From the Fatherland, with Love, page 45
“The last melon from Miyazaki!”
Sanjo plunged the knife into the fruit. He had laid the table with some white Herend plates edged with a butterfly print, and a bottle of port. It had been the widow who had taught him to pour port on melon. “Well then, let’s crack this open in honor of the people of Kyushu.” It was a 1928 Taylor’s. “That’s a good vintage. Are you sure you don’t mind opening it?” asked the art dealer, leaning forward. Sanjo slowly turned the corkscrew, taking care not to break the cork. After pouring the wine, he split the melon in two to reveal its moist flesh. An intense fragrance spread as he removed the narrow seeds, and some of the juice dripped onto the plate. “Sorry to be greedy, but…” The widow reached out with her index finger, scooped some up, and licked it. Her red lips glistened with juice.
7
DECADENCE DISCOVERED
April 8, 2011
JO SU RYEON was heading for the Fukuoka office of NHK. The thirty-minute KEF propaganda program ran at 8:30 every morning. On the first day it had been a live broadcast, but now it was being taped the afternoon before. This allowed for editing, which was of course to Jo’s advantage. The recording session started at 16:00 but was preceded by a production meeting, so he left the command center at 14:00.
Senior officers had told him to get a civilian suit made at a nearby shop so as to avoid the sternly military look of a uniform, and he’d gone there to have his measurements taken. Until the suit was ready, he was making do with the gray jacket, polo shirt, and jeans that he’d worn on the day of the initial landing. “In a get-up like that, Comrade Jo,” joked a colleague on seeing him in the hotel lobby, “you’re going to have all the girls in Fukuoka after you.” Since an army pistol made quite a bulge and ruined the casual effect, Jo had been issued a Soviet-era PSM, a small, thin handgun that slipped neatly into his jacket pocket.
This would be the fourth day of broadcasting. Until yesterday, for the sake of security, he had been escorted by three members of the Special Police, but today he was accompanied only by Warrant Officer Ri Seong Su. Headquarters had decided that risks to his safety were minimal after the scathing criticism the government had been subjected to following the Ohori Park episode. The fact that NHK personnel would be riding with him precluded the possibility of an attack, and neither the SDF nor the police were likely to try anything once they were inside the television-network offices. The reduction in Jo’s escort was also a welcome development for the Special Police, who were short of men to help with the arrests now that three, including Choi Hyo Il, had been lost and others wounded.
“Ohayo gozaimasu!” Ogawa, who supervised NHK Fukuoka’s news-gathering section, wore a big smile as he opened the door of the long black car. Jo had learned that people in television exchanged “morning” greetings, no matter what time of day or night they met. “I see you’re not in uniform,” he added approvingly. “Good idea. It’s vital in this business to project a friendly image.” At fifty-six, Ogawa ranked fourth in the Fukuoka branch of the network. He was of larger than average build and always wore a black or navy-blue suit, with a necktie and matching pocket handkerchief. Jo had Ri get in first. Hanging from Ri’s shoulder was a Scorpion sub-machine gun. The fact that Ri had made it into the SOF, despite having a relative who’d defected to the South, was a testimony to his own excellence and absolute loyalty as a soldier.
Ogawa looked back from the front seat and said cheerfully: “We couldn’t be happier with the popularity of the program.” The driver next to him smiled and nodded in agreement. It was always the same driver, whose face Jo was now quite familiar with. He wore white gloves and the sort of dark-blue cap that one saw on the heads of the Red Guards. He was a pleasant man in late middle age who never failed to offer a greeting and a smile. Jo knew that Ogawa’s praise was half truth, half flattery. The man was currying favor in order to be in a better position when the extra troops arrived and the KEF took full control of the city, but that wasn’t all there was to it. After the previous day’s session, as they were having a chat over coffee, Ogawa had dropped hints of a certain hostility and anger toward Tokyo, and implied that the sentiment was shared by many of the upper crust here. This may have reflected a sense of inferiority at being situated in the south-west corner of the country, far removed from the center of power. There was a parallel of sorts in the Republic, where those in rural areas felt a mixture of attraction and antagonism toward Pyongyang. Administering Fukuoka successfully would mean having a good understanding of public sentiment, and Jo made a mental note to look for an opportunity to press Ogawa for more details.
