The Investigation Page 8

  ‘Home! Home! Sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home!’

  Everyone lingered after the song was over. Only a long time later did the guards return to the cells, the doctors to the laboratories and the nurses to the infirmary.

  Maeda came up behind Midori, furious. ‘What are you doing? How could you play “Home! Sweet Home!” when you are to sing the “Kimigayo” with the resolve to sacrifice your own life for our country?’

  It was only then that she realized what she’d done – she’d led the prison in singing an American song.

  Warden Hasegawa approached with energetic, powerful steps. ‘Glorious! Good thing we didn’t get rid of this piano. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had the pleasure of listening to this wonderful performance.’ He twisted his neat moustache and asked her who she was.

  Director Morioka came up, his thick wavy hair neatly combed back, clad in a white coat and gold neck tie. ‘This is Miss Iwanami Midori, a nurse in the infirmary. She studied the piano from before she entered primary school. She was a promising piano prodigy who won in the Kyushyu piano contest. When her father, a war-department executive, died in the Sino-Japanese War she was forced to give up playing, but – as you can see – she is still very talented.’

  Hasegawa let out a delighted exclamation. Everything Morioka described contained all that he desired for himself, but had to satisfy through mimicry: the ability to purchase an expensive musical instrument, a sensibility to appreciate music, a sophisticated character.

  The piano had come to the prison more than ten years earlier, before the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, when Fukuoka was a peaceful city known for hosting a large contingent of foreign businessmen on leisure trips. Stevenson, an American importer and a music lover, wanted music to flow through the utilitarian prison. The day the piano arrived, Stevenson held a small performance by an amateur choir that he led. Since then, the piano had languished in a corner of the dark auditorium, covered in dust. Disinterest, humidity, dust, bugs and mice had all attacked it. The strings lost their innate sounds and the frame warped. Many suggested that the eyesore be tossed, or hacked apart to donate the steel strings to the war effort.

  ‘Awful sound,’ said a rough, creaky voice behind Hasegawa. Everyone turned to look at the guard with wide, sturdy shoulders and a long scar down his cheek. He was looking down at the keys disapprovingly.

  Midori closed the lid and stood up. ‘I’m sorry if you didn’t like my playing.’

  ‘No need to be sorry. Your playing isn’t what’s awful. I don’t have the ability or the desire to judge how you play.’

  Hasegawa tensed his small, hard body. ‘Sugiyama!’ he shouted. ‘How can you say something like that? You don’t know a thing about music!’

  Midori shivered. It was that menacing butcher, the monster who broke countless bones and ripped flesh.

  Sugiyama replied tersely, ‘I don’t know much about music, but I do know about sounds.’

  ‘What? What could you possibly know about sounds?’

  Instead of answering, he approached the piano and put a hand on the keys. Hasegawa watched him in surprise. Sugiyama pressed two keys at the same time. He pressed five keys down. A heavy, powerful noise filled the auditorium. He closed his eyes, gauging the resonance and power of each note. ‘This piano has lost its sound.’

  Hasegawa’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Nonsense! Nobody has even touched this piano in the last ten years!’

  ‘Not playing a piano is worse than pounding on it. Because of the humidity in the wood, the notes can’t stretch out. The strings lose their bounce, become warped and are unable to let out a precise note. A piano that can’t make a proper sound is no better than a dead one.’

  Hasegawa smirked. ‘Sugiyama, don’t you dare think about getting rid of a perfectly fine piano by treating it like a broken piece of rubbish. It was abandoned for ten years, but today it finally met a proper player.’ He turned to look at Midori with a gentle expression.

  Midori pressed one key with her right thumb and another with her little finger. The low and high G notes stretched out in parallel lines. ‘These are exactly one octave apart, sir. But the G I pressed is a black key. It’s G#, not G. G is a half-note lower. Its resonance is also shaky. The notes are slightly off and the vibrato is not quite right.’

  Hasegawa turned to Sugiyama with displeasure. ‘How did you know about the condition of this piano?’

  ‘Before I enlisted I worked at a piano shop and learned a little, over the tuner’s shoulder.’

