have been disbanded and all its members punished. As a child, he had often heard his grandmother describe the events of August 15, 1945. The first thing liberated patriots did was attack police stations and kill the Japanese officers. She said that the entire village had stormed the local police outpost with farming implements, singing Korean songs as they went. The police were seen as the frontline agents of imperialism and the direct oppressors of the people. Choi had been taught since infancy that the Japanese police chiefs were worse than even the inhabitants of the puppet regime and the Americans who ruled them. For him, the police were emblematic of Japan. Why should he be cooperating with them?
Having ascertained how the interrogations were going, he left the parking lot and ran up the emergency stairs. In twenty minutes, at 13:00, he was due to lead the KEF’s afternoon operations. He heard a scream from the detention center below and thought: Fool. Screaming won’t make the pain go away. He remembered the first stages of gyeoksul training, back when he was a recruit in the 907th Battalion. The other recruits would whimper in their beds every night after the ordeal of plunging their hands again and again into bean-filled buckets. His own way had been to silently endure it all, in the belief that suffering would ultimately be transformed into strength. He’d been born in a farming village near Tongchon, Kangwon Province, where his parents grew vegetables on a plot of land that overlooked the sea. His paternal grandfather had been a hero in the Great Liberation War, serving as a member of the Anti-Aircraft Corps in defense of the capital. His parents had also been well respected and had been granted by the Party a house where Japanese had been billeted during the occupation. It was the sole building in the entire village that had a tiled roof.
But near the river on the outskirts of the village, in a place where the sun barely reached, was a settlement of undesirables. These people, some three hundred of them, lived crammed together in a collection of dilapidated tin-roofed buildings that reeked like animal cages. They received the scantiest of food rations and no medicine or medical care. Both adults and children were virtually naked, and would lean against the back wall of their dark, doorless shacks, staring outside. Though the young people were timid and quite listless, they were known for thievery and other crimes. One day when he was twelve, Choi had seen a few of them cutting and stealing some telephone wire. The ringleader, afraid that Choi would report them to the authorities, hit him on the head with a hand tool of some kind, nearly killing him. In due course, the culprit and a crony of his were arrested and executed by firing squad in the town square. Choi found this public event exhilarating. Fired at close range, the bullets from the automatic rifles tore the heads of the condemned right off, sending bits and pieces of their faces flying. He was impressed by the sheer power of the steel bullets, in contrast to the softness of the human body. Once the shooting was over, the officer in charge told the spectators to stone the corpses. The adults drew back from the sight of the pulverized heads and body parts, but Choi came eagerly to the fore. The head of one corpse shook as though it were still alive when a fist-sized stone he threw struck what was left of the face.
Choi graduated from secondary school and joined the army, where, having proved more than usually competent, he was selected for the 907th Battalion. At the age of sixteen, he was already over 1.8 meters tall and was learning taekwondo from his father. Basic training presented few problems for him, as he had hardened his body in high school through long-distance swimming. Both his parents and the Party leaders taught him that pain is a blessing, not something to be avoided but rather faced and accepted. When his nails first fell off as the result of gyeoksul training, the softest breath on his fingers made him wince, and when the bandages were taken off, it was all he could do to keep from fainting. And yet there came a time when, as though by magic, the pain eased. After being sent by the army to the Kim Jong Il Political-Military University for Japanese-language instruction and sabotage training, he asked a doctor there about it and was told that when part of the body is repeatedly injured, substances are dispatched in massive amounts to block the pain-transmitting nerves.
The People’s Army taught that when an enemy grenade landed in a trench, one’s first reaction should be to pick it up and throw it back, the next best thing being to kick it into a drainage ditch. If neither move was possible, the nearest soldier was to throw himself on top of it, the aim being to minimize casualties. Training exercises included learning to fall full-length on dummy grenades. Choi had often heard stories about how during incursions in the South, platoon leaders had sacrificed their lives to save their men by acting as human shields. Into the left breast pocket on his uniform was sewn a teabag-like pouch, containing gunpowder. All he needed to do to ignite the tiny fuse was to tear off the button, and the explosion directly above the heart would cause instantaneous death. The device had been handed out to participants in the Kyonggi Bay operation, and there were only a few officers who carried it now, even among those of the 907th Battalion. To Choi, it meant that even at the moment when a man had to end his life, pain could be transformed into strength.
