From the Fatherland, with Love, page 73
Japan’s economy had continued to shrink, and the country was still isolated internationally. With the end of the emergency, the Cabinet had resigned en masse, and the ruling Japan Green party had won the subsequent general election by a narrow margin, although their power base had since been even further eroded. Unemployment was approaching ten per cent, and other economic indicators were no better. At least the hardline militarists had been silenced, albeit probably only temporarily. The KEF episode had brought home to the nation that Japan could not deal with a major crisis without a relationship of mutual cooperation with America and the rest of Asia. Even so, no fundamental sense of urgency was reflected in the new government’s policies. Relations with the US and China had not thawed, and the Cabinet had failed to introduce institutional reforms in order to tackle the severe recession and social disorder. The year before, a UK economics magazine had run an article headed “Sun Setting on the Land of the Rising Sun,” which seemed to sum it all up.
Kyushu, in contrast, had been greatly changed by the experience. It had taken action on such matters as food self-sufficiency and the environment. Administrative reforms were implemented that included reducing public works, and a five-year plan had been drawn up to eliminate the need for dependence on governmental subsidies and local tax allocations. The prefectural government had left its offices in Fukuoka and dispersed to seven regional towns, and the number of municipal workers had been halved, while more effort was being put into economic collaboration and trade with East Asia.
A couple of years ago, students had been invited from all over Asia to spend a year in twenty-three cities and towns around Kyushu, in an event titled “A Thousand Years of Asian Wisdom.” Almost two thousand of them came to partake in discussions with local residents and businesses on how best to revitalize provincial towns. The towns they stayed in began to attract more visitors, with the students themselves becoming a useful human resource linking these towns with other countries in Asia. The unemployment rate in Kyushu was five per cent lower than in the rest of Japan, and the birthrate also stopped declining. A fair number of people who had left Kyushu now returned home, while others from different areas were beginning to move there.
There were four bridges joining Sakito to the mainland. Each had its own character, and all were set in spectacular scenery. Yoko had often visited the place, but she never tired of the combination of little bays and an azure sea. In the Edo period, the island had prospered from whaling, while in the late nineteenth century it had become famous for its seabed coal mines, and the hilly area along the coast with the remains of miners’ housing had been turned into a commemorative park. These days the island was just one of a number of places in Kyushu whose mainstay industry was its saltworks, producing special mineral salt and mineral water for sale on the mainland.
After its mines were closed, Sakito had stagnated. The bright side of this was that it retained a good deal of untouched scenery, and the vista from the Mining Memorial Park over the port and the central town and public offices was wonderful. The low eaves of houses were visible around the gently curving bay, beyond which the hills drew their green contours against the backdrop of the sea. Along an unusual beach of flat bedrock known as “A Thousand Tatamis” was a promenade stretching for about three hundred meters, from which you could enjoy the sea breeze and a view of the smaller islands in the offing. At low tide you could cross over to one of these, which had a pretty lighthouse and abundant fish swimming in its waters.
Yoko got off the bus at the town hall and started walking up a steep, narrow path. A sweet scent hung over the trail from the azaleas on either side, and halfway up, an open lot was covered with nodding poppies. After a few minutes, she began to sweat and removed her cardigan. The clinic, together with a childcare facility, was in a spot from which the ocean could be seen in all directions. Yoko walked around the back of the daycare center into the courtyard, and peered through a window. Today was Children’s Day and they probably had a special program, for through the glass she saw seven or eight local kids sitting inside, and a woman who was reading a book to them. This was a former Koryo Expeditionary Force officer who had been adopted by Yoko’s grandfather. She’d been in the Medical Center at the time the hotel was blown up and had saved his life, helping him out of his office moments before the ceiling came down. A lot of people had died, and the resident-codes system had been so muddled up by the KEF that it hadn’t been all that hard to register her as his newly adopted daughter. Since she was well known among the traders in Fukuoka, however, he had quickly arranged for her to stay with his former student on this island.
Yoko’s grandfather had retired from the Medical Center, but was still involved in research into autoimmune diseases. At the grand old age of eighty-six his legs were getting weak and it was hard for him to travel, so he only came to the island once a year now. The woman noticed Yoko and waved at her. Her name had been Kim Hyang Mok, but Dr. Seragi used one of the Chinese characters of her name to make the Japanese name Kaori, or “fragrance,” by which she was now known. When Kaori was alone with Yoko, she always talked about home. “I expect I’ll live a long time, the air here’s so good,” she’d say, her eyes sparkling. “But one day, when the Korean Peninsula is united again, I’ll go back to my village. And I’ll build an orphanage.”