The NHK offices were located south of Ohori Park. Next to it on one side was a Shinto shrine, on the other a private middle school. When the park came into view, Ogawa, who had been reading out favorable letters and faxes from viewers, lowered his voice and finally fell silent. The ruined, charred buses had been removed, but the restaurant remained as before, with windows shattered and a portion of the second floor blown away. Except for two or three young people taking photos of the wreckage, the place was largely deserted despite the fine weather. There were no signs forbidding entry, but perhaps people were reluctant to set foot on the site of the bloody gun battle they’d seen replayed on TV again and again. More than seventy Japanese had been killed, including members of the Special Assault Team, the prefectural police, and many civilians. The three KEF members who died were First Lieutenant Choi Hyo Il; Warrant Officer Ra Yong Hak, a sharpshooter; and Sergeant First Class Kim Kyeong Gu, a welterweight Olympic-boxing contender. Three more had been severely injured: Warrant Officer Tak Cheol Hwan, who’d taken a bullet in the right shoulder; Sergeant First Class Song Pa Ui, who’d been shot in the left thigh and as the result of blood poisoning ended up having his leg amputated; and Sergeant First Class Kim Han Yeol, who was hovering between life and death after suffering brachial and abdominal wounds.
In the wake of the incident, an evaluative session was held in conjunction with the submission of a report by the wounded Warrant Officer Tak. He emphasized the fact that the large crowds in the park had made it virtually inconceivable that the Japanese police would attack. It had been assumed that if the Japanese government was willing to risk civilian casualties, they would have already ordered the SDF to strike at the encampment itself. According to Kim Hak Su, the operation had been a guerrilla-style attempt to seize KEF officers, and if the entire SP squad had entered the restaurant, they might all have wound up in the hands of the Japanese authorities. As it happened, Choi had ordered Tak to stand by with the other four men of the second team. When Tak was asked whether Choi might have had some sort of premonition, he could only say regretfully that he didn’t know. Kim Hak Su warned everyone that the Japanese police could not be taken for granted. The operation had ultimately failed, but the plan itself had been carefully thought out, and the Special Assault Team had shown itself to be both brave and well trained. From now on, the policy would be to reject any and all requests from people scheduled to be taken into custody. For permitting the felon Kuzuta to dictate the location of his arrest, First Lieutenant Jang Bong Su was reprimanded and ordered to undergo self-criticism.
The issue then arose of the disposal of the three dead soldiers. In Japan, cremation was almost always the rule, with only the remaining bone fragments placed in the grave. Kim was adamant about following Korean custom and burying the soldiers but was opposed by Ri Hui Cheol and Ra Jae Gong, who argued that this might alienate the locals. Everyone was concerned about the potential effect on troop morale, however. Kim had correctly maintained all along that without continuous training, some soldiers would lose their fighting spirit and sense of discipline. Lack of space made drill impossible, and live-ammunition training was of course out of the question. Nor were the men allowed to spend hours and hours singing military songs, as they would be doing in the Republic, for fear that the citizenry and the media would interpret this as belligerence. The officers found opportunities to assemble the troops and give them pep talks, but this was hardly sufficient. Along with the level of discipline, the soldiers’ sense of urgency was steadily slipping. They ran in formation every morning and did push-ups and sit-ups, but were idle most of the day. In the Republic, soldiers had no time off; here, fights were breaking out over card games, and new supplies—things like towels, toothbrushes, tooth powder, and sandals—were being pilfered.
