“You should go back now to get your things,” I then told her. “But return here directly.”
She nodded and stepped down from the table. I locked the cabinet of instruments and supplies, hearing the rustle of her rough-spun trousers as she was leaving the room. Normally I should have had to escort her, to prevent a possible escape, but there was nothing but hilly jungle and forest for many kilometers. One of the others had already attempted to leave after the first rounds with the officers but was eventually found some days later (and quite nearby), dehydrated and half-starved, and when she was recovered she was beaten very badly, as an example to the others.
But when I turned, K was still standing in the doorway. She had been watching me as I put away the supplies.
And then she said, quite plainly: “You are a Korean.”
“No,” I told her. “I am not.”
“I think you are,” she said, not looking away as she spoke. I didn’t know what to say. She sounded much more confident and mature in her own tongue than when she mumbled and half-whispered in Japanese. And there was an uprightness about her posture. Certainly I had an impulse to order her to be silent, harshly command that she leave immediately. But I felt unsettled by her forward bearing, as I was at once amazed and strangely intimidated.
I replied: “I have lived in Japan since I was born.”
She nodded and said slowly, as if testing my willingness, “But I think, sir, that most Japanese would never bother to learn to speak Korean as well as you do. And if they did know how, they wouldn’t reveal it. There are many Japanese settlers where my family lives, merchants and administrators and police, and this is how I know. When you first spoke outside, I thought it was my younger brother talking to me again. Your voice is just like his.”
I did not wish to go on conversing with her any longer, and yet I found myself listening to her closely, for it was some time since I had heard so much of the language, the steady, rolling tone of it like ours and not, theirs perhaps coming more from the belly than the throat. It was almost pleasing to hear the words, in a normal register. But her talk was also not vulgar or harshly provincial-sounding as was the other girls’; she was obviously educated, and quite well, and this compelled me even more, though it shouldn’t have. She seemed to sense this, and remained where she was standing, waiting for me to say something. I cleared my throat, but nothing would come out.
She then said to me, “I thought there was something different about you. I think you are not like everyone else.”
“I don’t know what you’re speaking of,” I said. “I’m a medical officer of the Imperial Forces, and there’s nothing else to be said. Yes, you are partly correct. I spoke some Korean as a boy. But then no more. Such things are not easily forgotten, and so I have the ability still. But this is none of your concern.”
“My Korean name is Kkutaeh,” she said, speaking over me. Her expression had brightened, her face wonderful to behold. “But I never really wanted the name. I’m the youngest of four daughters, so you can see how I got it. May I ask yours?”
“I don’t have one,” I told her immediately. But this was not exactly true. I’d had one at birth, naturally, but it was never used by anyone, including my real parents, who, it must be said, wished as much as I that I become wholly and thoroughly Japanese. They had of course agreed to give me up to the office of the children’s authority, which in turn placed me with the family Kurohata, and the day the administrator came for me was the last time I heard their tanners’ raspy voices, and their birth-name for me.
I said to her, “This is not necessary conversation.”
“I simply want to talk with you.”
“We have talked enough,” I told her, sitting down at the desk, with my back turned to her. “You’ll go now and get your things. When you return, you’ll remain in the other room, where I left you the blankets for your bedding. Please don’t disturb me further. I have much work to do today.”
“For Captain Ono?” she said.
“I have many duties, in various areas.”
“Will you tell me what he wants from me?” she said now, a little desperately. When I turned she was but an arm’s length away. I could smell the lingering air of a musky perfume, which Mrs. Matsui required the girls to wear. But compared to the sharp, sour reek of the men, even the tawdry scent was transporting. She asked, “Why has he kept me from what the others must do?”
“What are you talking about? You haven’t yet been at the comfort house?”
“I have not,” she answered. For the first time she looked somewhat frightened. “Last night I was to visit the commander, and so he had to send me. But before that the captain has always ordered Matsui-san to keep me in our tent. Sometimes he has her bring me to his private quarters, when he examines me. He runs his hands over my body and examines me everywhere. But that is all. He has kept me from the comfort house.”
“You are lying to me.”
“I would not lie about such a thing. You can ask Matsui-san. I would rather be killed, like my sister, before going to the comfort house. But I am growing afraid of what the captain will do with me. It can only be horrible, I am certain. He is the only one who truly frightens me, and I think he must have a terrible plan. Forgive me for speaking like this, but you have a gentle character to your face. You seem kind and careful, and I feel I can say these things to you.”
I could not believe Captain Ono had ordered what she described, even if he thought she was “dangerous,” which I could not at all see. I wondered, too, if the commander knew of this arrangement, or whether he would find it (as I or anyone would) to be an egregious mark on the captain’s self-respect, at least in the Japanese sense of the term, which has little to do with pride or one’s rights but with the efforts a person should make to be viewed well by his comrades. Yet I was not about to question the captain in front of her, or show my own hesitance. It was all very disturbing, though in truth a large part of me had indeed begun to sense the irregularity of his requests and the broadening license he seemed to be taking in respect to the camp. The commander, as noted, was hardly evident anymore, and it was Captain Ono who was increasingly charging and addressing the corps of the men; it was his issuances that were being enacted and followed, with Colonel Ishii appearing these days only intermittently before the officers on the veranda of his hut, often pink-faced and slow of speech.
“The captain must have his reasons,” I said to her, “which I am not privy to and would not speak about if I were. I am responsible for certain medical duties and that is all. I need know nothing about this matter. Furthermore, I think you should not dwell on the present circumstance. Please let me finish. If you are not serving at the comfort house, then there are undoubtedly other duties awaiting you. Whether they will be better or worse no one but Captain Ono can say. And just as with the rest of us here, a fate of life or death awaits you; in this regard, as the commander once said to us, it is best if we all take an accepting path. This way destiny can find its right station.”