The Investigation Read online

  ‘I don’t need your protection. God will protect me.’

  Everything changed when Dong-ju was sent to solitary. Choi watched anxiously as Dong-ju walked in there with his shoulders hunched. He was worried that the sensitive boy might discover his secret. Choi was on tenterhooks until Dong-ju limped out after a fortnight.

  ‘Glad you made it out alive,’ Choi said, smiling nonchalantly.

  Dong-ju squinted against the strong sunlight. During his stay in solitary his face had grown paler. ‘It was hard, but not hard enough to die. Agony can’t kill a man, not like despair can. People who have hope live, and people who lose it die.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Your poems? Poetry isn’t hope. It doesn’t help you overcome reality. It just makes you forget it. Sinking into sentimentalism doesn’t make the world disappear. Escaping these bars and walls and barbed wire – that’s the only way.’

  ‘Yours is an impossible dream. There’s no freedom for the colonized.’

  Frustrated heat spread inside Choi’s heart. He wanted to tell Dong-ju his entire plan; Dong-ju wouldn’t talk lightly if he knew. But he suppressed the urge with a deep sigh. ‘Don’t talk like that. You don’t know anything. Behind these walls we have our own rules and secrets.’

  ‘And you might die because of those secrets.’

  Choi leaned forward and whispered, ‘What do you know? What did you see?’

  It was a useless question – their secret was already cracking at the seams.

  Choi swallowed. ‘You have good eyes, buddy. Okay. You don’t have to say anything.’

  ‘How can you be so sure I saw anything?’

  Choi’s sharp eyes cut to Dong-ju’s dirty knees. ‘The cell floor is cement. Where else would you have got your knees muddy?’ He shot a glance at his men, waiting at a distance.

  The group exchanged furtive looks. One hitched his trousers up, grabbing a shaft of metal from inside his pocket. Another began to walk towards the other prisoners. Their movements were in perfect synchronicity – the man approaching the other prisoners would start shouting to draw the guards’ attention, while the man with the weapon would stab Dong-ju and disappear back into the crowd.

  ‘I found some dirt around the latrine,’ Dong-ju said. ‘So I took it out and found a tunnel below.’

  ‘Then you must know that now’s the time to make a choice. You either join in on the plan or . . .’

  Dong-ju’s mind raced. Should he do nothing, or should he act? A rash action could be dangerous, not only for him, but for others. The man with the shaft was approaching quickly.

  ‘For the last six years I’ve thought up dozens of ideas,’ Choi said. ‘Before digging the tunnel, I measured the length of the yard with my footsteps and figured out the right direction. I got trustworthy people to help.’

  ‘What will you do when you get out?’

  ‘Go away. Away from this filthy war, from this country.’

  ‘How long do you think you can be on the run for? You’ll be caught in less than twenty-four hours and shot. You have nowhere to go. You’ll end up getting killed like a dog. That’s exactly what the Japs want.’

  ‘So, according to you, the Japs want me to escape.’

  ‘Of course. To make you an example. To show everyone what happens when someone tries.’

  ‘If you don’t join, you’ll be the one killed like a dog.’

  The man with the metal shaft was almost in front of Dong-ju, the muscles in his forearms bulging. Dong-ju had intruded on something he wanted nothing to do with, like an insect caught in spider silk. There was no telling to what the strand that tangled him was linked. Everyone was tied to something, but nobody knew what tied him down. Even if he did know, there was nothing he could do. ‘Okay, I’ll do it!’ Dong-ju blurted out.

  Choi shot the man with the shaft a look. He whirled around and walked off. Sweat trickled down Dong-ju’s back.

  ‘So Hiranuma was in on your plot?’ I leaned forward, my forehead almost touching his.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if he did his share of the digging or not. I didn’t care, though. All that mattered was that he was with us. He’s resourceful and intelligent, and he could rally all the Koreans. That in itself was a huge advantage.’