As a representative of the propaganda and guidance section, Jo was asked for his opinion concerning the burial issue. He responded by saying that while they themselves had strong feelings about funeral rites, so did the Japanese, who apparently looked on inhumation as barbaric. Also to consider, he pointed out, was the sense of outrage over the death of Choi Hyo Il, a much-admired and popular officer. Rumor had it that he had been mowed down by the Osaka police, when in fact he had sacrificed his own life. The rumor had originated with members of the engineer corps, who were in contact with TV-viewing municipal workers, garbage collectors, and builders involved in the ongoing construction of temporary quarters for the troops yet to arrive. In anticipation of their arrival, these Japanese were trying to ingratiate themselves with the rank and file of the KEF by offering them various presents, from amenities such as lighters, ballpoint pens, shavers, scissors, and nail clippers to electrical goods such as portable radios, flashlights, and batteries; medicinal aids such as insect repellent, eye drops, ointment, and sticking plaster; and tools such as knives, pliers, and hammers. They also brought alcohol and Japanese magazines featuring indecent photographs.
“Tomorrow,” Jo had proposed, “I’ll approach people at NHK and ask them just how negatively they would view inhumation. In the meantime, I would suggest that we have the remains of these three heroes lie in repose and refrain from burying them.” Despite an angry objection from Kim, who vehemently argued that as an occupying force they were not obliged to consider the feelings of the occupied, his proposal was adopted. Traditional funeral biers were to be constructed in the hotel lobby, where the three bodies would lie in state, bound in white cloth and resting on ice to delay putrefaction.
In front of the entrance to the NHK building, a dozen or so Japanese women were waiting for Jo’s arrival. “You’re dressed in civilian clothes!” exclaimed one, as she approached him with a bouquet of flowers. Her friends were trying to hand him a box. “Ohayo gozaimasu,” he said with a bow, accepting the dozen roses but declining the box. “Why won’t you accept our gift?” the woman asked with a look of disappointment on her face. She appeared to be in her early thirties. “I baked these cookies just this morning!” Jo put his nose to the box and remarked that they certainly smelled delicious. He spoke in the local dialect, which made them titter. “You see? Please take them,” the woman said, looking at Jo with a rapt expression. “Ah, wait a minute,” he replied, still smiling but stepping back a pace. “As an officer in the Koryo Expeditionary Force, I have to set an example. I think you all know that in my country we’re still suffering from food shortages. Unfortunately, certain corrupt officials have used their power to obtain food strictly for themselves. We must never condone that sort of thing. And so, while I’m grateful, I can’t accept your gift. But I can think of some children who would enjoy these cookies. How would that be?”
A high-school girl wearing glasses clapped in approval, and soon all the women joined in. Ogawa took the present, saying he would give it to a school for the physically and mentally handicapped he was to visit after the broadcast. A guard escorted them as far as the entrance. The cameras of the commercial television networks as well as those of NHK had caught the friendly give-and-take in its entirety. Amid the laughter and applause, Jo had shaken hands with each of the women. All the while, Ri Seong Su maintained his wary expression, holding his sub-machine gun to his chest and scanning the crowd.
Jo, Ri, and Ogawa crossed the lobby and got into the elevator. Jo’s presence now caused little reaction. The first day he’d arrived at NHK with a Special Police escort, the lobby, until then full of bustling employees and loud voices, had ground to a halt, as though suddenly frozen in mid-reel. Few Japanese had ever been in the immediate vicinity of soldiers carrying AK rifles and sub-machine guns. Moreover, these men were from the Special Operations Forces and had a menacing look and way of moving. And yet people are capable of accustoming themselves to anything. It had been less than a week since the landing on Nokonoshima, and already Jo had become somewhat accustomed to Fukuoka, just as the NHK workers no longer grimaced at the sight of Ri’s weaponry. Still, he reminded himself of what Professor Pak had told him: that when the Japanese and their ways ceased to seem strange, it was time to take extra precautions.