Choi went to see Lieutenant Jang Bong Su at the provisional command center; he needed the list of felons, as well as other relevant materials and arrest warrants. The offices were dense with cigarette smoke. Most of Han’s subordinate officers were smokers. It occurred to him that a tobacco supply must have arrived. In the Republic, a man couldn’t get by without cigarettes. They were even used as currency in the provinces. It had been just two days since the KEF, with the cooperation of local officials, had opened accounts in the city’s three regional banks, in the name of certain philanthropic groups and dummy corporations. The stocks and bonds of the five who had already agreed to the confiscation of their property had been converted into liquid assets totaling seven hundred million yen. The day before, this had been made available in yen notes. The complex task of transferring the confiscated wealth to KEF accounts was in the hands of Ra Jae Gong, whose experience in managing part of the Comrade General’s secret funds and in dealing with overseas financial institutions was most useful. The impounded assets were first sent to foreign banks, where they were turned into various forms of securities before being funneled through other banks and finally reappearing as yen deposits.
One of the first purchases made, apparently, was a truckload of Seven Star cigarettes. When the stacks of boxes were unloaded, there were shouts of excitement from the troops—including the women, none of whom smoked. In the Republic, the Japanese brand had a special aura about it. There was hardly a man in the entire KEF who had ever smoked the genuine article. Chinese counterfeits were in circulation, but outside the hard-currency shops in the major cities, they were unavailable. Moreover, a single pack cost what a buck private earned in six months. On seeing Choi, Jang tossed him a carton containing ten packs, as though throwing a dog a bone. “I can’t pay for them,” said Choi. Jang handed him a lighted cigarette and said with a laugh: “You can owe me, then.”
The soldiers of the KEF were to receive a monthly salary in yen now, the amount varying according to rank. Food and clothing, along with Japanese-language materials, notebooks, and other writing things, were free of charge. Except on special occasions, the consumption of alcohol was forbidden. Neither were KEF personnel allowed to leave the occupied areas or to enter adjoining hospitals and places selling consumer goods. Thus, almost the only item on which they could spend their money was cigarettes. The women would no doubt save their entire earnings.
On one side of the banquet hall that was now serving as provisional headquarters, Choi could hear Japanese being spoken. Figures in suits of gray or navy blue were on the telephone, perusing and stamping documents as they spoke. These were officials on loan from the Fukuoka City Hall. The eight of them, including one woman, had arrived forty-eight hours before, at the direction of the mayor. Their job was to arrange for necessary transport; negotiate with banks; purchase food, cigarettes, clothing, and medical supplies; and secure reliable sources of fuel for MAVs and other Special Police vehicles. They were all astonishingly cooperative. They had bargained for price reductions on bulk sales of cigarettes and searched out inexpensive rice supplies. Rice harvested two years before was found to have been stored in the warehouse of a distributor who was then persuaded to sell it for next to nothing. In keeping with the recently issued joint declaration, municipal officials had given KEF officers and enlisted personnel Fukuoka local resident-register numbers, making them de facto citizens and thereby authorizing them to open bank accounts and sell stocks and bonds. There had not been the slightest bureaucratic opposition to this; on the contrary, in their dealings with the young KEF leadership, the Japanese had shown themselves to be both honest and efficient. At the moment, in fact, one official was speaking with a local disposal company. “There’s nothin’ dangerous about it!” he was saying in the local dialect. “I’m sittin’ here with the Koryo folks right now. And I guarantee you, all fees will be paid prompt and proper.” More significantly, these city officials had covertly played a major role in exposing criminal activity, using their authority, the city’s financial clout, and human network connections to provide ongoing information regarding persons rumored to have squirreled away ill-gotten gains. Some of the officials argued that building living quarters for one hundred and twenty thousand newcomers would spur the local economy, and that using these funds to pay the labor force would be putting dirty money to good use.
Yet why were Japanese civil servants in general so eager to cooperate with the occupying forces? This had been a topic of discussion at breakfast today. Jang had suggested that playing up to those in power was part of the national character. Choi declared that the Japanese put on a submissive front to lull their adversaries into a feeling of trust, only to turn the tables on them later. Jo Su Ryeon had a different opinion, arguing that such meek behavior, however strange, was not peculiarly Japanese. Hostages, for example, come to sympathize with their captors; those held captive during bank robberies wind up falling in love with the robbers and even wanting to marry them. It was all, he claimed, part of the same phenomenon. When human beings are forced into life-and-death situations, they instinctively try to curry favor with those who control their fate and, in turn, cultivate positive feelings of their own toward their masters. “What about soldiers?” asked Jang. “Soldiers are of a different breed, set apart by military rules and regulations.” Choi couldn’t remember ever having had a discussion like this, and he felt strange as he ate his jumuk bap—rice balls stuffed with tinned sardines. His face was flushed and his pulse a bit fast, but it wasn’t anxiety. It was not unlike the ticklish feeling one has on seeing a newborn baby. “I feel funny,” he had frankly admitted. “Liberated, maybe?” said Jo with a smile. “We can’t talk like this in the Republic, can we?” At home, pro forma, morale-boosting discussions took place in which the nation’s leaders and the Comrade General were praised, and questions about how to advance their causes were raised, but free, wide-ranging debate on specific topics was unthinkable. That was because of the ever-present possibility of being denounced. “Liberated?” Choi scratched his head. “I don’t know. I don’t really understand it yet,” he said. Jo and Jang had both laughed and said they didn’t either.