  ‘He didn’t help you at all, though. He just joined your conspiracy to avoid getting killed. He wouldn’t have escaped even if you’d managed to complete the tunnel.’

  ‘What does it matter? My secret was safe as long as he was in on the plan. He knew his life would be over if he stayed in prison after we escaped.’

  None of it made any sense. According to Choi, Hiranuma wasn’t important to the escape plot, so then why did Choi work so hard to bring him into the fold? I scanned his written confession. ‘Why is Hiranuma not mentioned here?’

  Choi’s features darkened. He stroked his beard. ‘Because he’s not an important figure in the plot.’

  Was Choi protecting him? Why? What was he hiding?

  Choi stared at the report in front of me. ‘Can I have a piece of that paper?’

  I was suspicious. ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’m going to die,’ he mumbled. ‘I should like to write my will.’

  I ripped out the last, blank page of the file and handed it to him. He folded it carefully and slid it into his breast pocket. ‘Thanks. I owe you one.’

  I brushed it aside. What else could a death-row inmate do as he waited for his end in a tiny solitary cell?

  THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A BOOK-WORM

  Back in the inspection office, I flipped through the log of incinerated materials. Nothing caught my eye until I got to 18 September. Eighteen books were burned that day, more than the usual ten. They were mostly confiscated items from new prisoners or records that were due to be destroyed, but there was one book without an identification number – Birth of an Empire, issued by the Citizens’ Education Bureau of the Interior Ministry. I took the log and headed to the tiny library next to the office. The limewashed walls were peeling and giving way to mould. The library contained only two desks, four chairs and rickety bookcases that held guard-education publications distributed by the Public Security Bureau: How to Make Rounds, Prison Administration Regulations and soldiers’ manuals distributed by the Army Ministry. There were some war novels, too: The Way of the Empire, The Cherry Blossom Warrior, Cherry Blossoms in the Blue Sky. It was part of the censor’s job to sort the books distributed every month and incinerate older volumes to make room for new ones.

  I traced a finger along the spine of each book. I noticed two lines drawn in the dust. Someone had taken out those books. Additional lines, thick and thin, were marked around them, both faint and clear, marking the time when books were removed. These books didn’t have identification numbers on their spines. They must have been brought here before Sugiyama became the censor, as he’d created a list of all distributed materials when he took over. I flipped to the back of the books to check the publication dates and found that most of them were much older. I opened the log I was holding in my hands: there was no mention of any publication without identification numbers. A waterwheel began to spin in my heart, creaking, circling, pounding. There was only one conclusion I could draw from all of this: books were disappearing. Dozens of them. They must somehow be related to Sugiyama’s death.

  I spent the rest of the day in the quiet, cold library, my mind grappling with the dust marks on the bookcases. I was getting tired of chasing secrets. My legs gave way, and I slid down to the floor, leaning against a bookcase. I picked out a book at random. It was about the war; it argued that we would soon be victorious, and it was filled with incitement and the promotion of national sacrifice. I shook my head. Who was victory for, anyway? Countless children were orphans, thousands of women were widows and many more had been imprisoned or lost their lives. The old spine broke in half, revealing long, narrow furrows created by book-worms.

  My heart leaped with joy. I wanted to be even more like the book-worms –
to be born in books, live among them and die in a library.

  ‘Oecophora pseudospretella,’ I murmured, looking around.