  ‘Then fix it!’

  That evening Sugiyama crouched on the auditorium floor and opened a leather bag filled with a variety of metal tools, tongs, wrenches and pieces of leather. He caressed the piano as he would a beloved pet. He opened the lid; he was surrounded by the faint forest scent of antique wood. The piano-felt was ragged.

  ‘G.’ His monotonous voice was brittle.

  Midori pressed the key confidently. The silence was broken by Sugiyama’s voice, followed by the piano. He wound a piece of leather around the bolts and tightened the strings. His expression reminded Midori of a doctor listening to the patient’s heart through a stethoscope, or a surgeon preparing to operate on a doomed patient. Sugiyama was holding tongs instead of a scalpel, but he was as powerful as a surgeon who made the lame walk, the blind see and the dying live.

  ‘It’s improving,’ she offered. ‘The note is precise and the vibrato sounds better, too.’

  He didn’t seem satisfied. ‘I gave it a basic tune-up, but I need tuning instruments and other materials to do it correctly. A hammer and tuning driver, one spring-adjustable hooked needle, new steel strings, glue, wax for shining and a fine polishing cloth . . .’

  He appeared worried that he wouldn’t be able to find what he needed in these times of shortages and rations. Pianos, once objects of envy, had become the target of rage. No one would buy them, so they were hidden away in rooms or attics like clandestine children, covered with dust, forgotten.

  ‘I’m going to try the piano shop in town. I may be able to find tuning instruments.’ He started putting away his pliers, metal rods and leather ties.

  Midori recognized those pliers; the patients she’d cared for had sported bloody bruises on their fingers made from those steel tips. She’d seen lash wounds on their backs the same thickness as those leather ties. This violent guard menaced powerless prisoners, but he was also the only person who could recover this piano’s sound. Which was his true self?

  ‘What do you use those tools for?’ she asked cautiously.

  Sugiyama’s pupils flickered like candlelight in the wind. ‘Why do you want to know? We each do our jobs. I rough people up, and you treat them. I tune the piano, and you make music with it.’

  ‘What is it exactly that you do?’

  ‘My job is to purify the warped brains of those who believe they’re saving the world, but are really befouling society – Communists, nationalists, anarchists. So don’t meddle.’ He tossed her a cold smile and stalked out of the auditorium, leaving her behind in the murky darkness, the metal instruments in his bag clanging with each step he took.

  Two days later, Sugiyama went into town. The piano shop there had closed a long time ago. He pounded on the door for a long time until it opened. The bald, moustachioed owner was as lethargic as a dust-covered piano. Sugiyama explained that he was seeking a tuning kit and repair tools. Resigned, the owner opened the door to the storage room. There wasn’t much that was usable, but Sugiyama took a few tools and walked through the grey streets back to the prison.

  Midori was waiting for him in the auditorium. Without a word, Sugiyama opened up the piano, revealing hundreds of nuts and dozens of strings, and the crossbeam that stretched across. He tightened hundreds of tuning pins and strings and bearings and nuts.

  ‘Try any key.’

  She played ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginny’. Her playing sparkled, recalling for him the image of a rainbow, summer rain, amber. Sugiyama glanced at her fingers
, which flew across the keys like butterflies, at her thin ankles above the pedals. He softened, looking nostalgic.

  ‘Tuning isn’t something you can learn in a day or two,’ Midori suddenly said. ‘It’s obvious you didn’t just pick it up – you managed to tune this piano without any real tuning equipment.’

  Sugiyama flinched.

  Midori could tell that he was recoiling from a memory.

  He fixed his gaze on the rusted strings. ‘It was just to survive,’ he muttered. ‘It was a decent way to rip off the rich. I didn’t dare play, so I learned how to tune.’

  She knew that couldn’t be the whole story. His tortured expression wasn’t that of someone who remembered trying to make a few yen here and there. When he was tuning the piano, he was an artist searching for the best sound.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I can tell. Your voice is tender, almost loving, when you call out a note from the other side of the piano. All of your senses are focused on the sound. You’re reading the player’s heart.’

