I could still walk, albeit with difficulty, when the bomb fell. The hospital exploded like a nut under a hammer. My memories of that moment are jumbled together. It was as if I had indulged myself in some opium, which I did now and then in Xinjing to escape the things we had to do there. Flames and the screams of the dying are foremost in my mind, that and the feeling that my body was a dried ume, a prune hankering for water, water, water. The black rain fell on us, burning our skin. It tasted like sewage, but I opened my mouth and swallowed it all the same. Growling, groaning, gasping… those were the sounds that filled the world around me. The smoke made it difficult in places to see your hand in front of your face. Chance – or fate? – brought me to a primary school where people had gathered together. There was an enormous pit next to the school full of corpses; adults, children, but also horses, dogs, cats. The sight of it almost drove me insane.
I was later repatriated to Morioka where they took good care of me when they learned I was a war veteran. After the war I received a visit from a civil servant not unlike yourself who made me swear I would say nothing about Unit 731. We put together a story to explain why my body was in such a state. It was all due to the atom bomb and the hardships I had endured during the war in the Pacific. The man told me that it would take a while for people to realise that the things we did in Unit 731 were heroic deeds, things we did for Japan, things that would influence future generations, perhaps even all humanity. I’ve never forgotten what he said. I think about it when I’m awake and dream about it when I’m asleep. I hoped for years to receive news that our scholars had created a superman. But there was only silence and I continued to waste away. I often return to Xinjing in my dreams, and discover what we were looking for, how to improve the human race and restore glorious Nippon to its rightful place as the world’s leader. I’ve spent my entire life afraid that the Americans would discover our test results and succeed where we failed. They managed to exploit dioxin, didn’t they? We discovered it and they use it now already a couple of years in Vietnam.
I’ve always wondered whether that civil servant – who made sure I could stay here in the home – would ever be proven right. And look, more than twenty-five years later you appear asking about my story, what really happened.”
“We have to dig a little deeper into the past, Mr Masajiro. I’d like to talk to you about South Sumatra, if I may, about what you did in Pangkalan-Balei women’s camp.”
“…”
“Did you understand my question?”
“Yes… but I’m tired… exhausted to be honest. Can you come back tomorrow? I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
117
“How’s the patient today?”
“Better. He was conscious for a few minutes. His pupils reacted to light. He mumbled something, a mixture of his own language and Japanese…”
“Japanese?”
“Apparently he speaks our language. He said something about the kitsune.”
“What?”
“You heard me. The kitsune.”
“If I was a traditional Japanese man, confrere, I would say he was struggling with the fox spirit. And as we all know, the fox represents our conscience.”
“ A classic explanation, my respected colleague. I couldn’t have put it better. The next few hours are crucial.”
Xavier Douterloigne can hear the murmurs, whispers and sighs of a thousand voices. Guilt, angst and pain are eating him alive. He’s far too young for the tragedy fate has dumped on his shoulders. That awareness is the only thing preventing him from sinking deeper into a darkness that knows no end. He gropes for something solid, something to hold on to, and what does he see? The bronze lights of a tiny temple in a narrow lane in Yanaka, the old part of Tokyo, the oppressive downtown where smells and shadows crowd his twelve year old brain. Slender streets snake upwards on steep hills, littered with tiny ateliers and shops. Xavier follows his father and quickly loses his own sense of direction. His father turns left into an alley that smells of ginger, crosses a tiny courtyard and enters a room on the other side, cool, poorly lit. The yumetoki Xavier is visiting with his father is emaciated, fragile and old; everything one might expect of a spiritual person. The interpreter of dreams pours water in Xavier’s eyes and peers through a hollow bamboo cane at his pupils while his father takes photographs. The ritual was necessary, the clairvoyant explains. It was the only way to see what Xavier’s eyes had seen while he was asleep. The old man peers long and hard and sighs deeply with considerable dramatic effect. He then concludes: “The boy is living in the vicinity of a fox that can transform itself into a girl. We call this spirit the kitsune.”
Xavier’s father puts down his camera. “Is that good or bad?” Xavier is taken aback at the concern in his father’s voice. It’s all superstition, isn’t it? The old man, his eyes no more than dark pencil marks in his wrinkled face, places his hand on Xavier’s head. “The kitsune is neither good nor bad,” he says. “It depends on the boy himself. If he lives a dutiful life, the kitsune will be good for him. If not…”
Xavier and his father later laughed with gusto at this colourful intermezzo. Xavier squared his shoulders and felt like a man.
But for one reason or another, the memory had resurfaced and in his dream he sees a white fox with red eyes skulking towards him with its head close to the ground. The kitsune gets closer and closer and Xavier is aware that his body is getting tenser by the second. He screams when he recognises the eyes of the fox inches from his face.
His eyes wide open and gasping for breath, he stares into the eyes of a nurse dressed in white, leaning over his bed.
118