  Then I spotted white powder in the cracks on the shelves and in the corners. I nodded. Sugiyama wouldn’t have let book-worms proliferate. But where were they coming from? There must be a safe haven for them nearby. I stared at the walls, and something wriggling caught my eye; a bug’s glistening back and two long feelers seeking the smell of paper and ink. It crawled up the bookcase. Another crawled up from behind, and another. A mature bug must have laid eggs inside the wall. They kept crawling out of the faded grey wall. I walked up to it and heard my footsteps ringing hollow, as though I were walking over empty space below the floorboards. My heart began to pound. I pushed the desk aside and noticed a dislocated square wooden tile. The insects were crawling out of there. I levered up the board and damp, mouldy air washed over me. An old wooden staircase revealed itself, leading underground. I forced my trembling legs into the darkness and descended one step at a time. At the bottom, I took out my lighter. Its tiny flame illuminated the small space. Books. At least fifty volumes were stacked on a makeshift shelf, fashioned from a piece of wood placed on top of two bricks. I ignored my pounding heart and caressed the books’ fat spines. Bricks, pieces of wood and planks were piled all around. This narrow, dark and lonely underground space made for a marvellous library, suffused with the smoky scent of dust. I recognized the books with a start. They were the very publications that I’d noticed had disappeared upstairs, but the titles were crossed out and in their place someone had written new ones, both in Korean and in Japanese: Don Quixote, Les Misérables, Robinson Crusoe, Greek mythologies, Romeo and Juliet, André Gide, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Rilke and Jammes. I pulled one out, its cover worn and shiny: German Love: From the Papers of an Alien. I remembered how the book began: Childhood has its mysteries and its wonders; but who can describe them? who can interpret them? But when I opened the book eagerly, I couldn’t read it; the pages inside had been blacked out, and new writing was done by hand, in white – in Korean. I closed the volume and returned it to its place. Some books were in Japanese, mostly difficult ones, like Kierkegaard, written in a clumsy but powerful hand – Sugiyama’s. Those in Korean were entertaining novels, like Dumas or Stendhal. They were obviously in a different hand. I recognized it. Why would Sugiyama share this clandestine library with him?

  I knew I had to report my discovery. Otherwise, I would be a traitor. But this was a perfect little library, with an excellent selection of titles that would satisfy beginners as well as the erudite. The architect of this hidden library knew well how intellectual adventures were shaped, leading uneducated travellers down the path of knowledge, starting with Dickens and Hugo, then to young Werther, and beyond to an even greater city of literature. Adventures, the romances and mythologies, romantic poetry and biographies, arriving finally at the humanities – indeed, this was the very same intellectual path I’d taken.

  Should I act? Or should I not? I needed to know more. And there was only one person who could tell me the truth.

  THE SONGS OF VANISHED BOOKS

  Dong-ju stepped into the interrogation room, looking spent. His sallow face was tense with nervousness. I untied the ropes binding his wrists. Dozens of questions floated in my head. I didn’t know where to begin.

  He rubbed his wrists. ‘Is this about Sugiyama again? I thought it was all over.’ He looked exhausted.

  ‘It might be all over for Sugiyama. But not the books in the underground library.’

  ‘Books? Underground library? Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t bother denying it. I saw it with my own eyes!’

  His lips tightened.

  I pressed harder. ‘You joined Choi’s escape plot. But he didn’t mention you, even when he got caught. Why is he protecting you?’

  Dong-ju’s eyes flickered slightly.

  ‘At first I thought he was shielding you from punishment. But that’s not it, is it? There’s a bigger, more important reason. That secret in the tunnel.’

  He looked wary. He finally opened his dry lips. ‘What did you find out about Sugiyama?’

  ‘The dirt on his trousers isn’t the same dirt found in Choi’s tunnel. So that means there was another tunnel. Then I found that there were books in the censor’s library that had just vanished. Old government publications and publicity about the Empire.’

  He didn’t refute my point; his eyes blazed.

  ‘What I want to know is the truth,’ I pressed.

  ‘There’s no such thing. Even if there is, you won’t get it.’

  ‘Well, then I have no choice but to report the missing books to the warden. He’ll rip this place apart. It’s only a matter of time before they find the hidden library.’

  He looked down in resignation.

  ‘Who stole the books?’ My voice trembled.

  ‘What’s the point of talking about that? Nothing’s going to change.’

  ‘Choi’s life is on the line.’

  He hesitated, then met my gaze reluctantly. ‘It was Sugiyama’s job to burn books. But – well, he was a craftsman. He actually made them.’