Yoko pointed at the clinic to indicate where she was going. Kaori nodded, and carried on reading the story to the children. She was earnest and sweet, and the Seragi family were all fond of her. Yet there was something unfathomable about her. “Yoko-san, do you realize you could occupy this whole island with just ten soldiers?” she once said when they were talking together, and it was hard to tell whether she was joking or not. When Yoko told her grandfather this, he reminded her that Kaori had no intention of becoming Japanese. She was only hiding out here.
But who had blown up the hotel? Kaori was always bringing the subject up. It hadn’t been either the SDF or the US Army. Both countries had made official statements to that effect to the UN Security Council and the foreign media. There had been all kinds of speculation as a result: fingers were pointed at the South Korean SOF, at a European mercenary group that had claimed responsibility on its website, at an American counter-terrorist organization, and so on. Kaori herself seemed to think that Kim Jong Il had used his intelligence agents to wipe out the KEF. The hardline admiral and key officers in the backup fleet had all apparently been purged after returning to North Korea. Kim Jong Il had thus been able to eliminate the biggest obstacle to North Korea-US collaboration and eventual unification with the South. But nobody seemed to have any clear idea who could actually have set the charges. It was a puzzle that would no doubt be talked about for a long time to come.
EPILOGUE 3
June 13, 2014
Meinohama
IWAGAKI DECIDED to drop by the warehouse again. He didn’t want to go to school, and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. A strange group of older dudes were living in one of the abandoned warehouses in Meinohama. He’d first met one of them, a guy named Tateno, at an event last summer on Nokonoshima Island. It was a so-called Activities Fair, featuring lessons in various sports and hobbies—diving, kite-flying, body surfing, clam digging, beach volleyball, futsal. The man was offering boomerang lessons but not getting any takers. He didn’t talk much or joke around and basically came across as sullen and weird, and the kids at the fair tended to choose more on the basis of the instructor’s personality than the activity itself. But something about this character appealed to Iwagaki, and he had spent the entire day throwing boomerangs.
As he entered the warehouse, a man in a wheelchair, someone called Shinohara, was just rolling off to his room. Iwagaki greeted him, but he merely stared back with a You again? kind of look. Iwagaki didn’t mind being ignored like that, though. He liked it that the people here didn’t try to play up to kids the way most adults did. Shinohara supposedly raised hundreds of frogs with insanely colorful skin, but Iwagaki hadn’t seen them yet.
He was in the second year of middle school now, but he had lost all interest in education when he was in kindergarten. That year, on Christmas Eve, the teacher had told the class that the local fire brigade was bringing a real live reindeer for them to see. When it turned out to be a pony with plastic antlers attached behind its ears, Iwagaki began shouting: “That’s not a reindeer!” The teacher lost her temper when she couldn’t get him to stop saying this, and he ended up having to leave the school. Since then, he had gone to class only sporadically, and he’d stolen money from his parents and run away any number of times.
Tateno was having a cup of tea in the room everyone called the Living. When Iwagaki said hello, he glanced up indifferently and said, “Hey.” Looking around, Iwagaki noticed that they weren’t alone: an old man lay asleep in a rocking chair, as still as a wax figure. There were a lot of stories about this character, whose name was Ishihara, and the group around him. A friend of Iwagaki’s who was in the local Speed Tribe had told him that, according to rumor, it was these guys who’d brought down the Sea Hawk Hotel three years ago. A lot of them were supposed to have died in the operation, but since they hadn’t had resident codes, nobody knew who they were. Iwagaki had once asked Tateno if the rumor was true, but all he’d said was, “Don’t be a fool.”
A powerful-sounding engine roared to a stop outside, and in a minute another man walked into the Living. He was carrying a heavy cardboard box. Exchanging greetings with Tateno, he sat on the sofa and put the box down at his feet. This guy, Sato, was relatively young. Ignoring Iwagaki, he addressed the sleeper in the rocking chair, telling him, “I brought the booze.” The old man twitched at the word “booze,” and his eyes popped open. It was weird, but the whole atmosphere of the room seemed to change when those eyes emerged from that wrinkled face.
Sato was taking bottles of various shapes and sizes out of the cardboard box and lining them up on the floor. Ishihara stood up and walked unsteadily into the kitchen, returning with a glass and some ice. “Shall we start with vodka, then?” he said. He filled his glass with the clear liquid and drained half of it before smacking his lips and beaming: “That’s goooood.” Shinohara, who must have heard this, came wheeling out of his room. “How’s business?” he said to Sato, as he propelled himself toward the sofa. “Not bad,” the other answered. Sato managed a string of beauty parlors and nail salons in Tenjin and Nakasu, and drove a silver Porsche. He was said to be something of a genius with his hands, and his “nail art miniatures” had caught on big time. These consisted of finely detailed paintings, or abstract strips of color that under a magnifying glass turned into lines of text.