  But the man in front of her had turned back into a stern prison guard. He looked tired, like an exile pursued by his golden-hued past. He didn’t reply, instead tending to the piano carefully, separating strings and actions, wiping away the rust with soft leather and recovering standard pitches. He reversed the damage to the hammer and damper. He adjusted the resistance and working range of the keys and found a uniform touch. The piano slowly regained its elegance; the sounds gradually recaptured their colours. His voice became stronger as well. ‘G!’

  A few weeks later, Warden Hasegawa and Director Morioka walked into the auditorium together. They were all smiles, thrilled that the piano was returning to its former glory. Hasegawa was positively vibrating; he was honoured to be in the presence of a respected Fukuoka luminary. He looked at the piano with reverence as though he wanted to bow to it in gratitude, then shot a doubtful look at Sugiyama, who was still busy working on the instrument. He didn’t know what the guard was doing, but he was forced to trust him.

  ‘Thanks to Miss Iwanami’s wonderful playing, we’ll be able to have piano accompaniment at all official events, including, of course, our weekly assemblies,’ Hasegawa announced.

  Morioka didn’t answer right away. Hasegawa stared at him impatiently.

  ‘It would be a waste for this instrument and player to accompany the assemblies,’ Morioka said finally. ‘We need a bigger stage. What do you think about organizing a larger concert?’

  Though slightly taken aback, Hasegawa nodded eagerly. ‘You are entirely correct, of course, but this is a prison and we don’t have the time for practices—’

  Morioka gently cut him off. ‘Actually, the fact that this is a prison makes this the ideal venue. What if we had a concert for peace, direct from a criminals’ den? We will be coaxing beautiful music out of a desolate place. We could invite a famous singer from Tokyo as well as high-level officials, both Japanese and international. What do you think?’

  Hasegawa’s eyes glimmered at the thought of being part of this ambitious project. ‘You have an outstanding artistic vision, Director!’ he cried. ‘But would a famous singer come here?’

  Morioka walked over to the piano. Hasegawa followed him awkwardly. ‘You know the singer Professor Marui, right? He is a supporter of Miss Iwanami and offered to help her study in Tokyo.’ He turned to look at Midori. ‘Miss Iwanami! Brief the warden about the plans for Fukuoka Prison’s peace concert. It’s ultimately his decision.’

  Midori stood up. ‘Sugiyama-san did his best, but he couldn’t find all the tuning tools and parts in town. That’s when I thought of Professor Marui. I thought he might be able to help us. I know I may have overstepped my place, but I sent a letter asking him for tools and new parts to revitalize the prison’s old piano.’

  ‘And?’ Hasegawa cut in impatiently. ‘What happened? Did Professor Marui reply?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. From Tokyo we received a tool set, parts and new strings. I wrote back that once the piano was tuned, I would be honoured to accompany his rendition of Die Winterreise. He thought it was a wonderful idea.’

  Hasegawa couldn’t believe his ears. The foremost singer in Japan would perform in his prison! A smile began to form on his face. An International Peace Concert at Fukuoka Prison – the benefits of a good press would be incalculable. The music would float out from behind bars and reach a nation exhausted from war and austerity. Hosting such a meaningful event meant that he could invite high-level officials of the central government, including the commanders of the army, navy and air force, and military Diet members. This might help him get a job at the Interior Ministry. Soldiers ruled during wartime, but afterwards it would be the bureaucrats’ era. This concert could deliver him to the core of power. Hasegawa clenched his teeth with determination. ‘We must begin to practise immediately.’

  Midori finished her story and started to play. As her fingers sprang across the keys, the keys pushed up the hammers, the hammers pounded the strings, and the strings trembled and vibrated. One note led to another and seeped into the dark, dry air. I felt my despair lifting; from within me bubbled hope for life, making me want to hold someone’s hand and fall in love.

  I started to sing along: ‘Carry me back to old Virginny . . .’ My heart hammered, a clamour in the calm. It was enough to make me want to hope, even in these turbulent times.

  After she finished playing I asked, ‘Why would Sugiyama have the lyrics of Die Winterreise?’ I was afraid to hear the reason, but I had to know.