  Sugiyama’s hatred for books bloomed into a burning admiration; eventually he was moved to steal them. When Sugiyama discovered Choi’s escape plan, he marched him and his gang into the interrogation room; they left with swollen eyes and broken wrists. Sugiyama’s club had extinguished their hope. They were forced to confront reality – their clumsy escape attempt was doomed, Choi couldn’t be trusted and they would never leave this prison. Now they would have to destroy the tunnel they’d dug.

  Dong-ju was the last person to be called into the interrogation room. Sugiyama was seething with rage. His facial muscles were contorted, as though each and every one was rebelling against him. But his voice was calm when he began to speak. ‘You used to go around reciting poetry and literature. Now you’re putting your life on the line for a stupid plot.’

  ‘I might be an idiot, but I’ve never joined their plot,’ Dong-ju protested. ‘I knew what Choi’s plan was, but I didn’t believe it would ever succeed. Even if it did, that’s not how I want to leave.’

  Sugiyama glared at Dong-ju suspiciously. ‘So why did you keep getting yourself sent to solitary?’

  ‘To dig my own tunnel.’

  ‘There’s another tunnel?’

  ‘It branches off Choi’s tunnel in the middle and comes towards the censor’s office.’

  ‘So that’s not an escape tunnel.’

  ‘I told you, I’m not leaving this place through a tunnel. I remain oppressed whether I’m in here or outside. Why escape hell for something worse?’

  ‘Then what were you doing?’

  ‘I wanted to escape in another way.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Into books.’

  Sugiyama snorted, but deep down he knew what Dong-ju was saying. Dong-ju could live in imaginary cities and villages. It suddenly struck Sugiyama that he might actually be insane for thinking Dong-ju made sense. Every night he himself was drawn to the library by an irresistible curiosity, and when he was reading his terror dissolved. ‘What do you mean?’

  Dong-ju studied Sugiyama, weighing his options. ‘Your office and library are the only places with books in the prison.’

  Sugiyama shook his head. ‘But that’s because I burn them here.’

  ‘I was tunnelling towards your office so that I could steal a book or two when you weren’t there. I could smuggle it into solitary and bring it back before you missed it. That way I could read at least a handful of books, if I spent a week in solitary.’

  ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I would know if someone’s creeping into—’ He stopped. A thought suddenly came to him. ‘If it’s the library, fine,’ Sugiyama reasoned carefully. ‘But don’t you dare touch my office! The library has a basement that was used in the past for all interrogations. When the prison expanded, we shut that one down and moved into this
bigger room.’ His head was reeling; he couldn’t believe what he was saying. ‘You can make your library there. It’s small and damp and smells of dried blood, but it should do.’

  Sugiyama wondered if he was committing treason. ‘Where would we get our hands on some books?’ He knew someone would notice if books started vanishing.

  Dong-ju spoke cautiously. ‘I would think the government publications slated for incineration are guarded less carefully. If we can get those, I can find a way.’

  ‘You don’t have to risk your life for those, you can request to read them in your cell.’

  ‘No, we’re going to make new books out of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I know a Korean prisoner on the coal transportation team. If I can obtain a few pieces of coal, grate them down and mix the coal dust with some heating oil, I can make charcoal-black. We can then black out the pages. The paper is old, so it’ll take well to colour. The oil will act like a fixing agent, so it won’t smear, either.’

  ‘You’re going to black out the pages? What’s the point of having a black book?’

  ‘You can write on black paper with white ink.’

  ‘Who the hell has white ink?’

  ‘We can make the white ink with coal ash and oil. It won’t be ideal, but if we write on the black page at least we’ll be able to read it. If you assign me to the work team charged with keeping the guardroom heated, I can make both.’

  ‘Even if you make books and find ink, how will you write them?’

  Dong-ju just smiled.

  Sugiyama wasn’t sure what to do. But he knew he couldn’t refuse. He was being sucked in.

  ‘I’m sure there are hundreds of confiscated books,’ Dong-ju said cautiously. ‘I’ll translate the Japanese books into Korean.’