His own left thumbnail was brightly painted, and Iwagaki screwed up his nerve and asked if he could take a closer look. Sato gave him an impatient glance, then thrust out his thumb and said, “Knock yourself out.” The names were written in kanji, reading from left to right. At the top were two green lines that on closer inspection turned out to be a series of surnames: YAMADA MORI MATSUYAMA OKUBO FUKUDA. The third line was red and the characters a bit bigger: ORIHARA KONDO MIYAZAKI SHIBATA. Next came another thin green line: ANDO FELIX TAKEI TOYOHARA. Then another thick red one: HINO TAKEGUCHI. And at the bottom, in very small black print, were the two kanji for KANESHIRO, followed by tiny katakana script reading KORYOS.
Why were some names bigger than others? Did “Koryos” mean that rebel army from North Korea? Sato was beginning to look restless, so Iwagaki decided not to ask any questions. Tateno, after telling him not to be a fool, had made it clear that it wasn’t cool to ask people about things they themselves didn’t bring up first. While the old man drank his vodka, the other three sat on the sofa silently sipping oolong tea and Pocari Sweat. They didn’t smoke or listen to music or watch TV or look at magazines. From an ordinary point of view, they didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves at all. But the man named Tateno had also taught Iwagaki something about the concept of “fun.” Fun wasn’t about whooping it up and goofing around in a crowd. It was about just spending time with people who mattered to you.
All four sat there quietly as time ticked by. There was nothing oppressive about the silence, but Iwagaki somehow began to feel that he was intruding and decided to leave. When he excused himself, only Tateno gave him a little wave. After opening the door, he turned back and asked, “Is it all right if I come again tomorrow?” The old man looked over at him.
“You’re free to do as you please,” he said.
AFTERWORD
THOUGH SET mostly in the spring of 2011, this novel was first published in May 2005. I spent a year and a half writing it, in my getaway in the mountains of Hakone, after three years of research. Preparations included a series of interviews in Seoul with some twenty refugees from North Korea. Seoul plays host to a whole community of escapees, and their cooperation was invaluable to me.
I was interested not so much in how my informants had escaped as in what their daily lives had been like in the North. In the case of former members of the military, I focused on the training they received and the equipment and weapons they used. Most of the escapees still have family in North Korea. When I pressed them for specific details about the geography of their hometowns, some became wary, suspecting me of working for Japanese intelligence.
Conducting these interviews was exhausting. Concepts of life, country, politics, society, and so on are so different from the paradigms we take for granted in democratic nations, that my informants often couldn’t even make sense of my questions. Particularly difficult for me to understand was the interconnection of the Workers’ Party, the government, and the People’s Army. The more I probed into it, the more the separate chains of command seemed to be entangled, and the less I could see who had the actual authority to decide things.
The Anti-Aircraft Corps stationed in the capital, Pyongyang, for example, are reportedly among the elite of the People’s Army. I was told that in addition to a commanding officer, however, the corps have a member of the government over them as well, and that both issue commands. When I asked if the government representative had a military rank, the man I was interviewing eventually confessed that he had no idea what I was talking about. What I finally came to see, in any case, was that the party, the government, and the army were basically all one, with the person named Kim Jong Il at the top of this three-sided pyramid.
The dictator was never as universally respected in North Korea as his father, Kim Il Sung, but the picture that emerged from the interviews was of a crafty and extremely cautious man. What I gather from having read a pile of material in Japanese and interviewing former members of the Politburo is that by 2004 Kim Jong Il had already established the basic outline for the regime that would rule after his death. It involved a collective leadership centered around his younger sister’s husband, the reformist Jang Sung Taek (briefly mentioned in “Prologue 2”), and it presupposed the support and cooperation of China.
Last year, the crafty dictator died, and his son Kim Jong Un was selected as his successor. Presumably there has been no change of plan, however: the son will be propped up and guided by the group surrounding his uncle Jang Sung Taek, with China’s backing.
This English translation is the result of a collaborative effort by Ralph McCarthy, Ginny Tapley Takemori, Charles De Wolf, and their editor Stephen Shaw. As the author, I feel incredibly fortunate to have had such a talented and dedicated team working together on the book. Ralph, Ginny, Charles, Stephen: thank you!
RYU MURAKAMI
February 15, 2012
Yokohama
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Original text © Ryu Murakami, 2005
English translation © Ralph McCarthy, Ginny Tapley Takemori, Charles De Wolf, 2013
This ebook edition first published by Pushkin Press in 2013
ISBN 978 1 782270 32 4
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