“This is the man you’ll be taking charge of today,” Jang said. He handed over documents providing a name, address, occupation, and photograph, together with a printed map and an arrest warrant signed by their commander. The target was Kuzuta Shinsaku, a sixty-three-year-old resident of an upscale apartment building and a former member of the prefectural assembly. He now owned dozens of affiliated shops selling fishing and camping gear, but behind the scenes, through connections with Chinese gangs, he dealt in unauthorized drugs, rare animals banned from import, and transplant organs. Kuzuta had already been notified, with the warning that if he attempted to flee or go into hiding, criminal responsibility would fall on his family. As of that morning, the KEF had taken ten people into custody, but despite being told that the police were on their way, none of them had gone on the run. The fatal shooting of the henchman of Maezono Yoshio, Felon #2, had had a sobering effect, along with the threat of retribution against family members. Word had also been put out that anyone who aided or hid a would-be fugitive would be taken to the detention center, and this too had been persuasive.
Kuzuta, Choi was informed, was not at home but at a restaurant called the Hanazono—“Flower Garden”—situated in Ohori Park. The second floor, it seemed, had private rooms that were named after flowers, and in one of these, the “Pansy,” Kuzuta would be waiting. Kuzuta was apparently concerned that his ailing mother, who was close to ninety, might die of shock if the police or the KEF came to his own place. His resident code revealed that his mother, who was being treated for a circulatory disease, was indeed living with him. The restaurant was located only a couple of minutes from his apartment. “His mother, is it?” Choi muttered, accepting the inevitable but not at all happy that they wouldn’t arrest Kuzuta at home as planned. There was no particular reason for this, except that from ingrained habit he tended to be wary of any unexpected change. But regarding the elderly woman’s condition, he felt sympathetic, as did Jang Bong Su. For men of the Republic, one’s mother was a central figure, and an undutiful son was held in contempt.
Choi looked up at the sky as he left the hotel. Early in the morning there had been some drizzle, but now the sky was cloudless as far as the horizon, and the air was fresh. The shortest way from the hotel to the camp was through the group exit and across a broad four-lane highway. There were, however, next to no vehicles entering or leaving the area occupied by the KEF, so that the road was as quiet and deserted as the streets of Pyongyang at night. He knew there was little danger of a sniper attack, but the prospect of crossing the empty thirty-meter-wide thoroughfare in the open was still sufficiently unpleasant to make him take a detour through the front gate of Fukuoka Dome. From the banquet hall that served as the temporary command headquarters, he’d gone to the lobby, passed through the row of shops, and walked out. As he walked along the perimeter of the Dome, he could see well-aligned rows of green tents, between which drainage ditches had been dug to prevent them getting rained out, giving the entire camp area the appearance of a regularly patterned garment, or an elaborate wiring diagram.
The tents were arranged in a horseshoe shape, in the center of which was a large pavilion, the camp command station, along with an open assembly space. Here and there were places equipped with cooking stoves and simple chairs where soldiers could eat and intermingle. At the foot of the stairs leading down from the Dome was a sentry. There were twelve more guards inside the Dome itself, with sentries lurking at strategic points in the shopping area. It was hard to believe that only nine commandos had managed to infiltrate and occupy the stadium, but the sight of smoke drifting into the clear sky from various sites provided Choi with a vivid reminder of their accomplishment.
The empty land the KEF were camped on had originally been a park, and there were still three drinking-water facilities where the supply not been turned off, since the pipes through which the water was pumped were shared by the hospital, the hotel, and the Dome as well. Fukuoka’s water was not only easy on the palate but there was no need to boil it—it was ready to drink from the spigot. To Choi this was an indication of sheer economic power. In his home village there had been a river in which killifish, eels, and soft-shell turtles swam. The water was so clear that, as a child, he could see the moss at the bottom, and it had tasted as sweet as nectar. But at about the time he graduated from People’s School, a zinc factory was constructed in the middle reaches of the river. Then, with the collapse of the Republic’s economy, electric-power shortages, and the lack of replacement parts for deteriorated machinery, the sewage-disposal equipment broke down. Eventually, poisonous effluents seeped into the river, and crooked-backed, ghastly looking fish, along with headless eels, began to appear. People living downstream went on eating the fish and drinking the water, and soon they too had crooked backs. Afflicted with nerve damage and other strange and alarming symptoms, they dropped like flies. On his return visits, Choi would listen as his mother tearfully told him of the horrible end of these local people, their faces twisted, foaming at the mouth, howling things that made no sense.