  She swept up a strand of hair. ‘He always kept poems in his shirt pocket. He loved poetry and gave everything to it.’

  Untuned strings roared dissonantly in my heart. He loved poetry? He, who callously destroyed books? The face of the young poet hovered in front of my eyes. Hiranuma. He must know something. Maybe he knew everything.

  LET ME LOOK UP TO THE HEAVENS WITHOUT A SPECK OF SHAME UNTIL THE DAY I DIE

  According to the incineration log, Hiranuma Tochu’s documents were burned on 2 April 1944, immediately after he arrived at Fukuoka Prison. On the log were the names of unfamiliar Korean authors written in Chinese characters – Kim Yeong-rang, Baek Seok, Yi Sang, Jeong Ji-yong. Next to them were titles of books, a mixture of Chinese characters and katakana. Poetry of Yeong-rang, Poetry of Jeong Ji-yong . . . Most were volumes of poetry, but there were also copies of a Korean magazine called Sentences and books in English. The next incineration date was 3 April 1944. Sugiyama had written down all the names of the burned poems in his cramped hand.

  1. Prologue

  2. Until Dawn Comes

  3. Cross

  4. Another Home

  5. Night Counting Stars

  The numbers went up to nineteen. In the notes column he had written: ‘19 poems, to be included in the unpublished

  The Sky, the Wind, the Stars and Poetry’. Under that were the numbers twenty to twenty-nine. In the notes column was the following: ‘According to Detective Koroki, the prisoner translated the poems into Japanese at Shimogamo Police Station in Kyoto.’ So Hiranuma had been arrested and brought to Shimogamo Police Station in Kyoto. The arresting officers confiscated dozens of seditious books and poems, and made Hiranuma translate his poems into Japanese. And of fifty or so poems, nineteen had been intended for inclusion in an unpublished book of poetry. The remaining poems seemed to have been written in Tokyo and Kyoto.

  Sugiyama Dozan and Hiranuma Tochu. Sugiyama the censor ruined Hiranuma the poet, and Hiranuma hated Sugiyama for it. They were in stark contrast to each other – one was the shadow and the other the light. But they were linked by poetry. So why did Sugiyama have poems in his pocket and desk drawer? What role did poetry have in their relationship? To find out I had to interrogate Hiranuma.

  Prisoner 645 sat straight-backed on the old wooden chair in the interrogation room. The humidity-spotted walls accentuated his gaunt, pale face. He was slight in his too-large prisoner uniform. I assumed an impassive demeanour as I flipped through the file, but I was feeli
ng anxious. I told myself to calm down; Hiranuma was the one who should be worried.

  ‘Did you catch the murderer?’ he asked.

  His question knocked the breath out of me. I’d already lost my authority. I took off my sweat-soaked military cap and decided to confide in him. There was no way he would tell me the truth if I didn’t. ‘It was a prisoner named Choi Chi-su. He killed the guard when his escape plot was discovered.’

  Hiranuma nodded. Dark shadows were cast under his nose and on his stubbly chin. The bruise on his eye was turning yellow. ‘So you got the murderer. What do you want from me?’

  ‘I have the facts, but not the truth.’

  He scanned my face. ‘Facts and truth . . .’

  I recalled Rilke’s book of poems in his box of confiscated books. ‘It was a fact that Rilke died from being stuck by a rose, but that wasn’t the truth. The thorn caused blood poisoning that spread bacteria throughout his body, but that wasn’t the cause of death. It was leukaemia. On the other side of a fact lurks another truth.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘Yes. He wrote his own headstone to say: “rose, o pure contradiction, desire to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids”. That is suggestive of the secretive essence hidden on the other side of a beautiful rose.’

  He searched my face. My argument was, in essence, revealing to him the kind of person I was; he was reading me as I sat in front of him.

  I made an effort to regain the terse tone of an interrogator. ‘Why did Sugiyama Dozan copy out your poems?’

  He shook his head. He looked firm – he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell. Noting my disheartened expression, he spoke, with the finality of scattering wet dirt into an open grave. ‘Accept the facts that have been revealed. The truth only makes everyone suffer.’