The advertising on a movie poster in the elevator caught his attention. Above the photograph of a man dressed in women’s clothing, sitting in a chair and singing, it announced the tenth anniversary of NHK’s satellite-television service with an uncut showing of Luchino Visconti’s film trilogy, beginning with The Damned. What struck Jo about it was the caption: “The Operatic Aesthetics of Decadence.” Ri glanced at the man in black fishnet stockings and red lipstick and scowled. Seeing Jo stare at the poster, Ogawa asked if he liked Visconti. In his job at the State Security Department, Jo had been allowed to read foreign literature and to watch foreign films as part of his background research, but he was unfamiliar with this director. “No,” he replied. Under his breath he muttered the word “decadence” to himself. It gave him a strangely wistful feeling, reminding him of a time when he’d made a concerted effort to understand the meaning of that term.
In the corridor, a woman was waiting for him beside the door to the performers’ lounge. Her name was Hosoda Sakiko, a twenty-six-year-old announcer assigned as his counterpart. She stood against the cream-colored wall with her hands behind her back. “Ohayo gozaimasu,” she said. “You look younger in civilian clothes.” She was slim and for a Japanese rather tall. Over her quietly elegant dress, gray with faint orange stripes, she wore a white cardigan. Unusually for a Japanese woman of her age, she did not dye her hair. Though intelligent and even-tempered, Hosoda could be quite feisty and uncompromising. When the broadcasts first began, Ogawa had told her not to deviate from the script, to which she’d replied that in that case perhaps he’d better find someone else for the job. Several possible replacements had been interviewed, but when no suitable candidate was found, it was she who ended up with the assignment, and after some discussion it was decided that questions and comments that were off script would be permitted. Looking at her made Jo think of early summer and an azalea-scented path in the park by the Potong River Amusement Park. “I see you’ve been given another bunch of flowers,” she said, leaning down to sniff them. “Nice!”
During the planning session, Jo said that in the first half of the program he wanted to introduce a well-known Korean folk tale. The room they occupied had an oblong table with tubular chairs, and a make-up stand. Sandwiches and coffee had been laid out for them. Participating in the discussion were Hosoda, Ogawa, and the program director, a man in his late thirties named Shimoda. Jo gave them a synopsis of the tale: ‘Samnyeon-koge,’ or ‘The Three-Year Mountain Pass.’ According to legend, anyone who stumbled and fell on this pass would only have three more years to live. One day, an old man returning from selling cloth in a neighboring village is admiring the beautiful vista from the path when he trips on a pebble and falls. Feeling doomed, he takes to bed, refuses to eat, and becomes seriously ill. A quick-witted lad named Toldori, who works in the village watermill, tells him to go back to the mountain pass and stumble again, saying that each time he does so he will gain three years of life: twice will mean six years, ten times will mean thirty years. So the old man goes back and deliberately falls down again and again. Believing he will now live another two hundred years, he soon recovers and is happier and healthier than ever.
Hosoda gazed intently at Jo as he told the story. She had a high forehead, soft hair falling over her shoulders, and sparkling, mischievous eyes. Shimoda, parting his long hair with a pencil, asked what the moral of the story was. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Jo replied, but Shimoda persisted. “You’re just going to tell the story? No illustrations or anything?” he said, then looked down at the table. Jo turned to face the man. “I think you misunderstand. The purpose of this program is not to entertain but rather to provide what we regard as necessary information. What the story hints at will be obvious even to children. Explaining it would only ruin it.” Up to this point Jo had been speaking politely, but his voice now had an edge that chilled the room. In the Republic, this man would be sent to a kwanliso for re-education. He had no manners, and Jo had no use for people who couldn’t watch their tongues.
“I understand,” said Ogawa, then turned to Shimoda and told him to go and see how things were coming along in the studio. The man went out scratching his head, with Ri staring after him. Jo knew he had overreacted, but since leaving the Republic he felt his traditional values had come under threat, and it unnerved him. Ogawa apologized. He was well aware that, once the additional troops were in place, a process of dividing the cooperative from the uncooperative would begin. No matter what form it took, resistance to the KEF was inadvisable, as was noncompliance. “I’ll have him dismissed,” he said with a penitent look. “There’s no need for that,” Jo told him. “The problem is not that he’s uncooperative but that he’s incompetent. If children are instructed in what a story means even as it’s being told to them, they won’t think it out for themselves, and they’ll lose interest in stories altogether.”
